explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2280: 2010 and 2020

2020-03-14T15:32:52Z

162.158.94.14:

Please maintain your distance in these comments. No comments within 6 vertical inches of other comments, please. And any in-comment sneezing or coughing will result in your account being banned for a period of 3 weeks. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 21:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

If the above information was new to you, please take this concise pamphlet. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.250.58|172.69.250.58]] 23:17, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we should add a section on what holo-banshees are? That could be useful. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.183|162.158.58.183]] 01:51, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
:Since Holo-banshees are something Randall made up, that could be difficult. LOL! All we have is the name, and that's already explained. Though since the explanation talks about how this wouldn't make sense if they're present in EVERY household I'm somewhat inclined to add "therefore this is probably only a common problem, like rats, ants or cockroaches today." :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:09, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
:: Well, it says " often " there are holo-banshees. Not always or nearly. Banshees are female Irish vocalists who predict a death in the household, so I will assume that The Corrs joined the current mini-trend for touring your music act as a " hologram " and it got out of hand in some way. Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.5|141.101.69.5]] 11:00, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
:::I think they're like asbestos. Perhaps at one time considered a good idea (insulating/advanced indications of life-threatening household situations) but later on discovered to have unwanted properties forcing complicated handling procedures to make them safe. In the one case, the shedding of fine carcinogenic dust, in the other perhaps the 'holo' emits excessive intensities of certain wavelengths of light that are directly or indirectly an environmental biohazard. Sealing in situ may be the optimal situation. If, say, the non-corporeal (i.e. unmovable) holo-banshee must be sealed within an asbestos container, which must itself be safely coated then that would easily provoke the scenario hinted at. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.14|162.158.94.14]] 15:32, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Talk:1870: Emoji Movie Reviews

2019-10-06T19:56:35Z

162.158.94.14:

There are many ways that a movie can be bad. It could have uninteresting characters, a bad plot, stupid dialogue, poor filming etc. Very likely the Emoji movie suffers from all of these problems. I should add that Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars fame was widely hated by anyone over 8 years old but my 5-year-old loved him. Could the same thing be true for Emojis? [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 18:00, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
:So, similar to the minions movie series? 20:00, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.125|141.101.104.125]]
::The minions and the "prequel" (I don't know the english title) are not only watched and enjoyed by children - at least in Germany - but also by young adults. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.5|198.41.242.5]]
:::Es gibt kein Prequel zu den Minions. Die Minions sind das Prequel zu "Ich, einfach unverbesserlich", also "Despicable Me".[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.206|162.158.88.206]] 11:08, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:::I can see how happy pills would be popular among the Germanic depressives. :P [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.100|162.158.75.100]] 20:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

:::Of the Star Wars prequels, the one which had the most of Jar Jar Binks was the first one, whose English name was Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. And you should note that Rtanenbaum wasn't talking about the whole movie, but specifically the character of Jar Jar Binks (the clutz alien with long floppy ears). Plus, I think most adults (or "anyone over 8 years old") hated him for how he spoke, so other language adaptations might have made him better, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:03, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
:::: Well, at least not in Germany XD [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:24, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, does anyone genuinely believe that the writers would not actually know about the eggplant? Out of dozens, nay hundreds of useless icons, this one would have been unconsciously selected by random chance? {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.160}}
:Cueball even asks, "was that on purpose?". {{unsigned ip|162.158.146.22}}

Possible title text explanation: The idea doesn't survive in the real world because (A) people typically don't express emotion by turning their head upside down, and (B) it's rare that you run into a person who is thinking (a very jaded, cynical view of humanity popular among internet users). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.22|172.68.54.22]] 14:43, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
:I think probably the title text is more trying to emphasize the fact that emoji can be used in ambiguous/nuanced ways, as much or more than other methods of communication. [[User:Berets|Berets]] ([[User talk:Berets|talk]]) 22:33, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Considering the last comic also happens to be about reviews, is it possible Randall made a subtle comment about the Emoji Movie in 1869? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.254.108|172.68.254.108]] 17:43, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Am I the only one, wanting to watch that movie now, in order to actually verify and explain the plot summary for this site, and to be able to make a first hand guess wether the egggplant joke was a joke? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.115|162.158.89.115]]
:You are not alone, LOL! This comic actually gave me interest in seeing the movie, I had virtually no interest before this. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
::Am I alone? After reading some news articles, wiki, and this comic I know I really do NOT need to see this movie. And furthermore I even don't need Emojis... ;-) --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:38, 4 August 2017 (UTC)--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:38, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not a big emoji user, so I never knew the eggplant was a penis-representative. But this quote: "''... a sly stand-in for a penis, due to its similar shape.''" had me wondering. No penis I know looks like that (the emoji itself), unless the writer has a familiarity with saline-injection porn! [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 02:55, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

"there is a very low chance of there being a 'piracy app', as an app such as this would not be allowed on any online app store." Unless it's a piracy app store. Android allows to install apps from APKs, and jailbroken iphones -- from IPA files, I think. [[User:ShareDVI|ShareDVI]] ([[User talk:ShareDVI|talk]]) 08:14, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Was ''Sausage Party'' 'trying to be controversial on purpose'? I didn't see it, but it just looked like a typical adult comedy to me. [[User:PvOberstein|PvOberstein]] ([[User talk:PvOberstein|talk]]) 18:14, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

You know, there was a rant by Durex there is no condom emoji. As example, Durex offered to remove useless emoji and add condom emoji instead. Joke isz they used eggplan as example of useless emoji.

I guess that's how eggplans became the meme AND the innuendo.

1179: ISO 8601

2019-10-05T23:31:14Z

162.158.94.14: /* Explanation */ fix whitespace

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

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

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

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

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

The other mentioned formats are:

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

==Transcript==
:Public Service Announcement:

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

::2013-02-27

:The following formats are therefore discouraged:
:*02/27/2013
:*02/27/13
:*27/02/2013
:*27/02/13
:*20130227
:*2013.02.27
:*27.02.13
:*27-02-13
:*27.2.13
:*2013. II. 27.
:*27⁄2-13
:*2013.158904109
:*MMXIII-II-XXVII
:*MMXIII LVII⁄CCCLXV
:*1330300800 [This is the UNIX time for *2012*-02-27, Randall.]
:*((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33
:*   2  272013 [the numbers 2013, 02, and 27 written overlapping each other]
:*10/11011/1101
:*02/27/20/13
:*2053112674378
:*[A black cat with 2-27-13 scrawled across its body in dripping white paint.]
:**Cat: ''Hissss''

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

2200: Unreachable State

2019-09-11T10:04:08Z

162.158.94.14: /* Explanation */ typo corrected: BOT ist tired iso tried

{{comic
| number = 2200
| date = September 09, 2019
| title = Unreachable State
| image = unreachable_state.png
| titletext = ERROR: We've reached an unreachable state. Anything is possible. The limits were in our heads all along. Follow your dreams.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT in an UNREACHABLE STATE, which is also tired. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

An {{w|error message}} is information shown when a computer program encounters a problem that the programmers did not anticipate, such as if the URL given to a web browser does [[404|not correspond]] to any page on a website. Most sites have customized error pages, from the {{xkcd|404|simple}} to the [https://www.kualo.co.uk/404 creative].

This comic shows [[Cueball]] reading an strange error message from a program he is using. The programmer seems to have written this text while tired, so the message seems rather hopeless, bordering on the existential. The idea behind it is that the author of any error code hopes that no one will have to see it, because that would mean that the program is working perfectly, but the fact that they are writing it means they know the program will eventually fail. This could make the whole idea of writing a program seem rather hopeless; that hopelessness is associated with tiredness in the caption.

The title text refers to the common trope of a character being given a "magic" item and winning something because of it, then being told that the item was not actually magic and that the magic was [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicFeather?from=Main.TheMagicWasInsideYouAllAlong inside them all along]. It is often used as a fable to tell people to follow their dreams. The title text puts the fable in a place where it doesn't belong, saying that finding the "unreachable state" that is the error code implies that the finder can do anything.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, sitting on an office chair at his desk, with his hands over his laptop computer is reading an error message on the screen. What he reads is displayed above him with a zigzag line from the screen to the text. The exclamation mark at the top is shown in white on a black triangle.]
:If you're reading this, the code is in what I thought was an unreachable state.
:I could give you advice for what to do. But honestly, why should you trust me? I clearly screwed this up. I'm writing a message that should never appear, yet I know it will probably appear someday.
:On a deep level, I know I'm not up to this task. I'm sorry.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Never write error messages tired.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]