explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2436: Circles

2021-03-13T15:11:53Z

162.158.75.40: a rant

AS for the overlapping edits, it is because this just showed up in my RSS reader. I was surprised to see that there wasn't anything written yet. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.92|172.68.206.92]] 18:56, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
*If Randall was willing to realign the Audi logo, I think he could have stretched the model to accommodate Disney at the 3-ring slot! [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] ([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]]) 18:58, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
*Audi's logo has the four circles in a straight line, not staggered (</pedant>) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.58|108.162.237.58]] 19:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
**The same is true for MasterCard - the two circles are not staggered, but "in a straight line" (horizontal, that is) [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 20:15, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
ER are shared by both halves of the MC logo. Not AR. Anyone have another explanation?
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.41|172.68.132.41]]
* I was thinking about this too! Maybe Randall made a mistake, or is it something unexplained? We'll have to wait for an explanation.
::(Why are we (y'all) bullet-indenting?) Though the circles of the "(MAST(ER)CARD)" might well co-share the "ER", assuming that's correct, here the set {M A S T E R} and the set {C A R D} have clearly been put through an (unordered) set-union to highlight the {A R} that are not ''solely'' members of either original set. Don't know why that, in particular. Maybe it just worked better, and mixed things up better than the "(MAST(ER)CARD)" interpretation which doesn't really parody anything in the process... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.97|162.158.158.97]] 20:53, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
::Ok, just checked, and the word(s) "MASTERCARD" do(es) not appear on Mastercard logos any more, ''anyway'', having vanished/been relocated below the circles in various stages of cosmetic rebranding between 2006 and 2016. So "(ER)" enclosure wouldn't be strictly true for a number of years. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.97|162.158.158.97]] 21:00, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
My bad, I saw wrong. I thought it was between all the logos.[[User:Hiihaveanaccount|Hiihaveanaccount]] ([[User talk:Hiihaveanaccount|talk]]) 20:26, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh no Randall, please don't turn me into an oversimplified logo! Noooooooo!

Well, the AR completes both the MSTE and the CD (ie, MasteR CarD)... as I expect one of the previous commenters was getting at. Perhaps it is a riff on picture in as much as AR completes MASTERCARD just as MASTERCARD's circles Complete Audi's circles... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.41|162.158.75.41]] 05:03, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

This bugs me more than any other xkcd comic, I could see the mastercard circles being tilted and still in a straight line, but then the Audi logo should be the same: straight line, but they line up to form the actual Olympic ring configuration giving preference to that logo... then there's the color, it would make me happy if the colors lined up with the actual Mastercard colors but they don't... so I don't know why I'm complaining here, probably because Randall doesn't have an actual comment system, so, sorry.... carry on with your day! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.40|162.158.75.40]] 15:11, 13 March 2021 (UTC) Sam

2425: mRNA Vaccine

2021-02-16T08:37:03Z

162.158.75.40:

{{comic
| number = 2425
| date = February 15, 2021
| title = mRNA Vaccine
| image = mrna_vaccine.png
| titletext = To ensure lasting immunity, doctors recommend destroying a second Death Star some time after the first.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a THERMAL EXHAUST PORT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. This page should discuss why Cueball is (properly) portrayed masked in the final real-world encounter, despite his ability to mount an effective immune response to the virus. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another analogy to how {{w|mRNA vaccines}} work, by creating an inactive analog of the virus to prime the immune system to be prepared to stave off the real thing. This is done in response to Cueball's question to the person vaccinating him, "Why would my body attack something it made itself?", using elements of the film ''{{w|Star Wars (film)|Star Wars: Episode IV}}'' as a metaphor.

The analogy starts in the second panel, where the Rebel Alliance has retrieved the {{w|Death Star}} plans, conveyed by {{w|Princess Leia}} to General [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jan_Dodonna Jan Dononna] (in ''Star Wars'', via R2-D2 and some adventures, but shown as a simple handoff here). The Death Star is a space station the size of a small moon that has the power to destroy planets. However, in this panel, the "Death Star plans" are used to build a Death Star, in contrast to the film, where the plans are used to find a weakness in the enemy Death Star and destroy it. The ensuing panels indicate that people are sent to build the Death Star according to the plans that Princess Leia provided. In the analogy, the mRNA in the vaccine corresponds to the plans for the Death Star, the spike proteins that the mRNA code for correspond to the benign Death Star itself, and the cellular processes that build spike proteins correspond to the builders of the benign Death Star.

After Leia's Death Star has been built, it is positioned near a planet/moon. This Death Star is ''benign'': it only ''looks'' dangerous and isn't about to actually hurt anyone, as Leia had it built essentially for target practice. The Rebels mobilize to destroy this benign Death Star because it looks like an enemy battle station. However, the Death Star operators are confused, because Leia (a member of the Rebels) had ordered its construction. The Rebels initially attack the surface of the benign Death Star, without much effect; Leia orders the factories to continue developing ships and torpedoes as they run out, presumably putting an extra workload on the factory workers. In the analogy, the Rebels correspond to the immune system's {{w|B cells}} and {{w|T cells}}, which mobilize to attack the spike proteins (the benign Death Star) made as a result of the vaccine, but are often ineffective at first. The body keeps producing these immune cells, trying many variants (many ways of attacking the benign Death Star) in an attempt to find one that works well against the spike proteins. This results in Cueball experiencing {{w|side effects}} from the vaccine, including soreness and tiredness, and he lies down and rests.

After much effort on the Rebels' part, they find a weakness in the benign Death Star, a "thermal exhaust port" vulnerable to "proton torpedoes" that can destroy the Death Star. Firing a proton torpedo down the exhaust port destroys a Death Star very rapidly, compared to the initial, ineffective frontal assault on the surface. After this benign Death Star is destroyed, Princess Leia allows the fleet to stand down. In the analogy, the immune system (the Rebel Alliance) figures out a way to attach to the spike proteins (attack the benign Death Star) made by the mRNA vaccine; the immune system's {{w|antibodies}} (Rebel planners) now "know" how to recognize and destroy things that have these spike proteins -- including COVID-19 viruses (real, dangerous Death Stars).

Later on, the vaccinated Cueball approaches White Hat, who is coughing and presumably has COVID-19. Metaphorically, the rebels are attacked by a truly threatening Death Star, this time led by the enemy, {{w|Darth Vader}}, who gives a quote from ''Star Wars'' (although this quote is actually spoken by the Emperor in ''Return of the Jedi''). By now, though, the Rebel Fleet already knows the weakness of a Death Star, the thermal exhaust port, and quickly destroys Vader's Death Star. In the analogy, Cueball's immune system (the Rebel Alliance) is able to destroy dangerous COVID-19 viruses (real, threatening Death Stars) because it knows about the virus's spike proteins (the thermal exhaust port). This is represented by Cueball not experiencing any suffering from COVID-19 (Vader's Death Star getting blown up immediately). Cueball, confident of his immunity, is likely wearing a mask to encourage others to wear masks -- herd immunity has not yet been reached at this time and public mask wearing by all is still recommended.

The title text references the fact that the two COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the United States as of the date of publication (the {{w|Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine|Pfizer-BioNTech one}} and the {{w|Moderna COVID-19 vaccine|Moderna one}}) require [[2422: Vaccine Ordering|two doses of vaccine]] to be fully effective, as do many others in use worldwide (AstraZeneca, Gameleya Institute, Sinovac, etc.). The second vaccine strengthens the body's immune response to the spike proteins and causes it to "remember", via antibodies, how to attack those proteins for a long time -- hopefully years or even decades. By analogy, the Rebels destroy two Death Stars, a reference to the second Death Star destroyed in ''Return of the Jedi''. Incidentally, that second Death Star was destroyed while it was incomplete, much like the Death Star here was destroyed before it could destroy Cueball; however, in the film, the Emperor had deliberately left it with an incomplete outer structure to lure the Rebellion into attacking it, only for the Rebels to find that its superlaser was fully operational.

Vaccination was also explained, xkcd-style, in [[2406: Viral Vector Immunity]]. References to the ''{{w|Star Wars}}'' franchise are a [[:Category:Star Wars|recurring theme]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball seated in a doctor's office getting a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Both he and the doctor are wearing masks; the doctor is also wearing a scrub cap.]
:Doctor: The vaccine contains mRNA instructions for making the virus spike protein.
:Cueball: Weird, so the vaccine is just blueprints?
:Doctor: Yup! Your body reads the mRNA, makes the proteins, and then has an immune reaction to them.
:Cueball: Why would my body attack something it made itself?
:Doctor: Well...

:[Princess Leia and General Dodonna in frame.]
:Leia: Here are the Death Star plans.
:Dodonna: Thank you, Princess.

:[Dodonna, Ponytail, and White Hat in frame.]
:Dodonna: These blueprints are from Princess Leia.
:Ponytail: Ugh, she's always giving us projects.

:[Ponytail and Cueball in frame.]
:Ponytail: Here, take these blueprints to your construction crew.
:Cueball: Affirmative. What is it?
:Ponytail: No idea. Something the Princess wants.
:Cueball: Copy that.

:Panel heading: Soon...
:[A view from outside of the Death Star.]
:Voice from Death Star: Hi, Commander? Construction crew B here.

:[A view from inside the Death Star, with a planet visible through two adjacent windows. Cueball is standing at some kind of control/communications panel.]
:Cueball: We finished building the Princess's big metal orb thing.

:[A view from outside the Death Star again, with the curve of the planet in the foreground.]
:Voice from Death Star: Do you know if she wants us to park it somewhere, or—
:Voices from the planet: '''''AAAAAA!!!'''''

:[A view from the planet's surface with the Death Star in the sky. 3 Cueballs, a Megan-like character, and Ponytail are on the planet's surface.]
:Voice from Death Star: ...Is everything ok?
:Cueball 1: '''''AAAAAAA!'''''
:Cueball 2: ''Imperial battle station!!!''
:Ponytail & Cueball 3: ''AAAAAAAAAA''
:Offscreen voice: ''Red Alert Red Alert''

:[Another view from the planet's surface. There is some type of military encampment surrounded by an open field, with trees and mountains in the background. People are running around on the field, which also contains several currently grounded craft and several flying craft streaming toward the Death Star.]
:Death Star voice: Hello?
:Generic field voices: ''Get the fighters in the air!''
:''Red Alert''
:''Blow it up! Blow it up!''
:''AAAAA''
:Generic tree voices: '''''AAAAAaa'''''
:Generic spacecraft voices: ''Kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it''

:[A zoomed-in view of the outside of the Death Star, which is accumulating light damage. Numerous spacecraft are shooting at it; various explosions occur on the Death Star's surface and in space nearby.]
:Death Star voice: Hello?
:Generic spacecraft voices: ''Shoot it! Shoot it! Shoot it!''
:That armor's too strong! We're not getting through!
:''Keep firing!''

:[A view from inside the Death Star again with Cueball at the control panel and the planet in the background windows; various projectiles and explosions can be seen through the window.]
:Cueball: Can everybody please just chill? We don't even have the laser thing wired up. We—
:'''''BOOM'''''
:''Hey!!'' I ''said'', we...

:[Ponytail enters from the left, and points to her left. Princess Leia points at her.]
:Ponytail: We can't get through! We're running out of proton torpedoes!
:Leia: Send every crew to build more torpedoes!
:Ponytail: There aren't enough ships to—
:Leia: ''Build more ships!!''

:[Ponytail is standing still and Princess Leia is walking to the right with has her fists raised.]
:Ponytail: That thing is just sitting there. Are you sure we—
:Leia: ''Keep building ships! Build ships forever! '''Destroy the orb!'''''

:[A view of the Death Star in space and the curvature of the planet off to the side. An enormous torrent of (barely visible) ships is seen streaming from the planet's surface to the Death Star. The damage to the Death Star is slightly worse.]
:Generic ship voices: '''''aaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaa'''''
:Death Star voice: What is ''wrong'' with you people?

:[Back in the real world, Cueball is standing with arms hunched and a cartoon helix above his head. Megan stands next to him.]
:Cueball: Definitely feeling a little sore.
:Megan: Yeah, they said you might have some side effects.
:Megan: You lie down—I'll get you some hot tea and a blanket.

:[An outside view of the damaged Death Star with ships swarming it.]
:Generic voices: ''Die die die die! Die!''

:[An inside view; Cueball appears injured, and the control panel is damaged with a fire on the ground nearby.]
:Cueball: I hate you all so much.

:[The outside of the Death Star again.]
:Ship 1: What's that?!
:Ship 2: Looks like a thermal exhaust port.
:Ship 3: I'm going in!

:[The outside of the Death Star.]
:''pew pew pew pew pew pew''

:[Beat panel.]

:[The Death Star explodes.]

:[A disheveled Dodonna, Princess Leia, and Ponytail in frame.]

:[The same frame.]
:Leia: Good work.

:[In the real world, Cueball sits on top of a bed with a blanket draped over his lap. Megan stands next to the bed.]
:Cueball: I'm feeling better today.
:Megan: That's great!

:Panel heading: A few months later...
:[Cueball and White Hat walking past each other. Cueball is wearing a face mask; White Hat isn't but coughs into his elbow.]
:White Hat: ''Cough cough''

:[The real Death Star drifts toward the planet.]
:Death Star voice: We have reached the rebel system, Lord Vader.

:[View from inside the real Death Star.]
:Vader: Now they shall witness the firepower of this fully armed and oper—

:[Leia, Ponytail, and Cueball in frame.]
:Leia: '''''Thermal exhaust port!!'''''
:Ponytail: ''Aaa''
:Cueball: ''Aaa''

:[An equally large torrent of ships stream from the planet to the real Death Star.]
:Death Star voice: What.
:Various ships: '''''aA AAAAAAA aaa aAAAAAAA aaa'''''
:'''''AAAAAA aaa aAAAAA'''''

:[The Death Star explodes, leaving debris trailing away.]

:[In the real world, White Hat and Cueball continue to walk past each other.]
:Cueball: ♫ ♫

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring face masks]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2421: Tower of Babel

2021-02-06T06:12:07Z

162.158.75.40: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 2421
| date = February 5, 2021
| title = Tower of Babel
| image = tower_of_babel.png
| titletext = Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COLORLESS GREEN IDEA. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The story of the {{w|Tower of Babel}} is the Biblical explanation for the existence of different languages in the world. In the story, humans endeavor to build a tower reaching heaven. Their arrogance angers God and prompts him to sabotage the project. He does this by "confounding their speech" (commonly interpreted as giving everyone their own language), inhibiting their ability to work together.

In this retelling, however, the tower is actually finished. God is happy to receive the human visitors, and offers them a reward.

The party that ascends to the top of the tower consists of Cueball, Megan and a third figure who might be linguist {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}}, previously seen in [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]]. When Gretchen expresses her love of words, God offers to create a panoply of languages. Megan immediately sees the problems with this, but Gretchen is enthusiastic. Instead of a punishment by God, linguistic diversity is presented as a well-intended challenge.

{{w|Phonology}}, a part of linguistics, is the study of the sound system used in a language or dialect, or of the systems that languages use to organize sounds. {{w|b:Conlang/Advanced/Grammar/Alignment|Morphosyntactic alignment}} is the grammatical relationship between the noun arguments to a verb — for example, between the two arguments (in English, the subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument of intransitive verbs like ''the cat ran away''.

The title text presents two meaningless English-language phrases that illustrate the language's ability to convey confusing or paradoxical information. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping is not generally done furiously. That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}.

"More people have been to Russia than I have" is a well-known example of {{w|comparative illusion}}. It sounds like it means something but, upon actual analysis, does not, although it could be interpreted as there being more people to visit Russia than the speaker owns, or has in their household.

==Trivia==
In [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]], sentences spoken by Gretchen McCulloch do not have periods at their ends, a fact which she mentioned on Twitter. However, in this comic, she uses periods, so her previous periodlessness might be a coincidence and not a trait of her character on xkcd.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are standing at the base of the Tower of Babel.]
:Cueball: The Tower of Babel is complete!
:Megan: Let's go meet God!

[Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are now standing at the top of the Tower of Babel. God is represented by an off-panel voice coming from the top of the panel.]
:Cueball: Hi God!
:God: Wow, nice tower!
:God: You did a great job! I'm so proud!
:Megan: Thanks!

:God: I'm going to give you a reward.
:God: What do you like about the world?
:Gretchen McCulloch: Hmm. Words are really cool
:Megan: No, wait-

:God: Great! I'm going to give you lots of languages to study, each with its own phonology, word ordering, morphosyntactic alignment...
:Gretchen McCulloch: YESSSSSS!
:Megan: We should not have brought a linguist.
{{comic discussion}}

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

2421: Tower of Babel

2021-02-06T06:10:33Z

162.158.75.40: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 2421
| date = February 5, 2021
| title = Tower of Babel
| image = tower_of_babel.png
| titletext = Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COLORLESS GREEN IDEA. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The story of the {{w|Tower of Babel}} is the Biblical explanation for the existence of different languages in the world. In the story, humans endeavor to build a tower reaching heaven. Their arrogance angers God and prompts him to sabotage the project. He does this by "confounding their speech" (commonly interpreted as giving everyone their own language), inhibiting their ability to work together.

In this retelling, however, the tower is actually finished. God is happy to receive the human visitors, and offers them a reward.

The party that ascends to the top of the tower consists of Cueball, Megan and a third figure who might be linguist {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}}, previously seen in [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]]. When Gretchen expresses her love of words, God offers to create a panoply of languages. Megan immediately sees the problems with this, but Gretchen is enthusiastic. Instead of a punishment by God, linguistic diversity is presented as a well-intended challenge.

{{w|Phonology}}, a part of linguistics, is the study of the sound system used in a language or dialect, or of the systems that languages use to organize sounds. {{w|b:Conlang/Advanced/Grammar/Alignment|Morphosyntactic alignment}} is the grammatical relationship between the noun arguments to a verb — for example, between the two arguments (in English, the subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument of intransitive verbs like ''the cat ran away''.

The title text presents two meaningless English-language phrases that illustrate the language's ability to convey confusing or paradoxical information. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping is not generally done furiously. That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}.

"More people have been to Russia than I have" is a well-known example of {{w|comparative illusion}}. It sounds like it means something but, upon actual analysis, does not, although it could be interpreted as there being more people to visit Russia than the speaker owns, or has in their household.

==Trivia==
In [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]], sentences spoken by Gretchen McCulloch do not have periods at their ends, a fact which she mentioned on Twitter. However, in this comic, she uses periods, so her previous periodlessness might be a coincidence and not a trait of her character on xkcd.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are standing at the base of the Tower of Babel)
:Cueball: The Tower of Babel is complete!
:Megan: Let's go meet God!

:(Cueball, Gretchen McCulloch and Megan are now standing at the top of the Tower of Babel)
:Cueball: Hi God!
:God: Wow, nice tower!
:God: You did a great job! I'm so proud!
:Megan: Thanks!

:God: I'm going to give you a reward.
:God: What do you like about the world?
:Gretchen McCulloch: Hmm. Words are really cool
:Megan: No, wait-

:God: Great! I'm going to give you lots of languages to study, each with its own phonology, word ordering, morphosyntactic alignment...
:Gretchen McCulloch: YESSSSSS!
:Megan: We should not have brought a linguist.
{{comic discussion}}

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

2172: Lunar Cycles

2019-07-07T13:13:07Z

162.158.75.40:

{{comic
| number = 2172
| date = July 5, 2019
| title = Lunar Cycles
| image = lunar_cycles.png
| titletext = The Antikythera mechanism had a whole set of gears specifically to track the cyclic popularity of skinny jeans and low-rise waists.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MOONBOT. Joke cycle explanations need to be expanded and title text needs to be explained. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows a mixture of real, scientific lunar cycles and cycles that are comedic or fictional in nature.

*'''Nodal precession:''' The Moon's orbital plane is tilted slightly compared to the Earth's orbital plane around the sun (the {{w|ecliptic}}). This tilt is why we don't constantly see eclipses; most of the time, the Moon's orbital plane is tilted higher or lower than the Sun, so they generally don't cross each other. The two points at which these planes ''do'' cross are called {{w|lunar nodes}}. {{w|Nodal precession}} is the gradual rotation of these nodes over time, which for the Moon follows an 18.6 year cycle.

*'''Apsidal precession:''' All orbits have two points where the orbiting body is either closest to, or furthest away from, the thing they are orbiting. These points are called {{w|apsides}}, and the imaginary line between them is called the ''line of apsides''. {{w|Apsidal precession}} is the gradual rotation of this line over time, which occurs in cycles of around 8.9 years for the Moon.

*'''Phase:''' {{w|Lunar phase}} describes the change in shape of the sunlit side of the Moon as viewed from the Earth's surface, which is caused by the changing angle between Moon and Sun as the Moon revolves around the Earth. The cycle of lunar phases takes 29.5 days, a figure referred to as the ''synodic month''.

*'''Distance:''' Because the Moon's orbit around the Earth is elliptical, its distance from the Earth varies slightly over the course of an orbit. This means that the moon's distance also follows a cycle which is the same as the length of one lunar orbit: approximately 27.5 days. This figure is referred to as the ''sidereal month''. Note that the synodic month is (perhaps counterintuituvely) two days ''longer'' than the sidereal month - or to put it another way, it takes 2 more days for the Moon's phases to cycle than it does for the Moon to go around the Earth. This is due to the fact that the Earth is also moving ''around'' the Sun while the phases are going on, which means that the Moon has to spend 2 extra days "catching up" to the point at which the lunar phase cycle can restart.

*'''Earth-Moon relative size''': This is a joke cycle; the Earth and Moon do not change size, nor does the Moon ever become larger than the Earth. This may be playing on the idea that the Moon often ''appears'' to change size due to a various factors; most commonly, this is due to the {{w|Moon illusion}}, which tricks the brain into perceiving the Moon as much larger than it really is. There are also so-called {{w|supermoon}}s, which occur when the full moon coincides with the Moon's closest approach to Earth; these actually ''do'' increase the Moon's apparent size, although by a relatively insignificant amount.

*'''Lunar shape:''' Again, this is a joke cycle; the Moon does not actually change shape. A shape intermediate between circle and square is known as a {{w|squircle}}, a subclass of the {{w|superellipse}}.

*'''Lunar mood:''' The moon does not have a mood, although humans can have moods that fluctuate over time, sometimes with a regularity akin to a cycle. Ironically, the section of the graph that shows a good (i.e. happy) mood has the graph line curving up then down like the mouth of a frown, and for the bad (unhappy) mood it curves down and then up, as in the mouth of a smile.

* The final diagram shows many different cycles superimposed on each other, highlighting areas where several cycles are coinciding. This is likely satirizing the media trend of overhyping astronomical coincidences and giving them grand-sounding names:
**The light gray "phase × distance" plot does not correspond to the product of periods given for phase and distance, which [https://i.imgur.com/0i0mcPn.png look like this] instead.
**A [[wikipedia:harvest moon|harvest moon]] is full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, possibly orange.
**A [[wikipedia:Supermoon|supermoon]] is a full or new moon when the Moon is closest to the Earth, resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size. A full supermoon is roughly 14% larger in diameter than when the Moon is furthest away. See also [[1394: Superm*n]].
**A [[wikipedia:blue moon|blue moon]] is the extra full moon in years with 13 full moons. An event that occurs once every two or three years. Blue moons don't look any different from regular full moons.
**{{w|Astrology}} is a pseudoscience which claims that the positions of the celestial bodies can be used to predict human affairs. The '''two-week window in which astrology works''' is a joke about how astrology does not actually work but occasionally seems to work by sheer coincidence.
The joke also had a paradoxical quality: astrology is being used to find the time when astrology works, but that implies that astrology is always working, while also claiming that astrology only sometimes works.
**The [[wikipedia:Golden Age of Television|Golden Age of Television]] is said to have occurred in the 1940s and 50s, and the 2000s.
**There are no occurrences of '''super blood moon''', '''dire moon''' or '''pork moon''' in the Google Books N-Gram viewer, which includes many works from the 1800s through 2008. A [[wikipedia:blood moon|blood moon]] refers to the moon during a lunar eclipse.
**While the popularity of '''skinny jeans''' ([[wikipedia:Slim-fit pants|slim-fit pants]]) does change over time, the idea that this is connected to a lunar cycle is also a joke.
**Finally, while the idea of a '''total eclipse of the sea''' seems absurd, [https://www.deepseanews.com/2017/08/what-happens-in-the-sea-during-a-solar-eclipse/ an eclipse was famously used to explain the migration of maritime animals]:
:::''biologists were beginning to unravel the mystery of this ‘false bottom’–a layer in the ocean that looks the the sea floor on the sounder but isn’t–which covered much of the ocean. This false bottom rises in up at night and sinks down during the day. This rising and falling is in fact caused by the largest migration of animal on Earth–everything from fish, shrimp and jellyfish, moving hundreds of meters in unison up and down each day.... the moon moved into its place in front of the sun, daylight rapidly faded, and the scientists solved the migration mystery: the deep layer of animals began to rise. Bioluminescent creatures started to shine, and nocturnal creatures started a frantic upward thrust. As the world grew darker, they swam upward nearly 80 meters. But this frantic migration didn’t last long. As the moon receded and the sun revealed itself, the massive animal layer did an about-face, scrambling back into the safety of the darkness.''
:: (Backus, Clark, and Wing (1965) [https://sci-hub.tw/10.1038/205989a0 "Behaviour of certain marine organisms during the solar eclipse of July 20, 1963"] ''Nature'' '''4975:'''989-91.)
*The '''{{w|Antikythera_mechanism|Antikythera mechanism}}''' mentioned in the title text is an ancient Greek machine, rediscovered in 1901, designed to calculate astronomical positions. The title text jokes that there is a set of gears on said mechanism that is used to predict the popularity of "skinny jeans" and "low-rise waists."

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

:Understanding lunar cycles

:Nodal precession
:[A diagram showing a broad cosine-like wave with wavelength labelled as 18.6 years. To the right are two diagrams showing an orbital cycle moving in and out of plane.]

:Apsidal precession
:[A diagram similar to the one above but with a slightly shorter wavelength, labelled as 8.9 years. To the right are two diagrams showing an elliptical orbit around a planet and the same orbit rotated.]

:Phase
:[A diagram similar to those above with a shorter wavelength, labelled as 29.5 days. To the right is a diagram showing four phases of the moon: New, Waxing crescent, Waxinf gibbos, Full.]

:Distance
:[A diagram similar to those above with a shorter wavelength, labelled as 27.5 days. To the right is a diagram showing the distance of the moon from the Earth over time, with distances marked by arrows.]

:Earth-Moon relative size
:[A wave with long wavelength with an arrow pointing to the minimum labelled 'Earth bigger' and an arrow pointing to the maximum labelled 'Moon bigger'. To the right are two diagrams of the moon and Earth, one showing the Earth bigger than the Moon and the other showing the Moon bigger than the Earth.]

:Lunar shape
:[A wave with long wavelength with an arrow pointing to the minimum labelled 'Circle' and an arrow pointing to the maximum labelled 'Square'. To the right is a diagram showing a circle, a circle transforming into a square with outward arrows at each corner and a square transforming into a circle with inward arrows.]

:Lunar mood
:[A wave with long wavelength with an arrow pointing to the minimum labelled 'Bad' and an arrow pointing to the maximum labelled 'Good'. To the right are four emojis: :), :|, :(, :|]

:[A superimposed graph of all the above waves. Different points on the graph are labelled: Harvest moon, Supermoon, Blue moon, Skinny Jeans popular, Super blood moon, Golden age of TV, Dire moon, Pork moon, Two week window in which astrology works, Total eclipse of the sea.]

{{comic discussion}}

1676: Full-Width Justification

2018-09-04T18:53:17Z

162.158.75.40: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1676
| date = May 4, 2016
| title = Full-Width Justification
| image = full_width_justification.png
| titletext = Gonna start bugging the Unicode consortium to add snake segment characters that can be combined into an arbitrary-length non-breaking snake.
}}

I appreciate, cause I discovered just what I used to be looking for. You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day. Bye aefggcbbkakddfea

==Transcript==
:Strategies for full-width justification

:[Below the caption is a column with six boxes, each showing a different "strategy" for justification which is annotated beside it. Here the annotation is written at the top and the text below. The top and bottom of the text is cut of in the middle, but as it can be "read" this is written anyway. Only for hyphenation does an extra word appear at the end. In the last with snakes, a snake is drawn to cover the entire spaaace from the end of between to the right border.]

:Giving up
::their famous paper
::on the relationship
::between
::deindustrialization
::and the growth of

:Letter spacing
::their famous paper
::on the relationship
::b  e   t   w   e  e   n
::deindustrialization
::and the growth of

:Hyphenation
::their famous paper
::on the relationship
::between deindus-
::trialization and the
::growth of ecological

:Stretching
::their famous paper
::on the relationship
::<big><big><big>between</big></big></big>
::deindustrialization
::and the growth of

:Filler
::their famous paper
::on the relationship
::between crap like
::deindustrialization
::and the growth of

:Snakes
::their famous paper
::on the relationship
::between 🐍 [a snake filling the gap]
::deindustrialization
::and the growth of

==Trivia==
*The full text (with alternate changes) reads:
::''...their famous paper on the relationship between [crap like]/[ 🐍 ] deindustrialization and the growth of [ecological]...''
*An approach not depicted is to treat justification as part of a spherical typesetting strategy which allows words to move between lines even where this is not locally optimal. Its net effect in a case like this is to pull words from the previous line for use as filler. This approach is used by {{w|TeX}}.
*In Arabic, it is common to stretch the lines connecting letters as a relatively elegant and satisfying resolution to this problem. This trick is called "{{w|kashida}}" (كشيدة). There does in fact exist a Unicode character, U+0640: (ـ), to help with this: using it to extend "كشيدة" would result in something like "كـــــشـــيـــدة" (which, incidentally, looks a lot like a snake).
*Jim Chapman, developer of Windows 10 e-reader app Freda, has implemented snake-justification in the app, now available on the [https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9wzdncrfj43b Windows Store]. For best results, use the 'settings' screen to switch 'hyphenation' to 'no', 'use snakes' to 'yes', and choose a large font size (33 or so). Then pick a book with long words and justified text, and read it in a narrow window.
*The comic has been discussed on the [http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2016-m05/0004.html Unicode Mailing List].
*The typesetting system [http://www.sile-typesetter.org/ SILE] implemented snake justification on the same day the comic was published.
*"Line Fillers" depicting animals (including snakes) were widely used in [http://www.medievalcodes.ca/2016/04/line-fillers.html medieval book art].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Unicode]]

1944: The End of the Rainbow

2018-01-23T04:27:38Z

162.158.75.40:

{{comic
| number = 1944
| date = January 19, 2018
| title = The End of the Rainbow
| image = the_end_of_the_rainbow.png
| titletext = The retina is the exposed surface of the brain, so if you think about a pot of gold while looking at a rainbow, then there's one at BOTH ends.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Megan]] appears to reference the myth that at the end of every {{w|rainbow}} lies a {{w|leprechaun}}'s pot of gold. Instead of claiming that leprechauns and their gold don't exist, [[Cueball]] offers the refutation that, technically, {{w|File:Circular_rainbow.jpg|rainbows are circles}}, so they do not have an end. This is true for an idealised rainbow, and for some actual rainbows: if the viewer has an unobstructed view of the light-reflecting substance creating the effect for the whole of the circle's circumference, they could see a full circle. In practice, the circle is often broken by the horizon or, for example, discontinuity in cloud cover.

However, Megan counters that if one considers the path that light takes to form a rainbow, then it forms a two-cone structure, where the Sun (the vertex of the outer cone) emits light rays that move towards the Earth (forming the faces of the outer cone), then reflect off water droplets located at just the right angle (the circular base) to reach our eyes (the vertex of the inner cone). Thus, such a rainbow structure ''can'' be said to have "ends", represented by the vertices of the two cones: one at the eye of the viewer, and another at the light source (usually the sun).
A common rainbow (which base is formed by a water droplets in the Earth's atmosphere) can not be viewed as that. The Sun's diameter is orders of magnitude greater than Earth's one (even including the outer layers of the atmosphere), and we would expect the apex of a cone to be much smaller than its base. Thus a two-cone rainbow which starts in Sun shall have its base formed in the outer space.

Megan then says that the Sun is indeed a pot of gold. The Sun is approximately 1.989 × 1030 (1 nonillion 989 octillion) kilograms[https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html], and its abundance of gold is approximately 0.3 parts per trillion[http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1968PASAu...1..133A&data_type=PDF_HIGH&filetype=.pdf&type=PRINTER&whole_paper=YES] (ed: this value is incorrect - values in the paper are not in ppt - see comments below). Based on these numbers, the sun contains 5.967 × 1017 (596 quadrillion 700 trillion) kilograms of gold. This equates to 5.967 × 1014 (596 trillion 700 billion) metric tons of gold. As such, Megan's statement that the sun contains "quintillions of tons of gold" is off by a factor of roughly 4000, but the amount of gold within the sun is, nonetheless, far more than a pot's worth.

The amount of water in the oceans is about 1.35 × 1018 (1 quintillion 350 quadrillion) metric tons[https://phys.org/news/2014-12-percent-earth.html]. If we assume that Megan is still talking in terms of mass rather than volume or molecule count, then her next statement (that there is more gold in the sun than water in the oceans) would have been true had she been correct in her previous claim, but in fact there is more sea-water than sun-gold by a factor of roughly 2300.

Cueball then asks about leprechauns (perhaps ironically, since Megan's theory at this point appears to involve astronomy/physics, not mythical creatures/beings). Megan replies that the leprechauns all died when the Sun formed, building on the irony of Cueball's question (& opening questions about the role of leprechauns in the early formation of our solar system).

The title text suggest that, since the pot of gold exists as an idea in the brains of people thinking about it, and the retina is the foremost part of the brain for light perception, it can be argued that, in addition to existing in the sun as the comic explains, the gold (and leprechauns) also exist at the other end, in the retina and brain of the person seeing the rainbow -- as long as they are thinking about a pot of gold at the time -- and then it's gone as soon as they stop thinking about it.

Many neurologists would agree with the concept that ideas in your mind can be said to be physically located in your brain. However, there are significant implications to this. For example, there is a hippopotamus in the room you are in. It's in your brain, because you read that sentence. Feel free to inform anybody else nearby of this, and any similar true facts.

==Transcript==

:[Megan and Cueball are walking.]
:Megan: There's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
:Cueball: Rainbows are circles. They have no end.
:Megan: Not quite!

:[In a borderless panel, a multi-part graphic is shown depicting what Megan is describing off-panel: a short cone inside a longer cone, with the longer cone having its point starting at the Sun, the shorter cone having its point at a miniature Cueball's head, and both cones sharing the same circular base. The diagram is repeated from 3 different perspectives to make the structure easier to grasp.]
:Megan (off-panel): A '''rainbow''' is light leaving the Sun, bouncing off the clouds, and converging on your eye. It's an inside-out two-ended cone.

:[Megan and Cueball are still walking.]
:Megan: One end of that cone is your retina.

:[A wider view of the same scene, with Megan and Cueball walking on a dark ground.]
:Megan: The other end is the Sun—which contains quintillions of tons of gold. There's more gold in the Sun than water in the oceans.
:Cueball: So there ''is'' a pot of gold!
:Cueball: What about leprechauns?
:Megan: All incinerated as the sun formed. Very sad.

==Trivia==

As of January 19, 2017, the value of gold is 42,692.98 USD per kilogram. Based on this, all of the gold in the sun is worth 2.5474901 × 10^22 (25 sextillion 474 quintillion 901 quadrillion) USD. Of course, if you tried to sell the gold in the sun, the market would be saturated and the value of gold would plummet astronomically. You would never be able to cash out.

The idea that the Sun is valuable in monetary terms is also present in [[1622: Henge]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics_featuring_Megan]]
[[Category:Comics_featuring_Cueball]]

Talk:1878: Earth Orbital Diagram

2017-08-20T02:43:35Z

162.158.75.40:

I guess first off, we should note the "solstice" is *not* the Bristish equivalent of "equinox" -- they are actually opposites. The equinoxes occur in April and September, when the day & night are equal length, and the solstices occur in June and December, when the length of daylight and nightime, respectively, are at their longest. [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 15:30, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

:Technically, the opposite of solstice is the other solstice. Solstice and equinoxes are orthogonal. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:01, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

"Determinant of the date of Easter" refers to the fact that in the Catholic Church (and possibly other Christian denomiations) the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon of Spring, which means it is an astronomical calculation, but completely unrelated to the indicated angle. [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 16:28, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
:Well, everyone celebrates Easter on the same day, right? So it's the first Sunday after the first full moon for everybody. [[User:Berets|Berets]] ([[User talk:Berets|talk]]) 23:20, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
::No, not all denominations agree on the date of Easter; a particular example being the Orthodox church, which usually has Easter a week after the Catholic church, but sometimes as much as five weeks later. The difference is caused by the two denominations using different idealized calendars, both lunar and solar, as well as a slight difference in the definition. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.57|162.158.69.57]] 18:41, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
"Astral planes" might as well be a Unicode reference, taking into account Randall's occasional mention of emoji, since emoji reside on one of the astral planes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_%28Unicode%29 {{unsigned ip|141.101.105.168}}
:That supplementary planes humorously refer also to {{w|Astral plane|Astral planes}} as mentioned in this explanation.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Solstice comes from the Latin ... Sol = Sun .. Sistere = Stand still. It literally means the day the sun stands still and refers to the longest day of the year (summer) and the shortest day of the year (winter). So how does the Sun "stand still". On those days the Earth reaches either end of orbital ellipse and returns around the other side. If you stick a pole in the ground and observe its shadow every day at Noon you will see the shadow grow longer every day from winter to summer and grow shorter every day from summer to winter. The shadow is shortest when the Sun is highest in the sky at mid-summer and the shadow is longest when the sun is lowest in the sky at mid-winter. The sun is either getting higher in the sky or lower in the sky every day. When the Earth is at the end of the ellipse and the transition takes place the shadow will not make any noticeable change from one day to the next and one could say that the "Sun has stood still". [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 19:36, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I think that Solstice/Equinox thing is a reference to Randall having a hobby of spreading linguistic misinformation, as seen in 1677:Contrails.
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.251|172.68.26.251]] 00:32, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the labels of the planes are, but they certainly aren't Greek letters. They look like alchemical symbols to me.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.243|162.158.74.243]] 00:56, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Part of the humor of Declension is that it's a portmanteau of right ascension and declination. Right now only declination is mentioned. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.40|162.158.75.40]] 02:43, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

1815: Flag

2017-03-25T15:12:05Z

162.158.75.40: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1815
| date = March 24, 2017
| title = Flag
| image = flag.png
| titletext = There's a compromise bill to keep the notification bar but at least charge the battery.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more detail on how flags and images, in general, are designed/edited using computers, and why what Randall did was wrong.}}

Presumably [[Randall]] was hired by a committee to propose a new {{w|flag}} for an unspecified country. The process of him editing the flag involved taking a screenshot of his design to export it. The committee being overly literal interpreted the notification bar captured by the screenshot as being part of the flag.

Once the problem was pointed out, the design committee placed the blame on Randall, but could not immediately undo their decision until new suggestions had been submitted and a new committee could agree on another design. Thus the country is now stuck with this design, making it the only country with such a bar in the flag.

The title text mentions a compromise bill that will change the flag. This implies that the flag was approved with the status bar included. Aperantly there is some controversy about removing the status bar from the flag as the compermise bill proposes to keeping the status bar and change the displayed percentage of the battery from 39% to 100%. This is wordplay on the term "charge" as used in vexillology, where it refers to a figure appearing on the background of the flag.

===Trivia===
The ''bar'' in ''notification bar'', is a vexillological descriptor, as in the "{{w|Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#First_flag:_the_.22Stars_and_Bars.22_.281861.E2.80.931863.29|Stars and Bars}}," a term used for the first flag of the {{w|Confederate States of America}}.

Flags are often minimalist and involve geometric shapes and solid colors. A notification bar at the top of the flag would clash with these design elements as well as looking unprofessional.

The elements of the flag's intended design—the colors red, white, and blue; the pattern of stripes; and the star emblems—are the same that are used in the American flag the {{w|Flag of the United States|Stars and Stripes}}.

The elements of this flag is, however, also present in several other existing flags like those derived from {{w|Union Jack}}, the flag of the {{w|United Kingdoms}}, like the flags of {{w|Flag_of_Australia|Australia}} and {{w|Flag_of_New_Zealand|New Zealand}}. They are also in the flags of {{w|Flag of North Korea|North Korea}}, {{w|Flag_of_Liberia|Liberia}} and {{w|Flag_of_Malaysia|Malaysia}}. However, only Australia and Liberia have white stars.

===Theories===
But if they indeed continue with this, thinking that their country would look better with a full battery charge, they might also consider changing the 3G connection to the {{w|4G|newer 4G}} version and giving the phone a full signal (5/5 instead of only 3/5 dots), and maybe also choose a time that would mean something rather than 5:48 PM. For instance noon/midnight, or 8:00.

The low battery status might also imply that the country is low on resources. It thus seems like people have taken the reference to modern times smartphones to their hearts and actually wish to have this very modern design.

The reason such a status bar could be missed could be that most people today look at pictures on their smartphones all the time, and thus their own phones status bar is indirectly included at the top of all the pictures they see. People thus do not notice these status bars any longer as they are always there and clearly not important for the picture. Randall has mentioned before, in [[1373: Screenshot]], that he cannot take smartphone screenshots seriously if the battery of the device is low, as he cannot focus on the content becoming afraid his one device runs out of power. A problem that only occurs if he sees it on his smartphone, as he then becomes concerned that it is his phone that is about to run out of charge. But in this status bar there are still 39%, high enough not to cause immediate concern.

Since Randall was asked to crate this flag, it seems most likely that he would have to be a citizen of this new country. It could thus indicate that a group of states have broken free from the USA to form their own smaller union of three states, one for each star. With the current political situation in the states after {{w|Donald Trump|Donald Trump’s}} {{w|Inauguration of Donald Trump|inauguration}} there have been some talk about states leaving USA, and Randall has clearly been against the election of Trump, see [[1756: I'm With Her]], and he has been [[I'm_With_Her#Sad_comics|affected]] by the election result. Since Randall lives in {{w|Massachusetts}}, it could be this and two other nearby states that have formed their own new union of states.

==Transcript==
:[A two colored flag is shown. The left and rightmost parts of the flag are dark blue, and the center is red and each section has a large white star in its center. The colored parts are separated by thinner white vertical stripes. At the top of the flag, there is an off-white status bar like one found at the top of an iOS smart device. On the left it is displaying the strength of the connection (3/5 dots), in the center it is displaying the time and on the right there are three small icons the last is the battery charge:]
:3G
:5:48 PM
:39%

:[Below the panel there are two captions]
:The design committee fired me once they realized that my editing process involved a screenshot, but it was too late.
:Until they change it, our new country has the only national flag to include a phone notification bar.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]