explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2217: 53 Cards

2019-10-21T22:25:32Z

172.68.189.19: reformatted and changed the phrasing to more accurately reference the OP

"This page was last edited [tomorrow]." Okay, good to know. Tomorrow starts three hours from now, my time. This comic reminded me of this article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/corkscrewing-bouncy-ion-drive-would-provide-thrust-in-different-universe/ [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.88|172.68.38.88]] 00:44, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I can do this, but my flowchart would be different and involve secretly inserting a joker, using the shuffling as cover for the move.
Collect a deck of 52 cards and have a spectator count the cards. - Secretly hide a joker from the deck in your off-hand (the one without the deck). - Shuffle the cards, letting the hidden card drop on top of the deck. - Keep shuffling, so the inserted joker is well mixed into the deck. - Have a spectator count the cards, looking only at the backs. - 53.
[[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 04:56, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually this is also what encryption scientists have to face talking to not so few encryption enthusiasts who just invented their own encryption method[[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.112|162.158.234.112]] 07:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:Ohg V unir na haornnoyr pvcure! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 13:52, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:The difference is that those "own excryption methods" usually work ... not well, but at least little. Now, the algorithms which claim to compress ANY input to smaller size, those tend to be suspicious ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Wait, isn't perpetual motion (w.r.t. a inertial reference frame) possible, at least according to Newtonian mechanics? Just launch something into space at high enough speed and "watch" it wander away forever. Extracting (an unbounded amount of) energy from that object is a totally different story... --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.94|162.158.234.94]] 10:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:Not really, as even in vacuums particles randomly come into existence. Eventually enough would be in the path to slow it to a stop. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.151|162.158.62.151]] 17:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
::Not in Newtonian mechanics. Those random particles are result of quantum physics - and in quantum physics, EVERYTHING is possible, just unlikely (there is extremely small but nonzero probability that all particles in macroscopic object would exhibit tunneling effect moving them in same direction, for example). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:Vacuum fluctuation (particles), i.e. quantum weirdness, cannot cause trouble. This is because all working QFT, where these vacuum fluctuations appear, take as assumption the strict local conservation of energy-momentum 4-vector, which is the generalisation of what our OP is asking about. This is a fundamental backbone of all modern physics, not just Newtonian mechanics, and the only known violation is in cosmology. Needless to say, when we talk about perpetual motion machines, we have to start by omitting this trivial class. That is, we do not call systems that achieve perpetual motion by exploiting the conservation of linear or angular momentum alone, as perpetual motion machines. Some machines of that form that convert the energy and momentum from one part to the other could be a perpetual motion machine, because in those cases it is possible for the efficiency of conversion to be imperfect, in which case it will always practically be imperfect, leading to the eventual failure. Luckily, on Earth and in practice, there is no need to be careful, because even the linear or angular momentum special case, would be interacting with air---the best vacuum we can get, are still not perfect; it is not perfect even in actual space outside Earth. It just doesn't exist anywhere. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 20:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC) Uhhh, and what about ''Ptolemaic'' Mechanics? SOMETHING is keeping the spheres rotating. Seems Randall hasn't really thought this comic through. Someone should challenge him to prove that his comic is true in all idealistic conceptions of the real world.

Getting a 53 card deck from a 52 card deck is easy. First, cut the deck twice. Then, shuffle all parts together; be sure to suffer thoroughly. Finally, take off the top 5 cards, sneak in the Joker on the bottom while nobody's looking, and put the five cards at the "middle". Because of skewed philosophy, you will have gotten a 53 card deck![[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.186|162.158.122.186]]

“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” -Alberto Brandolini [[User:Menoshe|Menoshe]] ([[User talk:Menoshe|talk]]) 22:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Note that while it shouldn't be possible to obtain energy from nowhere, there ARE methods which makes hard to find where the energy comes from, and some may be useful (say, perhaps as a new kind of battery?). Also, anything involving not-completely-understood phenomena, like black hole for example, might actually generate energy from source we don't know about yet (parallel universe or something like that). Meanwhile, lot of theoretical designs of perpetual motion machines without working prototype only contain steps which can't possibly get energy anywhere and are completely useless ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
: Black hole physics are one of the best understood. No part of understanding them requires parallel universes. The thing that is really a headache in General Theory of Relativity is that we still do not have a good, localised, way to express the energy stored in the gravitational field. Landau-Lifshitz pseudo-tensor is proved to be unique given the assumptions, but starts with a subtraction of the matter stress-energy tensor, and violates precisely this comic---it says that some gravitational wave situations don't carry away energy, when in fact we know those have to carry away energy. Better defined notions, like ADM energy, are global energy, not localised energy, so that we do not know what they mean, practically. However, even though we are still not fully understanding what mathematical quantity would correctly map to gravitational field energy in the theory, we still do know that it has to be gravitational field energy, and that it has nothing to do with parallel universes. Just to hammer down the singular mistake in your nice comment. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 21:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

In the picture it seems that he cuts the cards into a pile of 21 cards and 38 cards (thus making 59 cards) I'm sure that helps his argument (or he can't count.
: Yeah, I noticed that mismatch too! Actually, I interpreted the "cut" as referring to that one old trick where rectangular objects (usually banknotes) would be cut in half and then rearranged with small pieces missing, making one more object than there used to be. This of course would not be a case of "rearranging and shuffling". (If you're wondering why this doesn't work for ''actual'' banknotes, that's because the existence of serial numbers makes this trick far harder, and the ''repeated'' serial numbers on most modern notes make it effectively impossible. But back in the 19th century this actually used to be a problem.) --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.33|172.69.54.33]] 19:26, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Perpetual motion is so easy that we've already done it. The universe isn't going to stop expanding anytime soon, afterall. Also, Voyager (and some other space probes). Everything is perpetual motion in space at solar escape velocity until/unless it hits something. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.88|162.158.214.88]] 18:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
: This case is by definition excluded from the discussion of perpetual motion. See above for my longer version on it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 21:03, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

You can always rearrange the matter making up the 52 cards, into 53 smaller cards. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.17|108.162.212.17]] 19:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

It's easy to prove, using the Banach-Tarski theorem [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 12:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
:If you show me how to dissolve the cards into subatomar theoretical dots by shuffling, I agree. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Sigh... I really don't like having to keep challenging Kynde, who I believe is a well-intentioned contributor... but as soon as I saw the rewritten explanation with confusing phrasing and broken English, I knew that it was him who did it, and honestly... it just makes the article worse. It's harder to read and comprehend, contains irrelevancies, and swings between explanatory points incoherently. It was, honestly, okay as it was (specifically [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2217:_53_Cards&oldid=181494 this version]). I don't really know what to do about it. I'm of the "be bold in making edits" school of wiki-ing, but I don't want to just flush away other people's well-meant contributions. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 15:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, plenty of physicists make the same mistake, losing sight of the fact that math is only a model that must conform to reality, a-la Zeno's Paradox. That's how you end up with silly claims of "if you can [go faster than light] [travel through a wormhole between two distant points in an expanding universe] you'll go backward in time". Or how about the pseudoscience of explaining failed models by assuming that there must be "dark" matter or energy, instead of acknowledging that the model, itself, must be fundamentally wrong the way an actual scientist would. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 16:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
: What are the chances that the global scientific community, who are setup to attack each other to win funding, would require outsiders to tell them that dark matter and dark energy are indications that their models are "fundamentally wrong"? It just goes to show how rarely you talk to scientists. Cosmologists are always apologising for not knowing what dark energy is, treating them only as the cosmological constant (other alternatives are always explored, but none offer significant improvements upon cosmological constant simplicity). But the dark matter situation already merit a few observational wins, and are starting to look more and more like postulating neutrinos, which is a winning precedent. For two examples, firstly, we have observed localised dark matter causing gravitational lensing. Secondly, we see some galaxy collisions that have dark matter in the wrong place due to the collisions. These evidences are enough to convince most astrophysicists that the basic picture seems correct. Other than this, you should also work on understanding more about how theory and experiment interact in physics, before commenting more upon the matter. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 21:17, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, since it's a non-closed system that is receiving energy... and matter is just solidified energy... :) I'm going to say that Cueball is right so long as his flowchart also contains a StarTrek replicator somewhere. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.64|172.68.90.64]] 20:08, 21 October 2019 (UTC)SiliconWolf

Where's the Banach–Tarski reference! There should totally be an earth-shattering Banach–Tarski reference. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.219|162.158.58.219]] 21:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2217: 53 Cards

2019-10-21T22:24:30Z

172.68.189.19: Added some snark about the poster's insistence on Newtonian Mechanics (an outdated and known incomplete -but still useful - model) which has nothing to say about contemporary or modern thermodynamics, and makes no statements that contradict it.

"This page was last edited [tomorrow]." Okay, good to know. Tomorrow starts three hours from now, my time. This comic reminded me of this article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/corkscrewing-bouncy-ion-drive-would-provide-thrust-in-different-universe/ [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.88|172.68.38.88]] 00:44, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I can do this, but my flowchart would be different and involve secretly inserting a joker, using the shuffling as cover for the move.
Collect a deck of 52 cards and have a spectator count the cards. - Secretly hide a joker from the deck in your off-hand (the one without the deck). - Shuffle the cards, letting the hidden card drop on top of the deck. - Keep shuffling, so the inserted joker is well mixed into the deck. - Have a spectator count the cards, looking only at the backs. - 53.
[[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 04:56, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually this is also what encryption scientists have to face talking to not so few encryption enthusiasts who just invented their own encryption method[[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.112|162.158.234.112]] 07:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:Ohg V unir na haornnoyr pvcure! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 13:52, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:The difference is that those "own excryption methods" usually work ... not well, but at least little. Now, the algorithms which claim to compress ANY input to smaller size, those tend to be suspicious ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Wait, isn't perpetual motion (w.r.t. a inertial reference frame) possible, at least according to Newtonian mechanics? Just launch something into space at high enough speed and "watch" it wander away forever. Extracting (an unbounded amount of) energy from that object is a totally different story... --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.94|162.158.234.94]] 10:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:Not really, as even in vacuums particles randomly come into existence. Eventually enough would be in the path to slow it to a stop. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.151|162.158.62.151]] 17:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
::Not in Newtonian mechanics. Those random particles are result of quantum physics - and in quantum physics, EVERYTHING is possible, just unlikely (there is extremely small but nonzero probability that all particles in macroscopic object would exhibit tunneling effect moving them in same direction, for example). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
:Vacuum fluctuation (particles), i.e. quantum weirdness, cannot cause trouble. This is because all working QFT, where these vacuum fluctuations appear, take as assumption the strict local conservation of energy-momentum 4-vector, which is the generalisation of what our OP is asking about. This is a fundamental backbone of all modern physics, not just Newtonian mechanics, and the only known violation is in cosmology. Needless to say, when we talk about perpetual motion machines, we have to start by omitting this trivial class. That is, we do not call systems that achieve perpetual motion by exploiting the conservation of linear or angular momentum alone, as perpetual motion machines. Some machines of that form that convert the energy and momentum from one part to the other could be a perpetual motion machine, because in those cases it is possible for the efficiency of conversion to be imperfect, in which case it will always practically be imperfect, leading to the eventual failure. Luckily, on Earth and in practice, there is no need to be careful, because even the linear or angular momentum special case, would be interacting with air---the best vacuum we can get, are still not perfect; it is not perfect even in actual space outside Earth. It just doesn't exist anywhere. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 20:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Uhhh, and what about ''Ptolemaic'' physics? SOMETHING is keeping the spheres rotating. Seems Randall hasn't really thought this comic through. Someone should challenge him to prove that his comic is true in all idealistic conceptions of the real world.

Getting a 53 card deck from a 52 card deck is easy. First, cut the deck twice. Then, shuffle all parts together; be sure to suffer thoroughly. Finally, take off the top 5 cards, sneak in the Joker on the bottom while nobody's looking, and put the five cards at the "middle". Because of skewed philosophy, you will have gotten a 53 card deck![[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.186|162.158.122.186]]

“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” -Alberto Brandolini [[User:Menoshe|Menoshe]] ([[User talk:Menoshe|talk]]) 22:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Note that while it shouldn't be possible to obtain energy from nowhere, there ARE methods which makes hard to find where the energy comes from, and some may be useful (say, perhaps as a new kind of battery?). Also, anything involving not-completely-understood phenomena, like black hole for example, might actually generate energy from source we don't know about yet (parallel universe or something like that). Meanwhile, lot of theoretical designs of perpetual motion machines without working prototype only contain steps which can't possibly get energy anywhere and are completely useless ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
: Black hole physics are one of the best understood. No part of understanding them requires parallel universes. The thing that is really a headache in General Theory of Relativity is that we still do not have a good, localised, way to express the energy stored in the gravitational field. Landau-Lifshitz pseudo-tensor is proved to be unique given the assumptions, but starts with a subtraction of the matter stress-energy tensor, and violates precisely this comic---it says that some gravitational wave situations don't carry away energy, when in fact we know those have to carry away energy. Better defined notions, like ADM energy, are global energy, not localised energy, so that we do not know what they mean, practically. However, even though we are still not fully understanding what mathematical quantity would correctly map to gravitational field energy in the theory, we still do know that it has to be gravitational field energy, and that it has nothing to do with parallel universes. Just to hammer down the singular mistake in your nice comment. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 21:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

In the picture it seems that he cuts the cards into a pile of 21 cards and 38 cards (thus making 59 cards) I'm sure that helps his argument (or he can't count.
: Yeah, I noticed that mismatch too! Actually, I interpreted the "cut" as referring to that one old trick where rectangular objects (usually banknotes) would be cut in half and then rearranged with small pieces missing, making one more object than there used to be. This of course would not be a case of "rearranging and shuffling". (If you're wondering why this doesn't work for ''actual'' banknotes, that's because the existence of serial numbers makes this trick far harder, and the ''repeated'' serial numbers on most modern notes make it effectively impossible. But back in the 19th century this actually used to be a problem.) --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.33|172.69.54.33]] 19:26, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Perpetual motion is so easy that we've already done it. The universe isn't going to stop expanding anytime soon, afterall. Also, Voyager (and some other space probes). Everything is perpetual motion in space at solar escape velocity until/unless it hits something. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.88|162.158.214.88]] 18:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
: This case is by definition excluded from the discussion of perpetual motion. See above for my longer version on it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 21:03, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

You can always rearrange the matter making up the 52 cards, into 53 smaller cards. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.17|108.162.212.17]] 19:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

It's easy to prove, using the Banach-Tarski theorem [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 12:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
:If you show me how to dissolve the cards into subatomar theoretical dots by shuffling, I agree. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Sigh... I really don't like having to keep challenging Kynde, who I believe is a well-intentioned contributor... but as soon as I saw the rewritten explanation with confusing phrasing and broken English, I knew that it was him who did it, and honestly... it just makes the article worse. It's harder to read and comprehend, contains irrelevancies, and swings between explanatory points incoherently. It was, honestly, okay as it was (specifically [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2217:_53_Cards&oldid=181494 this version]). I don't really know what to do about it. I'm of the "be bold in making edits" school of wiki-ing, but I don't want to just flush away other people's well-meant contributions. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 15:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, plenty of physicists make the same mistake, losing sight of the fact that math is only a model that must conform to reality, a-la Zeno's Paradox. That's how you end up with silly claims of "if you can [go faster than light] [travel through a wormhole between two distant points in an expanding universe] you'll go backward in time". Or how about the pseudoscience of explaining failed models by assuming that there must be "dark" matter or energy, instead of acknowledging that the model, itself, must be fundamentally wrong the way an actual scientist would. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 16:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
: What are the chances that the global scientific community, who are setup to attack each other to win funding, would require outsiders to tell them that dark matter and dark energy are indications that their models are "fundamentally wrong"? It just goes to show how rarely you talk to scientists. Cosmologists are always apologising for not knowing what dark energy is, treating them only as the cosmological constant (other alternatives are always explored, but none offer significant improvements upon cosmological constant simplicity). But the dark matter situation already merit a few observational wins, and are starting to look more and more like postulating neutrinos, which is a winning precedent. For two examples, firstly, we have observed localised dark matter causing gravitational lensing. Secondly, we see some galaxy collisions that have dark matter in the wrong place due to the collisions. These evidences are enough to convince most astrophysicists that the basic picture seems correct. Other than this, you should also work on understanding more about how theory and experiment interact in physics, before commenting more upon the matter. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.118|162.158.165.118]] 21:17, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, since it's a non-closed system that is receiving energy... and matter is just solidified energy... :) I'm going to say that Cueball is right so long as his flowchart also contains a StarTrek replicator somewhere. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.64|172.68.90.64]] 20:08, 21 October 2019 (UTC)SiliconWolf

Where's the Banach–Tarski reference! There should totally be an earth-shattering Banach–Tarski reference. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.219|162.158.58.219]] 21:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2215: Faculty:Student Ratio

2019-10-17T12:42:27Z

172.68.189.19: Subhead

Hi

That student from the title text would have just barely made a cent, two if they were generous and rounded up. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.18|172.68.65.18]] 00:21, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Really? My calculations have him at about 16 cents ((5 trillion x 100) divided by (10^6 x 3600 x 24 x 365.25))

Regarding above average students not getting in, the scenario described is oversimplified. I used to work in admissions for a “highly selective” university and while applicants with perfect SATs and higher than 4.0 GPAs were routinely put on the wait list (not rejected) because we assumed that they viewed us as merely a “safety school”, if the applicant showed any interest at all in actually attending, such as having come on campus for an in person interview, campus tour, or had an alumni connection, or letter(s) of recommendation, or athletic scholarship, then of course we would make an offer, and similarly if they showed any interest as cited above after being put on the wait list then they would be top of the list to get an offer from the wait list. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.48|162.158.63.48]] 03:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it should be [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=50+trillion+dollars%2Fyear+*+10+microseconds $15.85] and [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=50+trillion+dollars+%2F+%2850*40+hours%29+*+10+microseconds $69.44]. Although I'm not so sure now that there's 3 other answers on this page. If someone can confirm one of these and find inaccuracies in the others, go ahead and update the page. --[[User:Seaish|Seaish]] ([[User talk:Seaish|talk]]) 07:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:For a constant salary across the whole year, I got $15.85 as well. For paid working time it depends on the assumptions of working days per year and working hours per working day. I got 220 working days(250 official in my state-30 days of holiday, even though technically it is considered payed holiday....) and 39hours per week (8 per day, and 7 on friday), I get to $80.94. But, as stated that depends on the assumptions. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:48, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

;"Hi!" x 5'000'000'000

Hi!

I think it's a reference to "Hello, World!" test program.

It is also possible to print 5 billions of unique "Hi!" using different color (provided you have 32 bit color map for CMYK and maybe 2 differend colors of paper) {{unsigned ip|172.68.10.172}}

;Unsigned Comment from Community Portal moved here:
HI,

I disagree with the calculation for the amount of 50 trillion over 10 microseconds, its a lot more than the amount give,.

Wage = 50000000000000000000

Divide by 260 days for an average work year is a daily rate of = 192307692307692000.00

Divide that by 7.5, the average working day is an hourly rate of = 25641025641025600.00

Divide that by 60 for minutes in the hour to give a minutes rate of = 427350427350427.00

Divide that by 60 for seconds in the minute to give a seconds rate of = 7122507122507.12

Divide that by 1000 to give a millisecond rate of = 7122507122.51

Divide that by 1000 to give a microsecond rate of = 7122507.12

Times that by 10 = 71,225,071.23 for 10 microseconds of work, not bad.

From an ADP Payroll Specialist {{unsigned ip|162.158.234.82}}
:50 trillion (in english use of the word trillion) is 5E13, not 5E19 (as you used it), so instead of $71,225,071.23 it is only $71.22 for the 10 microseconds, using your assumptions on average work days and working time. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:35, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
::Trillion could be 1E18 in long scale, commonly referred to as Brittish, or in short scale, commonly referred to as American, it is 1E12. So the "english" use of the word trillion is ambiguous (but adding the English modifier suggests British, i.e., long scale.) I added a note to article to mention the different possible interpretations. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.113|172.69.33.113]] 19:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:::According to your wikipedia link, nearly all English speaking countries (including the UK and therefore England) use the short scale. Therefore, in contrast to my native language (German), which uses the short scale, the long scale is the "English" meaning, even though the term (English) is not scientifically correct in this context, it helps when trying to make it clear to the many people on this wiki who natively speak a language in which the long scale is the usual one. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:08, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the date incorrect? The archive on xkcd says it was released on 10/14, but here it says it was released on the 15th, which would make it a tuesday comic. [[User:Landfind|Landfind]] ([[User talk:Landfind|talk]]) 14:17, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:The date was set incorrectly by the BOT that generated this page - not sure why but likely because the time of release was just past midnight GMT. I fixed it though because it is clearly the Monday comic for 10/14. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:Here, a Monday the 14th seven or eight pm refresh did the trick. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.64|172.68.38.64]] 17:37, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

um, "10e-6 / 3600 / 24 / 365 * 50e12)" does not mean what you think it means. are we geeks here or not? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.235|162.158.158.235]] 08:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
:I changed the formula. It was not actually wrong (it worked out), but the way it was displayed does not show clearly why it is applied. Also the unit $ was missing. Feel free to further edit, if this is not correct or could be done better. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Where can I enlist? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.171|162.158.158.171]] 14:56, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

=== Effect sizes by forms of instruction ===

Computer-aided instruction can act as a "force multiplier" increasing the effective class size ratio depending on the type of instruction used. See [https://www.docdroid.net/DZH8EoK/is-31-05-education.pdf tables 1 and 2 here.] Too tangential or ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 12:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2216: Percent Milkfat

2019-10-17T12:40:49Z

172.68.189.19: Respond

I've always called 2% milk "98% water".
Also, these comics have been arriving ''really'' late this week; I hope Randall is doing alright.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 00:19, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the fact that the comic arrived later in the day responsible for the bottom of the page brokenly saying this is a "Thursday" comic? That doesn't seem editable in the normal wiki manner.
: I don't know the cause, or if they are related, but I was able to manually fix all that--even adding the appropriate categories that got left off. [[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 04:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
::Randall was presenting his new book at a speech he gave in Berlin on the 15th of October. However being in Europe would make his comics more early, unless he has made an error with the cript doing the upload (mmoving time zone in the wrong direction) or he is uploading very early morning the next day. Alternatively he is just jet-lagged and his schedule is messed up. [https://www.fu-berlin.de/presse/informationen/fup/2019/fup_19_281-randall-munroe-tu/index.html See the German Press release of the university he is visiting.] He also advertised it on the header of the page, if the OS/Browser is set to German language. [[Talk:xkcd Header text|I wanted to put this on the wiki, but got no replies for it and hadn't had the time to do it on my own.]] --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:26, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
:::Lupo, can you post an image of how it looks in the German version if there is a current version with different header? Also will it be possible that this is saved in a web archive? I would like to add it to the explanation, but without any kind of visual to show that it is indeed the case, it would be a bit thin as part of an explanation. I think it is an interesting information, but this page is about a US comic, so it should only be for the informational value, not something that needed to be fully included in the [[xkcd Header text|header text explanation]]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:47, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
::::The announcement of his speech in Berlin has been replaced by a image of the German bookcover and the simple text (which is a link to the publishers shop), roughly translated as "In stores now". I am currently at work, but will look into getting a screenshot in the evening. Apperantly some IP-User has found a way to view the different localized versions at the talk page of the header, as I just noticed. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:08, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
:::: There is also an anouncement of this, and of a tour across the UK last week at [https://xkcd.com/how-to/ xkcd.com/how-to] --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:11, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

2% milk is called half-full in the Netherlands. As a child I once asked my mother why anybody would want to buy a milk carton that was only half full :-).

The amount of milkfat in milk varies by the breed of cattle that produced it, along with individual variation. Holsteins are most often used for milk production because they can produce the greatest volume of milk, but other breeds, such as Jersey, produce less milk, but with higher milk fat, often up to 6% milkfat. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 11:14, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I am not entirely comfortable referring to dark energy as matter. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 12:40, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2215: Faculty:Student Ratio

2019-10-17T12:38:28Z

172.68.189.19: /* Effect sizes by forms of instruction */ new section

Hi

That student from the title text would have just barely made a cent, two if they were generous and rounded up. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.18|172.68.65.18]] 00:21, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Really? My calculations have him at about 16 cents ((5 trillion x 100) divided by (10^6 x 3600 x 24 x 365.25))

Regarding above average students not getting in, the scenario described is oversimplified. I used to work in admissions for a “highly selective” university and while applicants with perfect SATs and higher than 4.0 GPAs were routinely put on the wait list (not rejected) because we assumed that they viewed us as merely a “safety school”, if the applicant showed any interest at all in actually attending, such as having come on campus for an in person interview, campus tour, or had an alumni connection, or letter(s) of recommendation, or athletic scholarship, then of course we would make an offer, and similarly if they showed any interest as cited above after being put on the wait list then they would be top of the list to get an offer from the wait list. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.48|162.158.63.48]] 03:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it should be [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=50+trillion+dollars%2Fyear+*+10+microseconds $15.85] and [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=50+trillion+dollars+%2F+%2850*40+hours%29+*+10+microseconds $69.44]. Although I'm not so sure now that there's 3 other answers on this page. If someone can confirm one of these and find inaccuracies in the others, go ahead and update the page. --[[User:Seaish|Seaish]] ([[User talk:Seaish|talk]]) 07:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:For a constant salary across the whole year, I got $15.85 as well. For paid working time it depends on the assumptions of working days per year and working hours per working day. I got 220 working days(250 official in my state-30 days of holiday, even though technically it is considered payed holiday....) and 39hours per week (8 per day, and 7 on friday), I get to $80.94. But, as stated that depends on the assumptions. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:48, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

;"Hi!" x 5'000'000'000

Hi!

I think it's a reference to "Hello, World!" test program.

It is also possible to print 5 billions of unique "Hi!" using different color (provided you have 32 bit color map for CMYK and maybe 2 differend colors of paper) {{unsigned ip|172.68.10.172}}

;Unsigned Comment from Community Portal moved here:
HI,

I disagree with the calculation for the amount of 50 trillion over 10 microseconds, its a lot more than the amount give,.

Wage = 50000000000000000000

Divide by 260 days for an average work year is a daily rate of = 192307692307692000.00

Divide that by 7.5, the average working day is an hourly rate of = 25641025641025600.00

Divide that by 60 for minutes in the hour to give a minutes rate of = 427350427350427.00

Divide that by 60 for seconds in the minute to give a seconds rate of = 7122507122507.12

Divide that by 1000 to give a millisecond rate of = 7122507122.51

Divide that by 1000 to give a microsecond rate of = 7122507.12

Times that by 10 = 71,225,071.23 for 10 microseconds of work, not bad.

From an ADP Payroll Specialist {{unsigned ip|162.158.234.82}}
:50 trillion (in english use of the word trillion) is 5E13, not 5E19 (as you used it), so instead of $71,225,071.23 it is only $71.22 for the 10 microseconds, using your assumptions on average work days and working time. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:35, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
::Trillion could be 1E18 in long scale, commonly referred to as Brittish, or in short scale, commonly referred to as American, it is 1E12. So the "english" use of the word trillion is ambiguous (but adding the English modifier suggests British, i.e., long scale.) I added a note to article to mention the different possible interpretations. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.113|172.69.33.113]] 19:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:::According to your wikipedia link, nearly all English speaking countries (including the UK and therefore England) use the short scale. Therefore, in contrast to my native language (German), which uses the short scale, the long scale is the "English" meaning, even though the term (English) is not scientifically correct in this context, it helps when trying to make it clear to the many people on this wiki who natively speak a language in which the long scale is the usual one. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:08, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the date incorrect? The archive on xkcd says it was released on 10/14, but here it says it was released on the 15th, which would make it a tuesday comic. [[User:Landfind|Landfind]] ([[User talk:Landfind|talk]]) 14:17, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:The date was set incorrectly by the BOT that generated this page - not sure why but likely because the time of release was just past midnight GMT. I fixed it though because it is clearly the Monday comic for 10/14. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
:Here, a Monday the 14th seven or eight pm refresh did the trick. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.64|172.68.38.64]] 17:37, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

um, "10e-6 / 3600 / 24 / 365 * 50e12)" does not mean what you think it means. are we geeks here or not? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.235|162.158.158.235]] 08:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
:I changed the formula. It was not actually wrong (it worked out), but the way it was displayed does not show clearly why it is applied. Also the unit $ was missing. Feel free to further edit, if this is not correct or could be done better. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Where can I enlist? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.171|162.158.158.171]] 14:56, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

== Effect sizes by forms of instruction ==

Computer-aided instruction can act as a "force multiplier" increasing the effective class size ratio depending on the type of instruction used. See [https://www.docdroid.net/DZH8EoK/is-31-05-education.pdf tables 1 and 2 here.] Too tangential or ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 12:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

2215: Faculty:Student Ratio

2019-10-17T12:32:40Z

172.68.189.19: Plan to improve

{{comic
| number = 2215
| date = October 14, 2019
| title = Faculty:Student Ratio
| image = faculty_student_ratio.png
| titletext = They managed to briefly hit the top of the rankings when they rejected everyone except one applicant, published 5 billion research papers that just said "Hi," and hired one of their graduates for $50 trillion/year (then fired them after 10 microseconds.)
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an XKCD UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PAPER - HI. This explanation needs a discussion of how different forms of instruction modify the effective student-teacher ratio. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Universities are often rated in various ways to help students/parents pick which one to attend. This comic satirizes the very real culture of schools modifying their actions to artificially inflate their ratings. One metric used in ratings is the {{w|Student–teacher ratio|ratio between the number of faculty members to the number of students}}. Typically this is expressed as student-teacher ratio, which normally determines how much time teachers get to spend with individual students. The lower the ratio, i.e., the fewer students per teacher, the smaller classes teachers have to teach, and thus the more attention the teachers can give to each student. However, having many more teachers than student(s), as in this comic, is not very beneficial to the student(s).

Another metric commonly used to measure a college's exclusivity and therefore prestige is the college's rejection rate; more prestigious schools get more applicants, and since they can accept only a limited number, they must reject many. Less prestigious schools often accept a higher fraction of their applicants, but some schools will reject students whose test scores, résumé, etc. are much higher than average for the school, since it's likely that college is a "safety school" and the student won't actually go there. This rejection can decrease the school's acceptance rate and make it appear more prestigious. However, if the above-average student does want to attend that school, they are unable to, even though it would be good for both the college and the student.

{{w|Proprietary colleges|For-profit universities}} and {{w|diploma mills}} may use techniques like this to artificially boost their ratings, or use fabricated metrics and {{w|accreditation mills}} to give an inflated appearance of value. {{w|Predatory publishing|Predatory publishers}} and conferences are other techniques used to inflate the perceived value of a school, or to pad curriculum vitae.

In the title text, other metrics are skewed in the school's favor:

*Having a high standard for entry is usually associated with better or high-prestige schools; however, this is subverted by the fact that the school has only one student per class, making for a poor educational experience. {{Citation needed}}

*A high number of research papers would normally indicate a high level of scientific research at the school; however, ''these'' research papers are devoid of any sort of useful information.

*A high hiring rate (percentage of students that have gotten a job after education) and a high average salary after graduation is favorable, as it is one goal for many students attending college. However, the school in question artificially inflates these metrics by having all (one out of one) of their student body be hired by them, producing a 100% hiring rate, and giving them a starting salary that is astronomically high, but not giving them enough employment time to actually gain very much income. $50 trillion/year for 10 microseconds is approximately $15.85 (= $50e12 / (60 * 60 * 24 * 365) * 10e-6 ) if pay is assumed to be spread constantly over the full year with 365 days. Assuming fifty-two 40-hour work weeks would make this <abbr title="66.77=(50e12/52)*10/(40*3600*1e6)">$66.77</abbr>. Since xkcd originates in the USA, trillion most likely means 1e12 (i.e., {{w|Long and short scales|short scale}}), as compared to 1e18 (long scale interpretation).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting hunched over a desk writing while ten people crowd around him, five on each side, all leaning towards him. On the left side they are Hairbun, a Cueball-like man, Hairy, Megan - who speaks, and another Cueball-like man. On the right are Ponytail, a third Cueball-like man, another Megan-like woman, Blondie and finally a fourth Cueball-like man.]
:Megan: How's the work going?
:Cueball: Can you all at least stand back a little?

:[Caption below the panel]:
:My school tried to game the ratings by having a 30:1 faculty:student ratio

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

Talk:2212: Cell Phone Functions

2019-10-07T21:54:34Z

172.68.189.19:

I know of someone who DID build a taser into a phone... (but that's all it is now, was no space for the phone's electronics anymore) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.39|172.69.54.39]] 08:05, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
: Well, there are actual commercial taser phone cases available for purchase today - [https://youtu.be/XaJSYxit1qI here's one example]. Not necessarily a good idea and not legal everywhere, but it exists. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 12:03, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems a bit peculiar that one of the move "obvious" devices a cellphone can replace is missing: the watch. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 08:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
: That's because no one sane would do that ;) Some may use a Smart Watch instead of a classic watch but except of the case when you were used to pocket watches anyways a replacement of a wacth by a phone would be a downgrade usability wise. /edit: That being said: My personal "Now" bar is at the first quarter (more or less at the web browser's bar end) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

:: I realize it's unlikely you're being entirely serious here, but the same argument applies to almost all of the devices listed in this comic. So…no, that's not the reason for its omission. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 08:33, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
::: Actually I was dead serious. Well except of the "no one sane" part. I don't want to offend anyone :) In the time you take your phone out of the pocket to check the time I've looked thrice at my wrist watch [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:::: The time taken isn't awfully relevant, unless you're checking the time awfully frequently. For the number of times a day I need to check the time when I'm not at a computer or already looking at my phone, the convenience of a wristwatch could easily be outweighed by the inconvenience of taking it off and putting in on each day. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.178.69|162.158.178.69]] 09:34, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
::::: Assuming you'd put it off. ;) (Despite the emoticon I'm serious again. I only put my watch off to change the battery) And even if I would put it off it would be more likely I forgot my phone on my desk than forgetting to put the watch on. I'm wearing a wrist watch since I was 8 or 9. But granted, the time is not as relevant as the fact that you have to put a device from out of somewhere and push a button to activate the screen just to check time. But in the end it's just a matter of personal taste and habit, I guess. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:02, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
::::::Yeah, whether it's as convenient or even as good is irrelevant: Cell phones are not as good at photos as a dedicated camera but they are used for that because they can do it without the need for a separate device, which is the point of this comic. Most people do not wear watches anymore & just use their phones instead. Watches really would belong on this list, except it might be more difficult to pin down a transitional point! Some of us stopped needing watches when we realized our Nokia 3390 had a clock in the corner. Other people may have whattimeisitrightnow dot com on their smartphone's home screen... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:44, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:::: A phone in the pocket is infinitely better for me than a watch because watches make the skin underneath the wristband itch from the continuous contact. (I have atopic dermatitis.) -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.135|162.158.93.135]] 13:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
: there was a brief period between ubiquitous cell/mobile phone use and the advent of the smartwatch where experts predicted the demise of the watch other than as a piece of jewellery [[User:Boatster|Boatster]] ([[User talk:Boatster|talk]]) 08:46, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
: I always hated wearing a watch - I do sometimes use my phone for finding the time - but "Hey Google - what time is it?" works without taking it out of my pocket. The thing is though - watches were obsolete before the smartphone existed. When just about 100% of electronic devices have clock display - my cooker, microwave, toaster, car, TV, computer, etc, etc ALL tell me the time. Why would I need a watch? SmartWatches seem like a retrograde step. [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 13:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:: Well, with a watch you always know, where to look, especially when not in your own home. So just looking at your own wrist is much faster, then scanning your enviroment for the nearest screen. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
::"Smart Watches" that don't do much without a smartphone to connect to seem especially backwards to me. A smart watch with cellular radio would be useful on its own. Side note: So _you're_ that one person who leaves voice activation on all the time!?! Setting the very real privacy & safety issues aside for a moment... Doesn't it trigger from random conversations on an almost daily basis? I don't even know anyone who was able to leave Siri or Alexa on touchless, much less Google. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:I agree, it seems to me that the majority of people who had a cell phone as a teenager never acquired the habit of wearing a watch. I happen to still wear a watch and I also have a separate device that I use instead of my cell phone to make phone calls when I am at home. It's called a "telephone". And it's a fact that very few people who had a cell phone as a teenager have one of these in their homes. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 19:49, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Try to translate "die eierlegende Wollmilchsau"
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.97|162.158.89.97]] 09:52, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:Sounds a lot like a schmoo from _Lil Abner_ by Al Capp! I wonder if the egg-legend woolmillsow is where he got the idea? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

There is a terrible movie - [[Wikipedia:Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock|Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock]] - where everyone has a device called The Black Box that can do all of that, as well as pretty much anything. Its function changes kind of like a Rubik's Cube. It's an obvious parody of smartphones, except that it came out right around the time they were getting popular so I'm not sure if smartphones are the true inspiration. I can't recommend that movie (really, it's awful) but this comic reminded me of it and I wanted to share. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 10:11, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:Also see the Guide 2.0 as depicted in the later _Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_ novels. It would do anything its user asked, including removing all Earths from all timelines (which is what it was built for). There's an old SciFi story about a man with a hypnotic paisley tie who accidentally leaves behind a futuristic universal remote & the contemporary guy who finds it gets in trouble. Overall, the "one device that does everything" has been an idea for at least a hundred years; but I think it's not just dismissed as whimsy so easily these days. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Re: steering wheel, there was a James Bond movie (Pierce Brosnan era I think) where he could control a car from a phone (they were not yet called smartphones at the time). I wouldn't be surprised that the technology has already been implemented, even though I don't want to think of the legal consequences if this became mainstream: "Honestly officer, I wasn't LOOKING at my phone, I was DRIVING my car!"[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.110|162.158.155.110]] 11:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
: sure it's *technically* possible: all you need is to pair the gyro/accelerometer of your phone with your car's servo steering. any vehicle with a parking assistant can be controlled that way (and security researchers have demonstrated that in impressive talks back in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OobLb1McxnI). [[User:Gir|-- //gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 11:37, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:It was in ''Tomorrow Never Dies'' (https://youtu.be/BxTvfVZjR_Q) with a 'slightly' non-standard phone (pre-smartphone) and a 'slightly' non-standard car... Hardly the most unbelievable feature, though. ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.235|162.158.158.235]] 16:06, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I've written a first draft of the explanation and transcript, but I don't have time for anything else today. It turned out more high-flown than I intended, so feel free to reword as necessary. Also, because I'm sure it'll come up eventually, regarding the transcript: since Randall has not given any time scale, we should refrain from over-interpreting when something happened. For the joke to get through, knowing which elements happened in the past and which (might) happen in the future is enough. [[User:Gir|-- //gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 11:33, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm - so let's fact check this:
* My phone is indeed being used as a car key (I own a Tesla and my phone unlocks the car and lets me drive it), phone, camera, newspaper, credit card and flashlight - so short bars for all of these is good.
* As a TV remote, that could be true - but we're actually edging into a "post-phone" era on that one. I can (and occasionally do) use my phone to control the Roku - but it's easier to use voice commands through Google Home for that...although I suppose I could use the phone to run Google Home instead of the Google Mini in my living room...so 50/50 on being "post-phone" on this one.
* As a Web Browser, I could use the phone - but only rarely actually do that. Mostly I use my ChromeBook for that, and also the screen on my Tesla - the piddly little cellphone screen guarantees it won't take over that role for more than 10% of the time.
* He missed out "Text messaging" - but I'm using the phone less and less for that because having a decent keyboard is good - so the ChromeBook is stealing that capability.
* Steering wheel...well, the Tesla already steers itself about 80% of the time that I drive. I predict that the steering wheel will cease to exist (at least for me) before I use my phone for that...although it certainly is capable of it in theory...and I'm pretty sure Tesla demonstrated the car being used as a radio controlled toy from a phone a few years ago...although it never made it into production (mercifully!).
* You probably could use a phone as a bird feeder (for smaller birds - draping a dead rabbit over it to attract vultures might be a bad idea).
* All of the others are well into the future...so I agree with him on those.
[[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 13:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I feel like we could/should be reading this more literally. If we assume that Randall lives on the fairly early edge of technology, then the time from the left side of the chart to now is ~25 years. If we also assume that the time axis is linear, then we should be driving our cars with our phones in 7-8 years (though I can now drive my car through a parking lot at least using my phone, it's still doing the steering for me). Sadly brushing our teeth is still about 20 years out according to this prediction, however maybe by then our phones will be able to do some sort of ultrasonic cleaning. [[User:Jasonk|Jasonk]] ([[User talk:Jasonk|talk]]) 13:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
:I'm continually surprised that nobody is known to have fallen for a joke digital toilet-tissue app called iWipe. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems like it would be good to reference Randall's [[:Category:xkcd Phones|rather unusual phone function proposals]] in the explanation. Perhaps he's suggesting that these phones will become commonly used (or at least used by him) in the future. [[User:Dry Paratroopa|Dry Paratroopa]] ([[User talk:Dry Paratroopa|talk]]) 14:38, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe when he says "TV remote" he's actually talking about "cable box remote". I think there's an Xfinity X1 mobile app. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Could the cheese grater be a reference to Apple's newest computers? I could imagine an iPhone with the "cheese grater" texture. [[User:Billtheplatypus|Billtheplatypus]] ([[User talk:Billtheplatypus|talk]]) 17:01, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I am very curious as to what specific device Randall used for his telephone way back when before he used his phone. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.28|172.68.70.28]] 17:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

The comic says "I just use MY phone." Presumably, before that, he used someone else's phone, or a payphone or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 21:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

If you think about it, the phone started out with maybe 4 components: microphone, speaker, bell ringer, and gizmo to alert the operator to connect to you. Newspaper was paper and ink. Flashlight was bulb and battery. They had nothing in common at all. So dog leash? Better GPS + bluetooth shock collar. Tazer? Better battery + extendable prongs. Toilet paper is easy: bluetooth enabled bidet. Honestly, the only device I would bet money on being wrong is the bird feeder. After all, who would deliberately walk away from their phone for hours on end? (besides me) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.100|172.68.90.100]] 21:41, 7 October 2019 (UTC) SiliconWolf

== y axis order ==

I wonder if there is a rationale for the ordering on the vertical axis. They are mostly, but not exclusively, monotonically increasing in time.

2210: College Athletes

2019-10-03T22:51:41Z

172.68.189.19: Removed unnecessary "*"

{{comic
| number = 2210
| date = October 2, 2019
| title = College Athletes
| image = college_athletes.png
| titletext = Their signature play is the three-point combinator, a recursive offense which is guaranteed not to halt and continues accumulating points until the buzzer.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Ponytail]] is reading from her phone about the [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/sports/college-athletes-paid-california.html California Fair Pay to Play act], which was signed into law on September 30, 2019, two days before this comic was released. It gives college athletes the rights to their name and image (face, body, etc.) for financial gain, in contrast to {{w|NCAA}} rules which require that athletes be unpaid. This bill threatens {{w|Amateurism in the NCAA|the NCAA's notion of amateurism}}, which has become a topic of public debate.

[[White Hat]] thinks this law is a good thing, but then [[Cueball]] claims that his state has passed an even better law giving college players rights to the names and images of ''any'' California athletes. Note that Cueball's state is thus not California, so it is very odd they can use names from another state, in addition to the oddity of gaining rights to another person's name and image.

Ponytail doesn't believe Cueball, but he carries on claiming that all members of his school's basketball team thus have changed their name to {{w|Steph Curry}} after the NBA player who plays for the {{w|Golden State Warriors}}, a team in California. Cueball explains in particular that only one player copied the name from the NBA player, then another member of the team copied the name from that player, and so on.

This is of course an error, since they had right to use names only of California athletes, and as this is a state other than California, they could not have used the law to use the name of one of their fellow teammates. This would be a mistake by Randall, or perhaps it is Cueball just making a joke.

As it turns out, in his final remark, all this has only been the setup for his grand joke: Cueball tells Ponytail and White Hat that this process of recursive name usage is known as "currying". In addition to a pun with basketball rules against ''carrying'', avoidance of which often involves passing from one player to another, this is also a play on both the basketball player's name "Curry" used here, as well as the mathematical procedure called {{w|currying}}, named after mathematician {{w|Haskell Curry}}. This sort of humor is very typical of Cueball, leading Ponytail to state that she "hates him".

Currying is when a multi-variable function is broken down into a sequence of single-variable functions, each of which outputs a new function until the final variable is consumed. For example, the function f(x,y,z) can be curried into f(x)(y)(z), where f is a function that consumes x and produces a function f(x), which in turn consumes y, yielding the function f(x)(y), and that in turn is a function f(x)(y) which consumes the parameter z to finally produce f(x)(y)(z), which is equal to the original f(x,y,z). This is not commonly used in most areas of math except for foundational logic but it is widely used in functional programming.

When Cueball says ''a team made up entirely of Steph Currys'', White Hat questions what the plural form should be, and should it instead have been "''Stephs Curry''"? This is referring to the pluralization of phrases where a noun is followed by a modifier of some sort, such as ''attorneys general'', ''parts unknown'', ''heirs apparent'', ''mothers-in-law'', and so on. In these cases, plurals are formed by pluralizing the noun parts of the phrases; however, some of these are rare or foreign enough that speakers of English don't always identify them correctly and pluralize the last word instead, e.g. ''attorney generals''.

The title text is a computer science joke, saying that the Steph Currys basketball team's signature play is the "three-point combinator", a joke on the {{w|three-point play}} in basketball, and a type of {{w|Fixed-point_combinator#Y_combinator|fixed-point combinator}} called the [https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Y_combinator Y Combinator], introduced by Haskell Curry. The description of "three-point combinator" is dense with word play that relates to the Y Combinator, which is used to implement {{w|recursive}} methods in functional programming languages, has notable properties relating to halting (see: the {{w|halting problem}}), and has a common form in which a second argument is used as a counter that is increased by one with each recursive call until termination. "Signature play" may also be a play on words, as currying transforms a {{w|Type_signature#Method_signature|method signature}}.

In this case, when this move is performed, it will just keep accumulating points, as it is guaranteed it cannot halt and will not stop until the time runs out and the buzzer that ends the game is activated. Such a move can of course not be a part of a real basketball game, and more of a nod to the Golden State Warriors' reputation as a high-scoring, nearly-unstoppable offense widely known for three-point shooting.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, Ponytail and White Hat are having a conversation. Ponytail is checking her phone.]
:Ponytail: Oh, huh. California passed a law giving college athletes full rights to their names and images.
:White Hat: Good, I think?

:[Cueball holds his hand up in a fist, while Ponytail, holding her phone down, and White Hat looks at him.]
:Cueball: That's nothing. '''''Our''''' state gave college players rights to use the names and images of '''''any''''' California athletes.
:Ponytail: It did not.

:[In a frame-less panel Cueball holds his hands out, Ponytail's phone is gone and White Hat puts a hand to his chin.]
:Cueball: Sure it did!
:Cueball: That's how our school fielded a basketball team made up entirely of Steph Currys.
:White Hat: Or is the plural "Stephs Curry"?

:[Cueball holds both hands up in front of him. Ponytail has her arms down but she is balling her hands into fists.]
:Cueball: They didn't all copy the original Steph, though. One player got the rights to his name, then the next player got it from them, and so on.
:Cueball: This process is known as "currying".
:Ponytail: ...I hate you so much.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Sport]] 
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Programming]]

Talk:2207: Math Work

2019-09-29T20:42:50Z

172.68.189.19: This just in: extremely high confidence in a previously unexplained aspect of xkcd!

This makes me think of my profession (software engineer) - Normie: "Oh wow, that looks complicated!" Me: wires two pre-existing libraries together and calls it a day [[User:Baldrickk|Baldrickk]] ([[User talk:Baldrickk|talk]]) 09:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

;Image of Blackboard
I was looking at the blackboard and was wondering if there were any Easter eggs on it.
Here is the result of my badly cropped photoshopping skills.
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kGCrQehNGksE2cSK1WvTJcgdwaZ5cdWe]
idk if it would help to sharpen the image.
--[[User:DarkAndromeda31|DarkAndromeda31]] ([[User talk:DarkAndromeda31|talk]]) 01:25, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
:The only thing that really jumps out at me are the wedges, as portions of pie charts where radius also controls area, evoking the {{w|climate stabilization wedge}} game [https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/game from Princeton] where the total area of the disk needing to be mitigated is something like 38 gigatons of atmospheric carbon, and the various mitigation solutions have angles representing potential and radius indicating uptake, the proportion of which represents gigatons mitigated as the wedge area. We can offer that game as an example of a bivariate optimization problem which might not have to be manually solved by anyone, if we assume that the local market for [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ritJrcDKyXNe4Kp2dHBWiFuyBEHvn_81/view surplus potable water, carbon-neutral liquid transportation fuel, and carbon-negative composite lumber for centuries-to-millenia scale sequestration along with wood timber displacement for reforestation] represents locally satisfiable economic demand for N shipping containers of [https://x.company/projects/foghorn Project Foghorn] [https://www.docdroid.net/WlkWabq/ioc-part-1-prototype-article-in-press.pdf plants] and M shipping containers of [https://www.docdroid.net/SRxC3bd/power-to-gas-efficiency.pdf power-to-gas upgrades for natural gas] power plants. That's an example of how a locally market-driven system can solve a bivariate optimization without anyone doing the actual math work in a spreadsheet or otherwise. The economic solution is not necessarily optimal, because even [https://twitter.com/jsalsman/status/1118030378747351040 as powerful as the free market can be,] it isn't necessarily going to find the bivariate optimums for every point on the planet (although it will likely converge asymptotically in some sense) and defectors such as fossil fuel producers are interested in delaying the optimum solution.
:Is that nontangential enough? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.18|172.68.143.18]] 20:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
::Yes that was far out :-) I'm sure there is nothing interesting hidden in the image. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:::Compare the graph at [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=World+natural+gas+production] with that at [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=World+wind+power+production]. When will the latter overtake the former? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.221|172.68.142.221]] 19:19, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
::::Soon one may hope, but that has nothing to do with the drawings on the blackboard...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:::::"Soon" lacks mathematical precision. How do you feel about {{w|distributed constraint optimization}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.83|172.68.142.83]] 22:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Does [https://www.wolframalpha.com/ Wolfram Alpha] constitute such a problem solver? Cause both Randall and this site has used it on several occasions. But I have not ever really used such things, and do not know if Wolfram can be used as Cueball thinks about in the comic. But if it could, it could be worth mentioning as a method sometimes used by Randall. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%2By%3D10%2C+x-y%3D4&lk=3] is the first bivariate system of equations example. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 17:51, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
::Is that then a yes to my question? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:::Do you think it's more worthwhile to include a general discussion of avoiding the work of solving for two unknowns than the climate wedges? Why do you suggest that the wedges aren't the only distinctive elements on the blackboard? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.83|172.68.142.83]] 22:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I only just now noticed that Randall always puts the crossbars on the I in the word "I" and not otherwise. Looking back, he has nearly always done this, even since the first few comics. That's quite a principled yet subtle stance on letterforms. (There are some exceptions, however, such as comic #87, and a period that goes at least from comic #128 to comic #180. I wonder if it would be too typography-nerdy to put them all in a category.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.231.85|198.41.231.85]] 14:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
: Those "crossbars" would be serifs, whereas he normally uses a sans serif font. A sans serif would be quicker/easier to write by hand, but he probably realized early on (perhaps subconsciously) that an I by itself without serifs looks too much like a random line or a numeral 1 so he treats the solo I like a special letter, with serifs. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:16, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
::Yes so not something for a category! But funny detail. I have no idea where to put this? Maybe in some part of the format of xkcd? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, person who sees beauty in grammar (Jkrstrt). I thought something looked off when I said "often site the beauty they see" but I didn't catch it until you sighted the error and made it cite instead. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:10, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

We need something about the [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22they%20did%20the%20math%22 2012 popularity spike of the phrase "They did the math"] with a link to e.g. r/theydidthemath. And ask the Hashtag Research Studies group to figure out the cause of that spike. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 15:29, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
:This has got to be [https://imgur.com/gallery/qpWueVf somehow related to xkcd.] But how? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 20:42, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2207: Math Work

2019-09-29T15:29:09Z

172.68.189.19: Mp

This makes me think of my profession (software engineer) - Normie: "Oh wow, that looks complicated!" Me: wires two pre-existing libraries together and calls it a day [[User:Baldrickk|Baldrickk]] ([[User talk:Baldrickk|talk]]) 09:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

;Image of Blackboard
I was looking at the blackboard and was wondering if there were any Easter eggs on it.
Here is the result of my badly cropped photoshopping skills.
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kGCrQehNGksE2cSK1WvTJcgdwaZ5cdWe]
idk if it would help to sharpen the image.
--[[User:DarkAndromeda31|DarkAndromeda31]] ([[User talk:DarkAndromeda31|talk]]) 01:25, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
:The only thing that really jumps out at me are the wedges, as portions of pie charts where radius also controls area, evoking the {{w|climate stabilization wedge}} game [https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/game from Princeton] where the total area of the disk needing to be mitigated is something like 38 gigatons of atmospheric carbon, and the various mitigation solutions have angles representing potential and radius indicating uptake, the proportion of which represents gigatons mitigated as the wedge area. We can offer that game as an example of a bivariate optimization problem which might not have to be manually solved by anyone, if we assume that the local market for [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ritJrcDKyXNe4Kp2dHBWiFuyBEHvn_81/view surplus potable water, carbon-neutral liquid transportation fuel, and carbon-negative composite lumber for centuries-to-millenia scale sequestration along with wood timber displacement for reforestation] represents locally satisfiable economic demand for N shipping containers of [https://x.company/projects/foghorn Project Foghorn] [https://www.docdroid.net/WlkWabq/ioc-part-1-prototype-article-in-press.pdf plants] and M shipping containers of [https://www.docdroid.net/SRxC3bd/power-to-gas-efficiency.pdf power-to-gas upgrades for natural gas] power plants. That's an example of how a locally market-driven system can solve a bivariate optimization without anyone doing the actual math work in a spreadsheet or otherwise. The economic solution is not necessarily optimal, because even [https://twitter.com/jsalsman/status/1118030378747351040 as powerful as the free market can be,] it isn't necessarily going to find the bivariate optimums for every point on the planet (although it will likely converge asymptotically in some sense) and defectors such as fossil fuel producers are interested in delaying the optimum solution.
:Is that nontangential enough? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.18|172.68.143.18]] 20:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
::Yes that was far out :-) I'm sure there is nothing interesting hidden in the image. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:::Compare the graph at [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=World+natural+gas+production] with that at [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=World+wind+power+production]. When will the latter overtake the former? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.221|172.68.142.221]] 19:19, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
::::Soon one may hope, but that has nothing to do with the drawings on the blackboard...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:::::"Soon" lacks mathematical precision. How do you feel about {{w|distributed constraint optimization}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.83|172.68.142.83]] 22:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Does [https://www.wolframalpha.com/ Wolfram Alpha] constitute such a problem solver? Cause both Randall and this site has used it on several occasions. But I have not ever really used such things, and do not know if Wolfram can be used as Cueball thinks about in the comic. But if it could, it could be worth mentioning as a method sometimes used by Randall. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%2By%3D10%2C+x-y%3D4&lk=3] is the first bivariate system of equations example. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 17:51, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
::Is that then a yes to my question? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:::Do you think it's more worthwhile to include a general discussion of avoiding the work of solving for two unknowns than the climate wedges? Why do you suggest that the wedges aren't the only distinctive elements on the blackboard? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.83|172.68.142.83]] 22:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I only just now noticed that Randall always puts the crossbars on the I in the word "I" and not otherwise. Looking back, he has nearly always done this, even since the first few comics. That's quite a principled yet subtle stance on letterforms. (There are some exceptions, however, such as comic #87, and a period that goes at least from comic #128 to comic #180. I wonder if it would be too typography-nerdy to put them all in a category.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.231.85|198.41.231.85]] 14:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
: Those "crossbars" would be serifs, whereas he normally uses a sans serif font. A sans serif would be quicker/easier to write by hand, but he probably realized early on (perhaps subconsciously) that an I by itself without serifs looks too much like a random line or a numeral 1 so he treats the solo I like a special letter, with serifs. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:16, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
::Yes so not something for a category! But funny detail. I have no idea where to put this? Maybe in some part of the format of xkcd? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, person who sees beauty in grammar (Jkrstrt). I thought something looked off when I said "often site the beauty they see" but I didn't catch it until you sighted the error and made it cite instead. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:10, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

We need something about the [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q="they%20did%20the%20math" 2012 popularity spike of the phrase "They did the math"] with a link to e.g. r/theydidthemath. And ask the Hashtag Research Studies group to figure out the cause of that spike. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 15:29, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

2207: Math Work

2019-09-29T15:28:15Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */ move

{{comic
| number = 2207
| date = September 25, 2019
| title = Math Work
| image = math_work.png
| titletext = I could type this into a solver, which MIGHT help, but would also mean I have to get a lot of parentheses right...
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TWO UNKNOWNS. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[White Hat]] is observing a {{w|physicist}}, [[Cueball]], who is staring at some (in the comic unreadable) equations and diagrams on a {{w|chalkboard}}. White Hat is neither a physicist nor a {{w|mathematician}}, and seems to glorify those professions. He wishes he understood Cueball's work and "the beauty on display here." People who profess a love for mathematics often cite the beauty they see in pure math, how things work out so perfectly, as the reason they love math.

The joke is that Cueball as a physicist is doing something instead quite simple and relatable: Avoiding hard work. Solving many kinds of constraints for two unknowns isn't necessarily difficult, but can be depending on the details. Cueball clearly thinks a solution is possible but would rather find an easier route. The same could be said about the field of mathematics in general: A proof is beautiful to a mathematician when it provides {{w|aesthetic}} pleasure, usually associated with being easy to understand. A proof is elegant when it is both easy to understand and correct, and mathematical solutions are profound when useful.

A mathematical problem involving two unknowns could be a {{w|system of linear equations}} which can often be solved on paper, a blackboard, in a spreadsheet with solver functions, or by a {{w|computer algebra system}} such as [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%2By%3D10%2C+x-y%3D4&lk=3 WolframAlpha.com.] Linear equations are a typical kind of more general constraint satisfaction problems, which in turn are {{w|mathematical optimization}} problems, where the minimization of a difference from a goal state (such as that all of the constraining equations are true, for example) indicates the extent to which constraints are met. Sometimes such problem solving activity arises naturally from economic transactions according to, for example, the laws of {{w|supply and demand}}, arising in the general context of civilization and ecology (both of which have properties associated with beauty and mathematical elegance.) Problems solved by economics are examples of {{w|distributed constraint optimization}} processes. When economic laws are not sufficiently satisfying constraints, that is a {{w|market failure}}, which indicates that more artificial and manual mathematical work is required, instead of the naturally arising or otherwise automatic methods contemplated by Cueball. Other distributed constraint optimization systems can be {{w|crowdsourcing}} games, such as {{w|FoldIt}} and {{w|Galaxy Zoo}}.

Of the graphic elements on the blackboard, the most distinctive appears to be a pair of wedges from a pie chart, where the radius of the slices is being used to represent another variable than the angles which all pie charts use to represent a primary variable. Since the cartoon is in black and white, the use of color to represent category labels or additional variable can be ruled out. Such black-and-white wedges represent two variables, the meaning of which may be unknown to us, let alone their values. The only distributed constraint optimization game which uses such wedges may be the {{w|climate stabilization wedge}} game [https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/game from Princeton University.] In that wedge game, angles represent a potential number of gigatons of atmospheric carbon mitigation (out of about 38 for the circle) and radius indicates uptake, or the extent to which the mitigation solution is effective.

That game is an example of a bivariate optimization problem which might not have to be manually solved by anyone, for example under specific assumptions about the market in [https://x.company/projects/foghorn Project Foghorn] [https://www.docdroid.net/WlkWabq/ioc-part-1-prototype-article-in-press.pdf plants] and [https://www.docdroid.net/SRxC3bd/power-to-gas-efficiency.pdf power-to-gas upgrades for natural gas] power plants. If such market-based approaches to distributed constraint satisfaction are successful, then the work in finding the solution would be performed not entirely by physicists, chemical engineers, mathematicians, or intentional crowdworkers playing a game to achieve the optimal solution(s), but instead in even larger part by far more widely distributed crowdworkers who are simply making their own, ideally self-interested choices regarding their demand for {{w|desalination|desalinated}} and {{w|drinking water|potable water}}, {{w|carbon-neutral fuel|carbon-neutral liquid transportation fuel}} and carbon-negative {{w|carbon sequestration|sequestration}} in {{w|fiber-reinforced composite}} lumber, both made from {{w|ocean acidification|carbonate dissolved in seawater}}, and for recycling the carbon in power plant flue exhaust for the {{w|Energy storage|storage of renewable energy}} such as off-peak {{w|wind power}}. The relative beauty, elegance, and simplicity of the possible solutions to such problems is subjective, and might involve strong differences of opinion between outside observers, mathematicians and engineers involved with the details, and {{w|Villain#Sympathetic villain|fossil fuel barons}}, respected and enriched by society for their part in meeting energy demand. (See "All Chemistry Equations" in [[2034: Equations]].)

The title text continues Cueball's thought process, with the possibility of using an automatic equation solver to find the unknowns. Equation solvers are not often considered beautiful ways to address purely mathematical problems, even if they are often the most efficient and in that sense elegant solutions to applied problems in engineering. Using a formal solver with symbolic, numeric, or both methods requires making sure that the constraints (e.g. equations) are entered correctly, with parentheses balanced in their correct locations for the solution to succeed. While the {{w|mathematical beauty|beauty of mathematics}} and pure physics may not be associated with automatic solvers in spreadsheets, general optimization methods are considered elegant in applied physics and engineering, with [http://entsphere.com/pub/pdf/1957%20Jaynes,%20ShannonMaxEntBoltzmann.pdf Jaynes (1957)] cited more than 12,000 times on Google Scholar, including by [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234147180_Maximum_Entropy_Image_Restoration_in_Astronomy a paper cited] by the [https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.01286 first black hole image astronomers] for example.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat is watching Cueball from a couple of meters away. Cueball is contemplating the formulas and diagrams that fills the blackboard he stands in front of. Cueball holds a chalk in his hand. None of the content on the blackboard is readable, but there is a diagram in the shape of a circle and a another pie shaped diagram. Both are thinking with large thought bubbles above their heads, with small bubbles connecting them and the larger bubble]
:White Hat (thinking): Amazing watching a physicist at work, exploring universes in a symphony of numbers.
:White Hat (thinking): If only I had studied math, I could appreciate the beauty on display here.

:Cueball (thinking): Oh no. This has '''''two''''' unknowns. That's gonna be really hard.
:Cueball (thinking): Ughhhhhhh.
:Cueball (thinking): '''''Think.''''' There's gotta be a way to avoid doing all that work...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Math]]

2207: Math Work

2019-09-29T15:27:27Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */ revise

{{comic
| number = 2207
| date = September 25, 2019
| title = Math Work
| image = math_work.png
| titletext = I could type this into a solver, which MIGHT help, but would also mean I have to get a lot of parentheses right...
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TWO UNKNOWNS. We need something about the [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q="they%20did%20the%20math" 2012 popularity spike of the phrase "They did the math"] with a link to e.g. r/theydidthemath. And ask the Hashtag Research Studies group to figure out the cause of that spike on the double.
Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[White Hat]] is observing a {{w|physicist}}, [[Cueball]], who is staring at some (in the comic unreadable) equations and diagrams on a {{w|chalkboard}}. White Hat is neither a physicist nor a {{w|mathematician}}, and seems to glorify those professions. He wishes he understood Cueball's work and "the beauty on display here." People who profess a love for mathematics often cite the beauty they see in pure math, how things work out so perfectly, as the reason they love math.

The joke is that Cueball as a physicist is doing something instead quite simple and relatable: Avoiding hard work. Solving many kinds of constraints for two unknowns isn't necessarily difficult, but can be depending on the details. Cueball clearly thinks a solution is possible but would rather find an easier route. The same could be said about the field of mathematics in general: A proof is beautiful to a mathematician when it provides {{w|aesthetic}} pleasure, usually associated with being easy to understand. A proof is elegant when it is both easy to understand and correct, and mathematical solutions are profound when useful.

A mathematical problem involving two unknowns could be a {{w|system of linear equations}} which can often be solved on paper, a blackboard, in a spreadsheet with solver functions, or by a {{w|computer algebra system}} such as [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%2By%3D10%2C+x-y%3D4&lk=3 WolframAlpha.com.] Linear equations are a typical kind of more general constraint satisfaction problems, which in turn are {{w|mathematical optimization}} problems, where the minimization of a difference from a goal state (such as that all of the constraining equations are true, for example) indicates the extent to which constraints are met. Sometimes such problem solving activity arises naturally from economic transactions according to, for example, the laws of {{w|supply and demand}}, arising in the general context of civilization and ecology (both of which have properties associated with beauty and mathematical elegance.) Problems solved by economics are examples of {{w|distributed constraint optimization}} processes. When economic laws are not sufficiently satisfying constraints, that is a {{w|market failure}}, which indicates that more artificial and manual mathematical work is required, instead of the naturally arising or otherwise automatic methods contemplated by Cueball. Other distributed constraint optimization systems can be {{w|crowdsourcing}} games, such as {{w|FoldIt}} and {{w|Galaxy Zoo}}.

Of the graphic elements on the blackboard, the most distinctive appears to be a pair of wedges from a pie chart, where the radius of the slices is being used to represent another variable than the angles which all pie charts use to represent a primary variable. Since the cartoon is in black and white, the use of color to represent category labels or additional variable can be ruled out. Such black-and-white wedges represent two variables, the meaning of which may be unknown to us, let alone their values. The only distributed constraint optimization game which uses such wedges may be the {{w|climate stabilization wedge}} game [https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/game from Princeton University.] In that wedge game, angles represent a potential number of gigatons of atmospheric carbon mitigation (out of about 38 for the circle) and radius indicates uptake, or the extent to which the mitigation solution is effective.

That game is an example of a bivariate optimization problem which might not have to be manually solved by anyone, for example under specific assumptions about the market in [https://x.company/projects/foghorn Project Foghorn] [https://www.docdroid.net/WlkWabq/ioc-part-1-prototype-article-in-press.pdf plants] and [https://www.docdroid.net/SRxC3bd/power-to-gas-efficiency.pdf power-to-gas upgrades for natural gas] power plants. If such market-based approaches to distributed constraint satisfaction are successful, then the work in finding the solution would be performed not entirely by physicists, chemical engineers, mathematicians, or intentional crowdworkers playing a game to achieve the optimal solution(s), but instead in even larger part by far more widely distributed crowdworkers who are simply making their own, ideally self-interested choices regarding their demand for {{w|desalination|desalinated}} and {{w|drinking water|potable water}}, {{w|carbon-neutral fuel|carbon-neutral liquid transportation fuel}} and carbon-negative {{w|carbon sequestration|sequestration}} in {{w|fiber-reinforced composite}} lumber, both made from {{w|ocean acidification|carbonate dissolved in seawater}}, and for recycling the carbon in power plant flue exhaust for the {{w|Energy storage|storage of renewable energy}} such as off-peak {{w|wind power}}. The relative beauty, elegance, and simplicity of the possible solutions to such problems is subjective, and might involve strong differences of opinion between outside observers, mathematicians and engineers involved with the details, and {{w|Villain#Sympathetic villain|fossil fuel barons}}, respected and enriched by society for their part in meeting energy demand. (See "All Chemistry Equations" in [[2034: Equations]].)

The title text continues Cueball's thought process, with the possibility of using an automatic equation solver to find the unknowns. Equation solvers are not often considered beautiful ways to address purely mathematical problems, even if they are often the most efficient and in that sense elegant solutions to applied problems in engineering. Using a formal solver with symbolic, numeric, or both methods requires making sure that the constraints (e.g. equations) are entered correctly, with parentheses balanced in their correct locations for the solution to succeed. While the {{w|mathematical beauty|beauty of mathematics}} and pure physics may not be associated with automatic solvers in spreadsheets, general optimization methods are considered elegant in applied physics and engineering, with [http://entsphere.com/pub/pdf/1957%20Jaynes,%20ShannonMaxEntBoltzmann.pdf Jaynes (1957)] cited more than 12,000 times on Google Scholar, including by [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234147180_Maximum_Entropy_Image_Restoration_in_Astronomy a paper cited] by the [https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.01286 first black hole image astronomers] for example.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat is watching Cueball from a couple of meters away. Cueball is contemplating the formulas and diagrams that fills the blackboard he stands in front of. Cueball holds a chalk in his hand. None of the content on the blackboard is readable, but there is a diagram in the shape of a circle and a another pie shaped diagram. Both are thinking with large thought bubbles above their heads, with small bubbles connecting them and the larger bubble]
:White Hat (thinking): Amazing watching a physicist at work, exploring universes in a symphony of numbers.
:White Hat (thinking): If only I had studied math, I could appreciate the beauty on display here.

:Cueball (thinking): Oh no. This has '''''two''''' unknowns. That's gonna be really hard.
:Cueball (thinking): Ughhhhhhh.
:Cueball (thinking): '''''Think.''''' There's gotta be a way to avoid doing all that work...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Math]]

2199: Cryptic Wifi Networks

2019-09-12T16:27:25Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */ the Unicode character code for 50,000 spelled 'ↇ'

{{comic
| number = 2199
| date = September 6, 2019
| title = Cryptic Wifi Networks
| image = cryptic_wifi_networks.png
| titletext = They actually showed up on the first scan by the first WiFi-capable device.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In the comic, a character with a [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]] is on top of a high mountain in a remote location (second comic in a row with knit cap). Knit Cap sees a WiFi network name listed on a handheld device, perhaps a cellular telephone. This is something you would expect in a city, but certainly not on a mountain top, hence the joke, that what produced these WiFi networks are unknown, but seem to be distributed randomly over the face of the Earth, disregarding nearness to technology.

Cryptic {{w|Wi-Fi}} (or WiFi) network names, called {{w|Service set (802.11 network)|Service Set Identifiers}} (SSIDs) are part of the joke about not knowing where the corresponding {{w|wireless router}} is located, suggesting they are unexplained phenomena instead of wireless radio devices. Some of the earliest WiFi devices like printers and {{w|internet}} routers advertised cryptic SSIDs, as do many of them today. In 1998, {{w|Lucent}} introduced the [https://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan-IEEE.html WaveLAN IEEE], the first {{w|integrated circuit}} chip set supporting the IEEE 802.11 wireless {{w|LAN}} protocol, spinning off {{w|Agere Systems}} to produce them in 2000. WiFi followed mid-1990s short-range wireless networks like {{w|Bluetooth}} and radio internet protocols like the 1980s {{w|KA9Q}}, with roots going back to the earliest {{w|ticker tape}} digital telegraphy systems from the mid-1850s. [https://techtalk.gfi.com/the-31-funniest-ssids-ive-ever-seen/ Humorous SSID names] are not uncommon.

The SSID displayed is '''Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ''' which is 33 characters long, unfortunately one character more than are allowed. {{w|Toshiba}} is a multinational electronics conglomerate manufacturing many products including untold multitudes of different kinds of printers over the years. Such devices often have embedded {{w|wireless access point|wireless access points}} including the manufacturer name in the SSID. Many network names contain words like Net, Office or Link. The code might indicate a model U2187 device from Toshiba named (or having an interface program named) OfficeLink, which has a sub-model number or operates on a wireless network designated 46UHZ. That "Hz" is an abbreviation for {{w|Hertz}} suggests that designation may or may not have something to do with the frequency on which the transmitting device operates. Or U2187 could be the Unicode character code for 50,000 spelled 'ↇ' or a serial number for a user or a utility pole. We don't know whether the SSID is connected to a network of more than one or is just one device. The padlock icon indicates that a password is required to communicate. The "join other network" option allows for manually typing SSIDs to attempt to connect with networks which are not configured to display their SSIDs.

While the most likely explanation in an office environment might be a printer plugged in somewhere nearby, other possibilities include a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKjnZe4B-M marsupial delivery drone,] television, cryptocurrency mining rig, speaker, pacemaker, alarm system, [https://twitter.com/Theteamatx/status/1162762591677997056 offshore flying wind turbine,] fashion accessory, autonomous antimissile defense system node, hobby project, surveillance device, {{w|Loon LLC|balloon}}, distributed denial of service attack platform malware-infested coffee pot, {{w|Starlink (satellite constellation)|satellite}}, vending machine, telecommunication facilities, {{w|Facebook Aquila|solar-powered drone}}, distributed exoskeleton, visiting interstellar civilization, power-to-gas pipeline valve, [http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2340.html ransomware worm nest,] or anything else in the Wifi {{w|Internet of Things}}. Sometimes, the {{w|ionosphere}} reflects radio waves, vastly increasing the distance that they can travel to and from remote locations. However this {{w|Skywave}} propagation normally affects frequencies below 30 MHz, and never above 300 MHz, so they couldn't be the cause of receiving far away Wifi signals, which are 900 MHz and above.

Network names can be used to track the geographic locations of mobile devices, for example in the {{w|Wi-Fi positioning system}}. Google {{w|street view}} equipment records locations of networks to assist with {{w|geolocation}}. Location information can be searched in tools like [https://wigle.net/ Wigle] or [https://openwifimap.net/ OpenWifiMap]. The {{w|Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}} (IEEE) committee number for WiFi is {{w|IEEE 802.11|802.11}} which is composed of sub-committees like {{w|IEEE 802.11ad|802.11ad}}, designing the 60 GHz Multiple Gigabit Wireless System (MGWS) and {{w|IEEE 802.11ay|802.11ay}} working on {{w|MIMO|multiple input, multiple output}} (MIMO) bandwidth enhancements. This [https://www.toshibatec.com/cnt/products_overseas/printer2/mobile_printer/b-fp3d/ portable Toshiba printer] supports the "802.11 a/b/g/n" WiFi protocols. The {{w|List of router firmware projects|software which produces SSID listings}} is administered by {{w|List of wireless community networks by region|network communities}} and depends on {{w|Wireless mesh network|mesh configurations}}. Alternatives include [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20861948 bluetooth mesh networks] and other {{w|wireless ad hoc network|''ad hoc'' networks}} to provide internet connectivity services.

The title text indicates that the first WiFi networking client interface displayed unexpected SSIDs. If true, this could potentially rule out all of the alternative explanations other than an alien visitation, a software bug, rogue industrial espionage, time travel, trans-multiverse or trans-dimensional communication, hardware misconfiguration, the {{w|simulation hypothesis}}, or the supernatural. (It is worth noting that cryptic-sounding WiFi networks generated by a time-traveling alien entity as a trap was used as a plot device in the 2013 ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' episode "{{w|The Bells of Saint John}}".)

The ''Tech Trivia'' caption is reminiscent of many of the comics in the [[:Category:Tips|Tips category]], and it seems like it could just as well have been named ''Tech Tip''. But since tip is not part of the wording, this comic cannot be added to the category.

==Transcript==
:[A person with a knit cap and a backpack is checking a phone at the highest mountain in a mountainous landscape, with 5 snow covered mountain peaks behind, and a smaller peak connected to and just below that one. There seems to be no snow on those two peaks. Above is a view of the phone's screen as indicated with a zigzag line from the phone's screen to the frame with text. There is also a wifi icon at the top left and a padlock icon at the end of the second line of text. The bottom line is a gray font.]
:Phone: Available WiFi Networks
:Phone: Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ
:Phone: Join other network 

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tech Trivia: No one actually knows what devices produce those cryptic WiFi networks. They just appear at random across the Earth's surface.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]

2199: Cryptic Wifi Networks

2019-09-12T16:23:12Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2199
| date = September 6, 2019
| title = Cryptic Wifi Networks
| image = cryptic_wifi_networks.png
| titletext = They actually showed up on the first scan by the first WiFi-capable device.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In the comic, a character with a [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]] is on top of a high mountain in a remote location (second comic in a row with knit cap). Knit Cap sees a WiFi network name listed on a handheld device, perhaps a cellular telephone. This is something you would expect in a city, but certainly not on a mountain top, hence the joke, that what produced these WiFi networks are unknown, but seem to be distributed randomly over the face of the Earth, disregarding nearness to technology.

Cryptic {{w|Wi-Fi}} (or WiFi) network names, called {{w|Service set (802.11 network)|Service Set Identifiers}} (SSIDs) are part of the joke about not knowing where the corresponding {{w|wireless router}} is located, suggesting they are unexplained phenomena instead of wireless radio devices. Some of the earliest WiFi devices like printers and {{w|internet}} routers advertised cryptic SSIDs, as do many of them today. In 1998, {{w|Lucent}} introduced the [https://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan-IEEE.html WaveLAN IEEE], the first {{w|integrated circuit}} chip set supporting the IEEE 802.11 wireless {{w|LAN}} protocol, spinning off {{w|Agere Systems}} to produce them in 2000. WiFi followed mid-1990s short-range wireless networks like {{w|Bluetooth}} and radio internet protocols like the 1980s {{w|KA9Q}}, with roots going back to the earliest {{w|ticker tape}} digital telegraphy systems from the mid-1850s. [https://techtalk.gfi.com/the-31-funniest-ssids-ive-ever-seen/ Humorous SSID names] are not uncommon.

The SSID displayed is '''Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ''' which is 33 characters long, unfortunately one character more than are allowed. {{w|Toshiba}} is a multinational electronics conglomerate manufacturing many products including untold multitudes of different kinds of printers over the years. Such devices often have embedded {{w|wireless access point|wireless access points}} including the manufacturer name in the SSID. Many network names contain words like Net, Office or Link. The code might indicate a model U2187 device from Toshiba named (or having an interface program named) OfficeLink, which has a sub-model number or operates on a wireless network designated 46UHZ. That "Hz" is an abbreviation for {{w|Hertz}} suggests that designation may or may not have something to do with the frequency on which the transmitting device operates. Or U2187 could be a serial number for a user or a utility pole. We don't know whether the SSID is connected to a network of more than one or is just one device. The padlock icon indicates that a password is required to communicate. The "join other network" option allows for manually typing SSIDs to attempt to connect with networks which are not configured to display their SSIDs.

While the most likely explanation in an office environment might be a printer plugged in somewhere nearby, other possibilities include a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKjnZe4B-M marsupial delivery drone,] television, cryptocurrency mining rig, speaker, pacemaker, alarm system, [https://twitter.com/Theteamatx/status/1162762591677997056 offshore flying wind turbine,] fashion accessory, autonomous antimissile defense system node, hobby project, surveillance device, {{w|Loon LLC|balloon}}, distributed denial of service attack platform malware-infested coffee pot, {{w|Starlink (satellite constellation)|satellite}}, vending machine, telecommunication facilities, {{w|Facebook Aquila|solar-powered drone}}, distributed exoskeleton, visiting interstellar civilization, power-to-gas pipeline valve, [http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2340.html ransomware worm nest,] or anything else in the Wifi {{w|Internet of Things}}. Sometimes, the {{w|ionosphere}} reflects radio waves, vastly increasing the distance that they can travel to and from remote locations. However this {{w|Skywave}} propagation normally affects frequencies below 30 MHz, and never above 300 MHz, so they couldn't be the cause of receiving far away Wifi signals, which are 900 MHz and above.

Network names can be used to track the geographic locations of mobile devices, for example in the {{w|Wi-Fi positioning system}}. Google {{w|street view}} equipment records locations of networks to assist with {{w|geolocation}}. Location information can be searched in tools like [https://wigle.net/ Wigle] or [https://openwifimap.net/ OpenWifiMap]. The {{w|Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}} (IEEE) committee number for WiFi is {{w|IEEE 802.11|802.11}} which is composed of sub-committees like {{w|IEEE 802.11ad|802.11ad}}, designing the 60 GHz Multiple Gigabit Wireless System (MGWS) and {{w|IEEE 802.11ay|802.11ay}} working on {{w|MIMO|multiple input, multiple output}} (MIMO) bandwidth enhancements. This [https://www.toshibatec.com/cnt/products_overseas/printer2/mobile_printer/b-fp3d/ portable Toshiba printer] supports the "802.11 a/b/g/n" WiFi protocols. The {{w|List of router firmware projects|software which produces SSID listings}} is administered by {{w|List of wireless community networks by region|network communities}} and depends on {{w|Wireless mesh network|mesh configurations}}. Alternatives include [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20861948 bluetooth mesh networks] and other {{w|wireless ad hoc network|''ad hoc'' networks}} to provide internet connectivity services.

The title text indicates that the first WiFi networking client interface displayed unexpected SSIDs. If true, this could potentially rule out all of the alternative explanations other than an alien visitation, a software bug, rogue industrial espionage, time travel, trans-multiverse or trans-dimensional communication, hardware misconfiguration, the {{w|simulation hypothesis}}, or the supernatural. (It is worth noting that cryptic-sounding WiFi networks generated by a time-traveling alien entity as a trap was used as a plot device in the 2013 ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' episode "{{w|The Bells of Saint John}}".)

The ''Tech Trivia'' caption is reminiscent of many of the comics in the [[:Category:Tips|Tips category]], and it seems like it could just as well have been named ''Tech Tip''. But since tip is not part of the wording, this comic cannot be added to the category.

==Transcript==
:[A person with a knit cap and a backpack is checking a phone at the highest mountain in a mountainous landscape, with 5 snow covered mountain peaks behind, and a smaller peak connected to and just below that one. There seems to be no snow on those two peaks. Above is a view of the phone's screen as indicated with a zigzag line from the phone's screen to the frame with text. There is also a wifi icon at the top left and a padlock icon at the end of the second line of text. The bottom line is a gray font.]
:Phone: Available WiFi Networks
:Phone: Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ
:Phone: Join other network 

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tech Trivia: No one actually knows what devices produce those cryptic WiFi networks. They just appear at random across the Earth's surface.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]

Talk:2201: Foucault Pendulum

2019-09-12T16:20:17Z

172.68.189.19: ?

I take it the pendulum is somewhere deep underground, which would shield Black Hat from the cataclysmic side effects?
Besides, they have several backup pendulums that while not enough to maintain rotation are sufficient to slow the half enough to preserve life.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.149|108.162.212.149]] 20:11, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
:I fear that the use of multiple pendulums to smooth out the catastrophy of stoping the Earth's rotation would probably just cause bits of the Earth to keep going and other bits to stop. Hey! That's plate techtonics! ''Obviously'' there are subtly dampened/purturbed pendula in secret (masonic?) temples all across the world, making all that happen! Someone likely pushed the one in Atlantis too far, one fateful day...
:(BTW, the unsaid catastrophe element reminds me of a classic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Could_Work_Miracles_(story) short story])[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.31|162.158.154.31]] 15:29, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

If the pendulum could really affect Earth's rotation, Black Hat wouldn't need to stop the pendulum entirely; he'd only need to prevent its plane of oscillation from rotating. Another thought: if the pendulum and Earth's rotation were really bidirectionally linked somehow, there would probably be nothing Black Hat could do to alter the pendulum's plane of oscillation -- any more than he could alter the rotation of the Earth with just one human being's strength. That last thought doesn't seem to be the case within this story, though, or else the final frame's news report wouldn't have happened. [[User:Trueflint|Trueflint]] ([[User talk:Trueflint|talk]]) 20:46, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
:Who says it's the energy from Black Hat's grab specifically? Maybe the magic pendulum just tells a device in the Earth whether or not the planet should be spinning, based on the current state of the pendulum. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.167|172.68.46.167]] 08:15, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Why does the description description Megan as a "professor?" She could just as easily be a teacher, a docent, a scientifically-interested parent, or just a random bystander. 11 September 2019

The sentence "It stays in a fixed plane while the Earth rotates under it." and the correspoding text in explanation are wrong. It would be true only if the pendulum was located on one of Earth's poles. Elsewhere, the plane in which the pendulum moves would still rotate with respect to its surrondings, but slower than on the pole. The rotation speed is proportional to the sine of latitude. At the equator, the plane would stay fixed with respect to its surroundings. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum#Explanation_of_mechanics Wikipedia].--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.207|162.158.93.207]] 23:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
:As a Physics teacher, I strongly support this. The fact that a Foucault's pendulum is keeping its oscillation plane constant with respect to an absolute reference frame is a common misconception, it should be mentionned as frequently as possible.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.48|108.162.229.48]] 09:17, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

The Foucault Pendulum in this comic strongly resembles the one in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (both in shape and the way it is knocking over the pegs). Perhaps this should also be noted in the trivia section?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.46|162.158.126.46]] 05:16, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
:Then list *all* the ones it strongly resembles. Do you think Philadelphia’s is the only one with pegs? I think that is the usual presentation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.107|172.69.70.107]] 10:01, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
:A Google search reveals that nearly all of them have a weight that looks like the one in this comic, and many of them have some sort of pegs to demonstrate the circular motion over the course of a day. To put the location of any of them in the explanation (as it is now) is probably not appropriate. If there is a significant one somewhere in the world (largest, oldest, etc), then maybe we could mention that specific one. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 14:56, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Do we have anything about resonance transfer being proportional to the difference in mass? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 16:20, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2196: Nice To E-Meet You

2019-08-31T20:36:06Z

172.68.189.19:

DgbrtBOT hasn't uploaded, so I manually created the page. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:38, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
: I am convinced there's some idiotic joke to be made here, like "Maybe DgbrtBOT hasn't e-met this comic yet" or "Perhaps his e-Mail is down" or something, but I can't find the wording. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
::It also came out very late, around midnight here in Europe, if what Herobrine [[User_talk:DgbrtBOT#Bot_Failed_Today.3F|said]] about it being up two hours before he posted is is true (it was 2:36 in my time zone when the page was created!) But I guess that should not have had anything to with the Bot? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:33, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Woah, light and sound go directly in to the nervous system. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 20:36, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2193: Well-Ordering Principle

2019-08-25T07:42:09Z

172.68.189.19: clarify

Still a "trap": POOF, you're now the worst McFly cosplayer; here's a mirror.
:She asked about people who 'tried' to dress as Marty McFly. So unless Megan has ever tried to dress as him, I don't think she can be the answer.[[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:10, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

*Are* costumes well-ordered? Even leaving aside the subjectivity of any ranking, there are several different criteria which could be used, and many ways of combining them. (What if the costume which looked least like Marty wasn't the ugliest, nor the one showing least effort?) — Also, may be worth qualifying the explanation of Halloween by mentioning the USA; some other countries don't celebrate it, and of those that do, not all do trick-or-treating or dressing-up &c. [[User:Gidds|Gidds]] ([[User talk:Gidds|talk]]) 00:23, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

::Saying there are different criteria kind of overlaps with saying the ranking is subjective. But far worse, even individual preferences are preorders aka quasiorders, which absolutely does mean that there may not be a worst, or even a set of costumes tied for worst. However, the fact that you can always find someone (e.g. on Amazon Mechanical Turk, or off the street, or on a wiki somewhere) to give you another opinion means that well-foundedness can be rescued with their {{w|mean opinion score}}. I wonder if the genie is powerful enough to know the asymptotic MOS ranking right away, or if it will have to wait for enough Amazon Mechanical Turk HITs to be completed. Given that there must have been at least hundreds of thousands of consumes so far, that could take quite a long time to achieve p<0.05. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.248|172.69.22.248]] 04:00, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
::I've spent way too much time on this, but the more I do, the more I think Randall is trying to say something about the simulation hypothesis, related to the theme on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5uJNB7VU8 ''Watch Room''] (warning: somewhat creepy but otherwise ok sci-fi short.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 12:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I hope this Munroe lowkey challenging the internet, that we might actually celebrate our infamous king (or girl marty queen) of crappy costume. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.219|162.158.58.219]] 00:37, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

The "worst McFly" and "even" sounds like there should be a math pun in there somewhere, but I don't see it. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.11|172.69.63.11]] 01:36, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

"It's been over 30 years since Back to the Future came out." That makes me feel old. Isn't that something that Munroe does regularly? Should that be mentioned in the explanation? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.88|162.158.214.88]] 10:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
:Yes, I am sure there have been at least two comics where the often surprising ages of things formed a central part of the theme, but I can't remember enough about them to find them. Anyone? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.82|162.158.255.82]] 11:55, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
::Just see [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old]] :-). --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:29, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
:::Thanks {{done}} [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 12:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

"The real Worst McFly is probably lost to time" is also a pun regarding the fact that ''Back to the Future'' is a time-travel story.--[[User:MCBastos|MCBastos]] ([[User talk:MCBastos|talk]]) 17:20, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if this could be trap from Megan - even unintended one: in some stories, the Genie could get into problems if he CANT fulfill the wish ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:07, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Even if "preference" is a total order (i.e. connex and anti-symmetric, I think both of these are debatable) it isn't necessarily a well order, however, since the set of costumes is finite, there would still be a "worst" one. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 03:17, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

:It's not a total preorder unless you don't let people have "no opinion" about some pairs, which is an acceptable constraint for preferences based on established objective criteria, but not something so subjective like quality of fashion. In practice, a lot of people are going to have least favorites between which they don't care. Surveys of subjective preferences almost always allow people to say that they don't have opinions or are not sure. Even in technically objective measures, like short- versus long-term bond yield curves, you can sometimes prove that people objectively should have certain preferences upon which they are clearly not acting. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 07:40, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2193: Well-Ordering Principle

2019-08-25T07:40:59Z

172.68.189.19: reply

Still a "trap": POOF, you're now the worst McFly cosplayer; here's a mirror.
:She asked about people who 'tried' to dress as Marty McFly. So unless Megan has ever tried to dress as him, I don't think she can be the answer.[[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:10, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

*Are* costumes well-ordered? Even leaving aside the subjectivity of any ranking, there are several different criteria which could be used, and many ways of combining them. (What if the costume which looked least like Marty wasn't the ugliest, nor the one showing least effort?) — Also, may be worth qualifying the explanation of Halloween by mentioning the USA; some other countries don't celebrate it, and of those that do, not all do trick-or-treating or dressing-up &c. [[User:Gidds|Gidds]] ([[User talk:Gidds|talk]]) 00:23, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

::Saying there are different criteria kind of overlaps with saying the ranking is subjective. But far worse, even individual preferences are preorders aka quasiorders, which absolutely does mean that there may not be a worst, or even a set of costumes tied for worst. However, the fact that you can always find someone (e.g. on Amazon Mechanical Turk, or off the street, or on a wiki somewhere) to give you another opinion means that well-foundedness can be rescued with their {{w|mean opinion score}}. I wonder if the genie is powerful enough to know the asymptotic MOS ranking right away, or if it will have to wait for enough Amazon Mechanical Turk HITs to be completed. Given that there must have been at least hundreds of thousands of consumes so far, that could take quite a long time to achieve p<0.05. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.248|172.69.22.248]] 04:00, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
::I've spent way too much time on this, but the more I do, the more I think Randall is trying to say something about the simulation hypothesis, related to the theme on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5uJNB7VU8 ''Watch Room''] (warning: somewhat creepy but otherwise ok sci-fi short.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 12:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I hope this Munroe lowkey challenging the internet, that we might actually celebrate our infamous king (or girl marty queen) of crappy costume. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.219|162.158.58.219]] 00:37, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

The "worst McFly" and "even" sounds like there should be a math pun in there somewhere, but I don't see it. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.11|172.69.63.11]] 01:36, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

"It's been over 30 years since Back to the Future came out." That makes me feel old. Isn't that something that Munroe does regularly? Should that be mentioned in the explanation? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.88|162.158.214.88]] 10:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
:Yes, I am sure there have been at least two comics where the often surprising ages of things formed a central part of the theme, but I can't remember enough about them to find them. Anyone? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.82|162.158.255.82]] 11:55, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
::Just see [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old]] :-). --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:29, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
:::Thanks {{done}} [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 12:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

"The real Worst McFly is probably lost to time" is also a pun regarding the fact that ''Back to the Future'' is a time-travel story.--[[User:MCBastos|MCBastos]] ([[User talk:MCBastos|talk]]) 17:20, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if this could be trap from Megan - even unintended one: in some stories, the Genie could get into problems if he CANT fulfill the wish ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:07, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Even if "preference" is a total order (i.e. connex and anti-symmetric, I think both of these are debatable) it isn't necessarily a well order, however, since the set of costumes is finite, there would still be a "worst" one. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 03:17, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

:It's not a total preorder unless you don't let people have "no opinion" about some pairs, which is an acceptable constraint for preferences based on established objective criteria, but not something so subjective like quality of fashion. In practice, a lot of people are going to have least favorites between which they don't care. Surveys of subjective preferences almost always allow people to say that they don't have opinions or are not sure. Even in technically objective measures, like short- versus long-term bond curves, you can sometimes prove that people objectively should have certain preferences upon which they are clearly not acting. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 07:40, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2191: Conference Question

2019-08-20T00:25:10Z

172.68.189.19: talk about a lack of linguistic skill! --on my part, oops

I don't know to what "Word of Power" in the title text refers. A quick Google revealed something from Skyrim and something from D&D, but I have the feeling there must surely be a more original source for it, even if it is just a common term in folklore or something. [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 07:45, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

: I think it means "magic word". The next step, "Unforgivable Curse", is from Harry Potter; a magic spell against someone that will get you jail time. (C. S. Lewis had an apocalyptic option, the "{{w|Deplorable Word}}", which killed every living person except the speaker) So Harry Potter's schoolteacher demonstrates the Unforgivables on spiders... and on students. (You find out why.) Also I think the title text is the platform speaker's response to Beret Guy. rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.183|162.158.158.183]] 09:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC) [[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 13:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

:: Yeah, I understand the "Unforgivable Curse" part - it's more "Word of Power" I'm struggling with. I agree that the title text could potentially be a response by the speaker, and I've updated the page to reflect this. [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 10:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

::: It's from tabletop roleplaying games; [https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Power_word some of the earliest high level spells from the original edition of Dungeons and Dragons were "Power Word Kill," "Power Word Blind," and "Power Word Stun."] These spells have been carried forward into newer editions where they are extremely unpopular because they were designed for campaigns when most monsters had a tiny fraction of the number of hit points typical today, and unlike essentially all of the fifth edition spells, they don't do anything when they don't work, and they don't work based on facts which are theoretically unknowable to the players. So, they kind of have a reputation for being the worst high level spells, and are sometimes included in magic items which turn out to be, well, like fruitcake, if you know what I mean. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 11:36, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

:::: Re-reading, incantation already is a magic spell, probably. In current use, malediction can be either speaking against someone or something, or its original meaning of actual malicious verbal magic. So I suppose Word of Power has to be more than a magic word... I found a couple of references in the world of H. P. Lovecraft but those I traced were 1970s or later, actually after D-and-D. So, not definite. rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.209|162.158.158.209]] 00:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

One thing I feel needs to be said is that this behavior shows a lack of linguistic skill, because any statement can always be phrased in the form of a question, e.g, most easily, "Do you agree that _______?" Or by asking about the details of the comment in which the commenter is most interested in emphasizing or soliciting a response. That this kind of thing happens among advanced academics shows how narcissistic and tone-deaf even otherwise intelligent people can often be. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.34|162.158.255.34]] 12:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
:Similar to how the comic ends in a question? I think your statement is part of the joke. Less of a statement, and more of an utterance. [[User:OhFFS|OhFFS]] ([[User talk:OhFFS|talk]]) 14:28, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
::Do you agree it could be more of a noun phrase and a verb phrase, or perhaps merely a subject and a predicate? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.34|162.158.255.34]] 00:15, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

There is a Russian Folk Tale, among those collected by Afanasyev, called "Go I don't know where, Bring back I don't know what". In that story, the archer Andrey is given several impossible tasks by a tsar who covets his beautiful wife, the last of which is to go to I don't know where and bring back I don't know what. After journeying a vast distance and meeting his mother in law Baba Yaga, he is guided by an ancient frog across a river of fire, and is told "Over there you will find a house. Well, not so much a house as a hut. And it is not so much of a hut as a barn." This is I don't know where. So Beret Guy's intro to his statement may be a reference to this formulaic format.

: ...his mother in law is Baba Yaga? Did he know that? Does the tsar know that? Does it change matters tsar-and-beautiful-wife-wise... (Is this story in English at all, I don't know where...) Wikipedia knows several Baba Yaga stories (some with three Baba Yagas who don't live together, unless this is a complicated alibi) but none match this. rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.209|162.158.158.209]] 00:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the Unforgivable Curse line in the title text is meant to reference the scene in HP&tGoF when Barty Crouch, posing as Professor Moody, demonstrates their use on spiders to the fourth years in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The curse, be it an annoyed audience member or the speaker, is to be cast on the friendly bug. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.83|108.162.238.83]] 21:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Beret Guy is trying to say that he and the speaker are friends in his last line, I'm pretty sure he's saying that he's friends with the bug he found.

Talk:2191: Conference Question

2019-08-20T00:23:38Z

172.68.189.19: couple typos

I don't know to what "Word of Power" in the title text refers. A quick Google revealed something from Skyrim and something from D&D, but I have the feeling there must surely be a more original source for it, even if it is just a common term in folklore or something. [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 07:45, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

: I think it means "magic word". The next step, "Unforgivable Curse", is from Harry Potter; a magic spell against someone that will get you jail time. (C. S. Lewis had an apocalyptic option, the "{{w|Deplorable Word}}", which killed every living person except the speaker) So Harry Potter's schoolteacher demonstrates the Unforgivables on spiders... and on students. (You find out why.) Also I think the title text is the platform speaker's response to Beret Guy. rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.183|162.158.158.183]] 09:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC) [[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 13:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

:: Yeah, I understand the "Unforgivable Curse" part - it's more "Word of Power" I'm struggling with. I agree that the title text could potentially be a response by the speaker, and I've updated the page to reflect this. [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 10:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

::: It's from tabletop roleplaying games; [https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Power_word some of the earliest high level spells from the original edition of Dungeons and Dragons were "Power Word Kill," "Power Word Blind," and "Power Word Stun."] These spells have been carried forward into newer editions where they are extremely unpopular because they were designed for campaigns when most monsters had a tiny fraction of the number of hit points typical today, and unlike essentially all of the fifth edition spells, they don't do anything when they don't work, and they don't work based on facts which are theoretically unknowable to the players. So, they kind of have a reputation for being the worst high level spells, and are sometimes included in magic items which turn out to be, well, like fruitcake, if you know what I mean. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 11:36, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

:::: Re-reading, incantation already is a magic spell, probably. In current use, malediction can be either speaking against someone or something, or its original meaning of actual malicious verbal magic. So I suppose Word of Power has to be more than a magic word... I found a couple of references in the world of H. P. Lovecraft but those I traced were 1970s or later, actually after D-and-D. So, not definite. rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.209|162.158.158.209]] 00:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

One thing I feel needs to be said is that this behavior belies a lack of linguistic skill, because any statement can always be phrased in the form of a question, e.g, most easily, "Do you agree that _______?" Or by asking about the details of the comment in which the commenter is most interested in emphasizing or soliciting a response. That this kind of thing happens among advanced academics belies how narcissistic and tone-deaf even otherwise intelligent people can often be. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.34|162.158.255.34]] 12:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
:Similar to how the comic ends in a question? I think your statement is part of the joke. Less of a statement, and more of an utterance. [[User:OhFFS|OhFFS]] ([[User talk:OhFFS|talk]]) 14:28, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
::Do you agree it could be more of a noun phrase and a verb phrase, or perhaps merely a subject and a predicate? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.34|162.158.255.34]] 00:15, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

There is a Russian Folk Tale, among those collected by Afanasyev, called "Go I don't know where, Bring back I don't know what". In that story, the archer Andrey is given several impossible tasks by a tsar who covets his beautiful wife, the last of which is to go to I don't know where and bring back I don't know what. After journeying a vast distance and meeting his mother in law Baba Yaga, he is guided by an ancient frog across a river of fire, and is told "Over there you will find a house. Well, not so much a house as a hut. And it is not so much of a hut as a barn." This is I don't know where. So Beret Guy's intro to his statement may be a reference to this formulaic format.

: ...his mother in law is Baba Yaga? Did he know that? Does the tsar know that? Does it change matters tsar-and-beautiful-wife-wise... (Is this story in English at all, I don't know where...) Wikipedia knows several Baba Yaga stories (some with three Baba Yagas who don't live together, unless this is a complicated alibi) but none match this. rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.209|162.158.158.209]] 00:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the Unforgivable Curse line in the title text is meant to reference the scene in HP&tGoF when Barty Crouch, posing as Professor Moody, demonstrates their use on spiders to the fourth years in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The curse, be it an annoyed audience member or the speaker, is to be cast on the friendly bug. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.83|108.162.238.83]] 21:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Beret Guy is trying to say that he and the speaker are friends in his last line, I'm pretty sure he's saying that he's friends with the bug he found.

1645: Toasts

2019-08-16T23:17:20Z

172.68.189.19: Added citation needed

{{comic
| number = 1645
| date = February 19, 2016
| title = Toasts
| image = toasts.png
| titletext = Platonic solids for my real friends and real solids for my platonic friends!
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|Toast (honor)|toast}} is a ritual in which a drink is taken as an expression of honor or goodwill. The term may be applied to the person or thing so honored, the drink taken, or the verbal expression accompanying the drink. Thus, a person could be "the toast of the evening," for whom someone "proposes a toast" to congratulate and for whom a third person "toasts" in agreement.

The comic is based on the quote {{w|Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends}} which, though often attributed to the painter {{w|Francis Bacon (artist)|Francis Bacon}} or to {{w|Tom Waits}}, is a toast dating back to at least the nineteenth century. It is also the entire title of a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7q9i6KYmzQ song], the {{w|From_Under_the_Cork_Tree#Track_listing|ninth track}} on {{w|From Under the Cork Tree}}, a 2005 album by {{w|Fall Out Boy}}.

The comic plays on a permutation structure between two words (a type of {{w|chiasmus}}), yielding puns with various effects. In this comic eight persons drink a '''toast''' for their "real friends" and then for some other type of "friends". For the real friend they wish them to have one specific thing. This something is a word (X-Y) that can be split up in two meanings (X and Y), where one of them are then put in front the word friend, to explain what type of friends they are now toasting (often a bad/false type of friend) and then these friends get a wish for having what the word that are left of the original word means: "X-Y for my real friends and real Y for my X friends"

The first example is a typical toast, in Champagne, where this word can be split in the two phonetically similar words Sham and Pain, and the sham friends then get pain. [[#The toasts|Below]] all examples (including the ninth from the title text) are listed with explanation for all words. In some cases the word may actually refer to a drink (like the first with champagne), so that the first word is not something wished for the real friends, but the drink that is in the glass (these have been mentioned below). But for other toasts there is no such drink in existence, and the first word is the thing the toaster wishes for the real friends.

===The toasts===
*''Champagne'' sounds like a combination of the two words ''sham'' and ''pain''.
**{{w|Champagne}} is an expensive sparkling wine.
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sham Sham] means false.
**{{w|Pain}} is not so nice to hand out.{{Citation needed}}
***So [[Cueball]] toast his real friends with Champagne and wishes real pain to his false friends.
*''Pseudopods'' can be divided into ''pseudo-'' and ''pods''.
**{{w|Pseudopods}} (which translate to "false feet") are temporary cytoplasm-filled parts of the cell wall that are able to change their form in order to move. They are used in some eukaryotic cells to move around or to eat. Most cells that do this are called {{w|Amoeba|amoeboids}}. The {{w|Amoeba (genus)|amoeba}} is a common example. There is no drink named Pseudopods!
**{{w|Pseudo-}} (lying, false) is used to mark something that superficially appears to be (or behaves like) one thing, but actually is another.
**{{w|Pods}} or {{w|pod}} is not clearly defined. It could refer to {{w|Glossary_of_plant_morphology#Fruit_types|seedpod}} – a dry dehiscent fruit containing many seeds. Pods, both malevolent and benignant, appear in many works of SF and Fantasy.
***So [[Blondie]] will give her real friends a special part/adaptation of the amoeba. (Doesn't everyone wish they had pseudopods?) But it at least seems better than her pseudo-friends who would receive real pods with intricate ways to kill them.
*''Petticoats'' sounds like a combination of the two words ''petty'' and ''coats''
**A {{w|petticoat}} or underskirt is an article of clothing; specifically an undergarment to be worn under a skirt or a dress. There is no drink named petticoats!
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/petty Petty] means small (in rank of importance), insignificant or narrow-minded. See for instance {{w|petty crime}}.
**A {{w|Coat (clothing)|coat}} is a garment worn by both men and women, for warmth or fashion.
***So [[Megan]] will hand out undergarments for her real friends (a very personal gift) and coats for her less important/insignificant or narrow-minded friends (they seem to be the luckier ones here).
*''Loosestrife'' can be divided into ''loose'' and ''strife''.
**{{w|Loosestrife}} is a common name for plants within two different genera (which are not related): {{w|Lythrum}} (example: {{w|Lythrum salicaria|purple loosestrife}}) and {{w|Lysimachia}} (example: {{w|Lysimachia ciliata|Fringed Loosestrife}}). There is a patent for a [http://www.google.com.na/patents/CN1154814A?cl=en loosestrife drink] but it seems unlikely that this is in the glass.
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loose Loose] in this case means free from restraints, as the opposite of {{w|close friend}}. Loose can also refer to being sexually promiscuous, especially when used as an adjective for people.
**[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/strife Strife] refers to bitter, sometimes violent, conflict or discord.
***So the "brunette" woman (i.e. similar hair but less dark than Megan) will give her real friends flowers and for her promiscuous friend she wishes they end up in a real violent conflict.
*''Ladybugs'' can be divided into ''lady'' and ''bugs''.
**{{w|Ladybugs}} (or Ladybird) are a family of insects common all over the world. They are [http://photobucket.com/images/cute%20ladybug considered cute]. There also exists a recipe for a [http://www.1001cocktails.com/recipes/mixed-drinks/104741/cocktail-ladybug.html ''ladybug'' cocktail].
**{{w|Lady}} is a civil term of respect for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to {{w|gentleman}} or {{w|lord}}, but in many contexts a term for any adult woman.
**{{w|Bugs}} in this case refer to {{w|insects}} or {{w|arachnids}}. It could also refer to the scientific classification {{w|Hemiptera}}, the "true bugs", which does not include ladybugs.
***[[Hairbun]] toasts her real friends in the ''ladybug'' cocktail - it could be a cocktail glass she is holding - (rather than giving the ladybugs for her real friends, even though they are [http://www.zazzle.com/cute+ladybug cute bugs] that most people are not afraid of). And then she will bestow real bugs ({{w|beetles}}, {{w|flies}} or {{w|spiders}}) to her lady friends. This is not necessarily all her female friends, it could be only those that are {{w|Lady#British_nobility|noble}} or at least think they are more important and thus would like to be called lady.
*''Single-payer'' can be divided into ''single,'' and payer, a word that rhymes with ''player''. In this case this word is then put together with real to form the word ''RealPlayer''.
**{{w|Single-payer}} refers to single-payer healthcare, a system in which the state, rather than private insurers, pays for all {{w|healthcare}} costs, a system used in several countries, but not so far in the US; it was initially considered but ultimately rejected when the {{w|Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act}}, also referred to as {{w|Obamacare}} by both detractors and supporters of the law, was discussed, passed by the US House and Senate, and signed into law by President {{w|Barack Obama}}. There is no drink named single-payer!
**{{w|Single person|Single}} refers to a person who is not in a relationship or is unmarried.
**{{w|RealPlayer}} is a cross-platform media player app, developed by RealNetworks. It is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multimedia realm. In the past it has been {{w|RealPlayer#Reviews_and_critiques|criticized}} for containing adware and spyware. This was back from 1999 and up to the 2004 version.
**It is specifically '''not''' the word ''{{w|Single-player video game|single-player}}'' that is used! This word could refer to video games that only one player can play at a time, or when choosing to play single-player in a game where more could have played. ''RealPayer'' is '''not''' a word in use.
***[[White Hat]] thus wishes that his real friends have access to state-funded health care, and all his single friends will get RealPlayer. Since [[White Hat]] is normally benevolent, if naïve, he may imagine that RealPlayer will help his single friends enjoy Internet media, when they are home alone. Maybe he wishes to impress these singles with a free app as a present in the hope that he {{w|Get Lucky (Daft Punk song)|gets lucky}}. If it has been [[Hairy]] this would have seemed very likely… see [[1178: Pickup Artists]]. White Hat has not previously displayed these tendencies too clearly. As mentioned there have been some issues with RealPlayer in the past, but it has stayed on the market for more than a decade. However, since it has {{w|RealPlayer#Current_Status|recently been changed}} into ''RealTimes'' it may not be so cool a gift anyway. Also White Hat might wish to give away the old spy ware version of RealPlayer. But as opposed to most of the special type of friends, ''single-friends'' is not in itself a negative type of friend, especially not if you are yourself single. So no direct reason to make bad wished for single friends as opposed to sham friends.
*''Tumbleweeds'' sounds like a combination of the two words ''tumblr'' and ''weed''.
**{{w|Tumbleweed}} is a structural part of the above-ground anatomy of a number of species of plants, a {{w|Diaspore (botany)|diaspore}} (of seeds) that, once it is mature and dry, detaches from its root or stem, and tumbles away in the wind. The tumbleweed's {{w|Tumbleweed#Symbolism|association}} with the Western film genre has led to a highly symbolic meaning in visual media. But there is also a [http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=33698 ''Tumbleweed'' cocktail].
**{{w|tumblr}} is a microblogging platform and social networking website
**A {{w|weed}} is any plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, but in this case it refers to {{w|Cannabis (drug)|Cannabis}}, also known as marijuana and by many other names (including weed), and would be used (again in this comic) as a {{w|psychoactive drug}}, i.e. to {{w|getting high|get high}}.
***[[Ponytail]] toast her real friends in the ''Tumbleweed'' cocktail (rather than giving them a western movie symbol, that will spread seeds all over their house), but with her friends on her favorite blogsite ''tumblr'' she will share her expensive weed.
*''Fauxhawks'' can be divided into ''faux'' and ''hawks''
**{{w|Mohawk_hairstyle#Fauxhawk_variants |Fauxhawks}} copies the style of a {{w|Mohawk hairstyle}}, but without shaving the sides of the head and not extending past the peak of the cranium. But there is also a [https://untappd.com/b/starving-artist-brewing-co-fauxhawks/1105627 ''Fauxhawks'' beer].
**{{w|Faux}} is a French word for "false".
**{{w|Hawks}} is a common name for some small to medium-sized diurnal birds of prey, widely distributed and varying greatly in size.
***[[Beret Guy]] thus wishes to cut his real friends hair in a very special way, maybe to his liking and thought of as a favor, but not necessarily liked by all his friends, cause although Beret Guy is weird, it seems that those around him are not. His false friends can have a predatory bird (maybe coming after them), but rather knowing Beret Guys love of all things, just as a present of something he likes, like animals. Alternatively he toast in the beer with that name - could be a fancy beer glass he is holding.
*'''Title text:'''
*''Platonic solids'' can be divided into ''platonic'' and ''solids''
**{{w|Platonic solids}}: In three-dimensional space, a platonic solid is a regular, convex polyhedron. It is constructed by congruent regular polygonal faces with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex. Five solids meet those criteria, and each is named after its number of faces: Tetrahedron (a.k.a. "Regular triangle-based pyramid"), Hexahedron ("Cube"), Octahedron (can be considered the union of two square-based pyramids, base-to-base), Dodecahedron and Icosahedron. There is no drink named platonic solids!
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/platonic Platonic] means ''not sexual in nature'' as in {{w|platonic love}}, which is a type of love that is celibate and non-sexual. Platonic friends are friends who will never have sex with each other.
**{{w|Solid}} is one of the three fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid and gas). ''Doing someone a solid'' can also mean ''doing someone a favor''
***[[Randall]], must be speaking the title text and he wishes his real friends to have material in regular, convex polyhedron shape where as his {{w|platonic friends}} can get any other kind of solid material, alternatively a solid favor. Platonic friends are not necessarily bad to have so maybe it should be a positive toast for those as well. On the other hand, sometimes it is one friend that has decided it should be a platonic friendship. In this case the other may regret this and not wish good things for this friend.
***'''Solids'' can also refer to solid human excrement.
**''Platonic'' can also refer to {{w|Platonic ideal}}s, which are models that real-life objects and processes implement only imperfectly.
***So while Randall wants his Platonic friends to have solid objects in the imperfect shapes that can exist in real life, he wants his "real friends" to have impossibly perfect hard copies of the regular tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron.

==Transcript==
:[There are two rows of 4 panels each. Each panel shows a different person offering a toast. Each one has some kind of drink in one hand which they hold up.]

:[First row panels:]
:[Cueball holding up a wine glass to the right:]
:Cueball: Champaign for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends!

:[Blondie holding up a regular glass to the left:]
:Blondie: Pseudopods for my real friends and real pods for my pseudo-friends!

:[Megan holding up a drinks glass to the right:]
:Megan: Petticoats for my real friends and real coats for my petty friends.

:[A "brunette" woman (i.e. similar hair but less dark than Megan) holding up a normal glass with a small umbrella in it to the right:]
:Brunette woman: Loosestrife for my real friends and real strife for my loose friends!

:[Second row panels:]
:[Hairbun holding up a wine glass to the left:]
:Hairbun: Ladybugs for my real friends and real bugs for my lady friends!

:[White Hat holding up a regular glass to the right:]
:White Hat: Single-payer for my real friends and RealPlayer for my single friends.

:[Ponytail holding up a regular glass to the right:]
:Ponytail: Tumbleweeds for my real friends and real weed for my Tumblr friends!

:[Beret Guy holding up a wine glass to the left:]
:Beret Guy: Fauxhawks for my real friends and real hawks for my faux friends!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

488: Steal This Comic

2019-04-15T04:57:33Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 488
| date = October 13, 2008
| title = Steal This Comic
| image = steal_this_comic.png
| titletext = I spent more time trying to get an audible.com audiobook playing than it took to listen to the book. I have lost every other piece of DRM-locked music that I ever paid for.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|DRM}}, an acronym standing for Digital Restrictions Mechanisms, is a recent anti-piracy mechanism that is used to prevent unapproved or unintended use of software programs. Examples would be a requirement to play a video game while online (where the servers can validate that the game has not been hacked) or allowing only a limited amount of installations to ensure that different users are buying the program for themselves instead of sharing it. The problem is that there are ways that DRM can be restrictive even upon legal situations. Someone may simply want to play the game in an area where there is no Internet connection, or they may have exceeded the amount of allowed installs due to installation problems or hardware malfunctions requiring the purchase of new hardware. In the audio situation described in the comic, one could not, say, transfer an audiobook or song from an iPod to a Blackberry phone, because Apple does not allow files on its operating system to be used on ones from other companies. DRM has also been referred to as [http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ "Digital Restrictions Management"].

[[Black Hat]] uses a [[:Category:Flowcharts|flow chart]] to propose two paths:
*If you pirate the audio, the DRM would necessarily be disabled or removed in order to be available in that fashion. This is in violation of copyright law and is also considered theft since it avoids payment to the publishers, performers, composers, etc. who created the audio.

*If you buy the DRM-locked audio, you have legally obtained it for use on your device. However, as Black Hat puts it, "things change": the device you have the audio stored on could be lost, stolen, or broken. The device will inevitably get old enough that the company that made it will stop supporting updates for it, and newer software may no longer be compatible with it. In the worst case scenario, [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/24/apple-samsung-fined-for-slowing-down-phones the device may be sabotaged by the company]. If the DRM prevents the audio from being recovered or transferred from the device or allows [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-kindle-1984 the service providing you with the audio to delete it], you would have to pay for it a second time to re-obtain it legally, which no one wants to do. The only other solution is breaking the DRM to try and recover your collection by force, and Black Hat argues that this is inevitable.

Since both situations have you end up being a criminal, Black Hat proposes taking the pirate path, which leaves you with a collection of dependable audio for free. In the title-text, [[Randall]] gives an anecdote of how ridiculous it was to obtain an audiobook legally, and how all of his other legally-obtained music has been lost, as the flow chart predicts.

In light of this, he proposes another option: demanding DRM-free files.

It's worth noting that there are other methods of listening to music legally that avoid the problems presented in the comic:
*You can purchase a hard copy of the audio (e.g. a CD). These are then easily ripped to your hard-drive and then copied to other devices, plus a physical item can be useful for older sound systems that do not support digital media. However, there are some downsides: higher cost, delayed delivery, necessity of physical storage space, wearing down of the physical device, and in many cases the non-availability of the desired audio in the first place.
*You can decide instead to think of audio as an experience rather than a thing that you own (similar to going to a movie theater). This type of thinking has given rise to music subscription sites, such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify Spotify], where instead of owning the music, the listener is paying for continued access to a very large range of music.

The title is a reference to the [http://web.archive.org/web/20080913131048/http://www.piracyisacrime.com/ "Piracy is a Crime"] ad campaign, as well as a 1970 pro-anarchy book called ''{{w|Steal This Book}}''. There is also some underlying humour: since xkcd [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ is under a Creative Commons license], you can not "steal" the comic, since Randall specifically allowed the comic to be shared. It could also be a reference to ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Download_This_Song Don't Download This Song]'', a "Weird" Al Yankovic song that amusingly deals with audio piracy.

A note on the site says that [http://www.amazon.com Amazon] sells DRM-free music files. Since this comic was written, iTunes has also stopped using DRM on music, though it still protects apps, e-books, and videos.

==Transcript==
:Black Hat: Thinking of buying from audible.com or iTunes?
:Black Hat: Remember, if you pirate something, it's yours for life. You can take it anywhere and it will always work.
:[There is a flowchart whose paths are (You're a Criminal)<-Pirate<-(Buy or Pirate)->Buy->(Things Change)->(You Try to Recover Your Collection)->(You're a Criminal)]
:Black Hat: But if you buy DRM-locked media, and you ever switch operating systems or new technology comes along, your collection could be lost.
:Black Hat: And if you try to keep it, you'll be a criminal ([https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 DMCA 1201]).
:Black Hat: So remember: if you want a collection you can count on, PIRATE IT.
:Black Hat: Hey, you'll be a criminal either way.
:(If you don't like this, demand DRM-free files)

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Flowcharts]]

Talk:994: Advent Calendar

2018-10-29T15:30:07Z

172.68.189.19:

To me this is a lesson in moderation, too much chocolate is not only a problem on x-mas, but also on Halloween. If we don't learn moderation, we will wake up on 25th with huge belly and type-1 diabetes. Enjoy responsibly (which is true for every good thing and state altering drugs). - e-inspired [[Special:Contributions/98.211.199.84|98.211.199.84]] 15:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll have you know that type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with sugar overdose, since it's mostly an autoimmune disease. Type 2 diabetes is the fatty's version, whose only connection to type 1 is the symptoms (and sometimes the treatment)
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.212|141.101.98.212]] 05:42, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad that isn't what this is for me. [[Special:Contributions/81.135.136.159|81.135.136.159]] 10:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the humor is too about the way most people find difficult to wait for the next day before eating the chocolate...--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.203|141.101.89.203]] 14:49, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Advent then is the opposite of lent, when one gives up, say, chocolate {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.167}}

AAAHH!! Stop being an idiot! Type 1 diabetes... what they said. I have type 1!! Stop accusing me of making myself diabetic!!! {{unsigned ip|173.245.55.73}}

I don't get why people think Zeno's paradox is interesting as it relies on the stupid notion that objects somehow move by halving the distance between one and the other rather than moving in discrete amounts of distance over time. I hope Zeno got punched for being so dumb at least once in his lifetime. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 05:10, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

It's interesting because it's not really a paradox. Of course they knew that the runner will get to his destination in finite time. The whole point was that it's absurd to claim otherwise. The reason it gets repeated so often is that, any philosophical arguments aside, it's a good story to explain that an infinite sum has a finite solution. Sigma(n=0->inf,1/(2^n))=2. 15:30, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

2048: Curve-Fitting

2018-09-30T07:42:08Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */ Explaim is complete

{{comic
| number = 2048
| date = September 19, 2018
| title = Curve-Fitting
| image = curve_fitting.png
| titletext = Cauchy-Lorentz: "Something alarmingly mathematical is happening, and you should probably pause to Google my name and check what field I originally worked in."
}}

==Explanation==

An illustration of several plots of the same data with {{w|Curve fitting|curves fitted}} to the points, paired with conclusions that you might draw about the person who made them. These data, when plotted on an X/Y graph, appear to have a general upward trend, but the data is far too noisy, with too few data points, to clearly suggest any specific growth pattern. In such a case, many different mathematical and statistical models ''could'' be presented as roughly fitting the data, but none of them fits well enough to compellingly represent the data.

When modeling such a problem statistically, much of the work of a data scientist or statistician is knowing which fitting method is most appropriate for the data in question. Here we see various hypothetical scientists or statisticians each applying their own interpretations to the exact same data, and the comic mocks each of them for their various personal biases or other assorted excuses. In general, the researcher will specify the form of an equation for the line to be drawn, and an algorithm will produce the actual line.

Nonetheless scientists work much more seriously on the reliability of their assumptions by giving a value for the {{w|Standard deviation|standard deviation}} represented by the Greek letter sigma σ or the Latin letter s as a measure to quantify the amount of variation of the data points against the presented ''best fit''. If the σ-value isn't good enough an interpretation based on a specific fit wouldn't be accepted by the science community.

Since [[Randall]] gives no hint about the nature of the used data set - same in each graph - any fitting presented doesn't make any sense. The graphs could represent a star map, the votes for the latest elected presidents, or your recent invoices on power consumption. This comic just exaggerates various methods on interpreting data, but without the knowledge of the matter in the background nothing makes any sense.

===Linear===
[[File:Anscombe's quartet 3.svg|thumb|200px|Different data sets result in the same regression.]]
<math>f(x) = mx + b</math>

{{w|Linear regression}} is the most basic form of regression; it tries to find the straight line that best approximates the data. As it's the simplest, most widely taught form of regression, and in general derivable function are locally well approximated by a straight line, it's usually the first and most trivial attempt of fit.

The picture to the right shows how totally different data sets can result into the same line. It's obvious that some more basics about the nature of the data must be used to understand if this simple line really does make sense.

The comment below the graph ''"Hey, I did a regression."'' refers to the fact that this is just the easiest way of fitting data into a curve.

===Quadratic===
<math>f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c</math>

{{w|Polynomial regression|Quadratic fit}} (i.e. fitting a parabola through the data) is the lowest grade polynomial that can be used to fit data through a curved line; if the data exhibits clearly "curved" behavior (or if the experimenter feels that its growth should be more than linear), a parabola is often the first, easiest, stab at fitting the data.

The comment below the graph ''"I wanted a curved line, so I made one with math."'' suggests that a quadratic regression is used when straight lines no longer satisfy the researcher, but he still wants to use simple math expression. Quadratic correlations like this are mathematically valid and one of the simplest kind of curve in math, but this curve doesn't appear to satisfy the data any better than does simple, linear regression.

===Logarithmic===
[[File:Logarithm_plots.png|thumb|200px|Common logarithm functions.]]
<math>f(x) = a\log_b(x) + c</math>

A {{w|Logarithm|logarithmic}} curve growths slower on higher values, but still grows without bound to infinity rather than approaching a horizontal {{w|asymptote}}. The small ''b'' in the formula represents the base which is in most cases ''{{w|e (mathematical constant)|e}}'', 10, or 2. If the data presumably does approach a horizontal asymptote then this fit isn't an effective method to explain the nature of the data.

The comment below the graph ''"Look, it's tapering off!"'' builds up the impression that the data diminishes while under this fit it's still growing to infinity, only much slower than a linear regression does.

===Exponential===
[[File:Exponential.svg|thumb|200px|Exponential growth (green) compared to other functions.]]
<math>f(x) = a\cdot b^x + c</math>

An {{w|Exponential growth|exponential curve}}, on the contrary, is typical of a phenomenon whose growth gets rapidly faster and faster - a common case is a process that generates stuff that contributes to the process itself, think bacteria growth or compound interest.

The logarithmic and exponential interpretations could very easily be fudged or engineered by a researcher with an agenda (such as by taking a misleading subset or even outright lying about the regression), which the comic mocks by juxtaposing them side-by-side on the same set of data.

The comment below the graph ''"Look, it's growing uncontrollably!"'' gives an other frivolous statement suggesting something like chaos. Also this even faster growth is well defined and has no asymptote at both axes.

===LOESS===
A {{w|Local regression|LOESS fit}} doesn't use a single formula to fit all the data, but approximates data points locally using different polynomials for each "zone" (weighting differently data points as they get further from it) and patching them together. As it has much more degrees of freedom compared to a single polynomial, it generally "fits better" to any data set, although it is generally impossible to derive any strong, "clean" mathematical correlation from it - it is just a nice smooth line that approximates well the data points, with a good degree of rejection from outliers.

The comment below the graph ''"I'm sophisticated, not like those bumbling polynomial people."'' emphasis this more complicated interpretation but without a simple mathematical description it's not much helpful to find academic descriptions on the underlying matter.

===Linear, No Slope===
<math>f(x) = c</math>

Apparently, the person making this line figured out pretty early on that their data analysis was turning into a scatter plot, and wanted to escape their personal stigma of scatter plots by drawing an obviously false regression line on top of it. Alternatively, they were hoping the data would be flat, and are trying to pretend that there's no real trend to the data by drawing a horizontal trend line.

The comment below the graph ''"I'm making a scatter plot but I don't want to."'' is probably done by a student who isn't happy with its choice of field of study.

===Logistic===
[[File:Logistic-curve.svg|thumb|200px|A standard logistic function between the values ''0'' and ''1''.]]
The {{w|Logistic regression|logistic regression}} is taken when a variable can take binary results such as "0" and "1" or "old" and "young".

The curve provides a smooth, S-shaped transition curve between two flat intervals (like "0" and "1").

The comment below the graph ''"I need to connect these two lines, but my first idea didn't have enough math."'' implies the experimenter just wants to find a mathematically-respectable way to link two flat lines.

===Confidence Interval===
Not a type of curve fitting, but a method of depicting the predictive power of a curve.

Providing a confidence interval over the graph shows the uncertainty of the acquired data, thus acknowledging the uncertain results of the experiment, and showing the will not to "cheat" with "easy" regression curves.

The comment below the graph ''"Listen, science is hard. But I'm a serious person doing my best."'' is just an honest statement about this uncertainty.

===Piecewise===
Mapping different curves to different segments of the data. This is a legitimate strategy, but the different segments should be meaningful, such as if they were pulled from different populations.

This kind of fit would arise naturally in a study based on a regression discontinuity design. For instance, if students who score below a certain cutoff must take remedial classes, the line for outcomes of those below the cutoff would reasonably be separate from the one for outcomes above the cutoff; the distance between the end of the two lines could be considered the effect of the treatment, under certain assumptions. This kind of study design is used to investigate causal theories, where mere correlation in observational data is not enough to prove anything. Thus, the associated text would be appropriate; there is a theory, and data that might prove the theory is hard to find.

One notable time this is used is when a researcher studying housing economics is trying to identify housing submarkets. The assumption is that if two proposed markets are truly different, they will be better described using two different regression functions than if one were to be used.

The additional curved lines visible in the graph are the kind of confidence intervals you'd get from a simple OLS regression if the standard assumptions were valid. In the case of two separate regressions, it would be surprising if all those assumptions (that is, i.i.d. Normal residuals around an underlying perfectly-linear function) were in fact valid for each part, especially if the slopes are not equal.

A classical example in physics are the different theories to explain the black body radiation at the end of the 19th century. The {{w|Wien approximation}} was good for small wavelengths while the {{w|Rayleigh–Jeans law}} worked for the larger scales (large wavelength means low frequency and thus low energy.) But there was a gap in the middle which was filled by the {{w|Planck's law}} in 1900.

The comment below the graph ''"I have a theory, and this is the only data I could find."'' is a bit ambiguous because there are many data points ignored. Without an explanation why only a subset of the data is used this isn't a useful interpretation at all.

===Connecting lines===
This is often used to smooth gaps in measurements. A simple example is the weather temperature which is often measured in distinct intervals. When the intervals are high enough it's safe to assume that the temperature didn't change that much between them and connecting the data points by lines doesn't distort the real situation in many cases.

The comment below the graph ''"I clicked 'Smooth Lines' in {{w|Microsoft Excel|Excel}}."'' refers to the well known spreadsheet application from {{w|Microsoft Office}}. Like other spreadsheet applications it has the feature to visualize data from a table into a graph by many ways. "Smooth Lines" is a setting meant for use on a {{w|line graph}}, a graph in which one axis represents time; as it simply joins up every point rather than finding a sensible line, it is not suitable for regression.

===Ad-Hoc Filter===
Drawing a bunch of different lines by hand, keeping in only the data points perceived as "good". Not really useful except for marketing purposes.

The comment below the graph ''"I had an idea for how to clean up the data. What do you think?"'' admits that in fact the data is whitewashed and tightly focused to a result the presenter wants to show.

===House of Cards===
Not a real method, but a common consequence of misapplication of statistical methods: a curve can be generated that fits the data extremely well, but immediately becomes absurd as soon as one glances outside the training data sample range, and your analysis comes crashing down "like a house of cards". This is a type of ''overfitting''. In other words, the model may do quite well for (approximately) {{w|Interpolation|interpolating}} between values in the sample range, but not extend at all well to {{w|Extrapolation|extrapolating}} values outside that range.

''Note:'' Exact polynomial fitting, a fit which gives the unique <math>(n-1)</math>th degree polynomial through <math>n</math> points, often display this kind of behaviour.

The comment below the graph ''"As you can see, this model smoothly fits the- wait no no don't extend it AAAAAA!!"'' refers to a curve which fits the data points relatively well within the graph's boundaries, but beyond those bounds fails to match at all.

The name is also a reference to the TV show ''{{w|House of Cards (U.S. TV series)|House of Cards}}'' ("WAIT NO, NO, DON'T EXTEND IT!").

===Cauchy-Lorentz (title text)===
{{w|Cauchy_distribution|Cauchy-Lorentz}} is a continuous probability distribution which does not have an expected value or a defined variance. This means that the law of large numbers does not hold and that estimating e.g. the sample mean will diverge (be all over the place) the more data points you have. Hence very troublesome (mathematically alarming).

Since so many different models can fit this data set at first glance, Randall may be making a point about how if a data set is sufficiently messy, you can read any trend you want into it, and the trend that is chosen may say more about the researcher than about the data. This is a similar sentiment to [[1725: Linear Regression]], which also pokes fun at dubious trend lines on scatterplots.

A brief Google search reveals that Augustin-Louis Cauchy originally worked as a junior engineer in a managerial position. Upon his acceptance to the Académie des Sciences in March 1816, many of his peers expressed outrage. Despite his early work in "mere" engineering, Cauchy is widely regarded as one of the founding influences in the rigorous study of calculus & accompanying proofs.

Alternately, the title-text could be implying that the person who applied the Cauchy-Lorentz curve-fitting method may not be well qualified to the task assigned.

==Transcript==
:'''Curve-Fitting Methods'''
:and the messages they send

:[In a single frame twelve scatter plots with unlabeled x- and y-axes are shown. Each plot consists of the same data-set of approximately thirty points located all over the plot but slightly more distributed around the diagonal. Every plot shows in red a different fitting method which is labeled on top in gray.]

:[The first plot shows a line starting at the left bottom above the x-axis rising towards the points to the right.]
:Linear
:"Hey, I did a regression."

:[The second plot shows a curve falling slightly down and then rising up to the right.]
:Quadratic
:"I wanted a curved line, so I made one with math."

:[At the third plot the curve starts near the left bottom and increases more and more less to the right.]
:Logarithmic
:"Look, it's tapering off!"

:[The fourth plot shows a curve starting near the left bottom and increases more and more steeper towards the right.]
:Exponential
:"Look, it's growing uncontrollably!"

:[The fifth plot uses a fitting to match many points. It starts at the left bottom, increases, then decreases, then rapidly increasing again, and finally reaching a plateau.]
:LOESS
:"I'm sophisticated, not like those bumbling polynomial people."

:[The sixth plot simply shows a line above but parallel to the x-axis.]
:Linear, no slope
:"I'm making a scatter plot but I don't want to."

:[At plot #7 starts at a plateau above the x-axis, then increases, and finally reaches a higher plateau.]
:Logistic
:"I need to connect these two lines, but my first idea didn't have enough Math."

:[Plot #8 shows two red lines embedding most points and the area between is painted as a red shadow.]
:Confidence interval
:"Listen, science is hard. But I'm a serious person doing my best."

:[Plot #9 shows two not connected lines, one at the lower left half, and one higher at the right. Both have smaller curved lines in light red above and below.]
:Piecewise
:"I have a theory, and this is the only data I could find."

:[The plot at the left bottom shows a line connecting all points from left to right, resulting in a curve going many times up and down.]
:Connecting lines
:"I clicked 'Smooth Lines' in Excel."

:[The next to last plot shows a echelon form, connecting a few real and some imaginary points.]
:Ad-Hoc filter
:"I had an idea for how to clean up the data. What do you think?"

:[The last plot shows a wave with increasing peak values. Finally the plot of the wave is continued beyond the x- and y-axis borders.]
:House of Cards
:"As you can see, this model smoothly fits the- ''wait no no don't extend it AAAAAA!!''"

==Trivia==
*This is the comic 2048, or 211. In addition to being the name of a popular app referenced in [[1344: Digits]], this is an extremely round number in binary (100,000,000,0002). [[1000: 1000 Comics]] pointed out that comic 1024 would be a round number, but there were not any comics noting 2048.

*This comic is similar to [[977: Map Projections]] which also uses a scientific method not commonly thought about by the general public to determine specific characteristics of one's personality and approach to science.

*Regressions have been the subject of several previous comics. [[1725: Linear Regression]] was about linear regressions on uncorrelated or poorly correlated data. [[1007: Sustainable]], [[1204: Detail]] and [[1281: Minifigs]] depict linear regressions on data that was actually logistic, leading to bizarre extrapolations. [[605: Extrapolating]] shows a line extrapolating from just two data points.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Science]]

Talk:2051: Bad Opinions

2018-09-27T07:13:31Z

172.68.189.19:

just did my first transcript, hope its good :) [[User:Nintendo Mc|Nintendo Mc]] ([[User talk:Nintendo Mc|talk]]) 15:14, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Same whoops -Welp

How the heck do you "violently express your opinion" in a non-physical medium? Seems like the logic of someone who is looking for an excuse to retaliate with actual violence. [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 15:41, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

: You realize that literally punching a person is not the only form of aggression and abuse? The internet is still connected to real world and things done there can have consequences. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.10|172.69.190.10]] 21:22, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

: : Violence is not just aggression or abuse. You can be aggressive or abusive over the Internet, but the recent trend to start calling more things “violence” makes the word less useful. Yes, Internet abuse can be harmful, but it would be even more harmful if it had the potential to come with physical injury and a medical bill in extreme cases. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 07:13, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

''Cough'' Me and the Flat Earth Society. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 15:44, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

This is clearly a reference to [[386:_Duty_Calls]]. The chair is the same. Cueball's posture is the same. The desk is the same. The subject matter is roughly the same. The monitor and keyboard are now a laptop. Cueball's unhealthy obsession (which is still relatable to many) has become insanity.[[User:KDulcimer|KDulcimer]] ([[User talk:KDulcimer|talk]]) 17:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I think this comic is primarily commenting on the phenomenon of outrage addiction (relevant: [https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/between-church-and-hard-place/201209/is-our-political-outrage-addictive Psychology Today: "Is Our Political Outrage Addictive?"], [https://world.wng.org/2018/07/online_outrage_addiction World Magazine: "Online outrage addiction"], [https://qz.com/1333018/how-americans-can-break-their-outrage-addiction/ Quartz: "How Americans can break their outrage addiction"]). [[User:Ahiijny|Ahiijny]] ([[User talk:Ahiijny|talk]]) 20:26, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Talk:2046: Trum-

2018-09-18T05:55:48Z

172.68.189.19:

This is not that weird. If names were random then it would be a 1 in 26^4 = 456976 chance of a particular president matching another for the first 4, but this is a "Birthday Problem" with 44 presidents, so the probability of any two presidents sharing the first 4 characters is 1-(456976!/(456976^44 (456976 - 44)!)), which wolfram alpha is giving as 0.206% {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.185}}
:Yes, but we already "fulfilled our obligation" after the sixth president :) [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 15:59, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
:That would be the lower boundary, because you assume all letters are equally likely to occur. Some n-grams will have a higher probability than others. E.g. it is far less likely for the second letter to be a Q than to be a U,so a better estimate would involve Markov chains including the probability of all letters on a certain position, given the previous letters etc.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.58|141.101.76.58]] 05:46, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
::Q doesn't work because he's related to his father John Adams. The criteria that they be totally unrelated is to restore it to the realm of pure chance. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 17:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
An approximation to the correct probability would be to do 44^2/(2 x 26^4) which would give about 0.2% chance of this happening. So fairly weird, but as the comic suggests, many things about this presidency are weirder than 0.2%. {{unsigned ip|162.158.155.194}}
:I love that we are now having a mathematical discussion about how weird things are in the presidency. [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 15:58, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Should we mention Andrew Johnson and LBJ, perhaps in a "Trivia" section? Obviously Johnson is a very common surname, but they're still unrelated presidents that share the first (and only) 7 characters of their last name. (Are there other pairs of presidents that share at least the 3 first letters of their surnames besides AJ/LBJ and HST/DJT?)
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.160|172.69.62.160]] 16:25, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
:They ARE related, distantly. https://www.geni.com/path/Lyndon-B-Johnson-36th-President-of-the-United-States+is+related+to+Andrew-Johnson-17th-President-of-the-USA?from=6000000002045454764&to=361204095530004567 [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:18, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
::I think 28 degrees of separation is distant enough to consider them unrelated. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:01, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
::No, they are not related. It says "Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the USA is Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States' fifth cousin 10 times removed's 6th great nephew!" In other words, Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson are both related to Lyndon Johnson's fifth cousin 10 times removed, but they are not related to each other. They do not share a common ancestor. Saying that Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson are related is like saying that your parents are related to each other because both of them are related to you (your mother is your father's child's mother).[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.171|173.245.48.171]] 05:33, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
...And, upon reflection, I just realized Harding shares the first 3 letters with the Presidents Harrison, so that's one(?) more example. {{unsigned ip|162.158.186.246}}

So we discount Presidents Adams, Bush, Cleveland, Harrison and Rosevelt as being related, or being the same person.
We have the following common starts: Bu (3 names), Cl, Ha (3 names), Ta, Har, Trum and Johnson. Also A, B, C, F, G, H, J, M, P, R, T and W. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.241|162.158.154.241]] 16:49, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

If you count Buren as opposed to Van Buren then you have 4 starting Bu and 2 starting Bur [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.146|162.158.155.146]] 16:52, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Tyler and Taylor is weirdly close, in a "look elsewhere effect" kind of way. Although the fact that you elected a president whose name means "fart" in British English has got to be weirder. {{unsigned ip|162.158.155.158}}

What about Benjamin FrankClinton? [[User:VanityCase|VanityCase]]

'''Shouting about Trump'''

I'm really with you... But an explanation has to be done politely. This Wiki focuses on explaining the comic, any personal opinions should be considered carefully. And I admit that I also cannot easily withstand. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:25, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Only 39 unique names for 45 presidencies (44 presidents).
Over a third (14/39) of the names end with the letter N. [[User:Patmiller|Patmiller]] ([[User talk:Patmiller|talk]]) 20:36, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Is this factoid worth adding to the trivia section? Trump is the only president whose entire last name is needed for disambiguation. In other words, except for identical last names, every other president can be identified with just some of the first letters of the last name (some needing only the single first letter, and even Truman, the next “worst” case, needing only Truma to disambiguate from Trump.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.214|108.162.219.214]] 03:49, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Interestingly, both TRUM* presidents were fond of the phrase "son-of-a-b****" (Truman used it to describe Oppenheimer).

2043: Boathouses and Houseboats

2018-09-09T07:27:13Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2043
| date = September 7, 2018
| title = Boathouses and Houseboats
| image = boathouses_and_houseboats.png
| titletext = The <x> that is held by <y> is also a <y><x>, so if you go to a food truck, the stuff you buy is truck food. A phone that's in your car is a carphone, and a car equipped with a phone is a phonecar. When you play a mobile racing game, you're in your phonecar using your carphone to drive a different phonecar. I'm still not sure about bananaphones.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|BOTBOT or BOATBOAT is funny, but please also mention here the reason why this isn't complete - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Most English {{w|English compound|compound nouns}} can be constructed recursively. In many cases they are written ''open'' or ''spaced'' like "piano player" (a player using a piano.) But ''closed'' forms like "wallpaper" (a paper on a wall) are not less common.

[[Randall]] is engaging in creative linguistics again. This time he is humorously suggesting to use a consistent naming scheme for things holding other things, the same way we call a boat holding a house a houseboat. He is extending this to all combinations boats, houses and cars. This would, however, be somewhat impractical, as these names do not include why one thing is on an other, and are also sometimes ambiguous: a carcar can be a tow truck as much as a car carrier, and a househouse can be either an apartment (house in a house) or an apartment building (house containing houses).

Additionally, he is somewhat inconsistent in some parts of the chart. While the chart is supposed to show examples of neologistic compound words <x><y> that refer to a <y> that ''holds'' an <x>, rather than a <y> ''in'' an <x>. However, Randall's examples sometimes are those of the latter example. He proposes to call lifeboats, which are boats held by other boats, "boatboat", instead of using that to refer to boats holding other boats, such as floating drydocks. Additionally, it is established naval practice to refer to a boat which is carried by another vessel as a "ship's boat", and call any vessel that carries a boat a "ship". In other words, according to usual naval terminology, a "boatboat" is a contradiction in terms; it is either a "boatship", synonymous with ship and hence redundant, or a "shipboat", the ship's boat. "Apartment" is a similar case: an apartment is a house in a house, while a house that holds a house is an apartment building or apartment complex. (However, in the title text, Randall points out an <x><y> could also refer to a <y> in an <x>, similar to the lifeboat and apartment examples. Nevertheless, "lifeboat" and "apartment" do not fit with the rest of the items of the chart and disobey the rule annotated in the corner.)

The title text also mentions ''{{w|Bananaphone}}'', a song by Raffi Cavoukian.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Real term
! Actual definition
! Randall's definition
! Inaccuracies in Randall's definition
! Randall's term
|-
| Tow truck
| A truck that pulls or carries cars
| A Car that holds a Car
| A tow truck is too large to be considered a car
| Carcar
|-
| Garage
| A building for storing or repairing vehicles
| A House that holds a Car
| “Carhouse” actually does have Randall’s definition, but is far less popular than “garage.” It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary (using the spelling “car house”) and is used in To Kill a Mockingbird.
| Carhouse
|-
| Car ferry
| A boat that carries cars, especially across a river
| A Boat that holds a Car
| Most car ferries hold more than one car at a time
| Carboat
|-
| Mobile home
| A home that can be moved by a truck
| A Car that holds a House
| The term "mobile home" refers to the home that is moved by a separate vehicle, not to the vehicle that moves it. (If the home is self-propelled, then it is called a recreational vehicle.)
| Housecar
|-
| Apartment
| A home within a building that has been divided into separate living units
| A House that holds a House
| The "apartment" is the individual home within the larger building, which is called an apartment house or an apartment complex
| Househouse
|-
| Houseboat
| A boat that is used as a house
| A Boat that holds a House
| A houseboat has a home that is part of the boat; it is not a separate home carried on a boat. However, a mobile home theoretically could be carried on a car ferry or a ship.
| Houseboat
|-
| Boat trailer
| A carrier that is towed behind a car or truck and holds a small boat
| A Car that holds a Boat
| The trailer is not the car; it is towed by the car.
| Boatcar
|-
| Boathouse
| A building for storing a boat
| A House that holds a Boat
| The word "house" typically refers to a residential building, but can refer to other buildings
| Boathouse
|-
| Lifeboat
| A small boat carried on a ship, meant to be used to evacuate the larger ship, especially if it starts to sink or catches fire
| A Boat that holds a Boat
| The "lifeboat" is the smaller vessel carried on the large one; it is not the larger vessel that carries the smaller one. And the larger vessel is usually a ship, not a boat.
| Boatboat
|}

==Transcript==
:[A chart with three rows and three columns is shown, both with the same heading "car", "house", and "boat". On the top left a text with the word "this" two times embedded in a bubble and an arrow respectively pointing to the row and column heading reads:]
:A '''this''' that holds '''this'''

:[Most entries have the common word in black, but crossed out in red with another word below also in red. Two entries remain in green.]
:A Car that holds a Car: <s>Tow truck</s> Carcar
:A House that holds a Car: <s>Garage</s> Carhouse
:A Boat that holds a Car: <s>Car ferry</s> Carboat
:A Car that holds a House: <s>Mobile home</s> Housecar
:A House that holds a House: <s>Apartment</s> Househouse
:A Boat that holds a House: Houseboat (green text)
:A Car that holds a Boat: <s>Boat trailer</s> Boatcar
:A House that holds a Boat: Boathouse (green text)
:A Boat that holds a Boat: <s>Lifeboat</s> Boatboat

:[Caption below the frame:]
:I really like the words for "boathouse" and "houseboat" and think we should apply that scheme more consistently.

==Trivia==
The first version of the comic image mixed up the order of what holds what. The second word holds the first but at the original the opposite was told as it can be seen [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/3/38/20180907164439%21boathouses_and_houseboats.png here].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:1257: Monster

2018-08-29T16:54:44Z

172.68.189.19:

My first contribution, woo! I'm writing the transcript now. If there's an official one, please throw mine out and let me know :) [[User:Matega|Matega]] ([[User talk:Matega|talk]]) 06:13, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I think it's done. Is it okay to refer to person 2 as Cueball and person 4 as Ponytail? As far as I know, Cueball is identified by not wearing anything... [[User:Matega|Matega]] ([[User talk:Matega|talk]]) 06:28, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
:Official transcripts tend to be days behind us. And yeah, we usually follow that naming convention for characters. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:49, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
This comic should be based on Pacific Rim(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/) and the dictionary of numbers(http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/05/15/dictionary-of-numbers/) [[User:Tianshuo|Tianshuo]] ([[User talk:Tianshuo|talk]]) 08:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
: I've not seen Pacific Rim so I may be missing something obvious, but why? I don't see any obvious references to either. It's certainly in someways a continuation of the dictionary of numbers, but it looks at it from the other direction as a too often used cliche. [[Special:Contributions/131.123.61.160|131.123.61.160]] 10:51, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
:: I don't know why the original edit was deleted. This is definitely the opening scene of the movie Pacific Rim. [[User:Tianshuo|Tianshuo]] ([[User talk:Tianshuo|talk]]) 01:04, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I like to relate this to [[1047: Approximations]] and [[526: Converting to Metric]] [[User:Theo|Theo]] ([[User talk:Theo|talk]]) 12:43, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
:Your links appear to be broken [[Special:Contributions/131.123.61.160|131.123.61.160]] 12:48, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I added the basic tautology reference, but really wanted to add more, bracketted, maybe like: "(Usually overwhelmingly large amounts of conventional explosives, meteorite explosions or other non-nuclear energy-producers are likened directly as single-Hiroshima equivalent, although nuclear (or non-nuclear) blasts that are multiple-Hiroshimas in size maybe so scaled.)" But that looks too wordy. Feel free to adapt/adopt/correct. [[Special:Contributions/31.109.251.100|31.109.251.100]] 14:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

:Perhaps is could be noted that the Hiroshima bomb was one of the smallest nuclear bombs ever used. Probably enough to kill most monsters less than several football fields in length, but only about seven times the strength of the Halifax explosion. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 14:30, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

:How is it a tautology? Do all nuclear weapons "carry the destructive energy of the Hiroshima bomb"? [[Special:Contributions/70.29.69.4|70.29.69.4]] 19:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
::Ok, it works better with the additional "huge non-nuclear energies are explained in terms of Hiroshima" bit appended, you tend to only explain nuclear blasts in terms of their multiple of this standard or (ironically, as with Hiroshima's 12-20 estimate) in megatonnes of TNT or boring old (kilo/whatever)Joule-units. I just read it as "the baseball was thrown at the speed of a little-league baseball", or similar. [[Special:Contributions/31.109.251.100|31.109.251.100]] 13:37, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
:::It's not a tautology, since the reference to Hiroshima is, in fact, providing a reference point for its energy (especially since the Hiroshima bomb has a specific energy attributed), and not all nuclear bombs have that same destructive energy. --[[User:Canned Soul|Canned Soul]] ([[User talk:Canned Soul|talk]]) 05:40, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

How big was the nuclear explosion? "Oh, about as big as a small nuclear explosion." You don't think that's a weird and unhelpful way to explain something? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 09:08, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I do not think this is a reference to Pacific Rim, at least not any more than it is a reference to Godzilla, Mothra, King Kong, etc. Unless Pacific Rim was released the same week or something, it seems like a very arbitrary movie to select from the broader "monsters destroying things" genre. [[User:Bbruzzo|Bbruzzo]] ([[User talk:Bbruzzo|talk]]) 18:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I like how the title text basically said, "We dropped a nuke on the thing that had the power of a nuke." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 16:54, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

2030: Voting Software

2018-08-12T21:46:59Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2030
| date = August 8, 2018
| title = Voting Software
| image = voting_software.png
| titletext = There are lots of very smart people doing fascinating work on cryptographic voting protocols. We should be funding and encouraging them, and doing all our elections with paper ballots until everyone currently working in that field has retired.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLOCKCHAIN - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The first two panels of this comic involve a reporter talking to professionals of a given field regarding the given safety of the products/solutions that each of their fields help to produce, or are at least partially involved in said production (Airplanes from aircraft designers in Panel 1, Elevators from building engineers in Panel 2). While the two inventions selected are relatively new when compared to how long humans have existed, the two fields mentioned have existed for multiple human generations, giving enough time to find flaws in their products/solutions and solve said flaws to the point that they can be considered safe for the general public to use.

The comic from Panel 3 onwards contrasts this with [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] both agreeing that their given field (computer science / software development / software engineering) does not have the overall consistent competency that other fields have or, at the very least, appear to have. This is true (at least anecdotally) since there are very few ethical and security restrictions for what developers can/cannot do, and relatively minor consequences when catastrophes arise from poor decisions.

Computer systems, operating primarily in a digital domain, fail differently from most traditional areas of engineering, which operate in analog (or continuous) domains. A small error in an analog part often gives a result which is close to the desired properties (it almost fits, it works most of the time). By contrast, a small error in a digital system (just one bit being changed) can easily make the system function in radically different ways. So not only is software engineering younger than other areas of engineering, but the domain is much less forgiving. Even small errors/variations are likely to produce radically different behavior.

The title text confirms the comic's stance by implicitly saying that any digital voting systems that are produced are to not be used under any circumstances.

The main joke of the comic is that when other engineers say something is safe, people don't believe them: People are scared of flying and elevators even though they are, statistically, very safe. However, the opposite is true for software engineers: When software engineers say something is dangerous, people don't believe them.

This is a result of a fundamental difference between computer security and other types of safety measures -- in cryptography, there is ''always'' somebody trying to undo what you've built. Not only that, but new advances in cryptography tend to point out vulnerabilities with previous versions, making them not only obsolete, but dangerously so.

For these reasons, it is especially important to make sure that whoever is selling you the security method is both competent and non-malicious, but because crypto software is highly technical and often confidential/proprietary, it can be hard to verify this if you're not an expert in the field (which you won't be, if you're buying it).

These issues are especially pertinent to {{w|voting machine}}s, which store incredibly sensitive information but are often catastrophically outdated due to lack of funding. There are also major issues with electronic voting in general; for example, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI this video from Computerphile] raises issues of malware infections, transferring the votes to the election authorities without having them intercepted, and needing to trust both the machine's software and central counting system to present an accurate account of the votes. Furthermore, the people purchasing them, the politicians, are generally not known for their technical understanding -- or their impartiality.

{{w|Blockchain}} is a relatively new technology that is intended to solve some computer security issues by making it difficult to doctor old data. However, in the process of solving the old computer security issues, it has introduced new computer security issues that have not yet been ironed out. It also doesn't solve input fraud issues, only data-doctoring fraud, so if a program caused the voting machine to record a vote for candidate B whenever a vote for candidate A was cast (such a program could be uploaded to the voting machines through USB, or through the internet which the voting machine must be connected to for blockchain), blockchain would not prevent it. Blockchain has also had a large number of high-profile scams, thefts, and implementations with critical security holes. Thus, [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] mat not trust this blockchain solution because of this history.

Most computer security specialists are more worried about programs that randomly deliberately misrecord a vote, than people changing the votes after they're already recorded, so blockchain would solve an issue that most computer security specialists are less worried about, while causing new issues (the perpetual internet connection among them).

Also, the security issues that Blockchain solves could also be solved via write-once memory, which would be more secure and more difficult to doctor.

The topic of voting machines has been covered before in [[463: Voting Machines]], where the use of anti-virus software on the machines has been discussed.

==Transcript==

:Asking aircraft designers about airplane safety:
:Hairbun: Nothing is ever foolproof, but modern airliners are incredibly resilient. Flying is the safest way to travel.

:Asking building engineers about elevator safety:
:Cueball: Elevators are protected by multiple tried-and-tested failsafe mechanisms. They're nearly incapable of falling.

:Asking software engineers about computerized voting:
:Megan: That's ''terrifying''.

:Ponytail: Wait, really?
:Megan: Don't trust voting software and don't listen to anyone who tells you it's safe.
:Ponytail: Why?
:Megan: I don't quite know how to put this, but our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us, everyone will die.

:Ponytail: They say they've fixed it with something called "blockchain."
:Megan: AAAAA!!!
:Cueball: Whatever they sold you, don't touch it.
:Megan: Bury it in the desert.
:Cueball: Wear gloves.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

Talk:540: Base System

2018-07-02T03:46:33Z

172.68.189.19: forgot to sign

Panels 3 & 4 refer to yet other sports. A 50-yard line is a significant location in American football; a ten-pin is a specific
pin location in bowling; and a red flag is a warning given in non-American football (what Amercians call soccer).

:Soccer has a red card for expulsion from the field, not a flag. A red flag may be used to stop a race in motorsports.13:28, 1 December 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.245}}

I seriously doubt the 'red flag' has to do with a girl's menstration. A red flag usually is a warning to a player, probably indicating that Ponytail's partner didn't like that action and/or asked her to stop. 23:45, 10 August 2016 [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.29|173.245.54.29]]

The arrow indicating Napoleon's forces may be a reference to the classic map/diagram by Charles Joseph Minard, which shows not only the path Napoleon's army took on its Russian invasion, but also several other relevant categories of facts about that campaign, thus folding several conceptual dimensions into two. (sorry, should have signed this.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.209|108.162.219.209]] 07:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, the image I've added is for example purposes, and is such for fair use - but those wiser than I can feel free to check it. [http://www.factbook.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/baseball.html Here's where I found it.] [[User:Jetman123|Jetman123]] ([[User talk:Jetman123|talk]]) 23:57, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
:This image is originally from [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baseball_field_overview.svg Wikimedia Commons], and has been released into the public domain. Therefore your use is legal. --[[User:Troy0|Troy0]] ([[User talk:Troy0|talk]]) 05:13, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Using the scroll wheel on that one Apple mouse refers to the resemblance between its size and method of use and rubbing a woman's clitoris. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.74|108.162.245.74]] 13:53, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

It says under the passing notes thing that it's for students with an interest in the opposite sex, implying that only heterosexual students pass notes. Not really a big deal but it just annoys me.[[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.75|103.22.201.75]] 13:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
::I agree, and have modified the wording to cover note passing as a 'form of courting' --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 11:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The explanation says that the meaning behind the base 2 label is unknown. As far as I see it, the fact that binary uses base 2, and the base is labelled base 2 written in binary is a clear and obvious meaning. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 11:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

If you think in between first and second base is boring you're a bad kisser [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 03:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:540: Base System

2018-07-02T03:45:21Z

172.68.189.19: forgot to sign

Talk:540: Base System

2018-07-02T03:38:59Z

172.68.189.19: male incompetence at its finest

1992: SafetySat

2018-05-11T23:06:38Z

172.68.189.19: Transcript Written

{{comic
| number = 1992
| date = May 11, 2018
| title = SafetySat
| image = safetysat.png
| titletext = During launch, in the event of an unexpected sensor reading, SafetySat will extend prongs in all directions to secure itself and any other cubesats safely in the launch vehicle until the source of the problem can be determined.
}}

''Italic text''==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CubeSat so dangerous, I corrupted the image file and crashed the server (the first image upload was corrupt)- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Cubesat}} is a standard format for small satellites that can fit in a 10×10×10 cm format with a mass of less than 1.3 kg. They have been widely use by academics for research satellites, and by both small and large companies.

Cubesats are normally launched as a secondary payload often beside a deployment to the international space station. There are multiple safety rules to ensure that the cubesat cannot damage the primary payload. This design seeks to break as many rules as possible.

(from bottom left)

;Americium corners: {{w|Americium}} is a very dense, highly radioactive substance. Depending on the amount of Americium involved, this alone could shoot the mass over the 1.3 kg mass limit.
;Gun cotton: A form of nitrocellulose; it is explosive.
;Crude Oil: {{w|Exxon Valdez oil spill}}, {{w|Deepwater Horizon explosion}}... need we say more? Of course the leakable volume would not be near those levels, but plenty dangerous nonetheless if it were to leak though a faulty seal...
;Volatile Epoxy Seal: When this goes, everything gets coated in flammable crude oil.
;Celebratory Firework: Explosive Fire Source that can hit other satellites in the vicinity.
;CFCs/Ozone-depleting CFC Spritzer: {{w|Chlorofluorocarbons}} ({{w|CFCs}}) are fully halogenated paraffin hydrocarbons that contain only carbon, chlorine, and fluorine, produced as volatile derivative of methane, ethane, and propane. {{w|Freon}} is a common example of a CFC, and the use of CFCs has been linked to a depletion of the Earth's {{w|ozone layer}} leading many countries to ban their use. So spritzing CFCs in an area closer to the Ozone layer sounds like a good idea?
;Laser Pointer (Hubble-Seeking): Aiming a red laser at a visible light telescope is really bad for the telescope in question and its optics.
;Laser Pointers (Fixed): Theses three laser points will effectively point in 3 different random directions, which is not safe for other around this Cubesat.
;SDR/Software-Defined Radio (Code Editable via Public Wiki): This counts as a huge security risk.
;BIC Mini-Lighter: Fire source, resting on the can of crude oil. The pressurized butane could also make the lighter burst, allowing the sparkplug to ignite the volatile butane gas.
;Rare Earth Magnets: Very powerful magnets that have a high likelihood of messing up the electronics on nearby electronics, like other Cubesats.
;Wet Sand Dispenser: possibly a reference to the {{w|Kessler syndrome}}.
;Batteries (eBay): The quality of batteries bought on the auction site can vary widely, and certain batteries exposed to conditions outside their design specifications can {{w|Battery_(electricity)#Explosion|explode or leak corrosive acids}}. These batteries might also be connected to the adjacent spark plug.
;Solar Panel (Found): The quality of the solar panel and the power it produces would have to be investigated thoroughly before being cleared for space flight.
;Spark Plug: Fire Source, if it was plugged in to electricity. Excess mass if not.
;Prongs: Prongs that extend in the event of an unexpected sensor reading at launch could damage the rocket and/or nearby cubsats/payloads.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[A prototype for a small cube-shaped "CubeSat"satellite, with labels on various components.]

[Labelled on top:]

Rare-Earth Magnets

Bic Mini Lighter

Software-Defined Radio (code editable via a public wiki)

[Labelled on right:]

Laser Pointers (fixed)

Laser Pointer (Hubble-seeking)

Ozone-Depleting CFC Spritzer

[Labelled on bottom:]

Celebratory Firework

Volatile Epoxy Seal

Filler (Guncotton)

[Labelled on left:]

Americium Corners

Spark Plug

Solar Panel (found)

Batteries (eBay)

Wet Sand Dispenser

[Labelled from within drawing in white text on top of a black rectangle:]

Crude Oil

{{comic discussion}}

1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations

2018-01-03T16:23:43Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1937
| date = January 3, 2018
| title = IATA Airport Abbreviations
| image = iata_airport_abbreviations.png
| titletext = IATA stands for International AirporT Abbreviation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Expansion needed. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is making fun of the three-letter codes assigned to all airports. These codes are overseen by the IATA (International Air Transport Association). Some airport codes are very intuitive, taking letters from the city name (e.g. DEN for Denver). Other codes are somewhat intuitive, taking a letter or two from the nearby city name but adding an additional letter (e.g. LAX for Los Angeles). Other codes make seemingly no sense at all (e.g. ORD for Chicago's O'Hare International, due to it formerly being named Orchard Field). In many cases, the airport codes are being conflated with internet / texting slang.

These are the real codes:

{| class="wikitable"
|'''IATA Code''' || '''City/Airport''' || '''Description in the comic''' || '''Explanation'''
|-
| AMD || Ahmedabad || Amsterdam || Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Its Airport (called Schiphol) has the IATA code AMS.
|-
| ANC || Anchorage
|-
| ATL || Atlanta
|-
| BAE || Barcelonnette
|-
| BLT || Blackwater
|-
| BUF || Buffalo
|-
| CLT || Charlotte
|-
| DFW || Dallas/Fort Worth
|-
| DTF || not assigned
|-
| DTW || Detroit
|-
| DWI || not assigned
|-
| EWR || Newark || Edwards Air Force Base || Edwards Air Force Base (which has the IATA code EDW) is a United States Air Force installation in southern California, about 22 miles (35 km) northeast of Lancaster and 15 miles (24 km) east of Rosamond.
|-
| FFS || not assigned
|-
| FHQ || not assigned
|-
| FYI || not assigned
|-
| HGM || not assigned
|-
| HSV || Huntsville
|-
| IAD || Washington
|-
| IUD || Doha
|-
| JFC || not assigned
|-
| KUL || Kuala Lumpur
|-
| LAX || Los Angeles
|-
| LOL || Lovelock
|-
| MDW || Chicago (Midway)
|-
| MIA || Miami
|-
| OMW || not assigned
|-
| ORD || Chicago (O'Hare)
|-
| PDX || Portland
|-
| PHL || Philadelphia
|-
| SAN || San Diego
|-
| SAT || San Antonio
|-
| SEA || Seattle
|-
| SFO || San Francisco
|-
| SFW || Santa Fe
|-
| SJC || San Jose, California
|-
| SJU || San Juan, Puerto Rico
|-
| SMH || Sapmanga
|-
| STL || St. Louis
|-
| TBA || Tabibuga
|-
| TMI || Tumlingtar
|-
| YYY || Mont-Joli || Downtown Toronto || The small airport in downtown Toronto is Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport which has an IATA code of YTZ.
|-
| YYZ || Toronto
|-
|}

==Transcript==
Confused by those airport abbreviations used by your friends who fly a lot? Just memorize this list.
:Aside 1: I'm flying into EWR tonight, then DTW tomorrow.
:Aside 2: Ok, Cool. I definitely know what those mean without Googling.

{| class="wikitable"
!
!
|-
|AMD|Amsterdam
|-
|BAE|Beijing
|-
|ORD|Orlando
|-
|IAD|Idaho (Boise)
|-
|JFC|Jefferson City
|-
|IUD|Washington Dulles
|-
|FYI|Fayetteville
|-
|LOL|Louisville
|-
|ATL|Atalante
|-
|HGM|Hogsmeade
|-
|OMW|Omaha
|-
|ANC|Ankh-Morpork
|-
|HSV|Hunstville
|-
|SAN|San Diego
|-
|SAN|San Juan
|-
|SAN|San Francisco
|-
|SAN|San Antonio
|-
|DWI|Delaware International
|-
|DFW|Down for Whatever
|-
|DTW|Down to Whatever
|-
|TMI|Turkmenistan International
|-
|LAX|Las Angalas
|-
|EWR|Edwards Air Force Base
|-
|PHL|Pittsburgh
|-
|SWF|Sherwood Forest
|-
|KUL|Kingdom of Loathing
|-
|STL|Silent Hill
|-
|BUF|Sunnydale
|-
|TBA|Tribeca
|-
|SMH|Smithfield
|-
|BLT|Baltimore
|-
|YYY|Toronto Downtown
|-
|YYZ|Toronto Pearson
|-
|MIA|Colombo, Sri Lanka
|-
|CLT|Censored
|-
|FHQ|Fhqwhgads
|-
|FFS|Flagstaff Station
|-
|DTF|Dartford
|-
|MDW|Midway Atoll
|-
|PDX|Pordlanx
|-
|SEA|Indicates Water Landing
}
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations

2018-01-03T16:21:45Z

172.68.189.19: added codes for all listed "SAN" airports

{{comic
| number = 1937
| date = January 3, 2018
| title = IATA Airport Abbreviations
| image = iata_airport_abbreviations.png
| titletext = IATA stands for International AirporT Abbreviation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Expansion needed. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is making fun of the three-letter codes assigned to all airports. These codes are overseen by the IATA (International Air Transport Association). Some airport codes are very intuitive, taking letters from the city name (e.g. DEN for Denver). Other codes are somewhat intuitive, taking a letter or two from the nearby city name but adding an additional letter (e.g. LAX for Los Angeles). Other codes make seemingly no sense at all (e.g. ORD for Chicago's O'Hare International). In many cases, the airport codes are being conflated with internet / texting slang.

These are the real codes:

{| class="wikitable"
|'''IATA Code''' || '''City/Airport''' || '''Description in the comic''' || '''Explanation'''
|-
| AMD || Ahmedabad || Amsterdam || Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Its Airport (called Schiphol) has the IATA code AMS.
|-
| ANC || Anchorage
|-
| ATL || Atlanta
|-
| BAE || Barcelonnette
|-
| BLT || Blackwater
|-
| BUF || Buffalo
|-
| CLT || Charlotte
|-
| DFW || Dallas/Fort Worth
|-
| DTF || not assigned
|-
| DTW || Detroit
|-
| DWI || not assigned
|-
| EWR || Newark || Edwards Air Force Base || Edwards Air Force Base (which has the IATA code EDW) is a United States Air Force installation in southern California, about 22 miles (35 km) northeast of Lancaster and 15 miles (24 km) east of Rosamond.
|-
| FFS || not assigned
|-
| FHQ || not assigned
|-
| FYI || not assigned
|-
| HGM || not assigned
|-
| HSV || Huntsville
|-
| IAD || Washington
|-
| IUD || Doha
|-
| JFC || not assigned
|-
| KUL || Kuala Lumpur
|-
| LAX || Los Angeles
|-
| LOL || Lovelock
|-
| MDW || Chicago (Midway)
|-
| MIA || Miami
|-
| OMW || not assigned
|-
| ORD || Chicago (O'Hare)
|-
| PDX || Portland
|-
| PHL || Philadelphia
|-
| SAN || San Diego
|-
| SAT || San Antonio
|-
| SEA || Seattle
|-
| SFO || San Francisco
|-
| SFW || Santa Fe
|-
| SJC || San Jose, California
|-
| SJC || San Juan, Puerto Rico
|-
| SMH || Sapmanga
|-
| STL || St. Louis
|-
| TBA || Tabibuga
|-
| TMI || Tumlingtar
|-
| YYY || Mont-Joli
|-
| YYZ || Toronto
|-
|}

==Transcript==
Confused by those airport abbreviations used by your friends who fly a lot? Just memorize this list.
:Aside 1: I'm flying into EWR tonight, then DTW tomorrow.
:Aside 2: Ok, Cool. I definitely know what those mean without Googling.

{| class="wikitable"
!
!
|-
|AMD|Amsterdam
|-
|BAE|Beijing
|-
|ORD|Orlando
|-
|IAD|Idaho (Boise)
|-
|JFC|Jefferson City
|-
|IUD|Washington Dulles
|-
|FYI|Fayetteville
|-
|LOL|Louisville
|-
|ATL|Atalante
|-
|HGM|Hogsmeade
|-
|OMW|Omaha
|-
|ANC|Ankh-Morpork
|-
|HSV|Hunstville
|-
|SAN|San Diego
|-
|SAN|San Juan
|-
|SAN|San Francisco
|-
|SAN|San Antonio
|-
|DWI|Delaware International
|-
|DFW|Down for Whatever
|-
|DTW|Down to Whatever
|-
|TMI|Turkmenistan International
|-
|LAX|Las Angalas
|-
|EWR|Edwards Air Force Base
|-
|PHL|Pittsburgh
|-
|SWF|Sherwood Forest
|-
|KUL|Kingdom of Loathing
|-
|STL|Silent Hill
|-
|BUF|Sunnydale
|-
|TBA|Tribeca
|-
|SMH|Smithfield
|-
|BLT|Baltimore
|-
|YYY|Toronto Downtown
|-
|YYZ|Toronto Pearson
|-
|MIA|Colombo, Sri Lanka
|-
|CLT|Censored
|-
|FHQ|Fhqwhgads
|-
|FFS|Flagstaff Station
|-
|DTF|Dartford
|-
|MDW|Midway Atoll
|-
|PDX|Pordlanx
|-
|SEA|Indicates Water Landing
}
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

443: Know Your Vines

2017-12-15T03:25:42Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 443
| date = June 30, 2008
| title = Know Your Vines
| image = know_your_vines.png
| titletext = Friggin' modern tents don't have a single piece of rope.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] points out the {{w|Virginia creeper}} is a plant with 5 green leaves that can be used as a rope. He then points out that {{w|Toxicodendron radicans|poison ivy}} is another vine like plant with 3 green leaves that also grows near camping areas - but causes skin rashes. His girlfriend is into {{w|Bondage (BDSM)|light bondage}} (being tied up for erotic purposes) Yet the area around their tent was too dark to differentiate between the two vines when he went looking for some impromptu rope.

The implication: Either Randall, his girlfriend, or both spent some time that night wrapped in poison ivy. The resulting painful rashes were likely blamed on Randall for harvesting the wrong plant, and the relationship suffered.

The title text refers to the fact that many modern tents are self-supporting and no longer require rope to put up. Had there been tent rope on hand, there would be no need to look for vines.

==Transcript==
:Virginia Creeper: Vines useful as impromptu rope
:Poison Ivy: Grows in same habitat as Virginia Creeper
:Girlfriend: Into light bondage
:Area around campsite: Too dark to see
:Relationship after camping trip: Strained

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Sex]]

904: Sports

2017-12-11T02:37:14Z

172.68.189.19: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 904
| date = May 27, 2011
| title = Sports
| image = sports.png
| titletext = Also, all financial analysis. And, more directly, D&D.
}}

==Explanation==
A random number generator is any object or program that arbitrarily selects and produces a number from within a pre-defined range of numbers. For example, a single six-sided die will produce any integer between 1 and 6, inclusive. In an unweighted random number generator, every number that it can possibly produce has the same odds of coming up. When rolling a single {{w|Dice#Manufacturing|precision die}}, for instance, there is an equal chance of rolling a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Conversely, in a weighted random number generator, some numbers are more likely to come up than others. For example, when rolling two dice, a seven is far more likely to come up than a two, as there are six possible ways to roll a seven but only one way to roll a two.

All sports generate numbers that are inherently random. Home runs, goals, sacks, passes, shots, hits, misses, errors, and many more such statistics are generated in every match of every sports game. The rules of the particular sport, as well as the skill of the participants, introduces bias toward certain values; hence, sports matches are weighted random number generators.

If the generator is weighted to favor a specific team in a specific game, that is discussed. Then the results of the game (more random numbers) are discussed. It's the discussion that is the narrative part. If a player breaks a record, that becomes part of the narrative. The number is random, but weighted because of player skill or the rules of the sport.

College sports are especially prone to this kind of narrative-first journalism with their penchant for using more arbitrary systems of placement to determine postseason play than professional sports which have almost all standardized their systems around sometimes highly complicated metrics to determine who reaches the postseason. Prime examples of this are the new ''{{w|College Football Playoff}}'' which has a committee release polls every week after Week 9 of the college football season, with the top four teams in the final poll playing for the championship, and ''{{w|March Madness}}'' where a similar committee ranks the top 69 teams in the country in a bracket for the championship tournament. The old ''{{w|Bowl Championship Series}}, which determined the NCAA Division 1 college football champion from 1998 to 2013, literally used computers generating numbers and algorithms based on team performance as a heavy part of their ranking systems that determined which two teams played for the championship at the end of the season.

The title text applies this to financial/stock results/forecasts as well and, most appropriately, to ''{{w|Dungeons & Dragons}}'' (''D&D''), a tabletop role-playing game. In ''D&D'' the players and {{w|Dungeon Master}} are forging a narrative about the characters and world they have collectively made up; the players all decide on courses of action (such as negotiating with townspeople, intimidating nobles, attacking monsters, to name a tiny faction of possibilities) and whether they succeed is determined by rolling dice of various numbers of sides. The numerical results are woven into a narrative by the Dungeon Master.

This strip is one of several in which [[Randall]] affectionately trivializes sports (see for instance [[1107: Sports Cheat Sheet]], [[1480: Super Bowl]] and [[1507: Metaball]]).

==Transcript==
:[Two Cueball like commentators sit behind a desk.]
:Commentator to the left: A weighted random number generator just produced a new batch of numbers.
:Commentator to the right: Let's use them to build narratives!
:[Caption below the panel:]
:All sports commentary

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Math]]

48: Found

2017-02-12T01:21:10Z

172.68.189.19: They don't hold hands /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 48
| date = January 12, 2006
| title = Found
| image = found.jpg
| titletext = No more, no less
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are standing together in the middle of a simple maze. As indicated by the words in the comic, they have simply '''found''' each other.

As indicated in the title text, there is nothing else to say about how they met.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are standing on a white hill (presumably snow) with a grey sky covered with thick streaks of white, and small pink dots. All letters are written in lower case.]
:we are just two people
:who found each other

==Trivia==
*This was the 45th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[47: Counter-Red Spiders]].
**The next was [[49: Want]].
*Original title: "Drawing: Found"
*Original [[Randall]] quote: "I'll get back to science humor and awful puns soon, don't worry."
*This comic was one of the last 11 comics posted on LiveJournal.
**These 11 comics were [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd|posted both on LiveJournal and xkcd]] after the [[xkcd]] site opened on the 1st of January 2006.
**This comic was posted on the same day on both sites.
**They were not all posted on the same day though.
*During the start-up of xkcd four of the last 11 comics were released on days that deviated from the normal Monday, Wednesday, Friday scheme.
**This one was thus '''released on a Thursday'''.
**It was the first of a series of three were the release day was shifted to one day later.
**This one was posted in the middle of the day, 10:41 am.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 45]]
[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Romance]]