explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3036: Chess Zoo

2025-01-10T19:34:25Z

162.158.90.210:

For the transcript, I’m thinking of saying that “there are alternating white and grey squares, with smaller black squares imposed on them. The pattern of squares goes ''[something like GWBWGWBWGBW]''“. Would that work? Or is it too confusing? '''[[User:42.book.addict|<span style="font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:9pt;color:#A9C6CA">42.book.addict</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:42.book.addict|<span style="font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:6pt;color:#516874">Talk to me!</span>]]</sup>''' 19:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:Re: "GWBWGWBWGBW", knowing who we are here, I presume people might want to distinguish black-on-white from black-on-gray. We'd probably have to have a full markup system for background (gray/white) and foreground (empty, human, barrier, white pawn, gray pawn...). Maybe something like {[gE][wE][gB][wQg]}... Hrm... Because, of course, it has to be as complicated and precise as possible. :) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.135|172.70.46.135]] 19:15, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't think it's safe to allow people to go into the bishop enclosure, especially with high aggression in that area since both colors are able to look at each other there but not capture. One of those bishops is eventually going to take it out on someone. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.210|162.158.90.210]] 19:34, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

3024: METAR

2024-12-14T01:16:54Z

162.158.90.210: /* Explanation */ by the cat

{{comic
| number = 3024
| date = December 13, 2024
| title = METAR
| image = metar_2x.png
| imagesize = 640x360px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In the aviation world, they don't use AM/PM times. Instead, all times are assumed to be AM unless they're labeled NOTAM.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an A380 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In aviation, the {{w|METAR}} (Meteorological Aerodrome Report) is used to give pilots a brief overview of the current meteorological conditions at the airport.
The METAR follows a specific structure and makes heavy usage of abbreviations, which makes it hard to read for anyone not familiar with it.
The comic makes fun of that by assuming meaning of the words based on what non-aviation people might think the different elements of the METAR report may represent.
The METAR in the comic is fairly alarming, describing gale-force winds, a possible tornado, freezing volcanic ash (in New York), lightning, and impossibly high atmospheric pressure.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Code !! Real Meaning !! According to the comic
|-
| METAR
| Type: Meteorological Aerodrome Report
| The comic assumes that this is just a spelling error and it should be "meter"
|-
| KNYC
| Station ID: 4 character identifier; for an airport, this would be the ICAO code. In this instance the identifier represents the automated weather station at Belvedere Castle in Central Park, NYC. Airport, weather, and radio station call signs share a common heritage.
| "Station ID", which is actually correct.
|-
| 251600Z
| Time of observation: 25th day of the month at 4 PM UTC. Z is not part of the time, but simply shorthand for GMT or "Zulu" time.
| Misreading the "Z" as a 2, resulting in a nonsensical time. Hours greater than 24 are sometimes used to indicate a time after midnight, e.g., in Japan 17~25h means from 5 P.M. to 1 A.M. the following day. A normal METAR does not use more than 24 hours, instead incrementing the day, so 25 hours further adds to the nonsensical nature of the interpretation.
|-
| 18035G45KT
| Wind direction and speed: Wind direction: 180° (directly from the south, degrees based on 0°=magnetic north), speed: 35 knots, gusting to 45 knots
| Instead of interpreting the first 5 digits as direction and speed, it is assumed that it is one big number and the G45 stands for the time span in which this was observed with "G" standing for "good". 18,035 knots is an unrealistically high wind speed, faster than orbital velocity; the {{w|jet stream}} typically contains the highest winds on Earth, and may reach about 250 knots.
|-
| 6SM
| In weather reports related to aviation, "6SM" stands for 6 statute miles, meaning that objects can be seen clearly up to 6 miles away.<ref>https://weather.cod.edu/notes/metar.html#:~:text=6SM%2DVisibility,SM)%20up%20to%2010%20SM.</ref> This indicates clear enough weather to fly without instruments; the value has a max range of 10SM.
| The comic interprets "6SM" to humorously mean a "Size '''6 Sm'''all".
|-
| VCFCFZVA
| In the vicinity (VC): funnel cloud (FC) and freezing (FZ) volcanic ash (VA).
| A riff on the repeated letters which give off the impression the string is constructed by typing randomly on the keyboard (by the station cat per Randall). All the letters are near each other at the lower left of the keyboard (S, D, and X are somehow avoided).
|-
| +BLUP
| Heavy (+) blowing (BL) unknown precipitation (UP)
| Riffing on the fact that it looks like an onomatopoetic word
|-
| NOSIG
| No significant change is expected to the reported conditions within the next 2 hours
| The comic assumes that the transmitter of the METAR report wants the receivers to know that they do not have a significant other, which the comic finds sad. The observer could be trying to abuse the METAR report as a dating platform.
|-
| LTG OHD
| Lightning overhead
| OHD is interpreted as "overheard" instead of "overhead", indicating that they did not observe it themselves and instead just overheard people talking about it.
|-
| A3808
| Altimeter setting: (calculated) air pressure at {{w|Mean_sea_level|mean sea level}} at the airport is 38.08. The value of 38.08 inHg is extremely high. The standard atmospheric pressure used in aviation is 29.92 inHg, the highest recorded surface pressure on Earth was 32.01 {{w|Inch_of_mercury|inches of mercury (inHg)}}<ref>https://learn.weatherstem.com/modules/learn/lessons/125/18.html</ref> ("A" for inHg, used primarily in USA, Canada and Japan, "Q" would indicate a value in hPa). This is used to adjust the altimeter in the aircraft to the local air pressure, instead of using the standard setting used in higher air spaces.
| The comic says that the observer saw an {{w|Airbus_A380|Airbus A380-800}}. Note: The {{w|List_of_ICAO_aircraft_type_designators|ICAO aircraft type code}} for the Airbus A380-800 is A388 and not A3808.
|-
| RMK
| Beginning of the section with remarks
| Remarkable. Might be a comment about the A380.
|-
| AO2
| The weather station is automated (A) and has a precipitation discriminator (O2)
| Reference to the {{w|fan fiction|fanfic}} site [https://archiveofourown.org/ Archive of Our Own], often abbreviated as AO3
|-
| SLP130=
| {{w|Sea_level_pressure|Sea-level pressure}} is 1013.0 hPa (approx. 29.91 inHg). The equal sign signifies the end of the METAR.
| "SLP" interpreted as abbreviation for sleepy, the numbers as a time, and the = sign as "around" (maybe confused with ≈)
|-
| NOTAM (title text)
| Not part of a METAR report, but instead another aviation abbreviation. It stands for {{w|NOTAM|Notice to Air Missions}} (previously Notice to Airmen).
| Parsed as "not A.M.", indicating that a given time is to be interpreted as P.M. While AM and PM are indeed not used in aviation, as the comic says, they use a 24-hour clock system, not an "A.M.-by-default" 12-hour clock system.
|}

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

Decoding a METAR Report:

[A METAR report is shown with annotations. The report is:]

<code>
METAR KNYC 251600Z 18035G45KT 6SM VCFCFZVA +BLUP NOSIG LTG OHD A3808 RMK A02 SPL130=
</code>

[The annotations are:]

* <code>METAR</code> "METER" (Usually misspelled)
* <code>KNYC</code> Station ID
* <code>251600Z</code> Time (25:16:002)
* <code>18035G45KT</code> Wind speed has been 18,035 knots for a good 45 minutes now
* <code>6SM</code> Observer is a size 6 small
* <code>VCFCFZVA</code> Sorry, the station cat walked on the keyboard
* <code>+BLUP</code> Weird noise the sky made earlier
* <code>NOSIG</code> Observer has no significant other :(
* <code>LTG OHD</code> We overheard someone saying there was lightning
* <code>A3808</code> Hey look, an Airbus A380-800!
* <code>RMK</code> Remarkable!
* <code>A02</code> Fanfic Archive equipped with a precipitation sensor
* <code>SPL130=</code> Observer got sleepy around 1:30

==References==
{{reflist}}
[https://e6bx.com/metar-decoder/ Metar Decoder]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Aviation]]

3011: Europa Clipper

2024-11-14T19:29:15Z

162.158.90.210: /* Explanation */ such as

{{comic
| number = 3011
| date = November 13, 2024
| title = Europa Clipper
| image = europa_clipper_2x.png
| imagesize = 333x356px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They had BETTER make this a sample return mission.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Created by a JOVIAN DESSERT. Please consider deleting this tag too soon, but refrain from doing so.}}

[[File:Animation of Europa Clipper trajectory around Jupiter.gif|thumb|right|The ''Europa Clipper's'' projected course around {{w|Jupiter}}, represented as the stationary <span style="color:green;">green</span> dot. In <span style="color:gold;">gold</span> is Jupiter's moon {{w|Callisto (moon)|Callisto}}, in <span style="color:cyan;">cyan</span> is the moon {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}} — the primary target of the spacecraft's study — and in <span style="color:#FF4500;">orange-red</span> is the innermost of Jupiter's four {{w|Galilean moons|"Galilean"}} moons, {{w|Io (moon)|Io}}. The spacecraft's track is shown in <span style="color:magenta;">magenta</span>. Jupiter's largest moon {{w|Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede}} is not shown, but its gravitational pull affects the ''Clipper's'' trajectory. A mission goal is to achieve a 6:1 {{w|orbital resonance}} with Europa [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin-Ozimek/publication/383115312_AAS_24-433_Europa_Clipper_Mission_Analysis_Pump_Down_Trajectory_Design/links/66bcd845311cbb094938dbd6/AAS-24-433-Europa-Clipper-Mission-Analysis-Pump-Down-Trajectory-Design.pdf by September 2034]. ]]

The ''{{w|Europa Clipper}}'' space probe was launched from the {{w|Kennedy Space Center}} in Florida on [https://europa.nasa.gov/mission/about/ October 14, 2024]. It is expected to arrive at Jupiter and begin exploration of Jupiter's moons, particularly {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}}, in April of 2030.

Europa is an icy moon. Water ice covers its surface. Beneath the ice, there is expected to be liquid water which may contain some [https://europa.nasa.gov/why-europa/ingredients-for-life/ basic forms of life]. To sample this liquid, its icy crust would need to be breached.

Europa's surface of ice over liquid water can be compared to the caramelized crust on the popular dessert {{w|crème brûlée}}, perhaps because the {{w|Cassini-Huygens}} probe, after landing on Saturn's moon Titan in January of 2005, found that its surface had what was described as [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/world-unveiled-cr%C3%A8me-br%C3%BBl%C3%A9e-titan a "crème brûlée" consistency]. The hard surface of the caramel cream dessert is traditionally cracked open with a spoon, and so [[Randall]] posits that such equipment will be deployed by the ''Europa Clipper''.

In truth, no such spoon is present on the probe, and Europa's icy crust is too thick to be easily penetrated by a spoon of such size. Advanced measures are needed to prevent contamination of liquid water by Earth's organisms such as {{w|tardigrade}}s, {{w|deinococcus radiodurans}}, or {{w|bacillus subtilis}}. The ''Europa Clipper's'' course has been charted to avoid any contact with the surface of Europa (although it will fly through sparse material it ejects into space) so as to prevent {{w|Planetary protection|contamination by microorganisms from Earth}}. The successful deployment of any spacecraft's instrument is considered a cause for celebration because deployable spacecraft instruments often fail to correctly extend, unfurl or undock. the craft is equipped with a magnetometer that will be used at the end of a 8.5 meter boom as part of its closer studies.

<div style="display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; margin: 1em 0;">
<div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 1em;">
[[File:Europa_-_Perijove_45_(cropped).png|200px|alt=Europa]]
<div>Europa</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 1em;">
[[File:2014_0531_Crème_brûlée_Doi_Mae_Salong_(cropped).jpg|200px|alt=Crème brûlée]]
<div>Crème brûlée</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 1em;">
[[File:Europa_Clipper_spacecraft_model.png|200px|alt=The Europa Clipper spacecraft]]
<div>The ''Europa Clipper'' spacecraft</div>
</div>
</div>

The title text expands on the joke by stating that the spacecraft "had BETTER" return samples of Europa to Earth. However, the ''Europa Clipper'' is not a {{w|sample-return mission}}.

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

:[A space probe with two rectangular solar panels, a circular dish of the front, and a very large spoon extending beneath, longer than the span of both solar panels]

:[Below the panel:]
:Good news: NASA's '''''Europa Clipper''''' is en route to Europa and has successfully deployed its crème brûlée spoon.

==Trivia==
Initially, the ''Europa Clipper'' mission was planned to include a lander component, but it was removed from the project early on. The Europa Lander proposal lags significantly behind the Clipper in development and has not secured funding. An actual sample return mission is currently far into the future of {{w|Ocean Worlds Exploration Program|the pertinent plans for exploration}}.

In Arthur C Clarke's novel '''2010''', the monolith aliens tell humanity ''"All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landing there."'' Contrary to the suggestion of the comic, no landing or any other physical interaction beyond observation of the surface of Europa is planned.

In {{w|Greek mythology}}, {{w|Europa (consort of Zeus)|Europa}} was said to be a {{w|Phoenician}} princess who {{w|Zeus}}, the king of the gods, abducted after transforming himself into a bull. The name of the continent Europe derives from a northern province and/or river of ancient Greece that may have been associated with this legend. Although, as with {{w|Asia#Etymology|Asia}}, the region/continent name may have instead been derived from one of the {{w|Europa (Greek myth)|totally different Europas}}, namely a member of the many {{w|Oceanids}} (daughters of a pair of water-themed Titans that legendarily predate Zeus's times). Jupiter's moon was thematically {{w|Europa (consort of Zeus)#Moon of Jupiter|named after the princess}} in relatively recent times, much as the {{w|Tethys (mythology)|Oceanid Europa's mother}} features in a differently themed naming of Saturnian moons. With the caramel cream dessert believed to have been [https://archive.org/details/lagastronomieaug00sabb/page/272/mode/2up invented in Europe], there is an extremely vague and contrived possibility that mythology, rather than any more mundane cullinary analogy, could have inspired [[Randall]] to start down the path of eventually suggesting that the spacecraft may encounter crème brûlée and require a spoon.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:3007: Probabilistic Uncertainty

2024-11-05T01:37:01Z

162.158.90.210: emotional experts not being in a state to speak - maybe they are in Puerto Rico???

Emotional spirals are useless. I've been coping by pretending we're in scenario 1, it keeps me sane. If I'm wrong, I'll jump off that bridge when we come to it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:23, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:And I have a friend whose strategy is baking. It's both therapeutic and delicious. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:41, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I can't help but think that at preparing for the negative outcome regardless of which outcome is more likely (unless that outcome is *very* unlikely) is a healthy thing to do. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.141|172.71.147.141]] 20:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

This comic appeared the day before the 2024 United States Presidential Election. At publication time, polls were strongly suggesting about a 50/50 odds that either major candidate would win. Recent news items included advice from mental-health professionals on how to deal with election-related anxiety. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.195|172.71.167.195]] 20:32, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:Definitely related. This should be in the text, not in the comments, frankly. The yanks are going nuts about the election right now. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.124.243|172.71.124.243]] 20:57, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

My personal policy is to expect and prepare for the worst. That way I can be surprised when it doesn't happen, and not surprised when it does, rather than the other way around. I don't "do" emotions, so it's basically just planning and mumbling colloquialisms involving the digestive system... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.64|172.71.134.64]] 21:31, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I can't help but feel that it's mostly Democrats that are anxious, where Trump winning is the bad case. Not being an American I don't have much perspective. Are many Republicans likely to also be anxious, and if so, why? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.60.170|172.69.60.170]] 21:55, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

From what I've seen the ones in public-facing forums seem pretty indifferent. They do talk a lot about election fraud though. {{unsigned ip|172.70.34.117|22:42, 4 November 2024 (UTC)}}

I like that the comic leaves "good" and "bad" open to interpretation.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.83|172.70.211.83]] 22:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:He doesn't want to start fights in the comments/discussion pages/replies! Good to see him appealing to no specific demographic in this one. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 22:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
::Considering that the "Harris for President" banner is still active, I'm not sure I agree with that. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.4|172.68.22.4]] 22:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:::yeah, for that reason i think it's more just so the comic can have further longevity, as this way it can be applied to any number of things with two outcomes, not just the current election [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.193|141.101.109.193]] 00:02, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Re [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3007:_Probabilistic_Uncertainty&oldid=355799 Further, with regards to N/A - the odds of "precisely" 50/50 are probabilistically zero]: Bear in mind that with the Electoral College system and the fact that only 7 US states are "likely in play," we are talking only hundreds or thousands of realistic possibilities. The odds of a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College are far more than 0. One possibility of a tie that is "on the radar" is if the Republicans take Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska (which is very likely to go Democratic) and the Democrats take Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If you consider just the 7 "in play" states but Arizona "flips" from Republican to Democratic, there are 3 combinations that yield a 269-269 tie. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.249|172.70.210.249]] 01:29, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Re '''We contacted several researchers who are experts in emotional spirals to ask them, but none of them were in a state to speak with us''': Is it a stretch to think that the emotional-spiral experts were all "in Puerto Rico" (which is not a state), emotionally speaking? In the last week a supporter of one of the candidates insulted Puerto Rico and by extension, people of Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican descent, causing an emotional uproar all over the inter-tubes. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.210|162.158.90.210]] 01:37, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:3007: Probabilistic Uncertainty

2024-11-05T01:31:15Z

162.158.90.210: typo fix

2503: Memo Spike Connector

2024-09-22T08:11:43Z

162.158.90.210:

Hi,

I hope this message finds you well.

I’m reaching out because I have a keen interest in contributing a guest post to your website. As a seasoned writer, I specialize in creating content that drives traffic and captivates readers.
I’d be happy to provide a guest post, tailored specifically to your audience’s interests and needs.

If you’re open to this idea, I can share some topic suggestions that I think would resonate well with your readers.
Looking forward to your response.

Best,
Claire

2928: Software Testing Day

2024-05-06T16:47:57Z

162.158.90.210: /* Unusual date-time notation in real life */ actual links

{{comic
| number = 2928
| date = May 3, 2024
| title = Software Testing Day
| image = software_testing_day_2x.png
| imagesize = 255x408px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The company tried to document how often employees were celebrating Software Testing Day, but their recordkeeping system kept mysteriously crashing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NEGATIVE ONCE BOOKED EMPLOYEE OF SCAMAZON, BEING PAID EVERY 0 MONTHS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The upcoming holiday Megan is referring to could be Cartoonist Day, which is on May 5th (same day as Mexico's Cinco de Mayo). As a cartoonist himself, this may be Randall's way of celebrating it.

Quality Assurance (QA) engineers are responsible for ensuring the quality of some product through the use of testing. In software, this process often involves entering bizarre and/or nonsense inputs in an attempt to break the software. Cueball, a QA engineer in this case, expresses concern that the scheduling system might crash. This could either be because as a QA engineer he is concerned about crashes in general, or that as a system used by QA engineers it likely has a lot of weird/invalid values that could cause a crash.

For example, here it seems that Software Testing Day, a day likely celebrated by QA engineers, takes place every −1 years on January 0th at 25:71 PM. That statement is nonsensical in the following ways:

* The frequency of a recurring event is always expressed as a positive amount of time, so a negative value like “every −1 years” does not make sense.
* The first day of the month is the 1st, not the 0th. (There is an entire ''category'' of bugs/errors which result from numbering systems being mistaken for {{w|Zero-based_numbering|starting with 0 instead of 1}}, or vice versa.)
* There are ({{w|Daylight_saving_time|in most cases}}) only 24 hours in a day, so “25” is (in most cases) too large, and even where there is a switch from Daylight Saving Time, clocks simply repeat the hour before midnight, so the numbers above 24 hours are not displayed.
** In addition, the “PM” suggests that it is a 12-hour time, so the expected range of values for the hour is 1 to 12, making the “25” even more nonsensical.
* There are only 60 minutes in an hour, so “71” is too large of a minute.

Legacy systems, especially those running on mainframe, often have daily (or nightly) batches to complete before switching the system date and time. These systems are often nested or interdependent, so if one of the parts is unable to complete its daily run, it is almost always best to let the clock just run on until the error is fixed, and the transition to next business day can occur. Many banks have skipped using date and time on their queue ticket because of this. Their customers (the ones noticing the discrepancy) would make fun of it, and post pictures on social media. Much to the chagrin of the old jurassic banks. The people responsible for testing the software before going live would be blamed for the errors, of course. {{actual citation needed}}

Apparently, though this date is nonsensical, the QA engineers have decided to make this date a celebration day. Probably since, as expressed in the comic, the software for keeping track of the date has crashed. Another interpretation of this comic could be how software always crashes in one form or another when being tested, and thus the nonsensical date implies that successful runs of software is never celebrated.

All numerical values are out of range, suggesting that a QA engineer picked this date to test the scheduling system. If the date were to be made sense through under/overflow, it would result on January 1st at 14:11 (2:11 PM). And the -1 year interval could be interpreted to mean it happens every year (perhaps with the annual events being numbered backwards). Alternatively, an attempt to enter these numbers might be rejected as invalid, forcing the user to enter a properly formatted date and time. Both "January" and "PM" are acceptable values; because these two items tend to be selected from predetermined lists since they have an extremely limited number of possible values, it's rarely possible to enter an invalid value for either of these fields.

The title text suggests that the recordkeeping system used to see how often employees celebrated Software Testing Day kept crashing, possibly due to the employees purposefully inputting nonsensical dates or a date that occurred prior to the previous celebration. QA engineers may have semi-accidentally crashed the system by testing it, or deliberately crashed it to disguise the frequency of their days off.

In real life, such invalid dates would be rejected or coerced to be valid dates. Failing to account for invalid dates may result in errors, sometimes catastrophic, such as [https://www.theregister.com/2012/03/12/azure_leap_day_confirmed/ the February 29, 2012 Microsoft Azure outage] caused by the server trying to generate a certificate valid until February 29, 2013, a date that does not exist as 2013 being a non-leap year.

Treatment of invalid dates varies by the chosen programming language and date-time library. Javascript, for example, would coerce January 0th into December 31st, and 25 o’clock into 1 o’clock the following day. While there is no way to directly create a Javascript Date object using 12-hour notation (because that requires text parsing, and the validation of the text input would just result in an invalid date), the following code snippet represents how far this correction can be abused:

// In Javascript, month 0 is January
const d = new Date(2024, 0, 0, 25+12, 71);
console.log(d); // prints “Mon Jan 01 2024 14:11:00” (exact format depends on your locale)

An event happening every −1 years is equivalent to one that happens every year, but the numbers are reversed; i.e. if this year hosts the 1st Software Testing Day, next year will host the 0th Software Testing Day. This is expected to cause issues in software that assumes that the 2nd Software Testing Day will occur after the 1st Software Testing Day, an assumption that time only moves in one direction that [[2867: DateTime|may or may not]] be reasonable.

The holiday may be due to the claim of "we really can't do anything else, during this automated process", using the same sort of logic as [[303: Compiling]] justified for the programming team. Albeit that here we explicitly learn that a failure behind the scenes will cancel the 'sanctioned' pausing/idling-away of contracted work hours, much as a notable compilation/build error would interupt the others' few minutes of office sports.

===Unusual date-time notation in real life===
* Seconds usually go from 0 to 59. However, when a leap second is added, December 31st, 23:59:59 UTC is followed by 23:59:60 (11:59:60 PM) before starting the new year.
* "24:00" can be used to unambiguously state the ''closing'' midnight of a given date. i.e. the same as "00:00" upon the next, but without the ambiguity as to which 'midnight' bookending of the given date it might refer to, e.g. for deadlines.
** It can be generally used to simplify the understanding of how much time is encompassed by a period starting at a pre-midnight time and ending at a post-midnight one.
* Japan, in particular, [https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/16/7b/00/cd/proof-that-there-are.jpg uses] [https://preview.redd.it/qulk93jj2w731.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6b8a8abe10579156b853fff140f5f08dce7646f8 hour numbers] greater than 24 to express times past midnight but before sunrise. For example, 25:00 on a Friday is the same time as 1:00 the following Saturday. This is mainly used to express the starting times of midnight TV programming and the closing times of bars and other establishments open late at night. The hours usually go up to 27, but numbers up to 30 (6AM of the following day) are also seldom seen. It allows the timepoint to 'belong' to the normal working day that precedes it, rather than setting it prior to the normally expected start of business for the day after (especially when that involved weekends).

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball stand facing each other.]
:Megan: So, do you and the other QA engineers have any fun plans for the holiday?
:Cueball: Yeah, assuming the scheduling system doesn't crash.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Software Testing Day is a holiday celebrated every -1 years on January 0th at 25:71 PM.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Calendar]]

2928: Software Testing Day

2024-05-06T16:44:21Z

162.158.90.210: /* Unusual date-time notation in real life */ ce

{{comic
| number = 2928
| date = May 3, 2024
| title = Software Testing Day
| image = software_testing_day_2x.png
| imagesize = 255x408px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The company tried to document how often employees were celebrating Software Testing Day, but their recordkeeping system kept mysteriously crashing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NEGATIVE ONCE BOOKED EMPLOYEE OF SCAMAZON, BEING PAID EVERY 0 MONTHS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The upcoming holiday Megan is referring to could be Cartoonist Day, which is on May 5th (same day as Mexico's Cinco de Mayo). As a cartoonist himself, this may be Randall's way of celebrating it.

Quality Assurance (QA) engineers are responsible for ensuring the quality of some product through the use of testing. In software, this process often involves entering bizarre and/or nonsense inputs in an attempt to break the software. Cueball, a QA engineer in this case, expresses concern that the scheduling system might crash. This could either be because as a QA engineer he is concerned about crashes in general, or that as a system used by QA engineers it likely has a lot of weird/invalid values that could cause a crash.

For example, here it seems that Software Testing Day, a day likely celebrated by QA engineers, takes place every −1 years on January 0th at 25:71 PM. That statement is nonsensical in the following ways:

* The frequency of a recurring event is always expressed as a positive amount of time, so a negative value like “every −1 years” does not make sense.
* The first day of the month is the 1st, not the 0th. (There is an entire ''category'' of bugs/errors which result from numbering systems being mistaken for {{w|Zero-based_numbering|starting with 0 instead of 1}}, or vice versa.)
* There are ({{w|Daylight_saving_time|in most cases}}) only 24 hours in a day, so “25” is (in most cases) too large, and even where there is a switch from Daylight Saving Time, clocks simply repeat the hour before midnight, so the numbers above 24 hours are not displayed.
** In addition, the “PM” suggests that it is a 12-hour time, so the expected range of values for the hour is 1 to 12, making the “25” even more nonsensical.
* There are only 60 minutes in an hour, so “71” is too large of a minute.

Legacy systems, especially those running on mainframe, often have daily (or nightly) batches to complete before switching the system date and time. These systems are often nested or interdependent, so if one of the parts is unable to complete its daily run, it is almost always best to let the clock just run on until the error is fixed, and the transition to next business day can occur. Many banks have skipped using date and time on their queue ticket because of this. Their customers (the ones noticing the discrepancy) would make fun of it, and post pictures on social media. Much to the chagrin of the old jurassic banks. The people responsible for testing the software before going live would be blamed for the errors, of course. {{actual citation needed}}

Apparently, though this date is nonsensical, the QA engineers have decided to make this date a celebration day. Probably since, as expressed in the comic, the software for keeping track of the date has crashed. Another interpretation of this comic could be how software always crashes in one form or another when being tested, and thus the nonsensical date implies that successful runs of software is never celebrated.

All numerical values are out of range, suggesting that a QA engineer picked this date to test the scheduling system. If the date were to be made sense through under/overflow, it would result on January 1st at 14:11 (2:11 PM). And the -1 year interval could be interpreted to mean it happens every year (perhaps with the annual events being numbered backwards). Alternatively, an attempt to enter these numbers might be rejected as invalid, forcing the user to enter a properly formatted date and time. Both "January" and "PM" are acceptable values; because these two items tend to be selected from predetermined lists since they have an extremely limited number of possible values, it's rarely possible to enter an invalid value for either of these fields.

The title text suggests that the recordkeeping system used to see how often employees celebrated Software Testing Day kept crashing, possibly due to the employees purposefully inputting nonsensical dates or a date that occurred prior to the previous celebration. QA engineers may have semi-accidentally crashed the system by testing it, or deliberately crashed it to disguise the frequency of their days off.

In real life, such invalid dates would be rejected or coerced to be valid dates. Failing to account for invalid dates may result in errors, sometimes catastrophic, such as [https://www.theregister.com/2012/03/12/azure_leap_day_confirmed/ the February 29, 2012 Microsoft Azure outage] caused by the server trying to generate a certificate valid until February 29, 2013, a date that does not exist as 2013 being a non-leap year.

Treatment of invalid dates varies by the chosen programming language and date-time library. Javascript, for example, would coerce January 0th into December 31st, and 25 o’clock into 1 o’clock the following day. While there is no way to directly create a Javascript Date object using 12-hour notation (because that requires text parsing, and the validation of the text input would just result in an invalid date), the following code snippet represents how far this correction can be abused:

// In Javascript, month 0 is January
const d = new Date(2024, 0, 0, 25+12, 71);
console.log(d); // prints “Mon Jan 01 2024 14:11:00” (exact format depends on your locale)

An event happening every −1 years is equivalent to one that happens every year, but the numbers are reversed; i.e. if this year hosts the 1st Software Testing Day, next year will host the 0th Software Testing Day. This is expected to cause issues in software that assumes that the 2nd Software Testing Day will occur after the 1st Software Testing Day, an assumption that time only moves in one direction that [[2867: DateTime|may or may not]] be reasonable.

The holiday may be due to the claim of "we really can't do anything else, during this automated process", using the same sort of logic as [[303: Compiling]] justified for the programming team. Albeit that here we explicitly learn that a failure behind the scenes will cancel the 'sanctioned' pausing/idling-away of contracted work hours, much as a notable compilation/build error would interupt the others' few minutes of office sports.

===Unusual date-time notation in real life===
* Seconds usually go from 0 to 59. However, when a leap second is added, December 31st, 23:59:59 UTC is followed by 23:59:60 (11:59:60 PM) before starting the new year.
* "24:00" can be used to unambiguously state the ''closing'' midnight of a given date. i.e. the same as "00:00" upon the next, but without the ambiguity as to which 'midnight' bookending of the given date it might refer to, e.g. for deadlines.
** It can be generally used to simplify the understanding of how much time is encompassed by a period starting at a pre-midnight time and ending at a post-midnight one.
* Japan, in particular, very occasionally uses hour numbers greater than 24 to express times past midnight but before sunrise. For example, 25:00 on a Friday is the same time as 1:00 the following Saturday. This is mainly used to express the starting times of midnight TV programming and the closing times of bars and other establishments open late at night. The hours usually go up to 27, but numbers up to 30 (6AM of the following day) are also seldom seen. It allows the timepoint to 'belong' to the normal working day that precedes it, rather than setting it prior to the normally expected start of business for the day after (especially when that involved weekends).

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball stand facing each other.]
:Megan: So, do you and the other QA engineers have any fun plans for the holiday?
:Cueball: Yeah, assuming the scheduling system doesn't crash.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Software Testing Day is a holiday celebrated every -1 years on January 0th at 25:71 PM.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Calendar]]

Talk:1104: Feathers

2018-09-11T16:09:08Z

162.158.90.210: "And there's more of it every day!" is a fun way to describe the passage of time.

Okay, this is seriously messing with my world. T-Rex covered in downy goodness? I mean it explains a lot, like how they were able to survive in Northern Climes, but, I don't know...--[[User:Grate314|grate314]] ([[User talk:Grate314|talk]]) 12:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
:Lets put it this way, would it be any less intimidating if it were chasing you? -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 04:08, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

If anyone wanted to look at it, here's a link to the article mentioned

<strike>http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007999</strike>

I think the linked article is the wrong one. First, it was published in 2009, not 2012. And second, it's talking about raptors (eagles), not (veloci)raptors (dinosaurs).
<strike>Oddly, it ''is'' talking about raptors (eagles) restraining prey, so maybe Randal made the mistake?</strike> No, the picture's caption clearly references another article. I'm having a hard time tracking it down. [[Special:Contributions/96.43.65.242|96.43.65.242]] 21:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

"Correct" article is: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0028964 - "Full" citation is: Citation: Fowler DW, Freedman EA, Scannella JB, Kambic RE (2011) The Predatory Ecology of Deinonychus and the Origin of Flapping in Birds. PLoS ONE 6(12): e28964. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028964 --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 21:35, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

That citation I do not think is the correct, article it goes to is not matching up fully, this link was published in December 2011 though the rest of the citation appears to be correct.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.159|162.158.62.159]] 12:22, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

''Jurassic Park'' was not incorrect in the size of the raptors; it was incorrect in the *name* of them! The so-called ''velociraptors'' in the movie were actually Deinonychus, which did grow to about that size and had the same shape and form as the smaller velociraptor. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.87}}
:There is no mention of velociraptors at this comic or explain. I have changed the category to dinosaurs. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

The video link seems to be DEAD. If anyone has the video or knows where it can be found, please... {{unsigned ip|141.101.79.139}}

I think it's worth mentioning that the last part of the title text "And there's more of it every day!" is a fun way of stating that the history we can study becomes longer and therefore more interesting every day simply because every day another 24 hours is "added" to history.

1854: Refresh Types

2017-06-24T12:58:19Z

162.158.90.210: /* Explanation */ Style improvements

{{comic
| number = 1854
| date = June 23, 2017
| title = Refresh Types
| image = refresh_types.png
| titletext = The hardest refresh requires both a Mac keyboard and a Windows keyboard as a security measure, like how missile launch systems require two keys to be turned at once.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Randall]] presents five different levels of refresh operations for web applications. The first three (''soft refresh'', ''normal refresh'', and ''hard refresh'') are common operations to keep the content in the browser retrieved from the server up to date. The other two (''harder refresh'' and ''hardest refresh'') are fictional operations to perform ''refresh'' operations on remote resources. The terms are probably adopted from {{w|Reboot (computing)|soft}} and {{w|Hardware reset|hard reset}} operations used to restart broken computers or e.g. smartphones.

=== Soft refresh ===
''Soft refresh'' refers to an operation in a web page that requests new information without reloading the entire page. The given example, {{w|Gmail}}, includes a feature that allows users to poll new emails and show it in the inbox interface. It is a command using {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|Ajax (programming)|Ajax}} to load new contents from the server in the background and only update necessary components of the page. Since modern web applications do this also automatically in short time intervals those buttons are mostly unnecessary. In Gmail a user will see a new message instantly.

=== Normal refresh ===
The ''normal refresh'' is a browser operation that reloads the complete web page, text and other content that has changed since the original load will be updated. The operation can be triggered by refresh buttons in browsers, though it also can be requested using the common keyboard commands as listed by Randall. Many pages -- like the main page at xkcd.com -- don't have a refresh button. If the page has been opened before a new comic release, pressing F5 afterwards causes reload and the new comic is shown.

=== Hard refresh ===
What Randall calls ''hard refresh'' is a less common browser operation forcing the browser to re-download every part of the webpage, ignoring any cached content. Caching is a common way of increasing webpage load times. Browsers save resources such us images or {{w|Cascading Style Sheets|CSS stylesheets}} on the first visit on a webpage and use the local copy on subsequent visits. It allows them to decrease amount of transfer needed to show the webpage, but prevents showing changes made to the resources (for example a web developer chanigng the stylesheet). In those cases the ''hard refresh'' ensures that each part of the website is downloaded in its newest form.

If there is a {{w|Proxy server|Web-Proxy}} or a Cloud-Cache (like used for this wiki) in between the browser and the Web-Server this type of refreshing may not work. In this case, unless a purge link is available, the user has to wait until the cache entry is expired and a new request to the web server is done. A Web-developer may try to avoid this behaviour by including special meta-tags in the HTML header to suppress caching, but not all proxies or clouds follow these instructions.

=== Harder refresh ===
''Harder refresh'' is a joke that extends the existing naming scheme. The joke is that if a ''hard refresh'' resets the browser display and cache, a ''harder refresh'' should reset the source of the data by cycling power in the data center. Assuming no damage was done, this would reset the memory on the server, erasing any information that had not been written to disk, and setting the server to the state it was in at launch. This would cause considerable downtime, and would be unlikely to help the user at all.

In {{w|Orchestration (computing)|orchestrated}} environment it may indirectly cause some virtual machines in the {{w|Cloud computing|cloud}} to be rebooted and assigned to an other web server needing more workload. But a growing workload is caused by hundreds or thousands additional requests and not just a single key combination from one browser. And rebooting an actual physical server upon a web page request is not possible, unless there is a software or operating system bug that will cause exactly this.

The ''harder refresh'' uses six keys, including the non-standard '[https://askubuntu.com/questions/19558/what-are-the-meta-super-and-hyper-keys HYPER]' key, a feature of the {{w|Space cadet keyboard}}.

=== Hardest refresh ===
The fifth option, ''hardest refresh'', moves beyond resetting the source of the data and resets the entire internet back to {{w|ARPANET}}, an early military network which was a forerunner to the modern internet. The implications of this are not made clear, but it should be noted that it wouldn't help to fix any problems a user is experiencing in-browser, as {{w|HTTP}}, the protocol by which web pages are sent, was not developed until late 1990, the year ARPANET was decommissioned.

The ''hardest refresh'' shortcut uses fifteen keys, including non-standard ones such as Ø and ⏏. (The former is a key found on Norwegian and Danish keyboards, the latter is the "eject" key found on [older?] Mac keyboards and some laptops.) The shortcut makes amusing comparisons about a shortcut that includes not only the F5 function key, but also the keys for the letter "F" and the digit "5", as well as the similarity in appearance between O, 0, and Ø.

The title text suggests that the inclusion of both the {{w|Windows key}} and {{w|Command key}} in the ''hardest refresh'' shortcut is a security measure akin to the {{w|Two-man rule}}, as it would require two keyboards to enter.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon. No table is the preferred version, just describe what's in the picture including the special keys.}}
:{| class=wikitable
! Refresh Type
! Example Shortcuts
! Effect
|-
| Soft Refresh
| Gmail <span style="border: 1px solid black">REFRESH</span> Button
| Requests update within JavaScript
|-
| Normal Refresh
| F5, CTRL-R, ⌘R
|Refreshes page
|-
|Hard Refresh
| CTRL-F5, CTRL-⇧, ⌘⇧R
| Refreshes page including cached files
|-
|Harder Refresh
| CTRL-⇧-HYPER-ESC-R-F5
| Remotely cycles power to datacenter
|-
|Hardest Refresh
| CTRL-⌘<span title="Windows key logo">⊞</span>⇧#-R-F5-F-5-ESC-O-0-Ø-⏏-SCROLL LOCK
| Internet starts over from ARPANET
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Talk:1642: Gravitational Waves

2016-02-13T09:49:29Z

162.158.90.210:

"Local group" refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group. Lonely singles (black holes?) meeting on a galactic scale would produce another gravitational event. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.223|162.158.90.223]] 21:39, 11 February 2016 (UTC) Christoph Berg

Should we add a Trivia section regarding the fact that this comic was posted outside the normal M-W-F schedule? [[User:Edo|Edo]] ([[User talk:Edo|talk]]) 23:03, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Should there be some kind of mention of the possibility (or lack thereof) of artificial gravity waves being used for long-distance communicaiton? --[[User:Joshupetersen|Joshupetersen]] ([[User talk:Joshupetersen|talk]]) 23:41, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure everyone knows what the solar mass symbol looks like. [[User:Thaledison|Thaledison]] ([[User talk:Thaledison|talk]]) 23:51, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I think the explanation needs a bit more on the analogy that humans rely heavily on electromagnetic waves for communication. It is reasonable to expect aliens to use gravitational waves for the same as the theoretical basis for encoding messages would likely not need to be change. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.221|162.158.91.221]] 08:29, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
: Please go ahead and edit it, I'm done for now. I've added lots of stuff. This is the first comic I've tried explaining in full, and it has become quite big. ;-) So far I was only doing small edits here and there... [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 09:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
: EDIT - I added a sentence about it. Please do any further edits if you like... [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 09:24, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
:I think this has something to do with [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google_Wave |Google Wave] or am I overthinking it? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.180.125|162.158.180.125]] 12:11, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Odd for a massive-object-related comic to not contain a your-mom-joke reference. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.75.221|141.101.75.221]] 12:09, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

"Black hole merger in Carina (30 M☉, 30 M☉)" refers to the public announcement of the [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html?_r=0 first detection ever made of gravity waves] from the LIGO-VIRGO experiment. The announcement has been publicly done thursday 11 February 2016, the same day the drawing has been done. This is not a "Possibly legitimate result", but a scientifically proved legitimate result. The drawing has been done in honor to that major scientific first ever observation (which will probably lead to a Nobel Price). --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.24|173.245.49.24]] 15:04, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

"Zorlax is a kid's television gameshow, based on time travel", and "Formed billions of years ago in the earths core, cursed to be but a floating head, gifted with a knowledge of the ages and destined to be the master of time. He is '''the mighty... ZORLAX!'''" See [https://vimeo.com/7592641 here] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdGGL0OrmFs here]. Maybe someone knows this kid's television gameshow. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:21, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

"One of the receivers is quite impressed with this and suggests that they have to reply to the spam just because the sender has made such an effort to send the message." This line: I actually interpreted the title text as worry rather than being impressed. If a cosmic being is moving around celestial bodies just to make a LinkedIn request and is making increasingly-intense messages, it might be best for the safety of whatever to prevent it from escalating any further. Am I the only one who understood it this way? [[User:Jeudi Violist|Jeudi Violist]] ([[User talk:Jeudi Violist|talk]]) 19:45, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Just to be complete: The spam messages could also come from a prankster messing with the computer or some equipment between the experiment and the computer. Of course this is less (if at all) funny than the thought of encoding messages in gravitational waves.

Talk:1598: Salvage

2015-11-02T14:00:04Z

162.158.90.210:

as randall points out, the whole rice thing is a myth. either there isn't water inside your phone, in which case it's going to work anyway, or there is and the rice will only get the moisture off the outside and it won't. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.8|108.162.216.8]] 13:40, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I used to have a digital clock that stopped when it got wet, and didn't start again until it dried out, 11.5 hours later.<br>The weird thing was that it was ''always'' 11.5 hours - I checked (to within a few dozen minutes) at least four separate times. To this day I have no idea why. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.78|141.101.81.78]] 13:44, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
:More mysterious than the precise timing of your digital clock's resurrection is what you were doing to get it wet so often. :) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.210|162.158.90.210]] 14:00, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1586: Keyboard Problems

2015-10-05T10:41:59Z

162.158.90.210:

Possible reference to server problems comic? (1084)

For a risk of sounding mundane, similar symptoms can occur with keyboard breadcrumb syndrome, when someone eats too much bread at the computer, and their keyboard keeps getting hit with crumbs. As said someone is unlikely to change their habits unless they're made aware of the true reason for their problem, it would indeed follow them from computer to computer (because they keep getting crumbs on keyboards), as well as on the same keyboard (because it's getting full of crumbs).<br>(Did I just make up the name "keyboard breadcrumb syndrome"? The syndrome itself must be common, but I couldn't think of any other name for it. Also, OTT purists will now probably come and start berating me for not using the word "leopard".) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.59|141.101.80.59]] 09:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

:Not just bread though, could be other foods. Like Doritos! [[User:XY007|XY007]] ([[User talk:XY007|talk]]) 09:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Certainly a case of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect Pauli effect].

Talk:1586: Keyboard Problems

2015-10-05T10:40:51Z

162.158.90.210:

Possible reference to server problems comic? (1084)

For a risk of sounding mundane, similar symptoms can occur with keyboard breadcrumb syndrome, when someone eats too much bread at the computer, and their keyboard keeps getting hit with crumbs. As said someone is unlikely to change their habits unless they're made aware of the true reason for their problem, it would indeed follow them from computer to computer (because they keep getting crumbs on keyboards), as well as on the same keyboard (because it's getting full of crumbs).<br>(Did I just make up the name "keyboard breadcrumb syndrome"? The syndrome itself must be common, but I couldn't think of any other name for it. Also, OTT purists will now probably come and start berating me for not using the word "leopard".) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.59|141.101.80.59]] 09:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

:Not just bread though, could be other foods. Like Doritos! [[User:XY007|XY007]] ([[User talk:XY007|talk]]) 09:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Certainly a variation of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect Pauli effect].

1573: Cyberintelligence

2015-09-04T07:54:00Z

162.158.90.210: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1573
| date = September 4, 2015
| title = Cyberintelligence
| image = cyberintelligence.png
| titletext = We had gathered that raw information, but had yet to put it all together.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|}}

This comic plays on the fact that some organization appears to be spending obscene amounts of money on their "cyber intelligence" budget, yet all that research appears not to have informed then that the prefix "cyber-" fell out of fashion years ago. {{w|Cyber spying|Cyber intelligence}} is spying in the digital world.

The title text continues the joke by implying the organization learned about the demise of "cyber-" yet failed to process or analyze that data. It may also be a reference to the previous comic, which was a link to a survey for xkcd readers.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[Ponytail, pointing at a chart on her left and talking offscreen to the right.]
:Ponytail: Our overall FY2015 cyberintelligence budget was $8.1 billion-
:[Interrupted by offscreen]
:Offscreen: -Yet it wasn't enough to pick up on the fact the no one else had used the prefix "cyber-" for like a decade.
:Ponytail: Shut up.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Charts]]