2754: Relative Terms

2023-03-27T06:40:58Z

162.158.94.21: northern lights

{{comic
| number = 2754
| date = March 24, 2023
| title = Relative Terms
| image = relative_terms_2x.png
| imagesize = 425x442px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Small sewing machines are sewing machines that are smaller than a sewing machine. A sewing machine is larger than a small sewing machine, but quieter than a loud sewing machine.
}}

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

The terms "small" and "big" are used to refer to size; the terms "loud" and "quiet" are used to refer to (audial) volume.

While these terms are relative, they are often used even when there is nothing obvious being compared against (e.g. "A windmill is a big thing" or "An ant is a small thing"). This comic humorously suggests that the item defined to be in the middle of all four terms ("neither small nor big; neither quiet nor loud") is a sewing machine.

The center of the chart is a sewing machine, and the comic is claiming that the scales of "loud and quiet" and "big and small" are measured in comparison to a standard size sewing machine. A standard sewing machine is roughly 60dB in volume and approximately 42” X 21”, although this is for industrial machines, and those in the home would be both smaller and quieter.

The title text is humorously tautological because it compares the standard against those things that are themselves defined against the standard.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Small and quiet (upper left)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Ant ||
|-
| Balloon ||
|-
| Book ||
|-
| Bun (rabbit or pastry) || "Bun" is an informal term for a rabbit and a loaf of bread, this comparison was made in [[1871: Bun Alert]]
|-
| Butterfly || This entry is found on the top left corner, corresponding to the extremes of quietness and smallness. Butterflies are very small and make little noise.
|-
| Hat ||
|-
| Mouse ||
|-
| Newt ||
|-
| Pin drop || The expression "hear a pin drop" is used to indicate that an area is exceptionally quiet; the idea is that the space is so silent that even something as insubstantial and tiny as a pin can be heard hitting the ground.
|-
| Snow globe ||
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Small and loud (upper right)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Baby ||
|-
| Blender ||
|-
| Cricket || Top right corner. This would refer to the insect, which is pretty small and can be quite loud; the sport of cricket or a cricket game would be much larger and potentially much louder.
|-
| Fire alarm ||
|-
| Firecracker ||
|-
| Flute ||
|-
| Harmonica ||
|-
| Popcorn ||
|-
| Songbird ||
|-
| Whistle || This could apply to either the device known as a whistle or to the act by humans; the former is used functionally in place of the latter. The loudest human whistle ever recorded was 8372 Hz and roughly 110 DB, which is a C9 in the standard musical scale and is roughly as loud as a jackhammer[https://www.vnews.com/West-Lebanon-man-sets-a-world-record-for-whistling-24480844#:~:text=Guinness'%20website%20says%20Stanford%20reached,in%20the%20standard%20musical%20notation.].
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Big and quiet (lower left)
|-
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Anaconda ||
|-
| Giraffe || Giraffes can be quite loud, but they usually vocalise using frequencies well below the range of human hearing. So, to a human, giraffes are quiet.
|-
| Northern lights || "In 2016, a Finnish study confirmed that the Aurora Borealis does produce the sound that can be heard" [https://www.techexplorist.com/listen-sound-aurora-borealis/47421/]
|-
| Shark ||
|-
| Statue ||
|-
| The Moon || Lower left corner; the Moon is very, very big{{fact}}, but it is also completely quiet because sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space.
|-
| Tree ||
|-
| Windmill ||
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Big and loud (lower right)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Airplane ||
|-
| Cannon ||
|-
| Riding mower ||
|-
| [[wikipedia:Calliope_(music)|Steam calliope]] || A large musical device which functions by sending steam (or more recently compressed air) through attached whistles.
|-
| Train ||
|-
| Tuba ||
|-
| Volcano || Lower right corner
|-
| Waterfall ||
|-
| Whale ||
|}

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

:[A chart, with "Quiet" to "Loud" on the X-axis, and "Small" to "Big" on the Y-axis. It is split into four quarters, with "Sewing machine" in the center.]

:[Upper left quadrant (Small & Quiet items):] Butterfly, Pin drop, Mouse, Ant, Bun (rabbit or pastry), Snow globe, Newt, Balloon, Book, Hat

:[Upper right quadrant (Small & Loud items):] Popcorn, Cricket, Songbird, Whistle, Baby, Harmonica, Flute, Fire alarm, Blender, Firecracker

:[Lower left quadrant (Big & Quiet items):] Shark, Tree, Anaconda, Giraffe, Statue, Windmill, Northern lights, The Moon

:[Lower right quadrant (Big & Loud items):] Tuba, Riding mower, Cannon, Airplane, Train, Waterfall, Steam calliope, Whale, Volcano

:[Caption below the panel:]
:''Big'', ''Small'', ''Loud'', and ''Quiet'' are relative terms. The thing they're relative to is a sewing machine.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Aviation]]

Talk:2752: Salt Dome

2023-03-22T05:29:31Z

162.158.94.21:

Made a guess. [[User:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO|By me.]] ([[User talk:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO|talk]]) 22:39, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Odd that Beret Guy’s not the one doing it. We’ve seen White Hat act a normal extra character before, but having Beret Guy in a comic not doing anything strange feels wrong. [[User:Intara|Intara]] ([[User talk:Intara|talk]]) 04:09, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
: Agree. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:37, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
:: I have just mentioned this in the explanation and compared Cueball's power with Beret Guys strange powers. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
:: My reading of it is that Beret Guy does strange things because he doesn't truly understand how things work (the way that scientific consensus understands, c.f. Vacuum Energy). This geologist is doing a strange thing because he is ''just so good'' at the regular science he knows. Success through hypercompetancy, not hypernaïvity, in modulating pressure-waves (like a phased-array transmitter?) from the four chair-leg points sent through ''theoretically'' knowable layers of floor and bedrock.
:: It's a stretch, but given the changes needed to put Beret Guy into protagonist position (it'd be just "don't ask this guy...", not a geologist) then I think it's a perfectly valid compositional choice on behalf of Randall. (Who can do as he likes, without my trying to be apologist for him, but I'll explain my conclusions anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.64|172.71.178.64]] 10:28, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The text mentions the UK Salt reserve, used to prevent black ice on roads. I assume that US states that get sufficient snowfall also maintain reserves of salt and grit to keep their roads open. Or does it simply get too cold for ice to be of any use? {{unsigned|Arachrah}}
: Yes, states and municipalities in the US definitely maintain reserves of salt for use in treating roads during winter weather. Such reserves are commonly stored in dome-shaped structures (often seen near highway interchanges), which I assume is part of the allusion in the title text. I don't believe this statement in the current explanation is completely accurate: "Ordinary salt is also available in abundance throughout the U.S. so there is no need for any kind of salt reserves, strategic or otherwise." This may be true at a Federal level, but having grown up in the northeastern U.S., I recall hearing of some of the smaller municipalities running low on/out of salt during especially harsh winters. [[User:CarLuva|CarLuva]] ([[User talk:CarLuva|talk]]) 14:25, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
:: Agreed and fixed. Can you find a photograph of such dome structures? I've lived in areas dependent on road salting most of my life without ever having any idea what the stockpiles look like. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.71|172.69.22.71]] 14:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
::: Much better, thanks! A quick Google image search for "[https://www.google.com/search?q=road+salt+dome&tbm=isch road salt dome]" yields plenty of photos of them. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.82.16|172.71.82.16]] 16:01, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
:::: Given that selection of images, I question the link specifically to "monolithic dome" in the explanation (and the hatnote on The Other Wiki's "salt dome" page) - many of those photos are clearly of structures assembled from multiple parts; some appear to be [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridshell gridshells], others possibly fabricated as a set of tall of segments. - [[User:IMSoP|IMSoP]] ([[User talk:IMSoP|talk]]) 17:20, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
: Covered salt piles are relatively new. Prior to 2000, or there abouts, salt was stored uncovered piled on bare earth. Some would be lost due to rain and runoff. But salt was cheaper than salt barns. However excess salt causes environmental problems and storage losses were unnecessary. There was some gnashing of teeth when regulations mandated covered salt barns. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.129|172.71.222.129]] 04:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm, I also see a somewhat indecent connotation between passing the salt and passing a kidney stone, in particular that the salt in the picture is being extruded through an orifice in the ground... -- [[Special:Contributions/172.68.138.179|172.68.138.179]] 09:55, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Beret guy lended his powers to a geologist.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.204|172.68.51.204]]

It was Toph tier XD haha, get it? Toph! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.21|162.158.94.21]] 05:29, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2754: Relative Terms

Talk:2752: Salt Dome