explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2468: Inheritance

2021-05-27T01:37:02Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2468
| date = May 26, 2021
| title = Inheritance
| image = inheritance.png
| titletext = People ask me whether I feel any moral qualms about the source of the points, but if he hadn't introduced factory farming to Agricola, someone else would have.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is in reference to {{w|Strategy game|strategy board games}}, which often score players on some type of point system based on a variety of possible achievements. The joke in this comic is that Cueball has a massive sum of points that were not scored in the current game but rather handed down from his grandfather. Board games do not normally include an inheritance from previous sessions{{Citation needed}}, in contrast to real life where some people become wealthy by inheriting vast sums of money from ancestors. Such inheritances tend to lead to 'successes' in life for those who have done little, if anything, to earn their wealth. Cueball offers to distribute a trifling fraction of his points to the other players, teasing them, but he will still have an insurmountable advantage. Despite his 'generosity', no one wants to play a game that they have no chance of winning. The value of his score, 10,019, seems to indicate that he "earned" 19 points during the course of the game (less than his competitors) and then added 10,000 from his 'inheritance'.

Some board games do include a "legacy" mechanic where players who have played the game previously (and thus benefit from meta knowledge) can be granted additional items or challenges to keep the game interesting for them, but not usually to the point of breaking the game's balance. As well, gifting these achievements to anyone else is seen as absurd.

See also the '[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-small-loan-of-a-million-dollars Small Loan of a Million Dollars]' trope of a profile in which the author or subject discusses the simple tricks they used to retire early or buy a house, often involving a hurried admission of financial assistance from a family.

The title text asks Cueball if he has any moral qualms over the source of these points, then indicates his grandfather's fortune was made through {{w|factory farming}} in the farm-themed board game {{w|Agricola_(board_game)|Agricola}}. Factory farming is sometimes brought up as immoral. Unlike the real world, in a board game, you cannot simply invent something and make money (or points) from it. Large fortunes in real life are sometimes created, grown, and protected by immoral actions, creating an ethical dilemma for those who inherit them.

It could also be a reference to inheritance in programming, where a class truly inherits everything from its 'ancestors'.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail, White Hat, Megan, and Cueball are playing a board game. There are drinks on the table. Ponytail is writing something]

:Ponytail: Let's see...I got 31, you have 28, 35 for you, and-
:Cueball: -I've got 10,019.
:Ponytail: *Sigh*
:Cueball: Hey, add another 20 to everyone, on me!
:White Hat: ''I hate this''.

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:No one wants to play board games with me ever since I inherited 4,000,000 victory points from my grandfather.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Board games]]

1322: Winter

2020-08-29T15:40:53Z

162.158.75.100: /* Dictionary */

{{comic
| number = 1322
| date = January 27, 2014
| title = Winter
| image = winter.png
| titletext = Stay warm, little flappers, and find lots of plant eggs!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Beret Guy]] and [[Cueball]] are walking. Beret Guy is making several remarks about the situation. The air is cold, there is ice to walk on, he has mittens, the sunlight is warm, and the birds are chirping in the trees. When making these observations, however, he does not use the conventional terms. Instead he uses word compounds, similar to "[[1133: Up Goer Five|Up Goer Five]]". When Cueball brings up Beret Guy's odd vocabulary, he retorts by declaring that the name does not matter, as long as the things themselves are what they should be. This is the same concept that is communicated in the line from the Shakespearean play, "Romeo and Juliet": "What's in a name? That which we call {{w|a rose by any other name would smell as sweet}}." The concept is similar to that discussed by Richard Feynman as the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05WS0WN7zMQ YouTube Video: R. P. Feynman on the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something]</ref>

In the title text Beret Guy continues to use playful language and offers affectionate encouragement: "stay warm, little flappers", demonstrating that his intentions are kind, not obfuscatory. Additionally, it is an indirect salutation from [[Randall Munroe]] to the readers, acknowledging the remarkably cold temperatures North America was experiencing at the time.

=====Dictionary=====

*The sky is cold: it's a clear, cold day
*floor water: puddle
*too hard to drink: frozen
*handcoats: mittens or gloves
*spacelight: sun
*flappy planes: birds
*beeping: chirping
*stick towers: trees
*little flappers: baby birds
*plant eggs: seeds, berries

Strange synonyms are also found in [[919: Tween Bromance]] and [[2352: Synonym Date]]

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Beret Guy, Cueball in a winter hat and Beret Guy in a beret, are walking through snow and across a patch of ice.]
:Beret Guy: The sky is cold and the floor water is too hard to drink.

:[Beret Guy looks upwards.]
:Beret Guy: But I have my handcoats and the spacelight is warm.

:[Beret Guy and Cueball continue on through woods; there are musical notes coming from the trees.]

:Beret Guy: Listen—the flappy planes are beeping in the stick towers.

:[Cueball pauses.]
:Cueball: Those are all the wrong words for those things.
:[Beret Guy replies from off panel.]
:Beret Guy: Maybe—but the things themselves are all right. So who cares?

:[Cueball continues walking, with sunlight and musical notes above.]

==References==
<references/>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2111: Opportunity Rover

2019-02-14T19:58:50Z

162.158.75.100: freedom of speech on a private website is a spook

The subject of this comic, the Opportunity Rover, is being officially declared dead today, the day the comic was released. I wonder how long this comic has been ready, waiting to eulogize the rover. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
: I'm not crying, you're crying! But seriously, I hope this one becomes a poster... one of my favorite comics in a good long while. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.46.46|172.69.46.46]] 20:25, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
:: Stop slicing those onions ! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.125|162.158.91.125]] 14:12, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
: Yes, more of a paean than "a discussion about ... " the Opportunity rover, and more, it justifies a yearning for the "opportunity" in general to share the knowledge with the world. Uplifting, for me. [[User:PGilm|PGilm]] ([[User talk:PGilm|talk]]) 20:59, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The fact that the rover ran for 15 years is already magical. He was just designed to last several months (I sincerely use this surname), and people at NASA was suspecting that it may just last days. Yet he worked so hard for us. When I saw the movie about him 10 years ago, I wad SO moved. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436595/ All of you should watch it now. I had no idea that I would edit a wiki page about him today.
[[User:Kazeita|Kazeita]] ([[User talk:Kazeita|talk]]) 23:51, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

On one hand, this feels like a subtle nod to xkcd itself. In a sense, a lot of xkcd is Randall's own journal of what he thinks of every so often, and he gets to share it with millions and millions of people.
On the other, "and here's a trench I dug with my wheel" makes me think that Opportunity was using time outside of its feed to slowly but surely dig out an actual 100-meter or so trench. Getting larger. And larger. Until one day, it will rival even the trenches of Earth. And on that day...'''Their''' conquest will have begun. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.52|172.68.78.52]] 03:33, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2018: Wall Art

2018-07-11T18:02:12Z

162.158.75.100:

Wohooo, XKCD#2018! XKCD is finally older than the current year. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.219|162.158.93.219]] 13:12, 11 July 2018 (UTC) Michael

:Nope, it will be true for XKCD#2019. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.22|141.101.98.22]] 13:19, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

:We can add a trivia: This is the only comic with a number the same as its release year. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.226|172.68.51.226]] 13:41, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

::Unless Randall gets reeeaaally slow with his comics. I was honestly expecting to see some sort of joke about 2018 here today. [[User:HisHighestMinion|HisHighestMinion]] ([[User talk:HisHighestMinion|talk]]) 13:54, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

:Yeah, I was hoping for something acknowledging the year/comic number [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.19|173.245.54.19]] 14:13, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

:I should have known I wouldn't be the first to point out some trivia for an XKCD comic... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.100|162.158.75.100]] 18:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1981: Rickrolling Anniversary

2018-04-16T19:36:47Z

162.158.75.100:

I wonder if Randall realizes that, if he had made this comic #1987 instead, it would coincide with the release year of Never Gonna Give You Up.
Speaking of which, who's excited for xkcd #2018 and the fact that such a thing will never happen again?
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.100|162.158.75.100]] 19:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

1920: Emoji Sports

2017-11-26T16:49:33Z

162.158.75.100: Some grammar fixes, and making the more odd commentary a bit more restrained.

{{comic
| number = 1920
| date = November 24, 2017
| title = Emoji Sports
| image = emoji_sports.png
| titletext = No horse has yet managed the elusive Quadruple Crown—winning the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes, and the Missouri Horse Hole.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Still needs more explanation and a less humorous explanation of each sport concept - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic, as the heading indicates, arbitrarily selects emoji and uses them to make up very bizarre sports. Although some of these might be completely normal, most of them take things to a completely absurd level.

The title text is a reference to the triple crown, which is an highly prestigious award given to a three-year-old thoroughbred horse who wins the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, the first three of the four listed events. The joke is that were Horse Hole a real sport, then one who won a major competition for it, the Missouri Horse Hole, in addition to the three main horse racing events, they would then win a “Quadruple Crown".
{| class="wikitable"
!scope="col" style="width: 100px;" |Emoji
!scope="col" style="width: 150px;" |Sport
!scope="col" |Description
|-
|🤽‍♂️🌋
|Lavaball
|Sets the sport of water polo around or inside an active volcano. If the water is simply replaced with lava, the players would asphyxiate from the toxic fumes long before they burned to death in the molten rock. If a typical pool of water is involved, the introduction of lava would cause rapid evaporation and the release of {{w|Chlorine#Use_as_a_weapon|chlorine gas}}, which is destructive to living tissue. In any case, this game is not a good time.
|-
|🤾‍♀️🤺
|Bladeball
|Using a fencing foil to hit a ball would not only be inefficient, but would easily lead to the destruction of the ball instead.
|-
|💃💃⚽
|Fancyball
|High-heeled soccer would be a problem for both kicking and running, and would lead to frequent injury.
|-
|🕳️🏇🏇🏇
|Horse hole
|Horses might not cooperate or be seriously injured when raced into a large hole. Not to be confused with horse golf, which is one way of describing polo. Both this segment and the title text may relate to Episode 354 of My Brother My Brother And Me, "Beanfreak", where a potential punishment for losing horses in a race is described as a trapdoor leading to a "pony pile" beneath the track. (Many of the podcast's episodes deal with horse racing and horse behavior, including some impassioned conversations on the performance of specific horses and the unregulated nature of the widely recognized Triple Crown achievement.)
|-
|🔪🏀⛏️
|Basketball Shredding
|Another sport which would be destructive to the equipment.
|-
|🥚🔭🕵️‍♀️
|Eggspotting
|This could be a combination of {{w|Egg_hunt|egg hunting}} and {{w|birdwatching}}. The emojis imply that said eggs would have to be found alone in nature, as if they were wild animals. This is unlikely, to say the least.
|-
|⛷️🐊
|Alligator Jumping
|An unusual combination of attributes, and to get the alligators to adapt to a cold environment might be a challenge. The emoji is actually a crocodile.
|-
|👩🎣🧜‍♂️
|Merfishing
|Unless humans volunteer to get in costume, this sport is unlikely to have any successes, due to the rarity or nonexistence of {{w|Mermaid|mermaids}}.
|-
|👨🏸🧚🏸👩
|Tinkerball
|Playing badminton with a fairy, named after [[wikipedia:Tinker Bell|Tinker Bell]]. Likely to injure the fairy.
|-
|🥌🦔🥌
|Hedgehog Curling
|Hedgehogs are not ideal projectiles for sports, as ''Alice in Wonderland'' has already demonstrated, and such an idea would likely be considered animal abuse on top of the impracticality.
|-
|🗜️🍔
|Burger Clamping
|Perhaps a challenge to fit a tall burger into a bite-sized height, though said clamp is more likely to pierce the burger than to flatten it.
|-
|👩‍🚀🏹🛰️
|Consequence archery
|Archery on a space station would lead to the potentially explosive decompression of the space station, and necessitate the evacuation of the astronauts aboard.
|-
|🦉➡️📬
|Owlstuffing
|This appears to consist of attempting to stuff owls into mailboxes, which would be doubly illegal, because it would be cruel to the owls and interfere with delivery of the mail. The mailbox is shown with the flag up, which normally indicates that there is mail in it, but it appears to be empty, perhaps so that the owl can be stuffed in it. Possibly a reference to owls carrying mail in the Harry Potter series.
|-
|🍴🕯️🍴
|Candle Eating
|An even more unhealthy form of {{w|competitive eating}}. Eating large amounts of candle wax can cause {{w|Bowel_obstruction|intestinal obstruction}}.
|-
|⛳💣🏌️‍♀️
|Consequence Golf
|Golfing with a bomb would likely significantly reduce the par on each hole, and there would be definite damage to the course unless the holes extinguished the bombs of skilled golfers. The balance and rolling of the balls would also be impeded by the fuses and caps, and there is a possibility of fires starting from a lit fuse making contact with the green.
|-
|👉🐍👈
|Snake Shaming
|Probably a play on snake charming. Also a possible reference to the biblical story where the snake is shamed for deceiving mankind by being doomed to crawl on its belly.
|-
|🔥🧗‍♀️🔥
|Hell Escape
|Trying to escape the {{w|lake of fire}} is the pastime of damned souls.
|-
|🎮🥑🎮
|Multiplayer Avocado
|Unless a game based on avocados is the subject, there is, to say the least, a hardware compatibility issue here. Very different from the adult version, multiplayer eggplant (🎮🍆🎮; see [[1870: Emoji Movie Reviews]]).
|}

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

:<big>New sports</big>
:created from random emoji

:[Man Playing Water Polo + Volcano]
:🤽‍♂️🌋 Lavaball

:[Woman Playing Handball + Person Fencing]
:🤾‍♀️🤺 Bladeball

:[Woman Dancing (2 emojis) + Soccer Ball]
:💃💃⚽ Fancyball

:[Hole + Horse Racing (3 emojis)]
:🕳️🏇🏇🏇 Horse hole

:[Kitchen Knife + Basketball + Pick]
:🔪🏀⛏️ Basketball Shredding

:[Egg + Telescope + Woman Detective]
:🥚🔭🕵️‍♀️ Eggspotting

:[Skier + Crocodile]
:⛷️🐊 Alligator Jumping

:[Woman + Fishing Pole + Merman]
:👩🎣🧜‍♂️ Merfishing

:[Man + Badminton + Fairy + Badminton + Woman]
:👨🏸🧚🏸👩 Tinkerball

:[Curling Stone + Hedgehog + Curling Stone]
:🥌🦔🥌 Hedgehog Curling

:[Clamp + Hamburger]
:🗜️🍔 Burger Clamping

:[Woman Astronaut + Bow and Arrow + Satellite]
:👩‍🚀🏹🛰️ Consequence archery

:[Owl + Right Arrow + Open Mailbox]
:🦉➡️📬 Owlstuffing

:[Fork and Knife + Candle + Fork and Knife]
:🍴🕯️🍴 Candle Eating

:[Flag in Hole + Bomb + Woman Golfing]
:⛳💣🏌️‍♀️ Consequence Golf

:[Pointing Right + Snake + Pointing Left]
:👉🐍👈 Snake Shaming

:[Fire + Woman Climbing + Fire]
:🔥🧗‍♀️🔥 Hell Escape

:[Video Game + Avocado + Video Game]
:🎮🥑🎮 Multiplayer Avocado

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

1881: Drone Training

2017-08-25T22:03:53Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1881
| date = August 25, 2017
| title = Drone Training
| image = drone_training.png
| titletext = The joke will be on him in a few weeks when animal control shows up and takes custody of his Roomba.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|A simple comic, anything missing?}}
In this comic, [[Black Hat]] enters a pet store run by [[White Hat]]. He wants to buy something to help him train his drone, which keeps flying into the wrong rooms. This is absurd as drones are not living creatures like dogs or cats, which can be trained to do tricks, or stay in the correct areas (inside his property). He also wants a shock collar for his {{w|Roomba}}, which would train it to stay inside or at least on his lawn.

{{w|Cat repeller}} are devices or substances for training cats or repelling them from furniture or other areas. The Wikipedia page lacks the spray but you easily can create it at home as shown here: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Friendly-but-Effective-Cat-Repellent/ Friendly (but Effective) Cat Repellent], Black Hat is probably wasting some money when he buys it in a shop.

Roomba is a branch of autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners and controlling it by electric shocks from a {{w|Shock collar|shock collar}}, normally used for dogs, is more than questionable. Those collars are legal in the US but they are banned in many European countries and others. A Roomba was previously mistaken for a dog in [[1558: Vet]].

Knowing Black Hat, he might be poking fun at either people's assumptions that modern robots are more advanced than they actually are, or possibly at White Hat's various inaccurate claims. It is also possible, however, that he just wants to terrify people with the idea of robot abuse/conditioning. There is also a chance that he genuinely believes he can force robots to obey him via inflicting suffering, and would prefer doing so to just using a remote control on the drone, or an ordinary vacuum rather than a Roomba.

The title text may mean one of three things: The endeavor will become a total flop when the Roomba probably gets rid of the collar and terrorizes the neighborhood. As a result dogcatchers from the {{w|Animal control service|animal control service}} will arrest this "wild animal". Or animal control services will confiscate the Roomba to save it from its abusive owner. Or, at least, White Hat also owns a Roomba and it will be taken into custody because it has not been trained with a shock collar.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat stands in front of a store counter facing White Hat who stands behind.]
:Black Hat: My drone keeps flying into the wrong rooms. Do you have anything to discourage it?
:White Hat: Sir, this is a pet store.

:Black Hat: Yeah, I was thinking one of those spray bottles for cats.
:White Hat: I don't think you can train a drone.

:[White Hat hands a spray bottle over the counter.]
:Black Hat: Eh, they say that about cats, too. Plus, these days they probably all come with deep learning or whatever. Drones, I mean. Maybe cats too.
:White Hat: Fine, here's a bottle.

:Black Hat: Do you sell a shock collar that can fit around a Roomba?
:White Hat: I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

1779: 2017

2017-08-24T12:19:11Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1779
| date = December 30, 2016
| title = 2017
| image = 2017.png
| titletext = Things are looking good for the eclipse--Nate Silver says Earth will almost definitely still have a moon in August.
}}

==Explanation==
In this [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]], [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] share some of their (or [[Randall|Randall's]]) thoughts about the ending 2016 and the new year 2017 (hence the title). 2016 was a year which many people eagerly awaited the end of because of its increased turmoil (terrorist attacks, controversial political events in numerous countries including the election of {{w|Donald Trump}} for president in the United States and Britain voting for {{w|Brexit}}) as well as the deaths of an unusually large number of well-known and beloved celebrities (several of these died in the first few days after Christmas).

Instead of simply condemning 2016 as a terrible year and expecting 2017 to be significantly better, Megan observes that much of what made 2016 bad is the effect that it will have upon future years rather than the actual events themselves (for instance, a divisive {{w|United States presidential election, 2016|U.S. presidential election}} has caused significant controversy in 2016, but President Donald Trump actually took office and began to affect the world as President in 2017). Megan specifically states that ''2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.'' As it is known that Randall is a {{w|Hillary Clinton}} supporter (as shown in the [[1756: I'm With Her]] comic), an additional reading of that line could be that we are headed into 2017 "without" a Hillary Clinton presidency. It can also refer to the many {{w|2016#Deaths|dead celebrities}} passing in 2016, (at least three famous musicians/actors so recent that they died after Christmas Eve), as we would be without all of them in 2017.

Cueball claims that they should still have hope for the future, but Megan states that people had claimed that many of the bad things that did happen in 2016, could not happen (for instance Trump and Brexit). And as these things did happen, she foresees even worse events occurring in 2017, that we did not even think would be possible.

However, Randall also offers a glimpse of hope in the last few panels when Cueball observes that, just as all of the bad things in 2016 were unexpected, good things in 2017 that are unexpected could also happen, which should make us less sure what good may come of 2017. As such, he argues that we should hold on to our hope even though things seem difficult right now.

As the conversation unfolds, Megan and Cueball encounter an uprooted tree and cross it like a balance beam. This is a visual metaphor; the dead tree represents the end of the old year, while the crossing represents the transition into the new year. This is similar to the magical toboggan from {{w|Calvin and Hobbes}} that serves as a metaphor for their conversations, mentioned in [[529: Sledding Discussion]] and [[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]].

In the last panel Cueball mentioned that 2017 will also have a cool {{w|solar eclipse|eclipse}}, going through the central parts of North America. This may also serve as a reminder that the Earth continues to spin on despite all of the human turmoil going on on its surface. This is literally true, as the eclipse Randall is excited about is caused by the orbits of three celestial bodies lining up just right (the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon).

Cueball then also notes that 2017 is a {{w|prime number}} and states that prime-numbered years (prime years) have always been good to him. He thus illustrates the positive attitude that people can choose to take in order to see all that which is good and to spread a little bit more cheerfulness, and Megan is ready to take this positive view, although she may not totally buy in to it. This could also be a pun referencing the saying "being in his prime years".

If Cueball represents Randall (born 1984) he has lived through the following prime years: 1987, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2011. If they have all been good years for Cueball it seems unlikely that he represents Randall, since Randall's wife was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011. Of course they were also married that year, but it would not seem likely that he would consider it a good year. First during the just ending year 2016 could she have been declared free of cancer, as it takes a five year follow up after end of treatment before the disease is declared defeated. Of course, we do not know how old Cueball really is, how much thought he/Randall actually put into his seemingly off-the-cuff remark, or whether those years were actually good for Cueball. But Randall does like math and would likely always know when a year is a prime number.

The title text is a reference to {{w|Nate Silver}} who is well-known (in the United States) as an election polling analyst on {{w|FiveThirtyEight}}. His model allowed for a higher chance that Donald Trump would win the presidency compared to other similar models — though the fact that he still favored a Clinton win may be contributing to getting humor from the idea that he may be "wrong" again, and the Moon could possibly vanish in 2017, making the year definitely worse than 2016. (Earth and Moon are so close in the space order of things, that any event affecting Moon orbit seriously will almost certainly end our civilization too.) This is accentuated by the qualifier "almost definitely", which is of humorously low confidence for presenting a fact as certain as the Moon not somehow disappearing within the next year.

In the background of the first few panels of this comic, we see a fallen down tree, but a sapling growing in it's place. This may be a subtle message by Randall that there is still hope, and that things will be alright in the end.

Randall previously mentioned his excitement for the {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|2017 eclipse}} exactly three years earlier in [[1302: Year in Review]], where Megan complains about not having seen an aurora during 2013, and she really hopes they don't cancel the 2017 eclipse. So this comic is the second time Randall has expressed concern that he will miss the eclipse. Leading up to and after the eclipse Randall released six more comics on the subject: [[1868: Eclipse Flights]], [[1876: Eclipse Searches]], [[1877: Eclipse Science]], [[1878: Earth Orbital Diagram]], [[1879: Eclipse Birds]], and [[1880: Eclipse Review]].

There have been three previous New Year's comics with only the year used as the title: [[998: 2012]] in 2012, [[1311: 2014]] in 2014 and [[1624: 2016]] in 2016. This is the first odd-numbered years (and thus of course the first prime year) using only the new year as the title.

It is also the first New Year comic (in general) that has such a depressive mood. This thus follows the trend of [[1756:_I'm_With_Her#Sad_comics|several sad comics]] that all seemed related to the election of Donald Trump.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan walking outdoors]
:Cueball: Can't wait for this stupid year to be over.

:[The two approach a fallen tree]
:Megan: I can. This year made the future scarier. So much of why 2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.

:[Megan has hopped up onto the tree trunk and begins to walk along it]
:Cueball: You gotta have hope, though.
:Megan: You say that, but you also said all this awful stuff couldn't happen, and it did. You're as clueless as the rest of us.

:[Cueball also walks along the tree trunk as Megan stops and turns to look at him]
:Cueball: Well, if we're wrong about which bad things can happen, it's got to make us at least a ''little'' less sure about which good things can't.

:[Closeup of Megan hopping down from the tree]
:Megan: I guess.

:[A distant shot of Megan and Cueball walking along again]
:Cueball: Plus, 2017 has a cool eclipse in it.
:Megan: Ooh, yeah!
:Cueball: And it's prime. Prime years have always been good for me.
:Megan: Sure, I'll take it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Nate Silver]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|2017]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017]]

1880: Eclipse Review

2017-08-23T12:55:03Z

162.158.75.100: lament suggests sadness

{{comic
| number = 1880
| date = August 23, 2017
| title = Eclipse Review
| image = eclipse_review.png
| titletext = I watched from a beautiful nature reserve in central Missouri, and it was--without exaggeration--the coolest thing I've ever seen.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft - Additions to this would be useful, alter this tag if you alter the explanation}}

This comic is the fifth consecutive comic with a {{w|solar eclipse}} as the topic. On {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|August 21, 2017}}, a total solar eclipse was visible within a band across the {{w|contiguous United States}} from west to east. The other comics are [[1876: Eclipse Searches]]. [[1877: Eclipse Science]], [[1878: Earth Orbital Diagram]] and [[1879: Eclipse Birds]]. The comic is another comparison graph, like [[1775: Things You Learn]] and [[1701: Speed and Danger]]. It contrasts how cool something ''sounds'' and how cool it actually ''is''. It has five points on it, Planetary Conjunction (many planets visible in night sky), Supermoon (when the moon is at its closest to Earth by far, making it appear ginormous in the sky), Lunar Eclipse (Earth's shadow falls on the moon, reverse solar eclipse), Partial Solar Eclipse (when the sun is only partly blocked) and Total Solar Eclipse (complete blockage of the sun by the moon). Total Solar Eclipse is both sounds like and is (according to randall) the coolest thing on the graph.

In the title text, Randall Munroe remarks that, without any exaggeration or hyperbole, the total solar eclipse was the coolest thing he has ever seen in his life.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Literally nothing here}}

[A scatterplot, with 5 labeled dots and two labeled axes. Below are the names of the labels, first for the axes and then for the dots.]

X-axis: How cool it sounds like it would be

Y-axis: How cool it is to see in person

[Bottom left]: Planetary conjunction

[Bottom middle]: Supermoon

[Low left-center]: Lunar eclipse

[Low-center middle]: Partial solar eclipse

[Upper right, with a dotted arrow above it pointing up]: '''Total solar eclipse'''
{{comic discussion}}

1875: Computers vs Humans

2017-08-11T15:53:08Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1875
| date = August 11, 2017
| title = Computers vs Humans
| image = computers_vs_humans.png
| titletext = It's hard to train deep learning algorithms when most of the positive feedback they get is sarcastic.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Early explanation. Keep on expanding, and keep this tag until the explanation is good enough.}}

Cueball's laptop smugly crows to its owner about how computers have proven its intellectual superiority over the squishy humans yet again. Cueball remains nonchalant in the face of this news, and assigns to his laptop an impossible task: learning to become nonchalant themselves. When the laptop announces how much effort it will put into not caring, Cueball points out the contradiction, and further rubs it in by coolly stating that he doesn't even have to try to act the way he acts.

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

{{comic discussion}}

1872: Backup Batteries

2017-08-04T17:39:44Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1872
| date = August 4, 2017
| title = Backup Batteries
| image = backup_batteries.png
| titletext = If it falls below 20% full, my bag turns red and I start to panic.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A backup battery is a source of energy that may be used to recharge an electronic device. Backup batteries for phones are typically similar in size, shape and energy capacity to a smartphone. Cueball gets stressed when at low battery because a low battery may run out at any moment, interrupting activities being done with the phone.

In an effort to prevent stress, Cueball decides to carry a backup battery. This way he can recharge his phone should its battery run low. Cueball realises that the backup battery is itself prone to depletion, and so carries a second. He then comes to the same realisation for the second backup battery, and indeed every subsequent battery he can carry. This leads to an unending series of backup batteries, hence his speech is cut off, becoming unending as well.

What Cueball never grasps is that his irrational need to hoard a supply of batteries tending to the infinite is the real cause of his stress. In reality, he only needs to consider the maximum amount of time that he spends between recharging his phone, and divide that by the average lifespan of a phone battery, and round up that figure to get the minimum number of batteries required to avoid a power outage (multiplied by 1.5 if the mere state of running low causes stress). If he charges up his phone and backup batteries every night, he would only need 2 to 3 backup batteries, tops.

The title text talks says that Cueball's backpack will turn red if it is below 20% of its energy capacity, which the same thing happens to the battery indicator on an iPhone when at low battery to warn the user. Cueball gets similarly stressed when that happens, perhaps requiring a backup backup-battery backpack.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is talking to White Hat. He is wearing a large backpack and holding a phone battery.]
:Cueball: I get stressed out when my phone battery is low, so I carry this backup battery.
:Cueball: But then I worry about the backup running low, so I carry this second backup.
:Cueball: Then I worry—

:[Caption below the frame:]
:My bag is 90% backup batteries.

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

{{comic discussion}}

1871: Bun Alert

2017-08-02T17:25:03Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1871
| date = August 2, 2017
| title = Bun Alert
| image = bun_alert.png
| titletext = Since buns range from crepuscular to nocturnal, it's recommended that you enable the scheduled "Do Not Disturb" mode on your phone to avoid being woken by alerts about Night Buns.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic seems to be a continuation of [[1682: Bun]]. Megan's question in the last panel and her reaction to the bun's small size implies that it is small enough to be a "king bun", as referenced in the previous Bun comic.

== Trivia ==
In [[1682: Bun]], it was Ponytail who was infatuated with "buns", while Megan was the incredulous one questioning the situation. In this comic, the roles are reversed. This is a strong indication that the characters represented by Ponytail and Megan in this comic are not the same characters from [[1682: Bun]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Beret Guy and Ponytail see a rabbit sitting in the grass; Beret Guy points to the bun]
:Beret Guy: Bun alert!
:Ponytail: Oh, yeah! Cute!
:Beret Guy: Gotta document this. I'll notify everyone, send out a push alert.
:Ponytail: ...to who?

:[Zoom in on Beret Guy and Ponytail; Beret Guy taps on his phone]
:Beret Guy: Everyone subscribed to the alert system.
:Ponytail: Alert system?
:Beret Guy: Yeah! We built it over the last few years. It's pretty small. Still looking for investors.
:Ponytail: But...''why'' are you alerting people about rabbits?

:[Zoom out; Beret Guy points at the bun]
:Beret Guy: I mean...look at them. They're like loaves of bread that hop.
:Ponytail: I see.
:Beret Guy: ''People need to know.''

:[Zoom on Beret Guy in a frameless panel]
:Beret Guy: They need to know:
:Beret Guy: '''''There are buns.'''''

:[Ponytail walks off, Megan comes running towards Beret Guy]
:Ponytail: Okay, uhh, I'm gonna go.
:Megan: ''I got the alert!'' Where's the bun? '''''Is it small?'''''
:Beret Guy: ''Extremely.''
:Megan: Oh my God.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics from 2017]]
[[Category:Comics from July]]
[[Category:Wednesday comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:1870: Emoji Movie Reviews

2017-07-31T20:37:07Z

162.158.75.100:

There are many ways that a movie can be bad. It could have uninteresting characters, a bad plot, stupid dialogue, poor filming etc. Very likely the Emoji movie suffers from all of these problems. I should add that Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars fame was widely hated by anyone over 8 years old but my 5-year-old loved him. Could the same thing be true for Emojis? [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 18:00, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
:So, similar to the minions movie series? 20:00, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.125|141.101.104.125]]
::The minions and the "prequel" (I don't know the english title) are not only watched and enjoyed by children - at least in Germany - but also by young adults. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.5|198.41.242.5]]
:::I can see how happy pills would be popular among the Germanic depressives. :P [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.100|162.158.75.100]] 20:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

1870: Emoji Movie Reviews

2017-07-31T20:30:46Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1870
| date = July 31, 2017
| title = Emoji Movie Reviews
| image = emoji_movie_reviews.png
| titletext = There's this idea that emoji are bad for communication because they replace ambiguity and nuance with a limited set of preselected emotions, but it doesn't really survive a collision with real-world usage of the thinking face or upside-down smiley.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Here, have a thing.}}

Many critics of {{w|The Emoji Movie}} point to superficial problems like the subject matter and the product placement. Here, it's argued that the real reason the film is bad is because the creators cashed in on a trend without doing any research into it.

Cueball offers an early defense of ''The Emoji Movie'' by comparing it to ''{{w|The Lego Movie}}'', which - despite effectively being an entire movie of product placement for {{w|Lego}} - received generally positive reviews.

"Meh" emoji (pending).

Megan mentions that one of the attempted jokes in the film is a room full of emojis that are unpopular. Bizarrely, the eggplant emoji (🍆) is featured among them. This is a clear sign that the creative team in charge of this movie had limited first-hand experience with SMS messaging; as any millennial will tell you, the 🍆 is a sly stand-in for a penis, due to its similar shape. [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/eggplant-emoji-%F0%9F%8D%86]

The line from the Wikipedia plot summary was a [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Emoji_Movie&oldid=793251548 direct quote from Wikipedia]. The exact phrasing appears to have been written by {{w|User:SubZeroSilver|SubZeroSilver}} on [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Emoji_Movie&diff=next&oldid=793087897 July 30th].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete|Could someone check if the emojis are all correct? Thanks in advance.}}
[Cueball and Megan are walking. Megan is checking her phone, presumably to check reviews about the Emoji Movie.]
:Megan: Reviews for the Emoji movie are... not good.
:Cueball: People are just snobs about emoji. I like them! Language is cool and weird.
[Megan stops; Cueball is now outside the frame.]
:Megan: It's apparently 80% product placement.
:Cueball (off-screen): Whatever. So was the Lego Movie, and I liked ''that''.
[Cueball looks at Megan's phone.]
:Megan: It features an emoji we all know and love - with a "Meh" emoji in the starring role!
:Cueball: Wait... a "Meh" emoji?
:Megan: I wondered about that, too; the others are all familiar. Do they mean 😒? Or 😐 or 😕?
:Cueball: That's a little confusing.
[Zooms in; Megan is now looking at her phone by herself.]
:Megan: There's a joke in the movie about the "emoji that no one uses that includes the eggplant emoji.
:Cueball: ...was that on purpose? Or did they not run the script by enough people?
[Megan and Cueball continue walking.]
:Megan: Here's a line from the Wikipedia plot summary:
:Megan: ''Gene and Hi-5 come to a piracy app where they meet the hacker emoji Jailbreak, who wants to reach Dropbox so that she can live in the cloud.''
:Cueball: Okay.
:Cueball: It's possible this movie is bad.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

1870: Emoji Movie Reviews

2017-07-31T17:46:54Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

1866: Russell's Teapot

2017-07-22T17:44:17Z

162.158.75.100:

{{comic
| number = 1866
| date = July 21, 2017
| title = Russell's Teapot
| image = russells_teapot.png
| titletext = Unfortunately, NASA regulations state that Bertrand Russell-related payloads can only be launched within launch vehicles which do not launch themselves.
}}
==Explanation==
{{w|Russell's teapot|Russell's Teapot}} is a philosophical argument that reflects on the difficulty of trying to prove a negative. It involves a hypothetical teapot orbiting a heavenly body, whose existence hasn't been proven, and states that it cannot be disproven (Somebody put it there secretly?). While an instrument could be theoretically engineered to pick out a teapot-sized object of any luminosity, the teapot would be very easy to confuse for other pieces of space debris, and the space to search is extremely massive; the task is thus akin to the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.

{{w|Bertrand Russell}} devised this analogy "to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others." As such, it is very often used in atheistic arguments.

<blockquote>"He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong." (Wikipedia)</blockquote>

[[Cueball]] is trying to settle the teapot argument by actually launching a teapot into space via a {{w|crowdfunding}} campaign.

"{{w|CubeSat}}-based design" refers to a type of miniaturized satellites that is made up of 10-centimeter cube units (here seemingly consisting of 3 units) and enables cost-effective means for getting a payload into orbit.

The title-text refers to {{w|Russell's paradox}}, also formulated by Bertrand Russell. Russell's paradox was a flaw found in {{w|naïve set theory}} where one could consider "the set of all sets that do not contain themselves" (a "set" is a mathematical term for a "group of things"). The paradox arises with whether this set, in turn, contains itself: if it does, then it cannot; if it doesn't, then it must. Similarly, like in the {{w|barber paradox}}, the vehicle which launches only vehicles which do not launch themselves is impossible: if the vehicle takes off, it must launch itself as well as the teapot, and thus can never be launched (without violating alleged NASA regulations, at least).

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is standing in front of a blueprint labeled "CubeSat-Based Design", containing a satellite with a teapot in the top.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I'm crowdfunding a project to launch a teapot into orbit around the sun to settle the Russell thing once and for all.

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

1865: Wifi vs Cellular

2017-07-19T16:43:24Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1865
| date = July 19, 2017
| title = Wifi vs Cellular
| image = wifi_vs_cellular.png
| titletext = According to the cable company reps who keep calling me, it's because I haven't upgraded to the XTREME GIGABAND PANAMAX FLAVOR-BLASTED PRO PACKAGE WITH HBO, which is only $5 more per month for the first 6 months and five billion dollars per month after that.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First version... Links to X-finity and blast? Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic [[Randall]] remarks on how recent changes in {{w|Wi-Fi}} and {{w|Cellular network|Cellular data}} reliability have impacted his behavior. Wi-Fi technology has had several advantages over cellular data transmission due to Wi-Fi antennas' more ubiquitous distribution and ability to focus on high data transmission rates instead of broad signal coverage. However, as Wi-Fi has become more popular it is increasingly common to encounter Wi-Fi networks using outdated hardware, poorly organized or overburdened networks, and competition for bandwidth with other Wi-Fi devices. Meanwhile due to continued commercial investment in upgrading and expanding cellular networks and the more frequent consumer replacement of cellular handsets, the reliability of cellular data has continued to increase.

Randall notes that prior to 2015 he found that he could improve his internet connection by connecting to a Wi-Fi network instead of using cellular data. After 2015 however, he finds that in many cases he is able to get a stronger cellular connection by disengaging his Wi-Fi connection and getting his data over a cellular connection.

Anything larger than a few kilobytes would previously require someone to switch off network data and connect to a wireless network. However, for a couple of years, cellular networks' data transmission rates have often become more reliable (albeit usually costlier for larger amount of data usage) while home Wi-Fi has remained fairly constant, meaning the cellular network is often the best choice to download a file.

In the title text Randall takes a moment to rail against the often misleading promotional rates offered by cable internet providers. Such providers often attempt to up-sell consumer on internet packages with additional features. Here Randall juxtaposes several descriptors that might feature in a cable ad with several that refer to other things entirely. X-treme Gigaband is a plausible internet package name, but might also be a reference to {{w|Comcast|Comcast's}} often derided "X-Finity" promotions. And while {{w|Panamax}} sounds like it may be a film term, it is actually a ship classification that denotes the maximum size ship that can safely pass through the {{w|Panama canal}}. Flavor-Blasted is a food term often used in hyperbolic television food ad, but also could be a reference to Comcast Cable's "Blast!" internet packages. Pricing mentioned in title text is exaggerated with only $5 more during first six months, but costing 5 billion after, which is a reference to how service providers would often advertise a lower temporary price, while if you read the fine print the plan is much more costly once the limited time offer runs out, and {{w|discounting}} is simply used for marketing purposes.

==Transcript==
:[A graph with two curves that cross each other. The two areas beneath the curve at the top, and down to either the X-axis or the other curve are shaded with horizontal gray lines. The Y-axis has no label, but represents reliability, the X-axis is a timeline, with labels indicating years beneath the axis, without any ticks. The two curves are labeled with text interrupting the curves, in the second case using two lines for the text. In the left shaded area there is a label inside and the right shaded area the label is beneath the curves with an arrow pointing to the area. All this text and the arrow is gray. Above the curves there is a caption also in gray font:]
:To get something to load on my phone, sometimes I have to...

:Label left area: ...Connect to WiFi
:Label right area: ...Turn off WiFi

:Label curve one: Home WiFi reliability
:Label curve two: Cellular data reliability

:Year labels: 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It seems weird from a networking point of view, but sometime in the last few years this flipped for me.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Timelines]]

1863: Screenshots

2017-07-14T23:04:18Z

162.158.75.100:

{{comic
| number = 1863
| date = July 14, 2017
| title = Screenshots
| image = screenshots.png
| titletext = For the final exam, you take a screenshot showing off all the work you've done in the class, and it has to survive being uploaded, thumbnailed, and re-screenshotted through a chain of social media sites.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Let's add a detailed bullet list explaining every point on the syllabus.}}

The comic shows a syllabus of an introductory course on {{w|Screenshot|screenshots}}. Screenshots have become a common way of spreading and sharing content on social media like Tumblr and Twitter, particularly excerpts of text such as seen in the cartoon. This in turn has developed into a common language with unwritten rules; the comic imagines a world where such rules have become codified into best practices, able to be taught in classes.

The image on the left shows an image of screenshots of text, along with what seems like annotations describing various ratios and dos and don'ts about making such screenshots. The right side shows the main points of the course, touching on topics that are relevant for making and publishing screenshots. Some of these guidelines are violated on a regular basis by people sharing screenshots on the internet, leading to impaired readability and the degradation of digital quality (see [[1683: Digital Data]]).

The punchline of the comic describes a high attendance in the course (presumably many people are interested in how to take high-quality screenshots), however the digital textbook only sold one copy, implying that the only attendee that bought the book was adept enough to distribute screenshots of the textbook content to the others, because of the information gathered from the class itself. In essence, the writer of the textbook has taught its students how to pirate his material, effectively putting himself out of a job.

Detailed explanation of the headings on the right:

{| class=wikitable
! Heading
! Explanation

|-
| Highlighting: What & How much?
| This refers to highlighting text of particular interest in screenshots, as depicted on the left.

|-
| Aspect ratios
| Again, depicted on the left. If a screenshot is too wide, it might be difficult to read, and/or it will not fit into thumbnails and social networking feeds. This leads to the screenshot being scaled down too much to be readable (see bottom left). An {{w|aspect ratio}} that is too tall would have similar effects, so in general it is better to stick to near-square aspect ratios (see bottom right of the left section).

|-
| Cropping: Pre- and Post-
| This refers to {{w|cropping}} the image, that is cutting away the irrelevant or unnecessary parts, leaving just the content one needs to communicate.

|-
| Whitespace
| This section presumably deals with how to handle large blocks that lack content (or {{w|White space (visual arts)|whitespace}}, though not necessarily white).

|-
| Screenshots vs Links
| For the most part it is recommended that one links to the original content, rather than publishing a screenshot of said content. In some situations it is advisable to opt for using screenshots, such as trying to catch attention on social media, or if the content in question has been removed from the original source, and one still wants to communicate the fact that it was published there.

|-
| Catching the right GIF frame
| {{w|GIFs}} are short looping animations on the internet. They often employ a low {{w|frame rate}}, so that one might notice a funny or interesting frame during playback. The naive approach is to press the 'Print Screen' button with careful timing, but in this manner it can be very challenging to capture the desired frame of any GIF that plays at a speed of greater than 5 frames per second. Presumably, the course introduces its students to special tools to get the job done, such as [https://ezgif.com/speed the EZgif website] or the [http://www.xtreme-lab.net/7gif/en/index.html downloadable 7GIF app].
|-
| Snapchat and trust
| {{w|Snapchat}} is a popular social networking application for mobile devices primarily used for sharing images and short videos. One of the main selling points is the transience of content posted. The idea is that as soon as one opens an image or video, a timer starts, and once it has expired the content is no longer accessible on the device. This has led to people sending sensitive content to their friends, thinking that they wouldn't be able to cause much harm, as the content is non-permanent. An obvious flaw in this model is the capability of modern mobile devices to take screenshots (usually available from shortcut keys), and thus permanently save the images to the phones memory. Saving embarrassing images of ones friends, that they themselves meant as a transient joke is a serious breach of trust, hence the heading.

|-
| Embarrassing background tabs
| A common error when publishing screenshots is not checking thoroughly enough, and leaving content visible, that might be embarrassing. One such example is {{w|browser tab}}, which might feature content that the creator of the screenshot does not want others to see, such as {{w|pornography}}. Since tabs are small and disconnected from the main content, it is easy to miss such occurrences, which lead to situations such as [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/10/lawmaker-mistakenly-hands-out-document-with-porn-references.html this one], where a politician handed out a document with background tabs to pornography websites.

|-
| Spellcheck's red underlines
| {{w|Spell checkers}} are designed to notify the writer of a document of spelling and grammatical mistakes in the text. This is usually done through the editor marking text it thinks is incorrect with an underline (usually red, but other colors may indicate different kinds of mistakes). Sometimes these mistakes are not relevant to the writer, such as when editing {{w|source code}} or using a spellchecker that is set to another language. Even if the corrections are relevant however, one would not want the ugly red underlines on a screenshot. This section presumably deals with this problem.

|-
| Security: Beware of URL tokens
| {{w|Query string|URL tokens}} are pieces of code embedded in the {{w|URL}} of a website. If implemented well, these help identify a particular document or search query, and do not carry any sensitive security information. Insecure web-apps however may encode authentication information (such as {{w|Session_ID|session IDs}}, or even worse: usernames and passwords) in the URL, leading to a massive security risk on the part of someone whose screen might be visible to others. Screenshots allow anyone to easily read off these parameters, and possibly successfully impersonate the creator of the screenshot on a website. This is especially hard to notice to less technically inclined users, who might not know that, say a session id (a seemingly random jumble of characters), might be used to impersonate them.

|-
| Redacting personal info
| Somewhat related to the previous point: Screenshots might include personal information, such as indications of institutions one might work for, e-mail addresses and alike, that one might not want to share with the world. This section presumably deals with ways of obscuring such information on screenshots.

|-
| Useful browser modes
| Using the {{w|Privacy mode|private browsing mode}} offered by most browsers helps with the previous point of keeping your personal information out of the screenshots because websites see you as logged out. Another helpful mode is the full screen browsing mode (usually F11) that will maximize the content to cover the whole screen, keeping the browser UI chrome out of the screenshots. This also helps with privacy, as it will keep the bookmarks on your browser toolbar from being visible, as well as your username if you're logged in Chrome, without having to crop the screenshots manually. Counterpointing with the final bullet on spotting fakes, the inspect element browser mode allows you to live edit the HTML source of the webpage, allowing you to create more convincing fakes if that is your goal.

|-
| Tradeoffs: PNG vs JPG
| {{w|Portable Network Graphics|PNG}} and {{w|JPG}} are file formats with different {{w|image compression|image compression algorithms}}. JPG is widely used for encoding photographs, as it compresses real-world images to a fraction of their normal size without losing much quality. On artificial images with lots of sharp changes in contrast (such as text) however, JPG produces visible {{w|compression artifacts}} due to its {{w|lossy compression}}. For these PNG is usually used, as it compresses large blocks of a single color, and repeating patterns efficiently, and due to it having a lossless option is able to encode text without artifacts, improving readability. PNG is usually superior for screenshots, as these are artificial images, but if the screenshot is of an actual photo (or a frame of a GIF or movie), JPG might yield lower file sizes at comparable quality. This tradeoff is presumably discussed under the heading.

|-
| Watermark ethics
| Many users and websites add {{w|watermarks}} to their original content (or even worse: their screenshots) to indicate where it came from. As depicted in [[1683: Digital Data]] this can lead to degradation of quality as watermarks are stacked on top of each other. It is generally considered okay to put a single unobtrusive watermark on ones own original work, anything other than that would be considered unethical.

|-
| Spotting fakes
| It is relatively easy to fake a screenshot in an image editing program such as {{w|GIMP}} or just editing the page source, making it seem like another organization or person is the original source of the content, possibly damaging their reputation. Some of these techniques are easily detectable by looking at the images {{w|metadata}} or correlating the contents of the screenshot with other sources.

|}

The title text once again refers to the continual re-screenshotting of data as seen in [[1683: Digital Data]], where the final examination consists of the students taking a screenshot good enough that it is still recognizable (and hopefully readable) after being re-compressed, re-screenshotted and re-uploaded to various social networking sites, deteriorating its quality. This is quite a difficult task, considering the student only has control over the first screenshot, and subsequent screenshots could degrade the quality to any level. Hopefully the professor is aware of this and plans to perform the test under controlled conditions, as well as grade on a curve.

Previously screenshots were explored by Randall in [[1373: Screenshot]] and [[1815: Flag]]. This comic is one of a small set of comics with the same or almost the same title as another comic (only plural form of word screenshot being difference).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:<big>Intro to Screenshots</big>

:[The left side of the panel shows three images. The largest image is a screenshot of text with the middle section highlighted and margins and top and bottom rows marked with red lines and arrows. The two smaller images below are cropped versions of the screenshot in the first image: the left image has an incorrect "squashed" aspect ratio and a red X on it, while the right image has a correct aspect ratio and a green check mark.]

:[The right side of the panel:]

::Syllabus
:*Highlighting: What & how much
:*Aspect ratios
:*Cropping: Pre- and post-
:*Whitespace
:*Screenshots vs links
:*Catching the right GIF frame
:*Snapchat and trust
:*Embarrassing backround tabs
:*Spellcheck's red outlines
:*Security: Beware URL tokens
:*Redacting personal info
:*Useful browser modes
:*Tradeoffs: PNG vs JPG
:*Watermark ethics
:*Spotting fakes

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My class on screenshots was a big hit, although for some reason I only ever sold one copy of the digital textbook.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics sharing name|Screenshot02]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

1863: Screenshots

2017-07-14T23:03:36Z

162.158.75.100:

{{comic
| number = 1863
| date = July 14, 2017
| title = Screenshots
| image = screenshots.png
| titletext = For the final exam, you take a screenshot showing off all the work you've done in the class, and it has to survive being uploaded, thumbnailed, and re-screenshotted through a chain of social media sites.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Let's add a detailed bullet list explaining every point on the syllabus.}}

The comic shows a syllabus of an introductory course on {{w|Screenshot|screenshots}}. Screenshots have become a common way of spreading and sharing content on social media like Tumblr and Twitter, particularly excerpts of text such as seen in the cartoon. This in turn has developed into a common language with unwritten rules; the comic imagines a world where such rules have become codified into best practices, able to be taught in classes.

The image on the left shows an image of screenshots of text, along with what seems like annotations describing various ratios and dos and don'ts about making such screenshots. The right side shows the main points of the course, touching on topics that are relevant for making and publishing screenshots. Some of these guidelines are violated on a regular basis by people sharing screenshots on the internet, leading to impaired readability and the degradation of digital quality (see [[1683: Digital Data]]).

The punchline of the comic describes a high attendance in the course (presumably many people are interested in how to take high-quality screenshots), however the digital textbook only sold one copy, implying that the only attendee that bought the book was adept enough to distribute screenshots of the textbook content to the others, because of the information gathered from the class itself. In essence, the writer of the textbook has taught its students how to pirate his material, effectively putting himself out of a job.

Detailed explanation of the headings on the right:

{| class=wikitable
! Heading
! Explanation

|-
| Highlighting: What & How much?
| This refers to highlighting text of particular interest in screenshots, as depicted on the left.

|-
| Aspect ratios
| Again, depicted on the left. If a screenshot is too wide, it might be difficult to read, and/or it will not fit into thumbnails and social networking feeds. This leads to the screenshot being scaled down too much to be readable (see bottom left). An {{w|aspect ratio}} that is too tall would have similar effects, so in general it is better to stick to near-square aspect ratios (see bottom right of the left section).

|-
| Cropping: Pre- and Post-
| This refers to {{w|cropping}} the image, that is cutting away the irrelevant or unnecessary parts, leaving just the content one needs to communicate.

|-
| Whitespace
| This section presumably deals with how to handle large blocks that lack content (or {{w|White space (visual arts)|whitespace}}, though not necessarily white).

|-
| Screenshots vs Links
| For the most part it is recommended that one links to the original content, rather than publishing a screenshot of said content. In some situations it is advisable to opt for using screenshots, such as trying to catch attention on social media, or if the content in question has been removed from the original source, and one still wants to communicate the fact that it was published there.

|-
| Catching the right GIF frame
| {{w|GIFs}} are short looping animations on the internet. They often employ a low {{w|frame rate}}, so that one might notice a funny or interesting frame during playback. The naive approach is to press the 'Print Screen' button with careful timing, but in this manner it can be very challenging to capture the desired frame of any GIF that plays at a speed of greater than 5 frames per second. Presumably, the course introduces its students to special tools to get the job done, such as [https://ezgif.com/speed the EZgif website] or the [http://www.xtreme-lab.net/7gif/en/index.html downloadable 7GIF app].

Pressing the screenshot button at the right time is still a challenge however, even with the low frame rate of GIFs.

|-
| Snapchat and trust
| {{w|Snapchat}} is a popular social networking application for mobile devices primarily used for sharing images and short videos. One of the main selling points is the transience of content posted. The idea is that as soon as one opens an image or video, a timer starts, and once it has expired the content is no longer accessible on the device. This has led to people sending sensitive content to their friends, thinking that they wouldn't be able to cause much harm, as the content is non-permanent. An obvious flaw in this model is the capability of modern mobile devices to take screenshots (usually available from shortcut keys), and thus permanently save the images to the phones memory. Saving embarrassing images of ones friends, that they themselves meant as a transient joke is a serious breach of trust, hence the heading.

|-
| Embarrassing background tabs
| A common error when publishing screenshots is not checking thoroughly enough, and leaving content visible, that might be embarrassing. One such example is {{w|browser tab}}, which might feature content that the creator of the screenshot does not want others to see, such as {{w|pornography}}. Since tabs are small and disconnected from the main content, it is easy to miss such occurrences, which lead to situations such as [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/10/lawmaker-mistakenly-hands-out-document-with-porn-references.html this one], where a politician handed out a document with background tabs to pornography websites.

|-
| Spellcheck's red underlines
| {{w|Spell checkers}} are designed to notify the writer of a document of spelling and grammatical mistakes in the text. This is usually done through the editor marking text it thinks is incorrect with an underline (usually red, but other colors may indicate different kinds of mistakes). Sometimes these mistakes are not relevant to the writer, such as when editing {{w|source code}} or using a spellchecker that is set to another language. Even if the corrections are relevant however, one would not want the ugly red underlines on a screenshot. This section presumably deals with this problem.

|-
| Security: Beware of URL tokens
| {{w|Query string|URL tokens}} are pieces of code embedded in the {{w|URL}} of a website. If implemented well, these help identify a particular document or search query, and do not carry any sensitive security information. Insecure web-apps however may encode authentication information (such as {{w|Session_ID|session IDs}}, or even worse: usernames and passwords) in the URL, leading to a massive security risk on the part of someone whose screen might be visible to others. Screenshots allow anyone to easily read off these parameters, and possibly successfully impersonate the creator of the screenshot on a website. This is especially hard to notice to less technically inclined users, who might not know that, say a session id (a seemingly random jumble of characters), might be used to impersonate them.

|-
| Redacting personal info
| Somewhat related to the previous point: Screenshots might include personal information, such as indications of institutions one might work for, e-mail addresses and alike, that one might not want to share with the world. This section presumably deals with ways of obscuring such information on screenshots.

|-
| Useful browser modes
| Using the {{w|Privacy mode|private browsing mode}} offered by most browsers helps with the previous point of keeping your personal information out of the screenshots because websites see you as logged out. Another helpful mode is the full screen browsing mode (usually F11) that will maximize the content to cover the whole screen, keeping the browser UI chrome out of the screenshots. This also helps with privacy, as it will keep the bookmarks on your browser toolbar from being visible, as well as your username if you're logged in Chrome, without having to crop the screenshots manually. Counterpointing with the final bullet on spotting fakes, the inspect element browser mode allows you to live edit the HTML source of the webpage, allowing you to create more convincing fakes if that is your goal.

|-
| Tradeoffs: PNG vs JPG
| {{w|Portable Network Graphics|PNG}} and {{w|JPG}} are file formats with different {{w|image compression|image compression algorithms}}. JPG is widely used for encoding photographs, as it compresses real-world images to a fraction of their normal size without losing much quality. On artificial images with lots of sharp changes in contrast (such as text) however, JPG produces visible {{w|compression artifacts}} due to its {{w|lossy compression}}. For these PNG is usually used, as it compresses large blocks of a single color, and repeating patterns efficiently, and due to it having a lossless option is able to encode text without artifacts, improving readability. PNG is usually superior for screenshots, as these are artificial images, but if the screenshot is of an actual photo (or a frame of a GIF or movie), JPG might yield lower file sizes at comparable quality. This tradeoff is presumably discussed under the heading.

|-
| Watermark ethics
| Many users and websites add {{w|watermarks}} to their original content (or even worse: their screenshots) to indicate where it came from. As depicted in [[1683: Digital Data]] this can lead to degradation of quality as watermarks are stacked on top of each other. It is generally considered okay to put a single unobtrusive watermark on ones own original work, anything other than that would be considered unethical.

|-
| Spotting fakes
| It is relatively easy to fake a screenshot in an image editing program such as {{w|GIMP}} or just editing the page source, making it seem like another organization or person is the original source of the content, possibly damaging their reputation. Some of these techniques are easily detectable by looking at the images {{w|metadata}} or correlating the contents of the screenshot with other sources.

|}

The title text once again refers to the continual re-screenshotting of data as seen in [[1683: Digital Data]], where the final examination consists of the students taking a screenshot good enough that it is still recognizable (and hopefully readable) after being re-compressed, re-screenshotted and re-uploaded to various social networking sites, deteriorating its quality. This is quite a difficult task, considering the student only has control over the first screenshot, and subsequent screenshots could degrade the quality to any level. Hopefully the professor is aware of this and plans to perform the test under controlled conditions, as well as grade on a curve.

Previously screenshots were explored by Randall in [[1373: Screenshot]] and [[1815: Flag]]. This comic is one of a small set of comics with the same or almost the same title as another comic (only plural form of word screenshot being difference).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:<big>Intro to Screenshots</big>

:[The left side of the panel shows three images. The largest image is a screenshot of text with the middle section highlighted and margins and top and bottom rows marked with red lines and arrows. The two smaller images below are cropped versions of the screenshot in the first image: the left image has an incorrect "squashed" aspect ratio and a red X on it, while the right image has a correct aspect ratio and a green check mark.]

:[The right side of the panel:]

::Syllabus
:*Highlighting: What & how much
:*Aspect ratios
:*Cropping: Pre- and post-
:*Whitespace
:*Screenshots vs links
:*Catching the right GIF frame
:*Snapchat and trust
:*Embarrassing backround tabs
:*Spellcheck's red outlines
:*Security: Beware URL tokens
:*Redacting personal info
:*Useful browser modes
:*Tradeoffs: PNG vs JPG
:*Watermark ethics
:*Spotting fakes

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My class on screenshots was a big hit, although for some reason I only ever sold one copy of the digital textbook.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics sharing name|Screenshot02]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2017-06-29T00:53:26Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1856
| date = June 28, 2017
| title = Existence Proof
| image = existence_proof.png
| titletext = Real analysis is way realer than I expected.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more work.}}

This seems to be a continuation of [[982: Set Theory]], where numbers were "executed" to prove a point. This time it goes even further, with [[Miss Lenhart]] (and students) taking up arms to destroy the function value, which they have proven to exist. In the last panel, some students off screen begin to wonder if they are in the right class, as normal math classes do not take up swords to fight abstract concepts{{Citation needed}}. Another student remarks that they are finally in the right math class, implying that this is the kind of thing they wanted from their math curriculum all along.

The phrase "''We ride''" is commonly used in rallying battle cries, particularly in fantasy or medieval dramas where characters are preparing to enter combat on horseback. Variations of the phrase are used several times in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'', for example.

The title text refers to {{w|Real Analysis}}, a branch of mathematics dealing with {{w|real number}}s and real-valued functions (as opposed to studies dealing with {{w|imaginary number}}s in the complex plane). As the speaker implies, Real Analysis is supposed to remain confined to the theoretical realm of mathematics; certainly nobody signing up for such a class would ever expect to be embroiled in a crusade against intangible constructs! The use of the neologism "realer" conveys that the situation has suddenly developed unusually high stakes, in a manner similar to the phrase "shit just got real". This nuance would be lost if the word "realer" were replaced with the technically correct phrasing of "more real".

==Transcript==

:[Miss Lenhart stands in front of a whiteboard and points at calculations written on it.]
:Miss Lenhart: There exists some number x such that f(x)=G(f(0))=1.

:[Miss Lenhart moves her arm in a frameless panel.]
:Miss Lenhart: Oh yes.
:Miss Lenhart: Somewhere out there, it exists.

:[Zoom-in on Miss Lenhart raising a fist.]
:Miss Lenhart: And we must find it... and ''destroy'' it.

:[Miss Lenhart raises a sword.]
:Miss Lenhart: Grab your swords, students! We ride!
:Student #1 (off-screen): I think I'm in the wrong math class?
:Student #2 (off-screen): I'm finally in the right one.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Math]]

1855: Telephoto

2017-06-28T09:36:54Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1855
| date = June 26, 2017
| title = Telephoto
| image = telephoto.png
| titletext = I was banned from the airliners.net photography forum by concerned moderators after the end of my lens started brushing against planes as they flew by.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Telephoto lens}}es are special {{w|camera lens|lenses for cameras}} that have a longer {{w|focal length}} than standard lenses, which allows the photographer to zoom in on an object. Alternatively one could add "{{w|teleconverter|converters}}" and "{{w|extension tube|extenders}}" to an existing lens to get a greater focal length for the cost of reduced brightness. The joke is that [[Cueball]] did not want to spend the money on buying a new telephoto lens or real converters, and instead achieved the same effect by moving his cheap camera (a standard {{w|webcam}}, in this case) close enough to the subject to obviate the need for zoom.

There are many problems with this. First, the end result is completely impractical to carry around; as shown in the comic, Cueball has to set up two tripods just to support the weight of his hulking behemoth of a camera. Second, if you're an animal photographer like Cueball, you need to be able to see the animal as close up as possible in order to get a good picture; a lens with lots of magnification power accomplishes just that without alerting the animal to the photographer's presence, but Cueball's camera would surely scare off any birds he tried to photograph (except in fanciful proof-of-concept diagrams like this comic).

Perhaps most damning of all, though, is the fact that Cueball's idea involves installing a webcam at the far end to be able to photograph anything. Webcams are not designed to capture high-resolution images, so the resulting image will be of considerably lower quality compared to professional photographers' works, although it could be better than a standard camera setup taking account of the huge achievable zoom levels. But more importantly, the presence of the webcam renders the functionality of the extenders (and the base camera itself!) completely redundant, cementing this idea as a total waste of money and effort. The same could be achieved by mounting the webcam on a long stick; an extraordinary long {{w|Selfie stick|selfie stick}} will achieve nearly the same effect, for considerably less cost and set-up than Cueball's behemoth.

The title text continues this by saying he was banned from the {{w|Airliners.net}} [http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=7 photography forum] because his new modified lens was so long that it started brushing against planes as they flew by. If Cueball's gargantuan lens is being set up on or near runways and potentially damaging planes in-flight, then being banned from an online forum should be the least of his worries.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands behind a huge telephoto lens which rests on two tripods, one at the left in front of Cueball, and an other larger one in the middle. The lens is more than five times longer than Cueball is high. In front of the lens is a tree with a bird on top close to the lens. The bird is labeled "Subject". Inside the telephoto lens at the location of the objective lens a small device is shown and labeled "Webcam". From that device a small cable runs through the entire telephoto lens to the eyepiece, where an other device labeled "Camera" is shown.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Telephoto tip: If you add enough converters and extenders, you don't actually need a fancy lens.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2017-06-02T04:54:51Z

162.158.75.100: /* Explanation */

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

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

Similar in spirit to [[1138: Heatmap]], this comic pokes fun at many maps that attempt to use data to discern unique characteristics about various sub-regions, in this case {{w|U.S. state|American states}}. This map may have been inspired by [https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/status/869624196921303040 this map] posted on Twitter by Google Trends the day before the comic was posted.

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

The joke is that none of these states actually say these words, and Randall has just done exactly what he says he can do (make fun of Florida by putting whatever he wants.) He also has not obtained the data from anywhere, just 'Something Something'.

The comic continues to make fun of Florida in the title text by saying that Florida searches for ''sex porn'' instead of ''porn'', when porn is already about sex.

{{w|Florida}} is often the butt of many jokes, including the {{w|Florida Man}} meme and many mocking jibes regarding its {{w|2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida|historically-messy electoral history}}. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyInFlorida See TV Tropes for examples of the "Only in Florida" phenomenon.]

Randall previously used a map of the United States as the basis for a gag in [[1767: US State Names]].

==Transcript==

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

'''Most-Used Word in Each State'''

'''Based on Something Something Search Data'''

You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half the time you're just amplifying random noise. Because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normalization lets you make fun of {{w|Florida}}.

{{comic discussion}}

1827: Survivorship Bias

2017-04-21T05:30:25Z

162.158.75.100:

{{comic
| number = 1827
| date = April 21, 2017
| title = Survivorship Bias
| image = survivorship_bias.png
| titletext = They say you can't argue with results, but what kind of defeatest attitude is that? If you stick with it, you can argue with ANYTHING.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Still incomplete.}}

This comic deals with {{w|survivorship bias}}. Survivorship bias, or survival bias, is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. The survivors may be actual people, as in a medical study, or could be companies or research subjects or applicants for a job, or anything that must make it past some selection process to be considered further.

In this comic [[Hairy]] is giving a talk encouraging people to "never stop buying {{w|lottery}} tickets". This is an unwise investment plan for many reasons. To begin with, the chances of winning the lottery are mathematically very low. Every cash-prize lottery is designed in such a way as to rake in maximum profits from ticket sales while paying out only a relatively small dividend to a select few winners. Additionally, the advertised jackpot payout is often grossly inflated from what the winner will actually receive; most lotteries pressure winners into accepting around 25% of the listed prize, as the alternative is to receive the full prize over annual installments spanning over an unreasonably long period (usually over a decade). All in all, lotteries are very corrupt and will attempt to cheat you out of your cash at every turn.

Survivorship bias applies in this situation since successful people are much more likely to have the money to conduct inspirational speeches{{citation needed}}. [[Randall]] says below that people should be informed about survivorship bias before hearing inspirational talks from successful people.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Please do not delete this tag until you have confirmed that this section is complete.}}

[Hairy is standing on a stage with five bags of money around him.]

Hairy: Never stop buying lottery tickets, no matter what anyone tells you.

Hairy: I failed again and again, but I never gave up. I took extra jobs and poured the money into tickets.

Hairy: And here I am, proof that if you put in the time, it pays off!

Every inspirational speech by someone successful should have to start with a disclaimer about survivorship bias.

{{comic discussion}}