explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2461: 90's Kid Space Program

2021-05-11T15:32:20Z

172.68.189.191:

While searching for popper toys in action, I found a figure in a scientific paper. Not sure if it would belong on this page. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326439672_Dynamics_of_viscoelastic_snap-through#pf2 [[User:Pgn674|Pgn674]] ([[User talk:Pgn674|talk]]) 20:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Isn't it also allusion to Kerbal Space Program game? The ship in picture looks similar to game's stock crafts. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.249|162.158.91.249]] 21:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
:Possibly? The girders and the capsule look similar, but the green bit looks a little like a Project Orion pusher plate to me. (Or maybe I just like Project Orion too much). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.229|141.101.99.229]] 21:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

:Agree on the Kerbal. Note the KSP in "Kid Space Program". I also thought it had a nod towards Project Orion pusher plate. On an unrelated but fun note: Oxford science blog discusses the mathematics that describe jumping popper snap-through: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/how-do-jumping-popper-toys-work.
[[User:Tomb|Tomb]] ([[User talk:Tomb|talk]]) 21:40, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The title text may refer to the way that NASA seems stuck in their ways and not willing to innovate, i.e. living in the past. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.249|162.158.91.249]] 21:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the above suggestion that Kerbal Space Program is part of the joke, KSP is to iconic a acronym for Munroe to ignore, plus, he has mentioned it in other strips.
:Or even "too iconic an acronym". [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.106|198.41.238.106]] 21:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Is today some sort of special "90's day"? SMBC has a 90s-themed comic as well.[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 21:26, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
:Per http://www.holidays-and-observances.com/may-10.html, it is not. [[User:Piano|Piano]] ([[User talk:Piano|talk]]) 22:22, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
::I think maybe "90s" is a little off. I had one of these in 1987. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.106|141.101.98.106]] 08:26, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I was squinting hard at the original, trying to understand the connection between a diaphragm (a barrier contraception method), kids, and launching into space. Smth about spermatozoids? Resorted to explainxkcd, and learned that it's some kind of "popper"... Oh, well :)
:Still better than when I thought "putting a parachute below the capsule can't possibly be aerodynamically stable". I thought it was a landing system.

Interesting… I'm a 90s kid, and I've never even heard of these. I had to come here to figure out what I was looking at. [[User:NoriMori|NoriMori]] ([[User talk:NoriMori|talk]]) 03:00, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
:snap! I thought it was a diaphragm too :o) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.50|108.162.249.50]] 06:05, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
::I would have known what it was if it was a photograph. There's no real sense of scale or texture here, I thought it was some kind of weird parachute like kids used in gym class. -[[Special:Contributions/172.68.57.75|172.68.57.75]] 06:25, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

;How effective would this thing actually be? 
Obviously it's not going to go to space. But would a popper of this apparent size even be able to fling itself upward at all? Do the mechanics hold up when scaled up that large, or does all the mass and weight of the rubber get in the way? Or something about the physics of how it un-inverts itself? I've seen a few of these things, and they get some impressive height, but they were all pretty small. I found a Youtube video of a guy making some quite large ones (by toy standards), and the amount of height they get seems to go down as the size of the thing goes up.

This isn't the clearest xkcd - So it isn't supposed to be a diaphragm? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.167|172.69.68.167]] 06:51, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Now I understand why xkcd has a tendency to occasionally irk me- because he's a 90's kid. Us 80's kids used real gunpowder to send our rockets a few thousand feet high. Ok, less than 2000, but at least we didn't use a rubber thing resembling a boob. And get off my lawn, you young whipper snapper.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:04, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

;Maybe I'm reading too much in to it, but it looks a bit like an Orion type spacecraft with the pusher plate drawn to specifically resemble those pop toys?

Talk:2459: March 2020

2021-05-06T15:34:47Z

172.68.189.191:

Depending upon the local vaccine-tied gap between the two jabs, the span of time across those frames could easily be 12 weeks (1 actual month of stasis plus almost 2 more, that are not illustrated) or 8 weeks (1+1ish months between, then you may assume another unillustrated extra buffer after the second before 'normallity resumes'), making the resumed month correct after all. (Also, March being 31 days long, recycling it in a 'perpetual calendar' way would shift the month-boundaries over by ¿9? days, which might factor in. Although that'd make it hard to make it so the end of the final March ends exactly a day before the continuation-May is supposed to start for all, without some other finagling.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.166|141.101.107.166]] 05:23, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
:In the US, the two multi-dose vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, require 3 weeks and 4 weeks, respectively, between doses. Unsure of the reason for why there seems to be a "time jump". [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.26|172.69.34.26]] 06:23, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
::I think the only reason there is only 15 calendars in stead of 17 is because he could then make a 3x5 grid. (A 4x4grid would also be one too little). And also I think it could have made much more sense to put on all 17 months, to avoid this confusion. But I do not think he has made 15 for any time reason. If he had done this in April, and made a 4x4 grid it would have been nicer, but then there would have been a standing Cueball in the first panel of the last row. But the last month would have been April which would fit with a year plus 4 months. But having the calendars months shift through the top row works great, which would not work in 4x4 grid. And since time stood still for Randall during those 14 months, then having 12 or 14 or 10 panels doesn't really matter. The important message is that time was at a standstill until May 2021. (He also needed 14 days after the last vaccine to be fully vaccinated). In Denmark where the AstraZeneca vaccine was taken out of use, after many had only the first shot, the second shot will be with another vaccine, and will be administrated 12 weeks after the first AztraZeneca vaccine. I know, I'm one of those that will have my second dose this way, in a few weeks time. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:36, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Anyone else noticed all calendars seem to be empty, even the May 2021 one? -- Tobias [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.38|172.68.110.38]] 09:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

"Fifteen" days to slow the spread? More like 416+ (Yes, I'm counting...) [[User:Wilh3lm|Wilh3lm]] ([[User talk:Wilh3lm|talk]]) 10:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Should the calendars be seen to represent Cueball's social life / social engagements? If so, pre-pandemic he had nothing going on. During pandemic, he (and everyone else essentially) had nothing going on. After full vaccination, he still apparently has nothing going on... Or, do the calendars merely represent time passing, and Cueball's life "froze" in March 2020, and only just resumed its normal flow following his second vaccination, making May 2021 his first "return to normal time flow" month?

There are not enough calendars. It feels like it has been March 2020 for about 10 years, so there should be about 40 more rows.

2456: Types of Scientific Paper

2021-05-02T15:22:14Z

172.68.189.191: /* Derivatives */ added another derivative on AI ethics

{{comic
| number = 2456
| date = April 28, 2021
| title = Types of Scientific Paper
| image = types_of_scientific_paper.png
| titletext = Others include "We've incrementally improved the estimate of this coefficient," "Maybe all these categories are wrong," and "We found a way to make student volunteers worse at tasks."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RESEARCH DEPARTMENT ON A LUNCHBREAK. The explanation is one line of text and a table, the table's third row has empty cells, and the whole thing is generally in need of a little polish. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, Randall describes categories of scientific papers with somewhat humorous generalized titles.

==Table of papers==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Breakdown of Papers
|-
!Paper Title
!Explanation
!Article Description
|-
!scope=row|We put a camera somewhere new
|This may involve miniaturisation or other improvements of imaging sensors, power supply, transmission or retention of data, environmental hardening and (possibly) recovery afterwards. Photographs and videos can be especially helpful in understanding what is or was going on, especially for the layman, than more limited signal traces.

Cameras have been inserted into ''every'' obvious bodily orifice (including swallowed, to be later excreted), placed in habitats to monitor wildlife, attached to wildlife to monitor habitats, sent into volcanic craters/ocean trenches/high altitudes/nuclear reactors, launched into space and sent past/round/onto several of the solar-system's more interesting bodies. This makes the "somewhere new" claim intriguing, possibly even comparable to 'clickbait'. This could also be generalized even more by replacing "camera" with "sensor", and then going to debate the newly derived sensor data.
|Includes a large figure, likely an image captured with the camera.
|-
!scope=row|Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!
|Rather than starting with the aim of investigating some question, and finding some way of answering it by uncovering evidence, sometimes a writer may have stumbled upon a cache of historic documents that they then feel compelled to justify the resulting 'WikiWalk' they may have found themselves sucked into. The author may be far more excited about this than any future reader. This could also be a paper by a historian who found out ancient records which could be useful. A similar sentiment appears in [[1979: History]].
|Small figure may show the most interesting fragment of the records.
|-
!scope=row|My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it
|This title refers to the occasional rivalries between scientists within a field, which can push them to seek proof that they, and not their colleague, are correct. It reflects a tone of smug self-satisfaction.
|
|-
!scope=row|The immune system is at it again
|The human immune system is notoriously complex, and there are countless papers in medical fields just describing its strangeness. While it is best known for preventing and battling infections, in auto-immune disease, it can also turn against the body that it is supposed to protect. Moreover it can overreact, for instance in allergic reactions or in a potentially lethal {{w|cytokine storm}} known to occur in certain viral infections, including {{w|Influenza}} and {{w|COVID-19}}. The title may convey exasperation with the amorphous nature of their study subject.
|
|-
!scope=row|We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some
|Researchers often attempt to create materials despite there not being any demand, predicting that in the future their material will be game-changing without any actual applications. These researchers have created such a material, and are offering to produce it for anyone who needs it. It is couched in terms of having created an answer for which there was not yet any proper question.
This may be also referring to the discovering/creating of elements and subatomic particles. The statement if you wish to buy it is humorous in these cases because they will decay too quickly to be purchased.
|
|-
!scope=row|What are fish even doing down there
|Deep sea marine biology regularly discovers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7QXdlSBGGY strange lifeforms] in [https://www.9news.com.au/world/sharks-living-in-volcano-why-are-marine-predators-living-in-an-active-crater/db112bd9-21b2-46c2-9d58-ed07f981ae01 unexpected places], and theories explaining deep sea ecosystems are regularly confounded by new data.

Scientists may also bump into marine organisms when looking for something else. For example, one planned underwater neutrino detector [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44938 picked up bioluminescence instead].

Whichever way, the title probably reflects a totally unexpected result that is possibly too cross-disciplinary to be properly comprehended as an actual scientific advance by the authors. However, a proper study of the species could very well be an important paper.
|This paper does not appear to have any headers, implying a longer, free-flowing format.
|-
!scope=row|This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper
|There is a huge variety in the complexity and importance of subjects studied in scientific papers, and often some supposedly easy task will be sufficiently complicated as to merit its own paper. For example, a scientist may have discovered a better way of finding out if a substance is X or Y while studying something else.

The author may be glad to have been able to turn mundane 'housekeeping' activities, that don't normally do much to enhance academic reputations, into an actual opportunity to be cite-worthy.
|
|-
!scope=row|Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right?
|One of the struggles of the scientific method is that many experiments will not produce the results scientists desired or expected. Negative or conflicting results of well-conducted research are as important as positive or dramatic ones, but are often ignored in favor of more novel findings. As a result, some journals are established specifically for negative results, reducing the bias towards only positive claims that may actually be outliers or anomalies.

In this case, the authors may otherwise have worked on their problem and been left with no citable proof of their efforts. The title perhaps reflects an attempt to present this as 'success' of a different kind, rather than a submission to such a null/negative-results platform. This may be similar to the above type of paper too.
|
|-
!scope=row|Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk
|This paper may be imagined as an opportunistic publication. A department or team has seen itself low down on the local 'league table' for academic output. A brainstorming session for a way of rectifying this led to desperately seizing upon the first idle comment made (in lieu of any better sounding ideas) that can somehow be shoehorned into their respective subject area, and is now being presented similar to "this one weird thing" clickbait titles that almost always oversell their content.

This also works in the context of entomology. Insects have the most species of any class of animals [https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos by a wide margin], but due to their small size, they're not easily seen. As a result, new species are constantly being discovered in places as innocuous as [https://wildlife.org/video-entomologists-discover-30-new-species-in-la-backyards/ someone's backyard.]

It also works in botany, especially floristics. Papers of first records of alien plants refer to weird things botanists saw on walks. Vagrant birds, unusual animal behaviour, and strange meteorological phenomena are other subcategories.
|Includes several large figures, likely close-up photographs of the weird thing. There are no headers, as the paper may have little background or methodology, just observations.
|-
!scope=row|We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years
| Some papers summarize the work of big research teams, like those working on the [https://repositorio.uc.cl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11534/13948/Observation%20of%20a%20new%20particle%20in%20the%20search%20for%20the%20Standard%20Model%20Higgs%20boson%20with%20the%20ATLAS%20detector%20at%20the%20LHC.pdf Higgs Boson] (list of authors starts at page 17 and goes to page 26 with foot notes about authors to page 29, and a dedication in the header would suggest that more than one other contributor ''died'' over the course of the research, which would be rather unusual for a smaller project) or LIGO. Since the discoveries which are made are a team effort, probably outlasting many of the individual tenures involved, the papers have many authors listed.
A credit for participation may not mean any particularly great contribution by each individual, but being left out (even for one summer's secondment, seven years before any results could be recorded) would be taken as a slight, and an opportunity missed to be 'citable' in the future.
|A huge portion of the page is taken up by the presumably 500 authors' names, above the main horizontal bar.
|-
!scope=row|Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research
|Similar to the "my colleague is wrong" paper, but in this case applied to far greater swathes of the community by the author(s) of this (possibly unfocused) tract. Usually a "systematic review", the words 'some thoughts' might indicate a meta-approach with no original research - and possibly a passive-aggressive style of assessment.
|No header sections, possibly because these particular thoughts are in the form of an essay or letter without an accompanying investigation. Formatting this article as a single column with large blocks of text could also be indicating a slightly unhinged rant by someone who - wrongly - perceives themselves as unjustly marginalised.
|-
!scope=row|We scanned some undergraduates
|Initial research is often done at universities, so when human subjects are required, recruiting undergraduate students is a common, easy, and inexpensive way to gather enough people to conduct studies or experiments. This is extremely common in psychological or sociological studies, but can involve more medical (but non-invasive) 'scans', from simple eyeball-tracking to full-body MRI. This practice is often criticized, as it introduces a selection bias, which makes the results difficult to generalize to the entire population, as university students in a given country are not necessarily a representative sample of human beings as a whole. Nonetheless, easy accessibility makes these students a source of data for many academic papers. The low-key approach to the title (concentrating blandly upon the method with no references to results) may indicate that the results obtained are very trivial and no great developments were even made in implementation. Alternately, this is a truly ground-breaking paper obscured entirely by the lead author's over-narrow professional focus and avoidance of any hype.
|
|-
!scope=row|We've incrementally improved the estimate of this coefficient
|Often scientific research, e.g. in cosmology or physics, will work with an assumed constant value that is known to be only an 'educated guess' of the actual definite value, or an inclusive range. However accurate/certain this is, further experimentation or observation may further narrow down the uncertainty involved to a statistically significant degree. An improvement to one of these constants also improves the accuracy of every single calculation that uses it.

Even if these improvements may seem trivial to those outside the discipline (e.g. narrowing down a seemingly esoteric value from 99.99% certainty to 99.995% certainty), they are probably understood as significant achievements by those aware of the effort needed to obtain such diminishing returns, and the authors are probably very excited to have done what they did.

Another possible interpretation of this title is that it refers not to cosmological constants but to an exponent in algorithmic complexity, for example the [https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.7714 2014 paper] that proved that the complexity of matrix multiplication is at most n^2.3728639 in place of the previous upper bound n^2.3729.
|rowspan="3"|(Only referenced in Title Text)
|-
!scope=row|Maybe all these categories are wrong
|In some field that relies heavily upon classification (e.g. phylogenetic biology, or the Standard Model in physics) sometimes observations arise that cast doubt on the previously established ideas. It seems that this may have happened here, hopefully with a suggestion of how to reimagine the situation.

The article may have been written with with a sense of euphoria (the chance to present a paradigm shift in thinking, to rewrite the textbooks) or pessimism (it demonstrates only the failings in current thinking, without any obvious solution).

Alternatively, it may be a reference to the categories of papers that this comic proposes.
|-
!scope=row|We found a way to make student volunteers worse at tasks
|Possibly a psychology experiment, and maybe not even the result expected. In general, the repetition of an activity will induce greater skill/capacity in a tested individual. By accident or design, the study group in this instance has induced the opposite correlation. (There ''are'', however, some studies that explicitly look at how e.g. lack of sleep reduces productivity.)

Exactly what emotion the title reflects might depend upon whether the worsening was an intended result, or even how the team were able to refocus and seize upon the adverse outcomes.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Could need description of each paper}}
:[Heading:]
:Types of Scientific Paper

:[An array of 4 rows with 3 scientific papers each, is shown. The first page of each is shown, but only the papers titles are legible. Black lines for headings, several lines for paragraphs of text and white rectangles indicating figures are used to make each paper look different. Titles are as follows:]
:We put a camera somewhere new
:Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!
:My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it
:The immune system is at it again
:We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some
:What are fish even doing down there
:This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper
:Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right?
:Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk
:We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years
:Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research
:We scanned some undergraduates

==Trivia==
*Originally, this comic's title text misspelled "volunteers" as "volunters".
**This could have been intentional (''we'' might be the volunteers)
**But it was not as it was quickly corrected.
*Another comic, [[2012: Thorough Analysis]], similarly categorizes or mocks research papers.

==Derivatives==
The comic inspired many derivatives, changing the paper titles to be more relevant to specific fields. There is a [https://observablehq.com/@guillaume-levrier/xkcd-types-paper generator].

Some examples include:
{| class="wikitable"
| https://twitter.com/neil_chilson/status/1388216386967715846 || Privacy Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/SamLMontano/status/1388268078279049217 || Disaster Science Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/jfbastien/status/1388229180211404803 || C++ Standards papers
|-
| https://twitter.com/waiterich/status/1388207060412682247 || Scientific Paper (Food, Land, and Natural Climate Solutions Version)
|-
| https://twitter.com/stefan_d_jevtic/status/1388192045920137216 || Hematology
|-
| https://twitter.com/jeffpeapod/status/1388185831140118529 || Papers for Grad Students
|-
| https://twitter.com/EdinburghKnee/status/1388069182642794496 || Ortho Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/j_remy_green/status/1387960392954138624 || Law Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/JavierApfeld/status/1387891336515362819 || Aging Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/Gabeincognito/status/1387873643435216897 || Infosec Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/acarriebear/status/1387870050581889024 || Toxicology
|-
| https://twitter.com/yesitsnicholas/status/1387865583908114432 || Neuroscience
|-
| https://twitter.com/nexel_art/status/1388263392545280009 || Archeology
|-
| https://twitter.com/skinnyfatPhD/status/1388253551013498882 || Metabolism
|-
| https://twitter.com/zamanian_/status/1388179675806158848 || Parasitology
|-
| https://twitter.com/PWGTennant/status/1387734254960975881 || Epidemiology and Public Health
|-
| https://twitter.com/DrIanKellar/status/1387760304818372620 || Health Psychology
|-
| https://twitter.com/nappqm/status/1388098251136589824 || Pest Science
|-
| https://twitter.com/theangelremiel/status/1388134620219297793 || Clinical Paper
|-
| https://twitter.com/plantspipettes/status/1387825850372997121 || Plant science
|-
| https://twitter.com/girlandkat/status/1388030240358768642 || Planetary Science
|-
| https://twitter.com/Nesquixotic/status/1387848121342853122 || History
|-
| https://twitter.com/SamLemonick/status/1388177531703070722 || How a reporter sees types of science papers
|-
| https://twitter.com/AndrewBarnas/status/1388161745684996098 || Scientific Paper PAYWALL meta-joke
|-
| https://twitter.com/ctdicanio/status/1388630827857289221 || Phonetics
|-
| https://twitter.com/ProfSimonFisher/status/1388096934343233537|| Language Research
|-
| https://twitter.com/jeanburgess/status/1388245879119781889 || Internet Studies
|-
| https://twitter.com/drzimmermann/status/1388526687814656004 || AI Ethics
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Research Papers]]
[[Category:Science]]

Talk:2444: Ingenuity

2021-05-01T06:07:10Z

172.68.189.191: Added comment

Wow! I clicked open xkcd at 3:50 or so, I can't believe I was one of the first on the team![[User:Hiihaveanaccount|Hiihaveanaccount]] ([[User talk:Hiihaveanaccount|talk]]) 20:58, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
: Speaking as an Australian, I usually don't bother to check XKCD until well after the day after the post. It's 9am Thursday, and I'm surprised it's posted this early. [[User:Thisfox|Thisfox]] ([[User talk:Thisfox|talk]]) 21:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Perseverance's maximum driving speed is only about 8 feet/minute (comparable to a baby's crawling speed). So Ingenuity wouldn't have to fly very fast to get it to say "Whee!". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:40, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we work in somehow that on the date of the comic, Ingenuity was in the middle of the multi-day deployment process? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.162|162.158.62.162]] 23:07, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
:I was thinking along those lines. I've made some edits that I think cover your suggestions, but obviously they're open to further refinement/expansion as anyone might desire to make. (The ''exact'' status of deployment, as of comic-posting, might be nice to know, but I don't currently believe it was so precisely timed to "the point they detached" or anything like that.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.80|141.101.107.80]] 01:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the mumble mumble thing is a reference to the four fundamental forces comic
04:20, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the title Text is a reference to the trope that nobody can really explain satisfactorily explain how flight works... On Mars or on earth. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.25|162.158.203.25]] 06:07, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
:Im probably wrong but the title text might be referencing the technobabble in various science fiction but i'm probably wrong --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.212.224|162.158.212.224]] 20:09, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
::(^^Another corrected indenting...^^) Not really. Technobabble is usually very definite words (mis)used or (mis)constructed to 'explain' something, with the gap between canon and reality just hand-waved away. Mumbling over things is more a "I don't care enough even to try to make you understand, live with it" thing, in fiction as in reality. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.229|141.101.99.229]] 21:05, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, even if Ingenuity can't lift the rover, that setup would make a great Martian lawnmower...although...yeah...I know. :-( [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 20:51, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Edit: Deleted comment. Sorry for the accidental spam. [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]] 18:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Is it possible this comic is a reference to the Jerma985 video released just 10 days prior, where he performs this exact maneuver? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5ZuHnpm7P8 I would like to believe that Randall is a Jerma fan, for all the implications that has [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.191|172.68.189.191]] 06:07, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

2457: After the Pandemic

2021-04-30T17:24:28Z

172.68.189.191: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2457
| date = April 30, 2021
| title = After the Pandemic
| image = after_the_pandemic.png
| titletext = I'm looking forward to having to worry a lot less about covid, but wouldn't mind if we worried a little more about giving each other colds. Colds are bad!
}}

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

This is another in a series of comics about the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this comic Randall is saying that he is looking forward to not having to wear a mask everywhere after the pandemic is over. Mandatory mask mandates were a common means by which various governments attempted to minimize the spread of Covid-19, prior to the development of vaccines. Now that the vaccines exist, people are assuming that these mask mandates will soon end, and in many jurisdictions they have already.

However, Randall hopes that people will continue the practice of wearing a mask when they are sick, as is common in many East Asian countries. This lets other people know the person is sick so they can give the sick person distance, and also prevents the sick person's coughs, which contain particles of the virus causing the sickness, from getting into the air. Both features would help reduce the spread of communicable diseases.

Title text.

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

{| class="wikitable"
|+After the Pandemic
|-
|Things I will not miss one bit after the Pandemic
|Things I hope stick around and become normalized
|-
|Wearing masks everywhere
|Wearing masks when you're feeling sick, because it's an easy way to tell people to give you space, and also getting coughed on is gross
|}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:105: Parallel Universe

2021-04-12T18:43:28Z

172.68.189.191:

[[User:Rikthoff|Rikthoff]] ([[User talk:Rikthoff|talk]]) The issue date might be off. All files since 101 have been created on April 11th, 2006. Anyone with an actual issue date?

:I have verified that the date is correct now. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
::You mean *I have verified the date. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 10:08, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

----

A comment, and a question:
* First off, I don't think the hairy character could possibly be a woman (or that it should matter anyway), otherwise it would be made clearer in the drawing and the transcript. Compare for instance with previous comics [[102]], [[93]] and [[84]]: each time it is made clear in the drawing as well as in the transcript. So in my opinion it's just another random guy.
* And now, not being a native English speaker, I don't understand what is meant by "make out" here (and I think this should be part of the explanation). "Make out" seems to have multiple possible interpretations, and if it is the semi-sexual meaning (as in {{w|Making out}} on Wikipedia) here, then I don't see the point of "taking this chance to make out with oneself"... a quirky fantasy? and a homosexual one, which doesn't seem in the xkcd style to me...
What I understand is that in the last panel the hairy character realized he could use the same argument for him as well; but apart from that, this comic remains pretty obscure to me. More explanation would be appreciated :-) [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 17:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
: My interpretation: It's a classic course of action to {{w|Making out|make out}} (or even have sexual intercourse) with one's duplicate in the event that the two meet. Hairy suggests this to Cueball, pointing out that the duplicate may disappear at any moment because of the potentially tenuous nature of the spell keeping the duplicate in this reality. Hairy then realizes that, hypothetically, he/she could ''also'' spontaneously disappear, and uses this as a way to hint that he/she would like to make out with Cueball. The joke is the same regardless of whether Hairy is [[Megan]] or a male friend of Cueball, but if it's a male friend, there is an added layer of intended humor in the homosexual nature of the suggestion. Either way, Hairy is making the self-serving suggestion that Cueball forgo a rare chance (making out with his alternate-universe duplicate) in order to take advantage of a common chance (making out with an acquaintance from the same universe) because of a superficially identical pressure (spontaneous disappearance; in alternate-Cueball's case, because something would cause them to revert to their universe of origin, and in Hairy's case, because of some unknown hypothetical factor). [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 06:44, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
::I like this explanation the best. It's really the clearest out of all of them. --[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 23:44, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
::: I agree with Jimmy C and JET73L -- mwburden [[Special:Contributions/70.91.188.49|70.91.188.49]] 20:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
: >doesn't seem to be in the xkcd style to me: have you seen https://xkcd.com/65/?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.208|172.69.62.208]] 18:02, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I kind of figured Hairy's line in the last panel was a "I just said something really untoward and will now leave the room before you hurt me/I embarrass us all further" sort of thing. Am I alone in this? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.75|108.162.215.75]] 19:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
: Yeah, that's what I always thought too. Or that he was suggesting he could leave to give Cueball and Cueball some privacy. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.189|108.162.237.189]] 01:44, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
::I agree, these were the two options that came to me when I read it, first that he was offering to leave the room, perhaps even because ''obviously'' there was no other reason to summon your parallel self, and he needn't have even said it, or second, that suddenly he realized it was a strange idea, and that he felt like "sinking through the floor" with embarrassment. Kind of "Umm....yeah. Right. I'll...just, like, go now...bye!" Of course, after reading the previous comments, I think the idea of the person hinting that THEY could vanish as well has merit too. I don't think it's Megan. He knows how to draw female characters; he wouldn't leave it ambiguous. That said, I never knew that it was a "thing" to think about making out with yourself if you ever met yourself...if you're not attracted to other males, why would you be attracted to yourself? What is it "it's not any gayer than masturbation, because it's both YOU"? I guess so, but I'll pass. I was also curious, this is one of several cartoons I've read now that are very ambiguous about sexuality. It makes me wonder, is Randall bisexual, or is he just trying to be open-minded and inclusive? (I guess it would be too confusing to make stick figures "ethnically diverse", and certain people would get offended anyway.)[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.118|108.162.218.118]] 03:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

The alternate is missing from the parallel universe. It would be easy to imagine a parallel universe in which the other individual who is present did the summoning, causing themselves to vanish from a different universe, which could be the one depicted in the comic. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.232|199.27.128.232]] 05:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see why the alternate explanation assumes this particular Cueball would be dating Megan and not Hairy. It seems a bit heteronormative.
I do think the regular explanation is correct, however. It's an argument by analogy. "If your alternate-universe could vanish at any moment, you should make out with him. I could vanish at any moment. Thus, by analogy..." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.71|108.162.238.71]] 02:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
:I kind of thought this was supposed to be ''our'' Cueball, summoning another one. But I guess it could be either. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.118|108.162.218.118]] 03:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I had always assumed that Hairy argument was that he could disappear, since the alt- cue ball disappeared for HIS universe, and alt universe Hairy could summon current Hairy away. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.100|162.158.255.100]] 06:13, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the "alternate" explanation is superfluous to the page. It should be removed.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.191|172.68.189.191]] 18:43, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2447: Hammer Incident

2021-04-08T16:32:45Z

172.68.189.191:

big --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.153|162.158.187.153]] 02:04, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I added a basic explanation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.212.224|162.158.212.224]] 02:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Do we really need a huge paragraph explaining all the reasons why any damage to a space telescope is a big, expensive deal? And I'm not sure this is a trial, it's probably more like an administrative panel hearing (like the hearings after the Challenger disaster). [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

== Giant comic ==

Is it meant to be that size? Does the bad luck apply to trying to upload comics at reasonable sizes?
: It's fixed now
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.19|172.69.33.19]] 02:09, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
:Oooh boy, indeed... "Error creating thumbnail: File with dimensions greater than 12.5 MP" is the Wiki's assessment of the auto-uploaded image. I haven't checked the resolution, but the https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hammer_incident.png one is apparently 4332x4838 (scales to 8% on my device), and I don't care to test the _2x version right now. I'm not sure that was the native res of it on creation, looks to be an accidental up-scaling prior to posting to xkcd itself. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.6|141.101.98.6]] 02:20, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
:
::The _2x version is actually the proper size for a normal comic - 578x645 pixels. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 02:21, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
:::Still seems larger than normal to me, even the 2x seems larger than I would expect. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.78|172.69.34.78]] 04:02, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
:Maybe the extra-large image is what the original looks like using the James Webb telescope? Maybe over-thinking. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.145|172.68.132.145]] 04:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
::Or perhaps its an resolution/aspect ratio/zoom factor difference between it and the old telescope. Implying all other comics have secretly been placed in front of the other telescope [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.50|172.69.170.50]] 04:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
:Perhaps overthinking, if the main reflecting mirror was actually destroyed, the light entering the telescope would never be focused into the secondary mirror and the image would be "light size" so you would only be able to see a small portion of what you expect

:It looks to me that, while most of the text is rendered smoothly in full resolution, the caption below the panel ("Man, NASA is really on my case about the James Webb Space Telescope.") is very jaggy on a pixel level, but only on the Y-axis. There could be quite a bit of information in there. No idea what it means, though. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.36|141.101.77.36]] 07:29, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
::It could be floating-point errors that indicate the code flow of the renderer Randall used. Or it could mean anything else. Curious to compare it to a correct rendering of that text with the same font, but wouldn't know what to do with the vector of edge differences myself. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.140|162.158.63.140]] 09:03, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

:It seems to be fixed now so I am sure it was an accident

== inspiration ==

When I read this comic I was worried it might have been inspired by recent news of something breaking during the final assembly process. Fortunately this seems not to be the case. Among the many delays of the telescope, were any of them caused by mirror and/or cryo failures that might have inspired this comic? [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 05:53, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
:What caused the most recent delay? It seems it's been pushed forward more as Randall predicted in the other comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.140|162.158.63.140]] 09:03, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

== Cryogenic? ==

I get the sense that the title text is inspired by liquid nitrogen ice cream. -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.252|108.162.237.252]] 13:14, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

== Actual hammering applied to JWST ==

As Quantum7, I was worried too and googled "JWST hammer" only to find this actual contributor to the project…
The Hammers Company, Inc. Greenbelt, MD in this list:
: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/meetTheTeam/team.html
Not all JWST-engineering seams to be that delicate – should we be worried?

== Amount of gold ==
The James Webb Telescope only has <$2000 of gold. [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/04/05/how-much-gold-is-in-the-james-webb-space-telescope/?sh=4f80bc9d69e5]]