explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1844: Voting Systems

2022-06-13T13:37:45Z

172.68.238.35:

{{comic
| number = 1844
| date = May 31, 2017
| title = Voting Systems
| image = voting_systems.png
| titletext = Kenneth Arrow hated me because the ordering of my preferences changes based on which voting systems have what level of support. But it tells me a lot about the people I'm going to be voting with!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about types of single-winner voting systems:

# '''{{w|Approval voting}}''' has voters "approve" (i.e. select) any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate. It works with the same unranked ballot as plurality voting, but would allow a "compromise" candidate who is the second choice of a majority to defeat a candidate who is supported by a plurality but disliked by other groups.
# '''{{w|Instant-runoff voting}}''' (also known as Ranked Choice or Preferential Voting) has voters rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice. If a candidate secures more than half of these votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate in last place is eliminated and removed from consideration. Ballots that had this candidate as the top choice now have the second preference as the top choice (this is the "instant runoff"). The top remaining choices on all the ballots are then counted again. This process repeats until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters or all but one candidate have been eliminated. IRV's proponents have successfully implemented it in a few places, such as the city of San Francisco, and Federal elections in Australia.
# A '''{{w|Condorcet method}}''' elects the candidate that would win a majority of the vote in all of the head-to-head elections against each of the other candidates. A candidate with this property is called the Condorcet winner. Due to the {{w|Condorcet paradox}}, an election with 3 or more candidates might not have a Condorcet winner, so Condorcet methods differ in the secondary set of rules used to handle that situation.
# Not directly mentioned in the comic, '''{{w|First-past-the-post voting}}''' (FPTP, aka '''{{w|Plurality (voting)|plurality voting}}''') is the method currently used in the US, UK, and several other countries. It only allows voters to choose a single candidate. Experts on voting methods agree there are multiple reasons why FPTP is not the best way to implement democracy,<ref>https://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/Worst%20of%20Both%20Worlds%20Jan2011_1820.pdf</ref><ref>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voting-methods/#ExamVotiMeth</ref><ref>https://electionscience.org/voting-methods/spoiler-effect-top-5-ways-plurality-voting-fails/</ref><ref>https://www.fairvote.org/plurality_voting_leaves_elections_open_to_manipulation</ref><ref>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254419149_And_the_loser_is_Plurality_Voting</ref><ref>https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/first-past-the-post</ref><ref>https://blog.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/no-electoral-system-is-perfect-but-some-seem-fairer/</ref> but they made little progress in replacing it in the United States for decades. However, this is changing; the state of Maine and numerous cities have adopted either IRV or Approval in recent years.

'''{{w|Arrow's impossibility theorem}}''' gives a list of criteria for ranked voting systems and states that [http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q60ZXoXP6Hg no system] can satisfy all of them at once, despite that for each of them it may seem "obvious" that an electoral system ought to satisfy it. Some voting theorists (such as Cueball) dislike IRV because it {{w|Comparison of electoral systems#Compliance of selected single-winner methods (table)|fails more of the criteria}} than Condorcet does.

The primary joke in the comic is the premise that people who are pedantic or knowledgeable enough to find Arrow's theorem to be relevant will self-fulfill the theorem by being inclined to disagree on any effort to change the voting system. This is illustrated by Cueball's voting system preference that is contingent on the preferences of other people, which defeats their effort to produce a community-wide ranking.

A secondary joke in the comic is that often voters don't pick their favorite choice in a vote. Instead, they vote for a less favorable, but more likely electable, person as a way to prevent their least favorite choice from being elected. This is commonly called "spoiler effect"; in Arrow's parlance it is a form of {{w|Independence of irrelevant alternatives|IIA criterion failure}}. Cueball's strategic vote switch implies that they may be using FPTP (which they dislike) to make the decision, as FPTP is the only system to involve a potential "spoiler effect" (note, however, that certain vote distributions in systems such as IRV can produce a similarly problematic and illogical effect on the outcome).

A third joke is the recursive self-referencing inherent in voting to choose a voting system.

The title text stipulates that Cueball has no fixed ranking of preference for human candidates, but makes this choice dependent on which voting system is favoured by the group. This exceeds strategic voting considerations as the ranking should have full information, whom Cueball prefers in each situation. Therefore Arrow's impossibility theorem and the analysis behind it assume the ranked preferences of an individual voter as a fixed given. To make them dependent on the voting system makes assessing the efficacy of the voting systems absurd or at least much more complicated to do as a general assessment. That is given as the reason why Arrow would wholeheartedly hate him.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Ponytail are standing on either side of Cueball who is talking while lifting one hand.]
:Cueball: I prefer approval voting, but if we're seriously considering instant runoff, then I'll argue for a Condorcet method instead.

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:Strong Arrow's theorem: The people who find Arrow's theorem significant will never agree on anything anyway.

{{comic discussion}}

<references />

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
https://aucasimile.com/
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Elections]]

1844: Voting Systems

2022-06-13T13:36:42Z

172.68.238.35:

{{comic
| number = 1844
| date = May 31, 2017
| title = Voting Systems
| image = voting_systems.png
| titletext = Kenneth Arrow hated me because the ordering of my preferences changes based on which voting systems have what level of support. But it tells me a lot about the people I'm going to be voting with!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about types of single-winner voting systems:

# '''{{w|Approval voting}}''' has voters "approve" (i.e. select) any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate. It works with the same unranked ballot as plurality voting, but would allow a "compromise" candidate who is the second choice of a majority to defeat a candidate who is supported by a plurality but disliked by other groups.
# '''{{w|Instant-runoff voting}}''' (also known as Ranked Choice or Preferential Voting) has voters rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice. If a candidate secures more than half of these votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate in last place is eliminated and removed from consideration. Ballots that had this candidate as the top choice now have the second preference as the top choice (this is the "instant runoff"). The top remaining choices on all the ballots are then counted again. This process repeats until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters or all but one candidate have been eliminated. IRV's proponents have successfully implemented it in a few places, such as the city of San Francisco, and Federal elections in Australia.
# A '''{{w|Condorcet method}}''' elects the candidate that would win a majority of the vote in all of the head-to-head elections against each of the other candidates. A candidate with this property is called the Condorcet winner. Due to the {{w|Condorcet paradox}}, an election with 3 or more candidates might not have a Condorcet winner, so Condorcet methods differ in the secondary set of rules used to handle that situation.
# Not directly mentioned in the comic, '''{{w|First-past-the-post voting}}''' (FPTP, aka '''{{w|Plurality (voting)|plurality voting}}''') is the method currently used in the US, UK, and several other countries. It only allows voters to choose a single candidate. Experts on voting methods agree there are multiple reasons why FPTP is not the best way to implement democracy,<ref>https://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/Worst%20of%20Both%20Worlds%20Jan2011_1820.pdf</ref><ref>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voting-methods/#ExamVotiMeth</ref><ref>https://electionscience.org/voting-methods/spoiler-effect-top-5-ways-plurality-voting-fails/</ref><ref>https://www.fairvote.org/plurality_voting_leaves_elections_open_to_manipulation</ref><ref>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254419149_And_the_loser_is_Plurality_Voting</ref><ref>https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/first-past-the-post</ref><ref>https://blog.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/no-electoral-system-is-perfect-but-some-seem-fairer/</ref> but they made little progress in replacing it in the United States for decades. However, this is changing; the state of Maine and numerous cities have adopted either IRV or Approval in recent years.

'''{{w|Arrow's impossibility theorem}}''' gives a list of criteria for ranked voting systems and states that [http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q60ZXoXP6Hg no system] can satisfy all of them at once, despite that for each of them it may seem "obvious" that an electoral system ought to satisfy it. Some voting theorists (such as Cueball) dislike IRV because it {{w|Comparison of electoral systems#Compliance of selected single-winner methods (table)|fails more of the criteria}} than Condorcet does.

The primary joke in the comic is the premise that people who are pedantic or knowledgeable enough to find Arrow's theorem to be relevant will self-fulfill the theorem by being inclined to disagree on any effort to change the voting system. This is illustrated by Cueball's voting system preference that is contingent on the preferences of other people, which defeats their effort to produce a community-wide ranking.

A secondary joke in the comic is that often voters don't pick their favorite choice in a vote. Instead, they vote for a less favorable, but more likely electable, person as a way to prevent their least favorite choice from being elected. This is commonly called "spoiler effect"; in Arrow's parlance it is a form of {{w|Independence of irrelevant alternatives|IIA criterion failure}}. Cueball's strategic vote switch implies that they may be using FPTP (which they dislike) to make the decision, as FPTP is the only system to involve a potential "spoiler effect" (note, however, that certain vote distributions in systems such as IRV can produce a similarly problematic and illogical effect on the outcome).

A third joke is the recursive self-referencing inherent in voting to choose a voting system.

The title text stipulates that Cueball has no fixed ranking of preference for human candidates, but makes this choice dependent on which voting system is favoured by the group. This exceeds strategic voting considerations as the ranking should have full information, whom Cueball prefers in each situation. Therefore Arrow's impossibility theorem and the analysis behind it assume the ranked preferences of an individual voter as a fixed given. To make them dependent on the voting system makes assessing the efficacy of the voting systems absurd or at least much more complicated to do as a general assessment. That is given as the reason why Arrow would wholeheartedly hate him.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Ponytail are standing on either side of Cueball who is talking while lifting one hand.]
:Cueball: I prefer approval voting, but if we're seriously considering instant runoff, then I'll argue for a Condorcet method instead.

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:Strong Arrow's theorem: The people who find Arrow's theorem significant will never agree on anything anyway.

{{comic discussion}}

<references />

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[https://aucasimile.com/ Category: Gambling]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Elections]]

Talk:2481: 1991 and 2021

2022-05-25T12:50:44Z

172.68.238.35: edit: fixed link

It's 7:12p and I'm on android at m.xkcd.com . There is no alt text, and the "see also" link directs back to the same page. The comic is fun though, people will be thinking about time travel as technology takes off. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.179|162.158.62.179]] 23:14, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

:There is no title-text on firefox on PC either. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.59|162.158.79.59]] 23:16, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
::The title text is botched. Instead the comic is wrapped in an <code>a</code> (hyperlink) element: <code><a href=""Oh, and our computers all have cameras now, which is nice during the pandemic lockdowns." "The WHAT.""></code>. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.152|141.101.98.152]] 23:24, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
:::I reckon the backend interface for posting a comic must have a field for the title text and a field for the "see also" link, and someone put the text in the wrong field. Easy mistake to make, hopefully fixed soon. -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 02:33, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't the federal no lasers pointed at airplanes law was in acted to prevent laser guided missile attacks against airlines? Not laser attacks in general? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.136|172.68.129.136]] 01:24, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:Sure, someone may have suggested that, but the truth is that anyone who has access to guided missiles (IE state-level actors and military forces) isn't going to be bound by federal law anyway [[User:Defaultdotxbe|Defaultdotxbe]] ([[User talk:Defaultdotxbe|talk]]) 02:37, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
::My thoughts too. At first I took it as White Hat thinking that there were military attacks with lasers capable of shooting down planes… but a federal law against that would, as you say, not be heeded by those doing such things. On reflection I decided that White Hat is envisioning that ordinary citizens have laser guns and have taken to shooting them at planes, the way road signs get shot at by ordinary guns in reality. -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 02:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:In short, '''no'''. 18 USC §39A, the federal law criminalizing the pointing of laser pointers at airplanes, was not enacted to prevent missile attacks against airlines. It was enacted to help combat kids (and others) causing real injury to airline personnel in what they thought were harmless pranks (they're not harmless). [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 03:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
::Yeah, having and trying to use anti-aircraft guided missiles was already plenty illegal without there needing to be a new law about the laser guidance part. In any case, the other guy is misunderstanding the implications of the situation with how it's described, whether or not he thought through that whatever means are being used it should already be illegal to shoot down airplanes.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 23:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

It's interesting that Mr. 2021 summarizes the entire Internet/World Wide Web with "it's really easy to send news stories to your friends". The Internet certainly existed in 1991, but the advancement in that area over 30 years is pretty significant. I'm not sure how I would sum that up to someone from 30 years ago in a single comic panel, but I think it would come out differently than what we see here. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 03:57, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:I saw the ratio of advertisements with www.foo.com in it rise only at the end of the 90s which was when the Internet started to get mainstream adoption. Before Google, it was not so easy to find relevant content with Altavista and friends. [[User:Bmwiedemann|Bmwiedemann]] ([[User talk:Bmwiedemann|talk]]) 20:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
::Don't confuse the Internet with the Web, though. With searchable access to alt.your.fetish.or.hobby on a usenet feed, a curated FAQ (or general conversation) could make you aware of ftp.hobbyfetish.org.au, or whatever wherewithall you needed to telnet directly to the FetishHobbyBBS. Or vice-versa if you'd started on a FIDONet connection. (Then there was the AOL Keyword approach, where you had such an ISP with such a USP and an acceptably obvious hobby/fetish.) Before Tim Berners-Lee (and whoever did Gopher, etc), plus the time needed to get into your prefered era of AskVistaGoogleDuck, the connectivity was there - just a little less automated and only ''hugely'' beyond a single person actually knowing everything they could connect to, rather than totally mind-blowingly so... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.105|162.158.158.105]] 00:05, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
:::Also, Google never offered great improvement over the ease of search on AltaVista; Google's "improved" search rankings were a result of other user's click-thrus & promotion, notably ''not'' any enhancement of the existing search terms. As a result, Google made it easier to find the sites most commonly accessed through its search gateway, while pushing obscure resources toward the bottom of any search results. After establishing market dominance in web searches, Google then phased out adherence to strict search terms, making it noticeably ''harder'' to find any sites their algorithms do not promote. (They also bought YouTube & then removed a great deal of the independently produced videos which had made the site popular, when "content controls" & the first implementation of their overzealous automated filtering, were brought online.) Google has always been more about promotion than accurate search, & it's reflected in the way they've consistently absorbed new technologies only to shutter them in favor of newer, less functionally-complete projects, which superficially offer more appearance of novelty. Google is to telecommunication today, as General Motors was to transportation in the '00s: An industry giant hindering meaningful innovation by marketing old as new, new as exclusive, & restricted as improved. Rather similar to Apple & MS, actually? (The extent to which ''"free thing that worked fine if you knew how"'' becomes ''"more limited but monetized thing deprecated by another monetized thing until none of them offer what you came for anymore"'', is truly astounding to me. Feels like telecom was better in '05, for anyone who doesn't want to spend hundreds a month in '21.) '''Google deserves credit for innovating search in the same way Apple deserves credit for innovating smartphones: ''They don't.''''' Neither company is great at ''innovating''; they are great at ''marketing'' old as new.
:::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
::::Au contraire, PageRank was a ''huge'' advance on the other search engines extant at the time, and the secret sauce in it is ''not'' "click-thrus & promotion." Google won me away from Metacrawler because results from Google alone were as good and better than Metacrawler, which aggregated several other engines (Altavista, Webcrawler, Yahoo, Lycos, Hotbot), and as their patent filing shows, the secret sauce is transitive link-as-endorsement. It's true that they use click-thru rates and other techniques to improve on that, it's true that they don't do exact-keyword searches anymore, and it's true that their main business is advertising and they show promoted results along with purely algorithmic ones. I'm pretty much in agreement with your critique of their present-day business practices. But you've got their early days all wrong. (And for that matter: Apple ''was'' the first company to put the phone, internet, GPS, camera, and music player into the same gadget.)
::::[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.162|162.158.107.162]] 18:34, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

It's not so much the range of cordless phones that is of significant change, but the computing power inside the phone that made the most advancement since 1991. Phones at that time could only make phone calls! Texting didn't become available until 1992 and games and everything else we do on them was later. To me "range" means the connection range which improved a lot, but is still not as signficant as "range of use" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:17, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:Does "cordless phones" refer to cellphones? That's the "wireless" industry. Cordless phones are landline phone handsets that don't have a cord connecting them to the wall, and he's talking about the distance they can be from the base station. Mentioning these is a joke because so many people have cut the cord entirely, abandoning their landlines in favor of just using cellphones. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 12:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:A cordless phone will lose signal if you walk 20 feet outside of your house, giving it "limited range" compared to a cell phone. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 22:16, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
:That's what I wondered too. I would assume the comic is referring to cordless phones in the sense of landline phone handsets, not cellphones, if just because the coverage range of these phones '''has''' increased, whereas the opposite is true for cellphones. With 2G, you can get coverage up to 35km from the base station, whereas with 4G this is reduced to about 16km. There is effectively more cellphone coverage nowadays because there are more base stations, not because the coverage works at longer range. [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 02:28, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
::I agree, & the assertion that ''cellphones'' have increased in range since '91 would be amusing, if it weren't so incorrect as to represent harmful disinformation. (Ironic, given the topic...) I have edited the explanation to make the situation clearer, but that paragraph is now overly long & contains several run-on sentences: The explanation would read better if split into coherent sections for each of the four changes Cueball described.
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:56, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
:The computing power inside the phone would definitely sound significant in 1992 ; I suspect it would be comparable to top supercomputers of that time. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
::It indeed seems that we're seeing 100s of GigaFLOPS in both those supercomputers and these smartphones. Possibly more, as I couldn't easily find mobiles from the last half decade referenced in those terms of measure. And, when it does, it refers to the ''GPU'', which makes for a very highly specialised architecture to render (e.g.) game environments via 3D elements, unlike supercomputers that... hmmm, often had a very highly specialised architecture to process (e.g.) weather predictions via 3D elements. ;)
::Still hard to compare (is it easier to efficiently re-task arbitrary GPUs for things like, say, cryptofarming than it would for a weather-service machine to be re-applied to non-weather computing?) and of course other metrics such as data storage have been Moore's Lawed as well, by a combination of higher quantity, lower cost and increased availability (never mind pocket-portability) even before we start to get to near infinite swappable tape-storage now being approximated by virtually unlimited remote cloud storage (which could ultimately and opaquely still be as crude as tape-storage, but probably is disc-farms).
::It would be interesting to go beyond the few brief glances I made at the details and actually with the various conversion factors that relate what we had in the early '90s (when something like a 486 DX2 66Mhz was the height of personal computing power, for me, at least until DX4 100s became available - and a HD 3.5" FDD wasn't always a given...) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.103|141.101.99.103]]

This is the second time Cueball travels from within the Covid-19 pandemic to visit White Hat [[2280]]. Is there any comic where White Hat interacts with pangolins, bats, or China? Even though Cueball is vaccinated by now, he might be a carrier [[User:Ruffy314|Ruffy314]] ([[User talk:Ruffy314|talk]]) 22:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:That field around Cueball might mean he's not physically here ; maybe it's not possible to transfer matter into past, just information. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
::Black Hat: "Here wear this shirt when you project back."
::Cueball: 'Why? What does it say above that big block of code?'
::Black Hat: "'Reproduce this RNA sequence for a cool surprise!'"
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:56, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with the assertion added by [[Special:Contributions/172.69.35.193|172.69.35.193]] ([[User_talk:172.69.35.193|talk]]):
:'A moment of thought would make it clear that the "laser attack" is unlikely to damage the plane directly, because if it did, no new law would be needed.'
Something being criminal under an existing law does ''not'' mean no new law is needed or will be passed. Maybe the existing penalty wasn't deemed sufficient. Maybe the law had loopholes not foreseen until the new technology appeared. Or maybe Congress just wanted to be seen to be doing something. There are many reasons why new laws can and have been passed to combat (the comic's word) something that's already not legal. Does anyone have thoughts to add? -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 10:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
: I agree, that addition should be removed. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:03, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
:I'd like to add that the law Cueball references is only supposed to "combat" laser attacks, not necessarily outlaw them. I interpret this in the same way that one might outlaw firearms in order to "combat" mass shootings, or legislating TSA checks to "combat" bombings - both of which are already very illegal. So in Whitehats imagination, a law passed to "combat laser attacks on airliners" might be something like background checks on lasgun owners (deemed necessary because of frequent attacks). This law would be (arguagbly) "needed", even though the attacks themselves are already illegal. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.15|162.158.203.15]] 12:25, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

<message deleted; sorry about that>[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 15:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I really think Randall should've made some kind of remark about Sonic getting a fully orchestrated symphony. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.103|141.101.99.103]] 16:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I hope Randall won't be backsliding into another prolonged serious of COVID-19 comics ad nauseum. Just saying.

: Too late!

:Yeah, describing the difference as being the "range on cordless phones" is way off any way you think about it. The first cell phones on the market were in the early 70's, though the first ones were big and heavy, like a suitcase, so people would keep them in a car (thus the term "car phones"), and the first handheld ones were in the 80's. By the time of this, things like this had been on the market for a couple of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC In fact, 1991 was when the first 2G cell network was introduced, and SMS text messaging started the following year. Thus though a much larger portion of the population didn't own one at the time, cell phones were already a thing for this past guy's known technology, so the differences were all in the many things they could now do besides simple phone calls, not the range (though I guess a much smaller portion of places are now outside coverage of cell networks, but that's not the important part here.)--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 23:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

When I first read "The robot fighting TV shows mentioned include BattleBots, Robot Wars, and MegaBots, the earliest of which started in 1998", the other day, I was surprised. 1998 seemed a little late. But the wikilinks said 1998 for Robot Wars, so... ...however, I've ''just'' found (without looking for it, or even knowing I still had it to find!) a VHS tape in the back of a cupboard labelled "American Robot Wars Final 1996 [Highlights - Approx. 8 Minutes]", which seems to be a highlight video I will have received as a member of the Robot Wars club (here in the UK) with an order form to buy the full-length video (£12.99, +65p P&Pfor club members), which definitely tallies more with my memories of watching RW (and joining their club) a handful of years earlier.. Now.. ..where do I have a working VHS player? Anyway, FYI. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.105|162.158.158.105]] 17:11, 1 July 2021 (UTC) - Addendum: ''Also'' there was another similarly packaged video nearby called "[The] History Of The Third Wars (18 Mins)" with slip "With compliments from the House Robots" and cartoon depictions of Matilda and ¿Sgt Bash?, so probably pushes it back even closer to my recollections of when it all kicked off. Also suggests I should have a good tidy up.

Wikipedia confirms it, it really was before 1998 (look at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Wars_(TV_series) this article], section «History»: it says Marc Thorpe created Robot Wars and held the first competition in 1994.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.238.35|172.68.238.35]] 12:47, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2481: 1991 and 2021

2022-05-25T12:47:54Z

172.68.238.35:

It's 7:12p and I'm on android at m.xkcd.com . There is no alt text, and the "see also" link directs back to the same page. The comic is fun though, people will be thinking about time travel as technology takes off. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.179|162.158.62.179]] 23:14, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

:There is no title-text on firefox on PC either. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.59|162.158.79.59]] 23:16, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
::The title text is botched. Instead the comic is wrapped in an <code>a</code> (hyperlink) element: <code><a href=""Oh, and our computers all have cameras now, which is nice during the pandemic lockdowns." "The WHAT.""></code>. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.152|141.101.98.152]] 23:24, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
:::I reckon the backend interface for posting a comic must have a field for the title text and a field for the "see also" link, and someone put the text in the wrong field. Easy mistake to make, hopefully fixed soon. -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 02:33, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't the federal no lasers pointed at airplanes law was in acted to prevent laser guided missile attacks against airlines? Not laser attacks in general? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.136|172.68.129.136]] 01:24, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:Sure, someone may have suggested that, but the truth is that anyone who has access to guided missiles (IE state-level actors and military forces) isn't going to be bound by federal law anyway [[User:Defaultdotxbe|Defaultdotxbe]] ([[User talk:Defaultdotxbe|talk]]) 02:37, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
::My thoughts too. At first I took it as White Hat thinking that there were military attacks with lasers capable of shooting down planes… but a federal law against that would, as you say, not be heeded by those doing such things. On reflection I decided that White Hat is envisioning that ordinary citizens have laser guns and have taken to shooting them at planes, the way road signs get shot at by ordinary guns in reality. -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 02:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:In short, '''no'''. 18 USC §39A, the federal law criminalizing the pointing of laser pointers at airplanes, was not enacted to prevent missile attacks against airlines. It was enacted to help combat kids (and others) causing real injury to airline personnel in what they thought were harmless pranks (they're not harmless). [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 03:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
::Yeah, having and trying to use anti-aircraft guided missiles was already plenty illegal without there needing to be a new law about the laser guidance part. In any case, the other guy is misunderstanding the implications of the situation with how it's described, whether or not he thought through that whatever means are being used it should already be illegal to shoot down airplanes.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 23:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

It's interesting that Mr. 2021 summarizes the entire Internet/World Wide Web with "it's really easy to send news stories to your friends". The Internet certainly existed in 1991, but the advancement in that area over 30 years is pretty significant. I'm not sure how I would sum that up to someone from 30 years ago in a single comic panel, but I think it would come out differently than what we see here. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 03:57, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:I saw the ratio of advertisements with www.foo.com in it rise only at the end of the 90s which was when the Internet started to get mainstream adoption. Before Google, it was not so easy to find relevant content with Altavista and friends. [[User:Bmwiedemann|Bmwiedemann]] ([[User talk:Bmwiedemann|talk]]) 20:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
::Don't confuse the Internet with the Web, though. With searchable access to alt.your.fetish.or.hobby on a usenet feed, a curated FAQ (or general conversation) could make you aware of ftp.hobbyfetish.org.au, or whatever wherewithall you needed to telnet directly to the FetishHobbyBBS. Or vice-versa if you'd started on a FIDONet connection. (Then there was the AOL Keyword approach, where you had such an ISP with such a USP and an acceptably obvious hobby/fetish.) Before Tim Berners-Lee (and whoever did Gopher, etc), plus the time needed to get into your prefered era of AskVistaGoogleDuck, the connectivity was there - just a little less automated and only ''hugely'' beyond a single person actually knowing everything they could connect to, rather than totally mind-blowingly so... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.105|162.158.158.105]] 00:05, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
:::Also, Google never offered great improvement over the ease of search on AltaVista; Google's "improved" search rankings were a result of other user's click-thrus & promotion, notably ''not'' any enhancement of the existing search terms. As a result, Google made it easier to find the sites most commonly accessed through its search gateway, while pushing obscure resources toward the bottom of any search results. After establishing market dominance in web searches, Google then phased out adherence to strict search terms, making it noticeably ''harder'' to find any sites their algorithms do not promote. (They also bought YouTube & then removed a great deal of the independently produced videos which had made the site popular, when "content controls" & the first implementation of their overzealous automated filtering, were brought online.) Google has always been more about promotion than accurate search, & it's reflected in the way they've consistently absorbed new technologies only to shutter them in favor of newer, less functionally-complete projects, which superficially offer more appearance of novelty. Google is to telecommunication today, as General Motors was to transportation in the '00s: An industry giant hindering meaningful innovation by marketing old as new, new as exclusive, & restricted as improved. Rather similar to Apple & MS, actually? (The extent to which ''"free thing that worked fine if you knew how"'' becomes ''"more limited but monetized thing deprecated by another monetized thing until none of them offer what you came for anymore"'', is truly astounding to me. Feels like telecom was better in '05, for anyone who doesn't want to spend hundreds a month in '21.) '''Google deserves credit for innovating search in the same way Apple deserves credit for innovating smartphones: ''They don't.''''' Neither company is great at ''innovating''; they are great at ''marketing'' old as new.
:::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
::::Au contraire, PageRank was a ''huge'' advance on the other search engines extant at the time, and the secret sauce in it is ''not'' "click-thrus & promotion." Google won me away from Metacrawler because results from Google alone were as good and better than Metacrawler, which aggregated several other engines (Altavista, Webcrawler, Yahoo, Lycos, Hotbot), and as their patent filing shows, the secret sauce is transitive link-as-endorsement. It's true that they use click-thru rates and other techniques to improve on that, it's true that they don't do exact-keyword searches anymore, and it's true that their main business is advertising and they show promoted results along with purely algorithmic ones. I'm pretty much in agreement with your critique of their present-day business practices. But you've got their early days all wrong. (And for that matter: Apple ''was'' the first company to put the phone, internet, GPS, camera, and music player into the same gadget.)
::::[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.162|162.158.107.162]] 18:34, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

It's not so much the range of cordless phones that is of significant change, but the computing power inside the phone that made the most advancement since 1991. Phones at that time could only make phone calls! Texting didn't become available until 1992 and games and everything else we do on them was later. To me "range" means the connection range which improved a lot, but is still not as signficant as "range of use" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:17, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:Does "cordless phones" refer to cellphones? That's the "wireless" industry. Cordless phones are landline phone handsets that don't have a cord connecting them to the wall, and he's talking about the distance they can be from the base station. Mentioning these is a joke because so many people have cut the cord entirely, abandoning their landlines in favor of just using cellphones. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 12:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:A cordless phone will lose signal if you walk 20 feet outside of your house, giving it "limited range" compared to a cell phone. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 22:16, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
:That's what I wondered too. I would assume the comic is referring to cordless phones in the sense of landline phone handsets, not cellphones, if just because the coverage range of these phones '''has''' increased, whereas the opposite is true for cellphones. With 2G, you can get coverage up to 35km from the base station, whereas with 4G this is reduced to about 16km. There is effectively more cellphone coverage nowadays because there are more base stations, not because the coverage works at longer range. [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 02:28, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
::I agree, & the assertion that ''cellphones'' have increased in range since '91 would be amusing, if it weren't so incorrect as to represent harmful disinformation. (Ironic, given the topic...) I have edited the explanation to make the situation clearer, but that paragraph is now overly long & contains several run-on sentences: The explanation would read better if split into coherent sections for each of the four changes Cueball described.
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:56, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
:The computing power inside the phone would definitely sound significant in 1992 ; I suspect it would be comparable to top supercomputers of that time. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
::It indeed seems that we're seeing 100s of GigaFLOPS in both those supercomputers and these smartphones. Possibly more, as I couldn't easily find mobiles from the last half decade referenced in those terms of measure. And, when it does, it refers to the ''GPU'', which makes for a very highly specialised architecture to render (e.g.) game environments via 3D elements, unlike supercomputers that... hmmm, often had a very highly specialised architecture to process (e.g.) weather predictions via 3D elements. ;)
::Still hard to compare (is it easier to efficiently re-task arbitrary GPUs for things like, say, cryptofarming than it would for a weather-service machine to be re-applied to non-weather computing?) and of course other metrics such as data storage have been Moore's Lawed as well, by a combination of higher quantity, lower cost and increased availability (never mind pocket-portability) even before we start to get to near infinite swappable tape-storage now being approximated by virtually unlimited remote cloud storage (which could ultimately and opaquely still be as crude as tape-storage, but probably is disc-farms).
::It would be interesting to go beyond the few brief glances I made at the details and actually with the various conversion factors that relate what we had in the early '90s (when something like a 486 DX2 66Mhz was the height of personal computing power, for me, at least until DX4 100s became available - and a HD 3.5" FDD wasn't always a given...) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.103|141.101.99.103]]

This is the second time Cueball travels from within the Covid-19 pandemic to visit White Hat [[2280]]. Is there any comic where White Hat interacts with pangolins, bats, or China? Even though Cueball is vaccinated by now, he might be a carrier [[User:Ruffy314|Ruffy314]] ([[User talk:Ruffy314|talk]]) 22:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
:That field around Cueball might mean he's not physically here ; maybe it's not possible to transfer matter into past, just information. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
::Black Hat: "Here wear this shirt when you project back."
::Cueball: 'Why? What does it say above that big block of code?'
::Black Hat: "'Reproduce this RNA sequence for a cool surprise!'"
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:56, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with the assertion added by [[Special:Contributions/172.69.35.193|172.69.35.193]] ([[User_talk:172.69.35.193|talk]]):
:'A moment of thought would make it clear that the "laser attack" is unlikely to damage the plane directly, because if it did, no new law would be needed.'
Something being criminal under an existing law does ''not'' mean no new law is needed or will be passed. Maybe the existing penalty wasn't deemed sufficient. Maybe the law had loopholes not foreseen until the new technology appeared. Or maybe Congress just wanted to be seen to be doing something. There are many reasons why new laws can and have been passed to combat (the comic's word) something that's already not legal. Does anyone have thoughts to add? -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 10:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
: I agree, that addition should be removed. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:03, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
:I'd like to add that the law Cueball references is only supposed to "combat" laser attacks, not necessarily outlaw them. I interpret this in the same way that one might outlaw firearms in order to "combat" mass shootings, or legislating TSA checks to "combat" bombings - both of which are already very illegal. So in Whitehats imagination, a law passed to "combat laser attacks on airliners" might be something like background checks on lasgun owners (deemed necessary because of frequent attacks). This law would be (arguagbly) "needed", even though the attacks themselves are already illegal. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.15|162.158.203.15]] 12:25, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

<message deleted; sorry about that>[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 15:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I really think Randall should've made some kind of remark about Sonic getting a fully orchestrated symphony. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.103|141.101.99.103]] 16:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I hope Randall won't be backsliding into another prolonged serious of COVID-19 comics ad nauseum. Just saying.

: Too late!

:Yeah, describing the difference as being the "range on cordless phones" is way off any way you think about it. The first cell phones on the market were in the early 70's, though the first ones were big and heavy, like a suitcase, so people would keep them in a car (thus the term "car phones"), and the first handheld ones were in the 80's. By the time of this, things like this had been on the market for a couple of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC In fact, 1991 was when the first 2G cell network was introduced, and SMS text messaging started the following year. Thus though a much larger portion of the population didn't own one at the time, cell phones were already a thing for this past guy's known technology, so the differences were all in the many things they could now do besides simple phone calls, not the range (though I guess a much smaller portion of places are now outside coverage of cell networks, but that's not the important part here.)--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 23:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

When I first read "The robot fighting TV shows mentioned include BattleBots, Robot Wars, and MegaBots, the earliest of which started in 1998", the other day, I was surprised. 1998 seemed a little late. But the wikilinks said 1998 for Robot Wars, so... ...however, I've ''just'' found (without looking for it, or even knowing I still had it to find!) a VHS tape in the back of a cupboard labelled "American Robot Wars Final 1996 [Highlights - Approx. 8 Minutes]", which seems to be a highlight video I will have received as a member of the Robot Wars club (here in the UK) with an order form to buy the full-length video (£12.99, +65p P&Pfor club members), which definitely tallies more with my memories of watching RW (and joining their club) a handful of years earlier.. Now.. ..where do I have a working VHS player? Anyway, FYI. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.105|162.158.158.105]] 17:11, 1 July 2021 (UTC) - Addendum: ''Also'' there was another similarly packaged video nearby called "[The] History Of The Third Wars (18 Mins)" with slip "With compliments from the House Robots" and cartoon depictions of Matilda and ¿Sgt Bash?, so probably pushes it back even closer to my recollections of when it all kicked off. Also suggests I should have a good tidy up.

Wikipedia confirms it, it really was before 1998 (look at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Wars_(TV_series)| this article], section «History»: it says Marc Thorpe created Robot Wars and held the first competition in 1994.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.238.35|172.68.238.35]] 12:47, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:1904: Research Risks

2022-05-03T17:20:01Z

172.68.238.35:

Entymology? Misspelled "entomology" or (more confusingly) "etymology"?
Psychology lower risk than micology? Absolutely hogwash!
:The comic has been updated, so it was just a typo. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.35|141.101.99.35]] 16:05, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
:How do I update picture. Last update always matches first upload for whatever reason --[[User:Trimutius|Trimutius]] ([[User talk:Trimutius|talk]]) 17:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Molasses storage is misplaced -- should be in the quadrant to its right. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood]. 21 dead and 150 injured. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.52|108.162.219.52]] 14:12, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed that it did get out and kill people. But only once in something like 200 years and only a few. (Is this where the phrase slower than molasses in January comes from?)
I would not expect that this would be a common danger. (unsigned)

Ah, but there was another [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu_molasses_spill|spill in 2013 in Honolulu]. (I just learned of it from the "See Also" section of the Wikipedia page on the Great Molasses Flood.) That one didn't kill any people (though it was an ecological disaster) but it speaks to risk. Anyway, the item ''is'' in the right quadrant. Arguably is should be further to the right, but also arguably not, since conducting experiments in the area could lead to more accidents.[[User:Jqavins|Jqavins]] ([[User talk:Jqavins|talk]]) 16:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
:Only, even assuming there's such a thing as molasses storage research, it's unlikely that your lab is going to contain life-threatening quantities of molasses. It's not as if a few liters escaping could reproduce and turn into thousands of tons. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.35|141.101.99.35]] 16:27, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
:: Personally, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't research into the optimum large-scale storage of foodstuffs, given the potential high-value losses that could occur. Perhaps there might be something [https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-stored-products-research here] on it?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 16:30, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Plus how many times have robots escaped from a lab in real life? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.70|172.68.78.70]] 12:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I think entymology is a reference to [https://xkcd.com/1012 1012]
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.95|162.158.91.95]] 14:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the title text may have a somewhat humorous naming scheme derived from the Great Molasses Flood Wikipedia discussion page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Molasses_Flood
There's a lengthy discussion about changing the name from "Boston Molasses Disaster" to "Great Molasses Flood". I noticed that Randall used both approaches to describing the events in the title text, but maybe that was a coincidence.

I am not impressed. Movie supervillains often use paleontology (dinosaurs), geology (volcano/earthquake) and astronomy (comets). Also, there is a tendency to pair marine biology with laser-optics. And, to actually dominate the world, a real-life villain will probably need to use cunning linguistics at some level or the other. --[[User:Nialpxe|Nialpxe]], 2017. [[User_talk:Nialpxe|(Arguments welcome)]]
:I had the same initial reaction, but note how Randall didn't write "movie supervillain", but just "supervillain", so you should only take into account what is currently feasible in technology state-of-the-art, or what we can reasonably foresee for the next decade or so. I don't see any madman being able to revive (and control!) dinosaurs, capture a comet or trigger an earthquake in the next 10-20 years. As for shark-mounted lasers, they are cool to show off and inspire fear, but hardly useful to achieve world domination by themselves. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.35|141.101.99.35]] 16:18, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
::When we get into the realm of supervillainy - especially given XKCD's history - we're almost certainly talking fiction. And if we're talking fiction, Randall's forgotten about ''Moonraker'', where astronomy and dentistry both play a significant role in the supervillain's plot, and should thus rate higher on the vertical scale. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.16|172.68.78.16]] 02:42, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
::Comets? What about black holes at relativistic speeds? Although those tend to be hard to see ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:39, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
::I think it's safe to assume that most supervillains have read [[1883]] are not going to use geology in that way. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.10|172.68.54.10]] 07:30, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Looks like the "Research Risk" column is just a comment field open for speculation -- can we merge Comments and Research Risk into one column? [[User:Spongebog|Spongebob]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 03:34, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
: I'd suggest it'd be better to have one column for the supervillain risk factors, and one for the escaped research risk factors.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 08:47, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
:: I'd suggest that it would be interesting to have a few examples (movies/TV/real) listed beneath a sentence or two in each of those columns. --[[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 13:38, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Interestingly, I referenced the Great Molasses Flood in a tangential comment to comic 1900 - is Randall now browsing this site to find inspiration for new comics? ;o) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 08:53, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I feel like the linguistics section is missing an opportunity for a Snow Crash joke...[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.29|141.101.99.29]] 10:38, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Surely the risk of escape from Linguistics should be high - language is inherently hard to contain and control, and often ends up infecting the world with dangerous rubbish like 'solutioning synergistic opportunities going forward'.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 11:34, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

"Fungi cannot move..." - tell that to {{w|Toad_(Nintendo)|this guy}}.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 11:43, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

If ''Marathon Man'' is anything to judge by, dentistry can be used by a superillain in his bid to take over the world... just not to actually conquer the world. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.56|162.158.155.56]] 14:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

What about prosthetic robotic dentistry? I refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattery_Teeth_(short_story)
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.87|162.158.69.87]] 15:05, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
: What about prosthetic robotic dentistry on insects? That would be truly terrifying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 16:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I found my Ph.D. work about lanthanide organometallics to be rather unyieldy for supervillainry...and that's why I'm studying computer science now :-) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.178|141.101.76.178]] 16:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Geology rates low for risk of studied object to break free and threaten local population!? Did Randall miss the high tension around Norways [https://www.thelocal.no/20171018/norways-mannen-landslide-postponed-until-next-year 'the man']? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.182.154|162.158.182.154]] 17:50, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Paleontology? Are velociraptors breaking free not a big deal?

The comments for Botany should probably include reference to the supervillain Poison Ivy

[[Special:Contributions/172.68.238.35|172.68.238.35]] 17:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)Dentistry should be higher up on used by villain since some villains weaponize their teeth ([https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/6/69/Anjero_eat_dog.png/revision/latest?cb=20160402052326 Anjuro Katagiri] for example), especially if its sharp.