explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:209: Kayak

2020-11-24T17:37:07Z

162.158.74.9: i added comment

I have successfully invented a police box that travels through time. All I need is a way to change the travel speed from the default 60-second-per-minute and we'd have an operational TARDIS! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.237|141.101.99.237]] 05:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Is the title text a reference to Calvin and Hobbes? "There's treasure everywhere!" --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.78|173.245.48.78]] 19:47, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The sentence in the third paragraph which begins with the word "However" is reading into the original comic something which is not actually in the original comic. It is probably true that Randall wanted the reader to think that Beret Guy in panel one was implying that the kayak could "travel through time in a science fiction sense" but there is nothing in the comic to suggest that Cueball thinks that the kayak "can travel through time in a science fiction sense."

I have a time machine but it only travels at a rate of one second per second and it can't go back in time.

2156: Ufo

2019-05-31T09:43:14Z

162.158.74.9:

{{comic
| number = 2156
| date = May 29, 2019
| title = Ufo
| image = ufo.png
| titletext = "It's a little low for a weather balloon; it might be some other kind." "Yeah. Besides, I know I'm the alien conspiracy guy, but come on--the idea that the government would care about hiding something so mundane as atmospheric temperature measurement is too ridiculous even for me."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an alien weather balloon. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This cartoon makes fun of {{w|conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories}}, by suggesting that authorities, like the Navy, could be promoting mysterious explanations for mundane phenomena (such as a {{w|weather balloon}}). UFO is an acronym for an {{w|unidentified flying object}}. This comic is most likely inspired by [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html reports of US Navy pilots] seeing unexplained objects. The "History Channel thing" could refer to this [https://www.history.com/shows/unidentified-inside-americas-ufo-investigation upcoming series].

This comic features {{w|Fox Mulder}} and {{w|Dana Scully}}, two fictional FBI agents from the television show ''{{w|The X-Files}}''. In the show, Mulder is usually a believer in all manner of conspiracies and supernatural phenomena, whereas his partner, Scully, is reflexively skeptical of any claims of the paranormal.

A fighter aircraft's {{w|Head-up display|Head-Up Display}} (HUD) projects information about the aircraft and its surroundings on a glass panel in front of the pilot. This allows the pilot to fly and fight without looking down at gauges and panels in the cockpit. When the pilot selects a radar contact to track, information including the angle and range to that contact is displayed on the HUD. The HUD is also overlaid on video recorded by the airplane's on-board camera. Scully has examined the tracking information recorded in one video and concluded that the unidentified object was relatively stationary. Her opinion is that the object is likely a mundane weather balloon, rather than an extraterrestrial craft.

"Maybe the shadowy forces that control the world just want to believe" is an allusion to "I Want to Believe", a phrase from the ''The X-Files'' associated with Mulder and [https://images.newrepublic.com/82a6d0770aeaafbae8f26bf40a822b9b79a5c412.png his iconic UFO poster.]

The title text also contains critique about governments that fail to acknowledge the severity of humanity-induced climate change and use their influence to actively hide evidence (such as the current US government [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html that ordered US government agencies to stop or minimize research and reporting on climate change]), which even by Mulder's standards seems too crazy for a conspiracy, yet happens in reality.

In fact though, the government wanting to cover up a balloon to the point of allowing people to think it was aliens supposedly did happen in reality, as documents declassified in the 90's revealed the existence of a top secret project to use high altitude spy balloons to detect evidence of Soviet nuclear tests, known as "Project Mogul", and one of these balloons was the true source of the debris in the famous Roswell incident, and the secret nature of this explains why the government claimed it was instead a weather balloon despite this not being quite consistent with the descriptions of the debris, and how they didn't make an effort to properly refute things when 30 years later ufo enthusiasts started claiming it was an alien spaceship (the whole incident was quite obscure and quickly forgotten until someone published some claims about the events decades later in 1978).

==Transcript==
:[Mulder from The X-Files depicted as Hairy sits in his office chair at his desk and points to his computer screen while looking over his shoulder and addressing Scully off-panel, who replies.]
:Mulder: Hey Scully, have you seen these Navy UFO videos?
:Scully (off-panel): Oh, the History Channel thing?

:[In a frame-less panel, Scully walks in from the right towards Mulder, who has turned around in his chair facing towards her (the desk is not included). He is leaning on the back of the chair with one arm. Scully has shoulder length hair, not similar to any of the regular women in xkcd.]
:Scully: I don't know about the other two videos, but in one of them, if you take the angles and ranges on the HUD and do a little geometry, it kind of suggests the object isn't really moving. It just looks like it because the plane's camera is panning.

:[Zoom in on Scully.]
:Scully: The pilots got excited for the same reason we did. Then the media got into it.
:Scully: But I think what they saw was a round, white object floating at 13,000 feet.

:[Zoom out again to shown that Mulder sits straight up in his chair with hands in his lap and the desk with computer behind him. Scully stand in front of him.]
:Mulder: So your theory is that the military '''''claims''''' to have footage of aliens, but you think it's a giant cover-up to hide that it's a weather balloon?
:Scully: Some kind of balloon, yes.
:Mulder: Pretty weird conspiracy.
:Scully: Maybe the shadowy forces that control the world just want to believe, too.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]

Talk:2152: Westerns

2019-05-21T02:19:05Z

162.158.74.9:

How many times longer than the {{w|Regency era}} (a decade) have {{w|Regency romance}} novels existed? A fair bit more than three, I'd guess! (Perhaps 8.4, if we credit 1935 as the start and the Regency period as ten years) [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 05:41, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
:A similar question has been answered about WW2 by Randall: https://what-if.xkcd.com/100/ [[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:53, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
::Trivia about What-if #100: in another example of xkcd-inspired achievements, there now exists a short movie about the Anglo-Zanzibar war (http://www.imdb.com/keyword/anglo-zanzibar-war/). Plot keywords: stupid world record, cell camera, anglo zanzibar war.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.241|162.158.154.241]] 10:14, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M*A*S*H_(TV_series) M*A*S*H TV show] lasted more than 3 times the length of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War Korean War].
[[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:36, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I would have thought Randall would understand the difference between "longer than" and "as long as". [[User:Mattcoz|Mattcoz]] ([[User talk:Mattcoz|talk]]) 14:53, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

:Hmmm... "A is as long as B" means pretty much the same as "A is as short as B". But "A is 3 times as long as B" is very different from "A is 3 times as short as B". English is weird. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.46|172.68.54.46]] 15:47, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that using the same logic as this page, Trojan War, a 10 years long conflict which started to be depicted in Greek no later in 8th century BC when Illiad was written and continuing to be depicted in poems, literature and movies up to today, would easily win this. There could also be several contestants from Rome - while both Roman Republic and Roman Empire lasted hundreds of years, the time period depicting fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire, starting with First Triumvirate 60BC and ending with Nero's death AD 68, is 128 years heavily depicted in literature and movies since it happened to, again, now. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:32, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

This makes me think of how the British TV show [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad%27s_Army Dad's Army] lasted for longer than the Second World War. --[[User:OliReading|OliReading]] ([[User talk:OliReading|talk]]) 23:12, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The famous pony express existed only for 18 months. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 02:19, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2145: Heists And Escapes

2019-05-07T12:19:26Z

162.158.74.9:

The real-life battle of Alesia was appparently the opposite of Winterfell, insofar as where the "rattling" happens. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.244|198.41.230.244]] 21:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
:I think that title text theory it's also a reference to the [[wikipedia:Tommy_Westphall#The_Tommy_Westphall_Universe_Hypothesis|Tommy Westphall universe hypothesis]]. --[[User:Valepert|valepert]] ([[User talk:Valepert|talk]]) 21:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that "Kevin McCallister's Subconscious" is an Inception reference. [[User:LegionMammal978|LegionMammal978]] ([[User talk:LegionMammal978|talk]]) 22:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
: I've out of reflex hafe read that Kenny is dead, instead.[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 05:08, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
:"Kevin McCallister" is the name of the lead character in the Home Alone movies, played by Macaulay Culkin.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:21, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm guessing that Randall also watches Game of Thrones. Also should we add a GoT or ASoIaF category? It's been referenced in several comics in the past. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:32, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
:Yes please?
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:16, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
:: I stopped watching GoT around series 3... I'm now seriously considering catching up just so I get the references...

inb4 crazy anti-semitic conspiracy theorist vandalises the page [[User:RandomIsocahedron|RandomIsocahedron]] ([[User talk:RandomIsocahedron|talk]]) 00:56, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
:For the most part he only vandalized comics related to space or science, there's no reason for him to vandalize this page. Besides he hasn't vandalized any pages recently either, I think he got tired of constantly having to type in a CAPTCHA to vandalize pages only to have it reverted almost instantly by us. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 01:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
::Can confirm, CAPTCHAs suck. {{unsigned ip|162.158.146.166}}

Dude, spoiler alert?! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.15|162.158.62.15]] 19:19, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
: Dude, you don't go on a page for explaining stuff if the to-be-explained original contains something which might reference to something you'd like to experience for yourself. Or do you read/watch walkthroughs of games and then think "Dude, spoiler alert?", too? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:57, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Anyone else get the feeling that Randall is taunting us explainxkcders with the last part of the title text on this one? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.54|172.68.133.54]] 21:43, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
:Maybe, but that kind of absurdist humour involving combining different stories is fairly common on xkcd. [[User:RandomIsocahedron|RandomIsocahedron]] ([[User talk:RandomIsocahedron|talk]]) 00:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
::Well, let's try. The protagonists are stuck in a room, surrounded by the dead. Kevin is among the dead, and he is the only one who knows how to break into the vault. In order to get into the vault after escaping their room, they must first enter Zombie Kevin's mind and at the same time rescue his soul from Hell, escaping from the land of the dead across the River Styx. They must then reunite their souls with their minds and their minds with their bodies, use the resurrected Kevin to enter the vault, and finally escape, whereupon they find that the whole setup was in fact a staged TV show - except for the descent into Hell, which was actually real. [[User:IndigoFenix|IndigoFenix]] ([[User talk:IndigoFenix|talk]]) 20:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
:::Of course! While I would hate to enter Zombie Kevin's mind, it would make for great cinema and/or cartoons. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 20:43, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I would argue that the middle room at the battle of Winterfell is not necessarily the keep but just a reference to the castle of Winterfell as a whole.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.157|162.158.89.157]] 06:23, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
:The mention of this "middle room" here and in the explanation is quite confusing. In the comic, there's an outer room and an inner room (I'm guessing this is the crypt), but what does the term middle room refer to? Could someone with knowledge of GoT please change this section so it makes sense in terms of two rooms instead of a middle room that doesn't exist? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 14:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
::I edited the explanation. Please check if that works.[[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 11:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
:::Much better, thanks. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 11:50, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2139: Email Settings

2019-05-04T20:21:16Z

162.158.74.9:

Character set: I read the choice to be between ASCII only and non-ASCII only. That is, if you select non-ASCII only then you have no ordinary English letters, no decimal digits, no ordinary punctuation. Rather minimally useful.
:: Non-unicode can show ordinary English letters, for example the group starting at U+FF0x, but an ASCII system will see it as binary garbage that will generate unexpected beeps, corrupt terminals, and crash old software. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.196|162.158.78.196]] 20:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

ASCII, '''OLD''' ASCII, which is characters 0-127, includes '''ONLY CAPS''', plus the common punctuation and whitespace. The lower case letters are all part of '''EXTENDED ASCII'''. So, limiting to old ASCII, is limiting to all-caps, and limiting to only the second half of ASCII is even worse, as it has all the lower case letters, but, not only no caps, but also no punctuation, whitespace, or numerals.
I'll leave it to someone with a login to make the correction.
:: {{w|ASCII}} 0-127 includes _both_ uppercase and lowercase. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.196|162.158.78.196]] 20:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
::: That's correct. Note that some popular non-ASCII home computers, such as the Commodore 64 (which used {{w|PETSCII}}), did only include uppercase letters within the first 127, or only lowercase letters, depending on the screen "shift" mode, with the 8th bit used to either give the other case or add additional special line drawing, circle, or playing card symbols. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 21:33, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Show unread email count: Wording in the graphic is ambiguous for me. Does show unread email count on my projected day of death mean a) show, today, what will be the count on my projected day of death, or b) wait to show any count until the very day I will probably to die. Choice a is indeed probably depressing. Choice b is more of a pop-up surprise if you didn't know it was coming, saying Hey, buddy, here's your final score, well done. JohnB [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.37|173.245.54.37]] 14:15, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
:: I interpreted the unread email count as you laid out in option "b," this could be a reference to the relatively new features of social networks which create "memorialized" profiles for members who died. This number would undoubtedly be like a memorial, provided you actually died on that day. If you didn't die it would be like a pop-up. It could also be a simple exaggeration of the statement that you'd rather not see your number, as seeing the number is depressing. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.59|172.69.70.59]] 15:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Sam

I was going to edit the page with specifics on when html e-mail came into use, because I was sure I was using/experimenting with html in e-mail as early as 20 years ago. But looking at the wikipedia page on the topic seems to suggest that the adoption was much sooner than that, but I can still remember using html when I was a teenager, so I'm not sure what's going on here... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.59|172.69.70.59]] 15:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Sam
::I certainly remember sending emails with HTML formatting back in the late 90's. IIRC, I was using Netscape Communicator(?) and it used html snippets in an otherwise ascii email. At my first job in the early oughts, I had to manage an email subscription list for a newsletter that used mime-encoded multipart html emails. Not all the subscribers could see the html part, and I think AOL users often got gibberish due to bad support for mime-encoded messages in the AOL email client. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.77|172.68.46.77]] 16:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Seems to be that since the first option says 'reply functionality' the option which says 'Forward to Address Book' does not allow you to type a reply. Rather than 'forwarding your reply to your address book' I believe this would simply forward the email to everyone in your address book. Make sense as a joke at the expense of people who just forward emails/email chains. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.44.144|172.69.44.144]] 16:26, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Despite what the explanation currently indicates, "reply all" definitely means reply to all recipients of the original email. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.59|172.69.70.59]] 21:15, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Any idea why the dialog uses a Right-to-Left (RTL) formatting? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.131|141.101.99.131]] 18:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
:Having the text right next to the radiobuttons/tickboxes makes it much easier to identify which button belongs to which setting.--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 04:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
:I agree with the previous reply, but I think you mean "right-aligned" formatting instead of "RTL" formatting, which usually means the letters are actually ordered from right to left in reverse order. I don't think radio buttons are typically displayed on the right side of the label though. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 11:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Wanted to open this discussion here with other nerds...does anybody else cringe at the idea that "What are all these less than signs" implies a lack of greater than signs? Presumably a number of greater than signs would be just as concerning, or it implies that there are a significant number of erroneous less than signs. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 20:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
== Google and vacation ==

Google knows when you're on vacation by comparing your present cellphone GPS coordinates to your typical gps coordinates. They also always know your location via IP, to some extent. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.23|108.162.242.23]] 02:50, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
:That doesn't work necessarily, you could be on a work trip.[[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 17:35, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
::Don't forget that any of this technology is probably founded on Microsoft (doesn't)Works. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.120|103.22.200.120]] 02:19, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

== Ketogenic Accelerator Review ==

[spam removed]

Talk:2139: Email Settings

2019-05-04T20:20:24Z

162.158.74.9:

Character set: I read the choice to be between ASCII only and non-ASCII only. That is, if you select non-ASCII only then you have no ordinary English letters, no decimal digits, no ordinary punctuation. Rather minimally useful.
:: Non-unicode can show ordinary English letters, for example the group starting at U+FF0x, but an ASCII system will see it as binary garbage that will generate unexpected beeps, corrupt terminals, and crash old software. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.196|162.158.78.196]] 20:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

ASCII, '''OLD''' ASCII, which is characters 0-127, includes '''ONLY CAPS''', plus the common punctuation and whitespace. The lower case letters are all part of '''EXTENDED ASCII'''. So, limiting to old ASCII, is limiting to all-caps, and limiting to only the second half of ASCII is even worse, as it has all the lower case letters, but, not only no caps, but also no punctuation, whitespace, or numerals.
I'll leave it to someone with a login to make the correction.
:: {{w|ASCII}} 0-127 includes _both_ uppercase and lowercase. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.196|162.158.78.196]] 20:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
::: That's correct. Note that some popular non-ASCII home computers, such as the Commodore 64 (which used {{w|PETSCII}}), did only include uppercase letters within the first 127, or only lowercase letters, depending on the screen "shift" mode, with the 8th bit used to either give the other case or add additional special line drawing, circle, or playing card symbols. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 21:33, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Show unread email count: Wording in the graphic is ambiguous for me. Does show unread email count on my projected day of death mean a) show, today, what will be the count on my projected day of death, or b) wait to show any count until the very day I will probably to die. Choice a is indeed probably depressing. Choice b is more of a pop-up surprise if you didn't know it was coming, saying Hey, buddy, here's your final score, well done. JohnB [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.37|173.245.54.37]] 14:15, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
:: I interpreted the unread email count as you laid out in option "b," this could be a reference to the relatively new features of social networks which create "memorialized" profiles for members who died. This number would undoubtedly be like a memorial, provided you actually died on that day. If you didn't die it would be like a pop-up. It could also be a simple exaggeration of the statement that you'd rather not see your number, as seeing the number is depressing. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.59|172.69.70.59]] 15:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Sam

I was going to edit the page with specifics on when html e-mail came into use, because I was sure I was using/experimenting with html in e-mail as early as 20 years ago. But looking at the wikipedia page on the topic seems to suggest that the adoption was much sooner than that, but I can still remember using html when I was a teenager, so I'm not sure what's going on here... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.59|172.69.70.59]] 15:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Sam
::I certainly remember sending emails with HTML formatting back in the late 90's. IIRC, I was using Netscape Communicator(?) and it used html snippets in an otherwise ascii email. At my first job in the early oughts, I had to manage an email subscription list for a newsletter that used mime-encoded multipart html emails. Not all the subscribers could see the html part, and I think AOL users often got gibberish due to bad support for mime-encoded messages in the AOL email client. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.77|172.68.46.77]] 16:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Seems to be that since the first option says 'reply functionality' the option which says 'Forward to Address Book' does not allow you to type a reply. Rather than 'forwarding your reply to your address book' I believe this would simply forward the email to everyone in your address book. Make sense as a joke at the expense of people who just forward emails/email chains. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.44.144|172.69.44.144]] 16:26, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Despite what the explanation currently indicates, "reply all" definitely means reply to all recipients of the original email. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.59|172.69.70.59]] 21:15, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Any idea why the dialog uses a Right-to-Left (RTL) formatting? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.131|141.101.99.131]] 18:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
:Having the text right next to the radiobuttons/tickboxes makes it much easier to identify which button belongs to which setting.--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 04:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
:I agree with the previous reply, but I think you mean "right-aligned" formatting instead of "RTL" formatting, which usually means the letters are actually ordered from right to left in reverse order. I don't think radio buttons are typically displayed on the right side of the label though. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 11:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

== Google and vacation ==

Google knows when you're on vacation by comparing your present cellphone GPS coordinates to your typical gps coordinates. They also always know your location via IP, to some extent. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.23|108.162.242.23]] 02:50, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
:That doesn't work necessarily, you could be on a work trip.[[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 17:35, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
::Don't forget that any of this technology is probably founded on Microsoft (doesn't)Works. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.120|103.22.200.120]] 02:19, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

== Ketogenic Accelerator Review ==

[spam removed]

Wanted to open this discussion here with other nerds...does anybody else cringe at the idea that "What are all these less than signs" implies a lack of greater than signs? Presumably a number of greater than signs would be just as concerning, or it implies that there are a significant number of erroneous less than signs. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 20:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2139: Email Settings

2019-04-20T11:42:57Z

162.158.74.9: Changed my comment's thread formatting - Sam

Talk:1129: Cell Number

2019-04-13T08:13:23Z

162.158.74.9: discuss the exchange code limitation somewhat thoroughly. does Dangerkeith3000 still not understand???

In the explanation: "The next three digits are the exchange number (the middle digit being always 2 or higher)". That cannot be true. After my area code, my exchange number is 504...the middle digit being a zero i.e. <2. Where did you get the information that the middle exchange number has to be a 2 or higher? That source should be corrected as well See [http://www.reversenumberdatabase.com/817-504 This Link].--[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 17:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

:The limitation being discussed existed only until the 1990s. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbering_plan].[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 19:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
:: I reordered some paragraphss so that hopefully it makes more sense: the first paragraph sets up the history; the third paragraph reflects current reality; the second is the transition. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
::: I see. The "Prior to the proliferation of cell/mobile/handy phones..." stated in the first paragraph sets it up as historical numbering (i.e. rules prior to 1990) and not the current rules. It has been reordered very well to make more sense (at least to me!).
:::: My exchange number is 407, Now where'd you get that info again? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.65|162.158.79.65]] 17:57, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
::::: This limitation was a relic of the "two letters, five numbers" system (the first and fourth digits still have to be 2 or above), which used two of all but two (QZ) letters on the numbers 2-9 to denote an exchange code, then five numbers, e.g. "KL5-5555" (KL being 55 here). Since there isn't a letter corresponding to 1 or 0, those combinations were used for area codes before seven-digit dialing became obsolete and the 407 exchange code (and 151{{Citation needed}} others), as well as the 847 area code (and 639{{Citation needed}} others), were introduced. I'm not sure which is more telling: that this was a thing, or that I know this before age 18. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 08:13, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I guess this has something to do with keeping your phone number even when switching providers? We got a law in Norway around that time, which says you're able to keep your phone number while switching. Only difference is that here you can only tell, from the first two of eight digits, which ''provider'' you had in 2005 (or whenever it took effect). --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 08:31, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

:It probably does. There is no mention of 2005 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan North American Numbering Plan wikipedia article] ... seems it's the part needing explanation the most. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

: According to wikipedia, mobile number portability was implemented in the USA in 2003.11.24. The comic would make sense with 2003, but why 2005? Maybe it only caught on enough in 2005: http://www.pyramidresearch.com/pa_may26_mnp.htm

: One reason for switching to a new "local" number would be so that those who have land lines aren't making "long-distance" phone calls to your cell phone. My brother just recently moved back from the east coast and is keeping his same cell phone number, which doesn't affect my other siblings and myself because we only use cell phones (which only count the number of minutes used). But my mom still uses land lines most of the time and so she's being billed for a long-distance call whenever she calls him, even though he lives about a mile away from her. But since most people are ditching the land lines, I think it'll be a moot point in about 5-10 years. --[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 13:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

It has to do with cell phones versus land lines. Back in the day (before the early 2000s), many people still had a land line as their primary or only phone. Your phone number's area code would be based on the area in which you lived. If you moved to a new area, you would get a new phone number, and if you moved out of the previous area code, a new area code. But with a cell phone, when you moved you kept the same number, including the area code. This was especially true after the 2003 law made it so you could keep the same number even if you switch your provider. The year 2005 has to do with when many people made their cell phone their primary or only phone. As [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-03-24-cell-phones_x.htm this USA TODAY]article mentions, in 2003 18% of Americans with cell phones considered their cell phone their primary phone. Given the rapid growth of the industry, it is possible that 2005 is when more than half of cell phone owners in America considered their cell phone their primary phone.

:The details differ, of course ("your mileage may vary"). There are so many possible reasons why this occurs. My parent's cell phones (612) don't match their home land-line (763) due to area code splits -- they didn't move or cause the disconnect themselves. As for me, my first cell phone matched theirs, but in 2005 I moved to Michigan (586 area), creating a disconnect. Then to make things worse, early next year (2006) I got a second line (and new phone) on my new girlfriend's account, and she lived on the other side of the city (734). We married and moved near where I was living & working, but both still have "734" cell phones for family purposes. So Randall's "living" can also be "dating / where significant other is living". --BigMal27 / [[Special:Contributions/192.136.15.149|192.136.15.149]] 15:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

For anyone from outside the US, the key fact here is that in the US, your mobile phone has an area code the same as a landline. I used to live in the US, and it blew my mind to learn that mobile phones had area codes there. I was like, but.... Huh? That's like saying your car has a postal address.[[User:Carlisle|Carlisle]] ([[User talk:Carlisle|talk]]) 15:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

:In the US, our cars kind of do have a postal address -- the state they are titled & registered in, the same state emblazoned on the license plate in the back (and sometimes the front also). However, the states don't like it when you operate an "out-of-state" car in their territory for too long. Specifically, you are using public roads that you are not paying for. Then, when you transfer title and are assigned a new plate, you get a new letter/number combination. License plates -- and specifically the random ID (or "vanity plate" custom ID) they hold -- are not portable between states. --BigMal27 / [[Special:Contributions/192.136.15.149|192.136.15.149]] 15:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Article Four of the US constitution outlines the relation between the states. It requires states to give "full faith and credit" to the public acts, records, and court proceedings of the other states.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 15:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

::In the past, in Italy you had to do the same when you moved from one province to another. Now, if you move, you pay car taxes to a different province, but your license plate stays the same. At the time, the province code was part of the license number, now it isn't anymore. If you have an old plate with a province code, you keep it even if you move.
::If you have an out-of-country car, and move to Italy for more than a year, then you have to get Italian license plates.
::--[[Special:Contributions/85.159.196.90|85.159.196.90]] 17:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

:::[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Poland In Poland] the license plate starts with three letters encoding the county (voivodeship and powiat) --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 10:28, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

::In the UK the first two letters on a car's plate are for where it was registered, but after that they may as well be meaningless, you do see more S plates in Scotland, M plates in Manchester etc. but the letters don't always even indicate the car was bought as new in that place, I take photos for car dealers and you often see new cars for sale with plates from other parts of the country. Still, actually being able to post to a car would be funny.
::On the subject of postal addresses, I had an Irish friend at uni, and when we were exchanging addresses to write to each other at the end of first year he gave his address as (not his real name, obviously) Sean Murphy, Kilbeggan, Ireland. We all laughed but he said, the postman knows who everyone is so they don't need street names and numbers, we asked what if they got a new postman, and he said 'that wouldn't happen'.[[User:Carlisle|Carlisle]] ([[User talk:Carlisle|talk]]) 23:10, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm 34 and live in the USA and it still took me a while to understand this. The 2005 date is because even though the portability law was passed in 2003, it was still difficult to do and not very common to keep you number until 2005.

Same here in the UK, with the MAC code. Car numbers changed a couple of times when they had to add a number because of having used up all the earlier ones. It meant all cars were registered on one day of the year, the same as race-horses. That made life difficult for car salesmen. So they did something else. I have no idea what and I am too old to care. I do recall that originally numbers had one of two letter groupings dividing the year.

Caernarfonshire, for example, had JC and CC and the code was in bare metal on a black background. They changed that at the same time to black code on a reflective white background front (and yellow back. Unless I misremember.) One thing I do know for sure is that I used Google news before it was clickbait. I remember writing it downs somewhere.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 15:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

== Handi phones ==
''"cell/mobile/handi phones"'' ... Who uses "handi phones"? Would be really interesting :) --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 02:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
:A German friend tells me that that is the term of art for what US folks call "cellular" phones: "Ruf mich am Handi an," (in my broken German: "call me on my handi/cellphone") Given that we've got an international audience, it seemed appropriate to use. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 02:31, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

::Ah ok. And you had me thinking that someone in the English speaking world was using our German term ;) --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 02:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
::But we write it "Handy" ("Handi" (with a german "i") is how you speak it – the letter "y" can be a "i"- or a "ü"-sound in German). --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 16:32, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
:::I stand corrected, then... -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:36, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

In my overhaul I've tried to change all references to the simple "mobile phone". This is a literal definition and as such shouldn't fall victim to confusion about regional terminology like "cell". Let me know if you're aware of an audience that would not understand "mobile", or just add the appropriate clarification yourself. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 17:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

== Bloated explanation ==
There is a lot of information about the structure of US phone numbers here, and while general information is good to set up the joke, the specifics can be left to the wikipedia article. Specifically, all the talk of how exchanges are numbered and long distance charges is utterly irrelevant to the strip, and the information about choosing custom numbers is relevant only to the title text (and takes about one line to explain). The meat of the joke is that area codes used to be location-based but rapidly became more flexible around 2005, resulting in that rather arbitrary meaning today, yet this is mentioned almost casually in just one sentence near the end. I will trim and reorder the article so that it's more relevant to the comic shortly, unless there are objections. - [[User:Jerodast|jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 11:01, December 3, 2012

:Quite a few explanations are like that. People add things that seem relevant to them, but don't really help explain the comic. If you look at most of the explanations past the 1050 mark, quite a few of them aren't perfect. If you want to tighten them up, by all means do so. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:39, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

==Additional Info on Phone Numbering Systems==
I trimmed a lot of unnecessary information from the explanation, because it had nothing to do with explaining the joke of the comic. For those parties looking for more information on phone numbering plans, here is what I removed:

*The middle digit of the area code was originally always 0 or 1 to allow mechanical dialing circuits to identify the sequence as an area code or not.
*The next three digits are the exchange number (the middle digit being always 2 or higher), and the final four digits are typically random.
*Business customers frequently could pay a premium for a specific number (if available), either to spell a brief slogan, or for easy memorization.

The prevalence of digitally controlled dialing allowed the restrictions on digits in area codes and exchanges to be relaxed, suddenly making many new area codes and exchanges available. According to the {{w|North American Numbering Plan}}, currently:
*The first 3 digits (Area Code) can be [2-9][0-9][0-9],
*the next 3 digits (Exchange) can be [2-9][0-9][0-9], and
*the final 4 digits (Subscriber Number) can be [0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9].
There are [http://www.nanpa.com/area_codes/index.html some rules] for area code exceptions or reserved numbers though. Specifically, X11 codes are not valid as area codes (e.g. 411, 911, etc...) and Xyy (repeated last 2 digits) codes are reserved for special use area codes (e.g. toll-free/freephone 800, 888, etc..). [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 17:44, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Talk:1939: 2016 Election Map

2018-01-14T19:34:17Z

162.158.74.9:

;Why now?

So why are we getting this map now instead of a year ago? Has something significant to this area just happened in the U.S.A.? (I am a Canadian so might well have missed something.)
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.154|108.162.216.154]] 16:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm from the midwest in the US and I'm really confused as well... I also don't find anything particularly funny or poignant in this. So yeah, color me confused in the US. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.76|162.158.75.76]] 16:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC) Sam

: At a guess, because we're coming up on the anniversary of Trump's inauguration. [[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 23:26, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the idea is that this map, while interesting as an object, still sort of fails as a map - it doesn't provide the sort of easily digestible information that a map of this variety is supposed to show. Conceptually, I don't think it's that different than #1138 (Heatmap) - the map more or less shows population density and fails to easily communicate party alignment. As to why it's showing up in the first year of 2018, my best guess is that mid-term elections are this year...? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.238|172.69.69.238]]

My friend I showed the comic to thinks it could be a general political commentary on the uselessness of these kinds of maps. 1. the map is a year old: useless. 2. there are no numbers: useless. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.76|162.158.75.76]] 17:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC) Sam.

I'm wondering if it has to do with the fact that [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html Trump just disbanded the commission on voter fraud]. I think I heard somewhere that this commission was to "prove why Trump should have won the popular vote". I think the map relates to the whole popular vote versus electoral college discussion.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 17:17, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it might be claiming Trump only won because very many people failed to vote? Either that, or as already mentioned, it's about how useless these maps can be. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 17:20, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

The point of the map is that the standard choropleth map for the 2016 election shows the vast majority of us area voting for Donald Trump. (shown on this link http://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/) The comic is criticizing the visual accuracy of chloropleth maps in giving a strong understanding of election results (as the majority of voters voted for Hillary). ---- {{unsigned| Widea}}

If this map is really so correct (as stated in the caption) then it has been a huge job to collect the data so precisely and calculate how to split voters across borders when not fitting. This says to me that this is a very big issue for Randall. Of course he has made it clear many times that he is [[1756: I'm With Her|against Trumps election]] and more or less [[1756:_I'm_With_Her#Sad_comics|anything he does]]... I believe there is a lot to learn from this map as opposed to those he mentions in the title text --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:33, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

If this map is correct, then there are 252 Trump guys on it and 263 Clinton guys on it, a difference of 11 guys. I don't know how many "other" guys are on it. Just in case someone would like to know. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.4|198.41.230.4]] 20:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

One thing that the map does clearly show is that voters of Clinton were clustered in heavily urbanized regions (New England to Delmarva, Miami region, Chicago region, Houston and Austin, and coastal California in particular). Those same Clinton clusters are also home to the most third-party voters. Meanwhile, Trump voters were spread out more evenly and in isolated pockets, and there are very few third-party voters living out in the boonies.
I think the takeaway is that Democratic voters are underrepresented because they are grouped so closely together, and those same populations are also prone to giving rise to anti-two-party sentiment. These two factors combined work against liberalist movements in the United States. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.225|162.158.74.225]] 20:23, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I never realized until now just how few people live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.46|108.162.241.46]] 20:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I also think Randal needs a lesson in rural/urban voting, as the placement of many of the red figures on this map are, well, a bit off.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 22:46, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
: Not necessarily. Each figure represents 250,000 votes, and as someone who grew up in a rural area, it takes a lot of land to get that many people. Take those two red figures in northwestern-ish Pennsylvania. Counting only people who are of voting age, assuming about 2% are ineligible to vote, with a state voter turnout of 70%, and the fact that only ~60-70% of the voters in those counties voted for Trump, it takes all '''18 counties''' in that region--every single county north of Pittsburgh and west of State College (the blue figures beside those two red ones)--to come up with about 500,000 Trump voters. That matches up exactly with the map. (The total population of those 18 counties, if you're curious, is a little under 1.5 million, with Erie being the largest at 280k and Cameron the smallest at 5k.) [[User:Eosa|Eosa]] ([[User talk:Eosa|talk]]) 17:19, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The claim about Trump being "obsessed" with how red the map appears seems to just be added to be inflammatory. As far as I know, he just gloated about the map a bit on Twitter on the days following his election. He definitely hasn't kept sharing red maps one year later like Randall, and I think we don't consider Randall obsessed. I'm removing it, and I'd rather this not be added back without a source that clearly shows such an obsession. [01000101] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.25.112|172.68.25.112]] 21:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
: I'm reinstating it. In April, Trump [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/heres-the-electoral-map-president-trump-gave-reporters.html gave reporters a printout of the counties map], saying at the time, "Here, you can take that, that's the final map of the numbers. It's pretty good, right? The red is obviously us." He later [https://twitter.com/TreyYingst/status/862669407868391424/photo/1 framed and hung a similar map in the West Wing]. In a speech in June, he said, "And those maps, those electoral maps, they were all red. Beautiful red." He has mentioned the election—which keep in mind he only won because of the Electoral College, not because of the popular vote—one out of every five days over the last year. He is clearly obsessed. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 22:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
:: I toned down the language a bit, to hopefully address concerns about the potentially controversial use of the word 'obsessed'.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 08:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
::: I'm fine with the change, even if I personally would stand by the word. Based on his actions (immediately announcing his bid for reelection and holding rallies, etc.) and statements he has made and continues to make nearly a year into his actual presidency, I think a reasonable case can be made that he genuinely dislikes the job of being president and is clinging to the one time when he was really happy—when he was campaigning. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 15:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I count 31 "Green" folks, in addition to whoever counted the red and blues. That means our total is 546 little stick figures. I'm not sure why he picked that number, but it could be the correct number of folks to stick one on the small states of Alaska, Hawiaii, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. He also took the unusual step of counting VOTES instead of population. It'd be fun to have a version with non-voters on it.

I think Randall has always been a map enthusiast. I read this as an alternative map. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.28|108.162.237.28]] 21:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

;136,669,237 votes in 2016
To all the guys who are counting the Cueballs in the map: 546 Cueballs multiplied by 250,000 is 136,500,000 votes.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:07, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

My count agrees. Red = 252, Blue = 263, Green = 31 [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 00:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The title text is probably referring to this map on wikipedia:[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cartlinearlarge.png] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.106|108.162.249.106]] 06:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

"the small impact of the low-population states" Shouldn't it be "high impact"? The vote of a person living in a low-density state has a higher weight than the vote of a person living in a high-density state.
Right? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:21, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
: Actually, Randall's map doesn't show much of anything as regards the relative influence of the states, because it only shows popular votes, and not Electoral College votes, which give proportionately higher representation to the lower population states. So I'd say that sentence should just be removed, or at least completely rewritten to state this as a deficiency of Randall's map (though criticising it for not showing something that it doesn't purport to show in the first place would be a bit unfair).[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:20, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The table looks weird on a mobile device. The first number column has a way bigger font than the other two. Can be reproduced on a PC by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I (in Chrome), selecting "Nexus 5X" (or similar) at the top and reloading.

--- Assuming the text above is correct, the count is as follows:

<source>
$ for color in red blue green; do ( cat text | pcregrep -o1 "(\d*) $color" | awk -v c=$color '{s+=$1} END {print c, s}') ; done
red 252
blue 264
green 30
</source>[[User:Sysin|Sysin]] ([[User talk:Sysin|talk]]) 12:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I think that this comic might have something to do with [[1902: State Borders]]. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 10:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

; rounding error
Randall's political leanings are obvious, but are we to believe that he picked a ceiling rounding just to get one extra blue guy? One figure is not be noticeable on such a large map. Its an effect of about 0.0018%. Its more likely an artifact of trying to distribute figures across states or an honest mistake. I think that paragraph should be reworked.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.40|108.162.237.40]] 15:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:I reworded it to state what the exact figure would be and included a note that he rounded both figures up, which I think is interesting trivia in both cases. I don't think anything should be mentioned about a potential bias, for the reasons you state. No one would notice that it's (arguably) off by one unless they obsessively checked every little thing about the map. Randall's choice to round up or down doesn't affect the overall accuracy of the map or whatever point he's trying to convey. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 15:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
::I added a possible unbiased reason for the use of ceiling rounding (avoiding the inclusion of partial Cueballs.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.47|162.158.79.47]] 15:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:::Regular rounding, which gets to whichever integer is closest (whether up or down), would also avoid broken people, but it would give Clinton one less guy. I removed your sentence, but added that it could be either due to Randall's political leanings or in order to achieve a better fit in a specific state. It's true that it is hard to point to either without further analysis. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.154|198.41.230.154]] 16:19, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:::: I know this wiki is in love with speculation, but this is such an insignificant detail about this map that there is no need to make guesses about Randall's motivations (political or otherwise) for rounding the way he did. Just state the facts. If a reader wants to draw their own conclusion, that's up to them. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 18:52, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
::::: Couldn't the additional guy also be a result of using regular rounding for each state separately? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.76|162.158.202.76]] 21:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:::::: Possibly, but the text on the map specifically states that "votes are distributed by states as accurately as possible while keeping national totals correct." [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 22:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

As one of those Americans who doesn't like either major political party much, I'm disappointed that there wasn't a third color for voters who voted independent. More people voted independent in 2016 than any other recent Presidential election—that should be enough for at least two or three little yellow guys somewhere, right? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.166|162.158.75.166]] 15:47, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:Is green not enough? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

As a somewhat red-green color blind person, I have a hard time seeing the green Cueballs on this map. If I zoom in, I can see whether an individual Cueball is red or green, but I can't look at the map as a whole and easily see where all the green ones are. I wish Randall had instead made them dark green, dark brown, or even black so that seeing them wouldn't have been an issue for people like me (~6% of males). [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 21:22, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:Actually, to the best of my knowledge I have no colour-blindness whatsoever, and under normal viewing I have trouble distinguishing the green ones from the blue (at first I actually thought they were grey). I actually thought they were very few, until I looked at the large version, THEN I can see they're green, look quite distinct from the blue, and are way more than the 4 or 5 I thought there were. However, it DOES seem like after red and blue, the next colour to use in any colour-coding system is green. Would be yellow, as a primary colour, but that's too light on a white background. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:50, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

This comic is number 1939. I was already getting upset when 1776 had nothing to do with the American Revolution, all the way to none from 1914-1918 having to do with WWI, and now 1939 has nothing to do with WWII?) Hopefully 2018 won't have nothing to do with current events.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.128|162.158.88.128]] 11:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
:Maybe its a reference to WWIII? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 19:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1939: 2016 Election Map

2018-01-14T19:33:12Z

162.158.74.9:

;Why now?

So why are we getting this map now instead of a year ago? Has something significant to this area just happened in the U.S.A.? (I am a Canadian so might well have missed something.)
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.154|108.162.216.154]] 16:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm from the midwest in the US and I'm really confused as well... I also don't find anything particularly funny or poignant in this. So yeah, color me confused in the US. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.76|162.158.75.76]] 16:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC) Sam

: At a guess, because we're coming up on the anniversary of Trump's inauguration. [[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 23:26, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the idea is that this map, while interesting as an object, still sort of fails as a map - it doesn't provide the sort of easily digestible information that a map of this variety is supposed to show. Conceptually, I don't think it's that different than #1138 (Heatmap) - the map more or less shows population density and fails to easily communicate party alignment. As to why it's showing up in the first year of 2018, my best guess is that mid-term elections are this year...? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.238|172.69.69.238]]

My friend I showed the comic to thinks it could be a general political commentary on the uselessness of these kinds of maps. 1. the map is a year old: useless. 2. there are no numbers: useless. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.76|162.158.75.76]] 17:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC) Sam.

I'm wondering if it has to do with the fact that [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html Trump just disbanded the commission on voter fraud]. I think I heard somewhere that this commission was to "prove why Trump should have won the popular vote". I think the map relates to the whole popular vote versus electoral college discussion.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 17:17, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it might be claiming Trump only won because very many people failed to vote? Either that, or as already mentioned, it's about how useless these maps can be. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 17:20, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

The point of the map is that the standard choropleth map for the 2016 election shows the vast majority of us area voting for Donald Trump. (shown on this link http://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/) The comic is criticizing the visual accuracy of chloropleth maps in giving a strong understanding of election results (as the majority of voters voted for Hillary). ---- {{unsigned| Widea}}

If this map is really so correct (as stated in the caption) then it has been a huge job to collect the data so precisely and calculate how to split voters across borders when not fitting. This says to me that this is a very big issue for Randall. Of course he has made it clear many times that he is [[1756: I'm With Her|against Trumps election]] and more or less [[1756:_I'm_With_Her#Sad_comics|anything he does]]... I believe there is a lot to learn from this map as opposed to those he mentions in the title text --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:33, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

If this map is correct, then there are 252 Trump guys on it and 263 Clinton guys on it, a difference of 11 guys. I don't know how many "other" guys are on it. Just in case someone would like to know. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.4|198.41.230.4]] 20:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

One thing that the map does clearly show is that voters of Clinton were clustered in heavily urbanized regions (New England to Delmarva, Miami region, Chicago region, Houston and Austin, and coastal California in particular). Those same Clinton clusters are also home to the most third-party voters. Meanwhile, Trump voters were spread out more evenly and in isolated pockets, and there are very few third-party voters living out in the boonies.
I think the takeaway is that Democratic voters are underrepresented because they are grouped so closely together, and those same populations are also prone to giving rise to anti-two-party sentiment. These two factors combined work against liberalist movements in the United States. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.225|162.158.74.225]] 20:23, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I never realized until now just how few people live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.46|108.162.241.46]] 20:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I also think Randal needs a lesson in rural/urban voting, as the placement of many of the red figures on this map are, well, a bit off.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 22:46, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
: Not necessarily. Each figure represents 250,000 votes, and as someone who grew up in a rural area, it takes a lot of land to get that many people. Take those two red figures in northwestern-ish Pennsylvania. Counting only people who are of voting age, assuming about 2% are ineligible to vote, with a state voter turnout of 70%, and the fact that only ~60-70% of the voters in those counties voted for Trump, it takes all '''18 counties''' in that region--every single county north of Pittsburgh and west of State College (the blue figures beside those two red ones)--to come up with about 500,000 Trump voters. That matches up exactly with the map. (The total population of those 18 counties, if you're curious, is a little under 1.5 million, with Erie being the largest at 280k and Cameron the smallest at 5k.) [[User:Eosa|Eosa]] ([[User talk:Eosa|talk]]) 17:19, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The claim about Trump being "obsessed" with how red the map appears seems to just be added to be inflammatory. As far as I know, he just gloated about the map a bit on Twitter on the days following his election. He definitely hasn't kept sharing red maps one year later like Randall, and I think we don't consider Randall obsessed. I'm removing it, and I'd rather this not be added back without a source that clearly shows such an obsession. [01000101] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.25.112|172.68.25.112]] 21:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
: I'm reinstating it. In April, Trump [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/heres-the-electoral-map-president-trump-gave-reporters.html gave reporters a printout of the counties map], saying at the time, "Here, you can take that, that's the final map of the numbers. It's pretty good, right? The red is obviously us." He later [https://twitter.com/TreyYingst/status/862669407868391424/photo/1 framed and hung a similar map in the West Wing]. In a speech in June, he said, "And those maps, those electoral maps, they were all red. Beautiful red." He has mentioned the election—which keep in mind he only won because of the Electoral College, not because of the popular vote—one out of every five days over the last year. He is clearly obsessed. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 22:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
:: I toned down the language a bit, to hopefully address concerns about the potentially controversial use of the word 'obsessed'.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 08:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
::: I'm fine with the change, even if I personally would stand by the word. Based on his actions (immediately announcing his bid for reelection and holding rallies, etc.) and statements he has made and continues to make nearly a year into his actual presidency, I think a reasonable case can be made that he genuinely dislikes the job of being president and is clinging to the one time when he was really happy—when he was campaigning. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 15:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I count 31 "Green" folks, in addition to whoever counted the red and blues. That means our total is 546 little stick figures. I'm not sure why he picked that number, but it could be the correct number of folks to stick one on the small states of Alaska, Hawiaii, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. He also took the unusual step of counting VOTES instead of population. It'd be fun to have a version with non-voters on it.

I think Randall has always been a map enthusiast. I read this as an alternative map. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.28|108.162.237.28]] 21:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

;136,669,237 votes in 2016
To all the guys who are counting the Cueballs in the map: 546 Cueballs multiplied by 250,000 is 136,500,000 votes.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:07, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

My count agrees. Red = 252, Blue = 263, Green = 31 [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 00:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The title text is probably referring to this map on wikipedia:[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cartlinearlarge.png] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.106|108.162.249.106]] 06:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

"the small impact of the low-population states" Shouldn't it be "high impact"? The vote of a person living in a low-density state has a higher weight than the vote of a person living in a high-density state.
Right? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:21, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
: Actually, Randall's map doesn't show much of anything as regards the relative influence of the states, because it only shows popular votes, and not Electoral College votes, which give proportionately higher representation to the lower population states. So I'd say that sentence should just be removed, or at least completely rewritten to state this as a deficiency of Randall's map (though criticising it for not showing something that it doesn't purport to show in the first place would be a bit unfair).[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:20, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The table looks weird on a mobile device. The first number column has a way bigger font than the other two. Can be reproduced on a PC by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I (in Chrome), selecting "Nexus 5X" (or similar) at the top and reloading.

--- Assuming the text above is correct, the count is as follows:

<source>
$ for color in red blue green; do ( cat text | pcregrep -o1 "(\d*) $color" | awk -v c=$color '{s+=$1} END {print c, s}') ; done
red 252
blue 264
green 30
</source>[[User:Sysin|Sysin]] ([[User talk:Sysin|talk]]) 12:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I think that this comic might have something to do with [[1902: State Borders]]. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 10:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

; rounding error
Randall's political leanings are obvious, but are we to believe that he picked a ceiling rounding just to get one extra blue guy? One figure is not be noticeable on such a large map. Its an effect of about 0.0018%. Its more likely an artifact of trying to distribute figures across states or an honest mistake. I think that paragraph should be reworked.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.40|108.162.237.40]] 15:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:I reworded it to state what the exact figure would be and included a note that he rounded both figures up, which I think is interesting trivia in both cases. I don't think anything should be mentioned about a potential bias, for the reasons you state. No one would notice that it's (arguably) off by one unless they obsessively checked every little thing about the map. Randall's choice to round up or down doesn't affect the overall accuracy of the map or whatever point he's trying to convey. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 15:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
::I added a possible unbiased reason for the use of ceiling rounding (avoiding the inclusion of partial Cueballs.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.47|162.158.79.47]] 15:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:::Regular rounding, which gets to whichever integer is closest (whether up or down), would also avoid broken people, but it would give Clinton one less guy. I removed your sentence, but added that it could be either due to Randall's political leanings or in order to achieve a better fit in a specific state. It's true that it is hard to point to either without further analysis. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.154|198.41.230.154]] 16:19, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:::: I know this wiki is in love with speculation, but this is such an insignificant detail about this map that there is no need to make guesses about Randall's motivations (political or otherwise) for rounding the way he did. Just state the facts. If a reader wants to draw their own conclusion, that's up to them. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 18:52, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
::::: Couldn't the additional guy also be a result of using regular rounding for each state separately? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.76|162.158.202.76]] 21:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:::::: Possibly, but the text on the map specifically states that "votes are distributed by states as accurately as possible while keeping national totals correct." [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.70|172.69.69.70]] 22:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

As one of those Americans who doesn't like either major political party much, I'm disappointed that there wasn't a third color for voters who voted independent. More people voted independent in 2016 than any other recent Presidential election—that should be enough for at least two or three little yellow guys somewhere, right? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.166|162.158.75.166]] 15:47, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:Is green not enough? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

As a somewhat red-green color blind person, I have a hard time seeing the green Cueballs on this map. If I zoom in, I can see whether an individual Cueball is red or green, but I can't look at the map as a whole and easily see where all the green ones are. I wish Randall had instead made them dark green, dark brown, or even black so that seeing them wouldn't have been an issue for people like me (~6% of males). [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 21:22, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:Actually, to the best of my knowledge I have no colour-blindness whatsoever, and under normal viewing I have trouble distinguishing the green ones from the blue (at first I actually thought they were grey). I actually thought they were very few, until I looked at the large version, THEN I can see they're green, look quite distinct from the blue, and are way more than the 4 or 5 I thought there were. However, it DOES seem like after red and blue, the next colour to use in any colour-coding system is green. Would be yellow, as a primary colour, but that's too light on a white background. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:50, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

This comic is number 1939. I was already getting upset when 1776 had nothing to do with the American Revolution, all the way to none from 1914-1918 having to do with WWI, and now 1939 has nothing to do with WWII?) Hopefully 2018 won't have nothing to do with current events.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.128|162.158.88.128]] 11:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Maybe its a reference to WWIII? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 19:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1941: Dying Gift

2018-01-14T18:15:48Z

162.158.74.9:

Wikipedia has a list of most Foucault pendulums in the world, if anyone wants to try to guess what museum he worked for :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Foucault_pendulums [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 12:11, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
:I assumed that his Foucault pendulum was in his own home, rather than in some public place. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.143|141.101.104.143]] 15:41, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
::Yeah, he does say "Main hall" [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 17:19, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
:::Hmmm, I take your point :) I made the assumption that the pendulum is in a museum because I'm most familiar with seeing them in museums (and museums have halls), but the comic doesn't actually say that. It would be unusual for a man to personally own a large hall with a Foucault pendulum, but the title text does suggest that the guy is rich, so it's possible. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 17:33, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
:::It is possible that he owns the pendulum, not the hall. As the first commenter suggested, there is only one Foucault pendulum in the word that is exactly 30ft (according to wiki), I don't want to spoil it but the semi-real nature of the series could mean this pendulum is in THAT museum. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 18:15, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I am working on a fan project related to xkcd and I am hoping to release it on the 2000th comic. How much longer do I have? [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 16:33, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
:Assuming they come out three times a week as normal, until about the end of May.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 16:46, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
::If the comics continue as normal, #2000 would come out on May 30th, 2018. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 22:49, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
::Thanks! [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 17:17, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
:::But why on such an arbitrary number? If you wait until #2048 at least it would be a nice round one :D [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.40|172.68.110.40]] 12:59, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

There is a superstition that the stopping of a clock's pendulum will cause (or will be caused by) the death of the clock's owner. A less superstitious version is that a clock's pendulum must be kept swinging as a token of rememberance. Therefore it is actually quite realistic that a dying person might instruct the inheritor of a pendulum clock to never let it stop. However, Randall turns the situation absurd by replacing the pendulum clock with a Foucault pendulum, not only because of the difficulty of moving the pendulum while it's swinging, but also because there's no such superstition associated with Foucault pendulums (that I could find, at least). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.112|162.158.238.112]] 17:51, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The possibility that the old man's requests will be ignored are in direct proportion to the possibility of him being capable of exacting revenge from beyond the grave.--[[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]]) 01:16, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Should be mentioned: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LastRequest [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.58|162.158.92.58]] 08:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1940: The Food Size Cycle

2018-01-12T00:37:59Z

162.158.74.9:

Does panini have a different meaning in the USA? In the UK, it basically means a sandwich made in a flattish rectangular roll, usually toasted (sometimes also the roll itself). They can be quite large; not necessarily smaller than sandwiches in general.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 16:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:From my experience its the flatishness off panini that make them more comfortable to eat, but who knows maybe we're on the end of the panini cycle. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 23:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Is it generally known that "panini" is the plural form of the Italian word "panino"? We don't say "burritos" or "taquitos" for one example, so why "panini"? [[User:Gearoid|Gearóid]] ([[User talk:Gearoid|talk]]) 07:46, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
: But we do say 'a biscotti'. Probably because when selling them you would advertise in the plural, and those not familiar with Italian linguistics would not know how to construct a singular from it, and so would simply use the word as it stands. As a result, of course, panini and biscotti are, through use, now correct ''english'' singulars.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:34, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
: perhaps because of its unfortunate similarity to other English words, and the fortunate immaturity of the human race.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 00:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, but what about the slider effect? Mini versions of (in this case burgers) to be served in a collective? --[[User:Thomcat|Thomcat]] ([[User talk:Thomcat|talk]]) 17:01, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Related, perhaps, is the sizing issue. Some places sell medium, large, and extra large drinks. Note no small.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.154|108.162.216.154]] 20:29, 10 January 2018 (UTC) Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net>
: And the 'regular' is what used to be the 'large'; the 'small', if it exists, is what used to be the 'regular' - to try to make you feel like you're short-changing yourself if you buy a normal sized one.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:27, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

The alt-text seems backwards: The way Randall's presented it, it looks like he's asserting that thick crusts get thinner, then the cycle repeats. This matches anecdotal evidence based upon the style favored by my local pizza shops over the years, but more research is needed. Thin crusts also tend to be cheaper to make, so... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:08, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
: I don't think so - 'deep-dish' is listed first, as the one on the original track; 'thin crust' is then the one on the replacement track. The original pizzas, as imported from Italy, would have been thin crust. These then got thicker until they begat deep dish, and, indeed, beyond, with the ridiculous proliferation of stuffed and sandwich crusts. Then, as some people lost patience with this, there was a trend to re-introduce the thin crust (the replacement track).[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
: Some original pizza from Italy had thick crust. My uncle, an immigrant to the US from Bari, Italy, made extremely thick crust pizza at his restaurant in the 1960s, almost a pizza bread. Pizza Hut initially advertised their 'deep dish' as 'Sicilian Pan Pizza'. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.166|162.158.75.166]] 21:54, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Portion inflation makes dietary information misleading. One would be hard pressed to find a muffin of the size used in nutrition information guides.
Recipe books show similar inflation, recipes as printed make larger amounts of food, but they are listed as feeding fewer people than they used to. [https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/7-expert-tricks-calorie-portion-control]
Analagous inflation can also be seen in clothes sizes. What used to be a size 8 is now labeled a size 4. Regular becomes "slim cut." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.127|172.68.189.127]] 00:01, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Is the ratio between subsequent food size bifurcations consistent with the first Feigenbaum constant? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants] [[User:Docstout|Docstout]] ([[User talk:Docstout|talk]]) 01:15, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Does this remind anyone of a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram? [[User:Capncanuck|Capncanuck]] ([[User talk:Capncanuck|talk]]) 02:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

BTW, I find it amusing that this comic came out the next day after a report on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation shrinkflation] of Mondelez chocolates in Europe hit the news here ... --kavol, [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.197|141.101.96.197]] 07:57, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Is this phenomenon specific to the US? I don't really recognize it here in the Netherlands, but the US has a reputation of having giant versions of everything: food, cars, people (width mostly) & so on. Maybe specific to a "big is beautiful" cultural attitude? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.187|162.158.111.187]] 15:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
:This happens, albeit to a considerably lesser extend, in the UK. Here, the phenomenon is restricted primarily to American fast food restaurants. I've eaten in America and was able to get 6 meals from the left-over food from a single-portion meal at Pinky's Pupu Bar & Grill in Kailua, Hawai`i. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.96|141.101.105.96]] 21:31, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1940: The Food Size Cycle

2018-01-10T23:44:36Z

162.158.74.9:

Talk:1940: The Food Size Cycle

2018-01-10T23:43:48Z

162.158.74.9:

Talk:1938: Meltdown and Spectre

2018-01-06T19:13:43Z

162.158.74.9:

The "trolley problem" is the ethical dilemma thought experiment where an out-of-control trolley is heading to a junction (which you have control over) - to one side it'll kill one group of people - to the other, some others. Your moral dilemma is deciding which is the "best" outcome (eg, hitting a dozen five year old children or three Nobel laureats). This is like a software "if" statement. Speculative execution in most CPU chips is where the computer always takes both sides of a decision like this - explores what will happen down each path - and only causes the effects of the decision to happen when the decision as to which way to proceed is decided. This allows it to keep on doing useful work while some slower decision is made. The "quantum" aspect of this is that in some versions of quantum theory, quantum-level particles take every possible path at once and the result is the sum of all of them.

In a sense, the computer is exploring the consequences of the trolley problem in a quantum-like manner.

This would all be OK if it were not for the fact that devious black-hat hackers can come up with devious ways to see the information that should have been discarded in the "path-not-taken". So even though the computer will eventually decide that some piece of information should not be accessible - you can find out the value it would hypothetically read - even though it will soon decide that it should not access the information.

The "rowhammer" problem is something entirely different. Computer memories are organized as a two-dimensional grid of rows and columns - and are physically constructed from tiny capacitors. If you apply just the RIGHT pattern of rapid changes to one row of the grid, you can cause one of the capacitors on the next row to incorrectly change state. This is a design flaw in the memory chip - and it allows (in some circumstances) programs to change data in memory locations that they have no right to change.

[[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 19:33, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

uhhh did you just copy and paste your entire edit into talk? [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 20:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

: Pretty much. When I got here, there was no information about the comic at all. Since I'm unfamiliar with all of the other stuff that goes into an explain, I left it as a comment so someone else could use it...but after a while, nobody did, so I copy-pasted it into the explanation...with some tweaks! Sorry if that was a faux-pas of some variety! [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 21:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

What? Servers are vulnerable to actual hammers? Huh, do you suppose they're be vulnerable to an actual trolley as well? I have a spare server, does anyone have a spare trolley? ~~ SiliconWolf

: My server is actually mounted inside a trolley - precisely to avoid this kind of issue. [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 23:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

:I wouldn't recommend that. A collision would anger the honeybees. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]

The most helpful technical explanation I’ve found is here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/why-raspberry-pi-isnt-vulnerable-to-spectre-or-meltdown/ ;the comments also provide useful clarification. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 02:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Could an explanation be added as to what a trolley is? Being in the UK, my first thought was that of a shopping trolley (US: Shopping cart). Over here, we call trollies "trams" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.4|162.158.34.4]] 11:39, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
:The analogy is the same, just the speed and engine that changes. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]]

Talk:1938: Meltdown and Spectre

2018-01-06T19:06:20Z

162.158.74.9:

The "trolley problem" is the ethical dilemma thought experiment where an out-of-control trolley is heading to a junction (which you have control over) - to one side it'll kill one group of people - to the other, some others. Your moral dilemma is deciding which is the "best" outcome (eg, hitting a dozen five year old children or three Nobel laureats). This is like a software "if" statement. Speculative execution in most CPU chips is where the computer always takes both sides of a decision like this - explores what will happen down each path - and only causes the effects of the decision to happen when the decision as to which way to proceed is decided. This allows it to keep on doing useful work while some slower decision is made. The "quantum" aspect of this is that in some versions of quantum theory, quantum-level particles take every possible path at once and the result is the sum of all of them.

In a sense, the computer is exploring the consequences of the trolley problem in a quantum-like manner.

This would all be OK if it were not for the fact that devious black-hat hackers can come up with devious ways to see the information that should have been discarded in the "path-not-taken". So even though the computer will eventually decide that some piece of information should not be accessible - you can find out the value it would hypothetically read - even though it will soon decide that it should not access the information.

The "rowhammer" problem is something entirely different. Computer memories are organized as a two-dimensional grid of rows and columns - and are physically constructed from tiny capacitors. If you apply just the RIGHT pattern of rapid changes to one row of the grid, you can cause one of the capacitors on the next row to incorrectly change state. This is a design flaw in the memory chip - and it allows (in some circumstances) programs to change data in memory locations that they have no right to change.

[[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 19:33, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

uhhh did you just copy and paste your entire edit into talk? [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 20:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

: Pretty much. When I got here, there was no information about the comic at all. Since I'm unfamiliar with all of the other stuff that goes into an explain, I left it as a comment so someone else could use it...but after a while, nobody did, so I copy-pasted it into the explanation...with some tweaks! Sorry if that was a faux-pas of some variety! [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 21:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

What? Servers are vulnerable to actual hammers? Huh, do you suppose they're be vulnerable to an actual trolley as well? I have a spare server, does anyone have a spare trolley? ~~ SiliconWolf

: My server is actually mounted inside a trolley - precisely to avoid this kind of issue. [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 23:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

:I wouldn't recommend that. A collision would anger the honeybees. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]

The most helpful technical explanation I’ve found is here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/why-raspberry-pi-isnt-vulnerable-to-spectre-or-meltdown/ ;the comments also provide useful clarification. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 02:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Could an explanation be added as to what a trolley is? Being in the UK, my first thought was that of a shopping trolley (US: Shopping cart). Over here, we call trollies "trams" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.4|162.158.34.4]] 11:39, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
:The analogy is the same. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]]

Talk:1930: Calendar Facts

2017-12-18T23:58:43Z

162.158.74.9:

Shouldn't it be "libration" not "libation"? Pretty sure drinking has nothing to do with it. Also pretty sure this is a mistake and not a clever alteration. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.57|162.158.62.57]] 16:41, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
:No, it's a clever alteration because "libration" is listed right above it. --[[User:Videblu|Videblu]] ([[User talk:Videblu|talk]]) 16:45, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
::That's just a mistake - he meant to write 'vibration'[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 16:48, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
:::'Vibration' wouldn't make any sense, 'libation' is at least humorous, I vote it was no mistake. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.64|172.68.54.64]] 18:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I formatted the transcript into a bullet tree since I thought it was the closest equivalent you can get in plain text to the branching flowchart deal in the comic. I'm open to alternative suggestions. The biggest problem I encountered, and one I'd like to see resolved, is what to do in the case where two branching sections butt up against each other, e.g. winter/summer and solstice/Olympics. I used an arrow symbol ("→") on an in-between line just to separate the set of bullets, but if someone wants to change that, I'm up for it. [[User:Kenbellows|Kenbellows]] ([[User talk:Kenbellows|talk]]) 18:04, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
:I find the bullet tree legible for the last few long lines, but it's hard to follow a single path. I was thinking of using (option 1|option 2) syntax, but that would probably look messy too. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.29|162.158.91.29]] 18:10, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
:I think indenting when lines diverge and un-indenting when they converge would make it look nice and be easy to follow. I'm willing to do the work if others agree. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 23:58, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Random error noticed - the line connecting "International Date" and "Mason-Dixon" to "Line" is drawn in the wrong color. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.136|162.158.75.136]] 18:57, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Isn't the point with this comic that there is at least one valid path for every included element? I don't think Randall intended it to be a factorial combination because as the explanation suggests, most would be wrong/absurd/silly. But why not instead try to find some invalid element when it can be included in any possible path from end to end? Toyota Truck Month or Shark Week might not happen next year, who knows? Can anyone find any element that has no valid path at all? If not, then maybe the main explanation should be updated to fit the model recommended here.[[User:Lunar7|Lunar7]] ([[User talk:Lunar7|talk]]) 20:05, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

== Generators ==

https://staab.github.io/xkcd-1930/

: Not sure who's responsible for this, but there seem to be a few errors. "Might (not happen/happen twice) this year" is missing "this year", and "the (harvest/super/blood) moon" is similarly missing "moon". Also, I see a part "happens at the same time every year" that I don't see in the comic. Are there any other additions; and is there a way to find them other than keep refreshing? -- [[User:Angel|Angel]] 18:40, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

:: Checked the source; looks like "at the same time" replaces "at the wrong time". Also, some of the options are missing a "." between the main tree and the title text or at the end of the sentence. (And for some reason every time I go to edit this talk page, the wiki logs me out) -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.167|162.158.91.167]] 18:48, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

: The source is on [https://github.com/staab/xkcd-1930 github] - you can add pull requests to fix errors (I'll take care of the aforementioned errors).

Here's mine.

http://www.hearn.to/calendar.html

[[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.65|172.68.142.65]]

Here's one I wrote on jsFiddle. Glad I'm not the only one who read this and immediately thought, "I must code this!" [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.64|172.68.34.64]] 21:29, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

https://jsfiddle.net/qa290hss/

== Equinox ==

I don't think this is the correct definition for equinox, the plane comprising the Earth orbit around the Sun is never perpendicular to the Earth's axis. During the equinox the sun rays arrive to the Earth perpendicular to the equator line, this would be better. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.62.238|172.68.62.238]] 22:10, 18 December 2017 (UTC)CBM

I agree with the comment above; the Earth's axis is always tilted 23 degrees from the plane of the orbit. There are times the North pole is tilted toward the Sun and times it is tilted away from the Sun. Twice a year (at the equinoxes) the tilt is perpendicular to the Sun. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.239|108.162.221.239]] 22:47, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

== Daylight Saving Time ==
Twice the description references locations that don't follow the common DST plan as 'other than the natural latitude would suggest'. The ''longitude'' would suggest a time zone, not the latitude. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.239|108.162.221.239]] 22:47, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1928: Seven Years

2017-12-14T23:58:35Z

162.158.74.9: Really, telling people in a time of need that you know better that science?

no... I'm not crying... [[User:Zazathebot|Zazathebot]] ([[User talk:Zazathebot|talk]])

Liar [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.34|172.68.34.34]] 20:13, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

:([[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.105|162.158.58.105]] 23:04, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Do we know her name? [[User:Dogman15|Dogman15]] ([[User talk:Dogman15|talk]]) 00:34, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Should we remove the transcript incomplete mark? I know it's early, but I don't think it can be any better. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.233|162.158.166.233]] 02:25, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Is someone cutting onions here? I am almost close to tears soon.Boeing-787lover 08:10, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Why is my face leaking??? --[[User:Nialpxe|Nialpxe]], 2017. [[User_talk:Nialpxe|(Arguments welcome)]]

Yay life!
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.178.183|162.158.178.183]] 11:27, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I love the phrasing "Panel 17: The sky has been brightened." I'm just commenting to preserve it from edits. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.52|198.41.230.52]] 13:22, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I feel it important to point out to anyone who may be looking at here and thinking about dealing with cancer... talk with your trusted health care professional who knows your case, and is not only well aware of but well practiced in modern medicine. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 23:58, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to take away anything from this very moving comic, but he does realize there's an eclipse or two every year, somewhere on the planet? Does the fear of cancer somehow limit them from ever leaving the US?

God that's beatiful. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.17|162.158.91.17]] 20:39, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

First off this is fantastic. As someone in the same situation, at the same part of the timeline, this rings so honest and true. The tree scene ... brilliant. Walking among beings for who a human lifespan is insignificant. Second. a hearty, contemptuous, giant F you to Joshupetersen. I can't stand conspiratorial know it alls like you. You think people in this situation don't know every single treatment that is out there? Every single immunotherapy drug in Cuba, every single clinical trial being run out of some backwater lab in China? There is no big pharma conspiracy. There is however a conspiracy called "evolution," which after several million years of practice ensures that cancer is one of the wiliest, most resilient killers out there. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.30|172.68.47.30]] 22:26, 14 December 2017 (UTC)Kaeleku

259: Clichéd Exchanges

2017-09-03T12:46:26Z

162.158.74.9: You gotta fight fire with clich*HTML escape code for e-acute*s? Nope. Changed it.

{{comic
| number = 259
| date = May 9, 2007
| title = Clichéd Exchanges
| image = cliched exchanges.png
| titletext = It's like they say, you gotta fight fire with clichés.
}}

==Explanation==
Another entry into the [[My Hobby]] series.

"{{w|O RLY?}}" is an Internet meme typically used to express sarcastic agreement with or feigned surprise at a statement. The typical response to "O RLY" is usually "YA RLY", "NO WAI" or "SRSLY?" These exchanges are SMS abbreviations for "Oh really?", "Yeah really", "No way!", and "Seriously?" respectively.

However, [[Cueball]]'s response avoids this typical exchange, instead replying with another cliché, derived from a classic double entendre.

In this cliché, the speaker responds to a statement containing a word ending with '-er', and turns it into a sexual reference. The setup is as follows:

: '''Alan:''' ''"Do you want to come over to my house? My wife and I are playing poker."''
: '''Bob:''' ''"Poker? I hardly KNOW her!"''

Such a double entendre makes no sense in the context of an O RLY exchange. In the case of the comic, the non-sequitur will likely baffle the person on the left (Whiteface) and derail the conversation, to the amusement of the person on the right, Cueball/Randall. The reason [[Randall]] makes this a hobby is, presumably, that it bores him when people fall back on clichés for comedy, and he seeks inventive ways to humor himself in these situations. ''See, for example'', https://xkcd.com/16/.

The title text takes the real cliché "fight fire with fire," and combines it with the more literal "fight clichés with clichés." The resulting statement follows a very similar principle to the situation in the comic proper. Also, for some reason or another, the <code>&eacute;</code> does not evaluate to é.

==Transcript==
:My Hobby:
:Derailing clichéd exchanges by using the wrong replies

:Friend: O RLY?
:Cueball: O RLY? I 'ardly know 'er!

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

1795: All You Can Eat

2017-02-13T13:11:26Z

162.158.74.9: /* Weird food */

{{comic
| number = 1795
| date = February 6, 2017
| title = All You Can Eat
| image = all_you_can_eat.png
| titletext = After my absent-mindedness resulted in a bad posterboard-related stomachache, I learned to do the sign-making place last.
}}

==Explanation==
===Randall's hobby===
An all-you-can-eat {{w|buffet}} is when a restaurant will charge you once for entry and then continuously serve you more food at no additional cost until you have eaten all-you-can-eat. Part of the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series, this comic shows [[Randall]] wishes to prepend "all-you-can-eat" to random stores. With the exception of the pet store, these stores do not sell food, so the very idea of eating their product would be ridiculous[[[285|''citation needed'']]]. However, this is what Randall's stunt makes the stores he defaces seem to advertise. Most people would not seriously consider eating the products these stores sell even with the signs suggesting they should, as it is just a monumentally stupid idea[[[285|''citation needed'']]].

The "all-you-can-eat" signs obscured some of the original shop signs. It is not really possible to read the obscured part of the first two signs, although it is pretty clear that the first and last letters in the first sign are A and k. And also since the A is taller than the white sign, this first letter must be larger than the others which do not show above the white sign. There could be room for anything from 8 to many more letters hidden as it can be seen in the second line below that the I's take up much less space than the other letters. But from the letters below it would be likely there were 9 (maybe including a space) if no I's were used resulting in a word or two like this "A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ k".

In the title text, Randall seems to have fallen for his own prank. After he puts the "all-you-can-eat" sign onto the signmakers' place, he proceeds to heed his own sign literally and eat the posterboards that he is supposed to make signs from. To remind himself not to make the same mistake again, he tells himself to "do the sign-making place last."

===Weird food===
Note that some pets are considered food in some cultures; rabbits are commonly kept as pets as well as served as food, dogs are consumed in some areas in eastern Asia, guinea pigs in South America and Africa, and [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/alf/images/9/92/Cat_sandwich.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110128060130 some fictional characters are known for eating cats]. Even more normally, a cat owner that wants to buy an "all you can eat" bird feast for their cat would be happy with this last store. Aside from pets, pet stores also sell pet food, and while frowned upon by some, it is common practice to give human nutrition supplements to pets and vice versa. Some animal snacks are considered very tasty by many people, and there even exist several brands of snacks designed to be eaten both by people and their pets so that the owners could feel somehow closer to their beloved companion. Premium pet foods are made to standards that are no worse than standards for human food, so eating them poses no health risks in the short term - long term, most pet diets would fail to deliver the right balance of nutrients needed by humans.

===All-you-can-"eat"===
It should also be noted that sometimes "all-you-can-eat" is used to mean "unlimited usage". An all-you-can-eat data plan, for example, is another way to say unlimited data. If this definition of the word were used, all-you-can-eat would mean "unlimited copies of our product for a one time fee".

The last sign is though clearly readable and it says "Kevin's Pet Store". There actually exists a [http://kevinspetshopcom.weebly.com/ web page with the name "Kevin's Pet Shop"], supposedly located in Texas, but there is very limited information on the page. See more about the use of Kevin in xkcd in the [[#Kevin|trivia]] below.

A [[wikipedia:kapsalon|kapsalon]] can, arguably, also be called an all-you-can-eat hair salon.

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows the facades of four stores next to each other on a street, with the sidewalk shown in front of them. To the top of each store's name there has been appended white signs. Three of the white signs partially cover the name part of the sign above three of the stores, but the fourth sign is placed entirely above the text of the third store. Thus that white sign's top is higher up than the building's.]

:[First store from the left has one small rectangular section next to the door and then a larger window. The first section may be a poster with information about the store. It could also be a small window. Through the large window (or on it) two rectangular signs can be seen with unreadable text. There are also three half circles at the bottom of the large window, possibly chairs or tires on display. On the normal sized door there hangs an open/closed sign, but no text is visible. On the stores sign the top line of text, likely with the name of the store, is obscured by the white sign so most of the letters are completely covered. Less than half of the first capital letter and ditto for the last letter is visible. It looks like the first letter is an "A", and the last a "k".]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Discount Tires

:[Second store from the left has two posters over each other, the top one with unreadable text, the bottom a picture of a person with messy black hair, seen from the torso and up. Next to this is a double door with large windows from below the middle and up near the top. Next to the door there is a small window. On the stores sign the top line of text, likely with the name of the store, is completely obscured by the white sign. This line is shorter than the white sign, but the letters are taller, so top and bottom of the letters can be seen. But it is not easy to guess any letters.]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Hair Salon

:[Third store from the left has two posters over each other, but the lower poster is smaller and more to the right. Both has unreadable text, and the top one also some kind of image with two tilted rectangles. Similarly there are three signs above each other with different size and text on the right side of the store. Between them is a large open door. Wider than the double doors of store two, but there is no sign of the doors. Inside the store there are two signs, one hanging down from two rods from the ceiling, both with unreadable text. The one from the ceiling is in the center the other is partly obscured by the door frame to the left. Left and right there are two rectangular structures, which both goes behind the frame. The left is taller. In the middle there is one broad but low rectangular structure with another higher rectangle on top, which does not go to either side of the one below. The white sign on this store is slightly tilted, and most of it is above the top of the store, and thus also almost completely above the store sign. Only the top of the first and last letter in the last word in the top line is touched by the sign.]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Lumber and
:Store sign: Flooring Depot

:[Fourth store from the left has a window to the left. Behind the window is a flat surface on which two rectangular structures are standing on their long sides. Over the lowest to the left there is sign with unreadable text. Below the window there is a thins sign with more text. The normal sized door has a window from below the middle and up. There are three several signs up the left sign, and possible another three small signs at the bottom of the window. The top right corner has a curved line around the corner. No text is visible on the door. Next to the door is another square. It could be a window of a place to post things. There are one large posters to the left with unreadable text and to the top right another smaller white rectangle. Below along the bottom of the square there are three small rectangles shown in full, and two more is only partly shown, which could indicate that it is a window and that they are inside the store. On the stores sign the top line of text, with the name of the store, is obscured by the white sign. The name is just a bit longer than the white sign, and as the letters are a bit higher than in store two it can be deduced that it says "Kevin's".]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Pet Store

:[Caption below the frame:]
:My hobby: Going out at night and adding "all-you-can-eat" to every store's sign

==Trivia==
===Kevin===
*The name Kevin has been used twice before this comic and quite recently.
**That makes this comic the third with a Kevin in only 77 comics:
***In [[1719: Superzoom]], Kevin he worked in a shop that sold superzoom cameras.
***In [[1729: Migrating Geese]], Kevin was the different goose
***In [[1795: All You Can Eat]] (this one), Kevin has a pet shop, with his name in the shops name.
**In the previous 1718 comics there seems to have been no use of Kevin except when referring to real persons like:
***Actors [[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Kevin]] [[599: Apocalypse|Bacon]] or [[1555: Exoplanet Names 2|Costner]]
***[[1392: Dominant Players|Chess players]] Gariett and Durant.
**So maybe Kevin is Randall's new go to name when he just needs one!
***This has also been discussed in the Geese comic, see the last entry in the [[1729:_Migrating_Geese#Table of labels|table]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]

1773: Negativity

2016-12-16T13:44:28Z

162.158.74.9: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1773
| date = December 16, 2016
| title = Negativity
| image = negativity.png
| titletext = [Google search] how do I block my lawn
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
[Cueball walking on grass]

Cueball: It's nice to get outside, away from the pain and negativity of the internet,

[Cueball stops walking]

Cueball: And just enjoy the cool breeze and the grass under my feet.

[Cueball stands there, hands to his hips, looking to the cloudy sky]

[Cueball looks surprised to the grass]

Grass: You suuuuck

Cueball: Hey!

Title text: [Google search] how do I block my lawn

{{comic discussion}}

1773: Negativity

2016-12-16T13:43:58Z

162.158.74.9: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1773
| date = December 16, 2016
| title = Negativity
| image = negativity.png
| titletext = [Google search] how do I block my lawn
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
[Cueball walking on grass]

Cueball: It's nice to get outside, away from the pain and negativity of the internet,

[Cueball stops walking]

Cueball: And just enjoy the cool breeze and the grass under my feet.

[Cueball stands there, hands to his hips, looking to the cloudy sky]

[Cueball looks surprised to the grass]

Grass: You suuuuck!

Cueball: Hey!

Title text: [Google search] how do I block my lawn

{{comic discussion}}