explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

647: Scary

2020-01-23T18:08:20Z

172.68.34.172: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 647
| date = October 9, 2009
| title = Scary
| image = scary.png
| titletext = I'm teaching every 8-year-old relative to say this, and every 14-year-old to do the same thing with Toy Story. Also, Pokemon hit the US over a decade ago and kids born after Aladdin came out will turn 18 next year.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Rob]] is telling his eight-year-old nephew a ghost story, employing such clichéd devices as a flashlight-lit face and stock ghost story endings. The boy is unimpressed, so Rob challenges him to come up with a scarier ghost story. Rob's nephew merely states that he was born after {{w|9/11}}, and yet he is already mentally developed enough to hold a conversation with an adult. This proves effective, as in the final panel Rob assumes the fetal position, gripped by existential dread.

No hidden meaning here, but this sure is scary for many adults. What's being implied here is that time seems to be moving really quickly and we're getting older faster than we think. Events that seem like they "just happened" have happened long enough ago for a whole other person to come into existence, grow up, and learn to carry on a conversation. Every time we get reminded of this fact, it can be scary, as you then realize that you are now closer to your death...

9/11 was a terrorist attack in the United States in 2001, on September 11th. Major events such as the assassination of {{w|Assassination of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy}}, the Moon Landing of {{w|Apollo 11}} or 9/11 are easily memorable. It is often said that "everyone remembers where they were when they first heard...". In consequence, these events act as milestones in our memory. They are recalled more vividly, and seem more recent. Today this is maybe also topping the {{w|Attack on Pearl Harbor}} which happened in 1941.

The title text mentions that [[Randall]] is teaching his 8 year old relatives to say the same as in the comic — presumably to the annoyance of his older relatives who will be reminded of the fast passage of time. He does not stop here, but teaches the 14 year old's to say they are born after {{w|Toy Story}} — a major block buster hit from {{w|Pixar}} which came out in 1995. A movie many people will remember fondly and feel just came out the other day... He continues with these scary thoughts by mentioning that {{w|Pokémon}} (1996) came out over a decade ago and that kids born after the big {{w|Disney}} hit movie {{w|Aladdin_(1992_Disney_film)|Aladdin}} from 1992 will turn 18 next year (i.e. in 2010 a year after this comic was published).

[[Randall]] has both before and after this comic tried to [[:Category:Comics_to_make_one_feel_old|make people feel old]] several times.

==Transcript==
:[Rob and his nephew (also drawn like a Cueball, but smaller) are sitting on the ground facing each other. Rob is holding a flash-light up to his face and leans back on the other arm, while crossing his legs. The nephew is sitting forward resting one arm on his lifted knees and leaning back on his other arm.]
:Rob: But they ''never found the ghost's head!''
:Nephew: Lame story, Uncle Rob.
:Rob: And you could do scarier?
:Nephew: Sure.

:[Rob has removed the flash-light from his face and the nephew leans more back and has shifted a leg down so only one knee supports the arm which are now more straight.]
:Rob: Try me.
:Nephew: 9/11 happened before I was born, yet I'm old enough to have this conversation with you.

:[Rob has dropped the flash-light. The nephew has taken the other arm down on the ground. Beat panel.]

:[Rob has curled his legs up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them while the nephew relaxes eve more,]

==Trivia==
*Since 2017-11-05, the time between 9/11 and this comic has been smaller than the time between this comic and the present.
*Since 2019-09-11, some babies born after 9/11 are old enough to vote

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] 
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]] 
[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]

2251: Alignment Chart Alignment Chart

2020-01-07T16:29:15Z

172.68.34.172: /* Explanation */ Fleshing out how exactly the vowel chart is "chaotic". Linguists fight over the right way to write a vowel all the time, and if often comes down to speaker intuition.

{{comic
| number = 2251
| date = January 6, 2020
| title = Alignment Chart Alignment Chart
| image = alignment_chart_alignment_chart.png
| titletext = I would describe my personal alignment as "lawful heterozygous silty liquid."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a [[User:DgbrtBOT|TRUE NEUTRAL BOT template]]. Needs explanations of each alignment chart, and probably some editing for clarity.}}

"Alignment" and "alignment charts" come from the the tabletop game ''{{w|Dungeons & Dragons}}''. Every character has an {{w|Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons)|alignment}}, which very roughly identifies their tendencies. The most widely used alignment system was introduced in the ''{{w|Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set}}'' in 1977 and has been reused in many (but not all) subsequent editions of the game. This system uses two perpendicular axes, each divided into three levels (for a total of nine categories). The two axes are:
* Lawful/neutral/chaotic: this axis says whether a character is strongly devoted to, indifferent about, or categorically opposed to following established rules.
* Good/neutral/evil: this axis says whether a character is generally inclined to commit good deeds or evil deeds.

In this system, the "lawful" attribute is independent from the "good" attribute. Lawful alignment means that a character is committed to a set of rules, which can refer to actual established laws, or to something like a rigid personal code, a set of traditions, or a chain of command, while a chaotic alignment means that a character has no interest in those, and may actively oppose them. The good vs evil scale is generally based on a character's concern for the lives and well-being of others, a good character will actively seek to help others and prevent harm, while an evil character will have no such concern and may actively harm others. Being 'good' is assumed to be independent of being 'lawful'. For example, a character who actively breaks laws to help those who are unjustly imprisoned or oppressed would be be considered to be "chaotic good". In both cases, a neutral alignment can indicate a character's indifference to a concept, or that their commitment is conditional, or that they consciously seek to balance both sides. A character with the "neutral neutral" alignment is called a true neutral.

An alignment chart is a grid that divides the alignments, usually for the purpose of putting descriptions or particular characters on it. Alignment charts are frequently used as a [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mcdonalds-alignment-chart meme template], where humorous or absurdist things are organized into different alignments. In addition to the "classic" Dungeons and Dragons alignment chart, there are a number of variant alignment charts in use as meme templates. Many keep the three-by-three grid structure but replace the lawful-neutral-chaotic and good-neutral-evil axes with descriptions.

This comic claims to be a meta-alignment chart, where nine "alignment charts" are themselves sorted into the nine Dungeons and Dragons alignments, following the use of alignment charts to humorously classify abstract concepts. However, these "alignment charts" are mostly diagrams used in academic classifications, which are being treated as if they were blank meme templates. There are two levels of absurdity here: first, the idea of using these diagrams to classify things they were never intended for, and second, the conflation of chaos as a physics concept and an assigned moral weights as it applies to each of these classification systems.

The title text describes Randall's alignment as "lawful heterozygous silty liquid" which references the true neutral, neutral good, lawful good, and lawful neutral charts in the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart. Lawful is the left side of an alignment chart, heterozygous is the top right or bottom left of a Punnet Square, silty is the bottom right of a soil chart, and liquid is the top right of a phase diagram. As such, the title test describes Randall's alignment as between Lawful Neutral and Neutral Good on this chart.

{| class="wikitable"
!Alignment
!Chart
!Explanation
|-
|Lawful Good
|{{w|Soil texture|Soil chart}}
|This chart shows the USDA classification of soil types by their relative proportions of sand, clay and silt. The chart is a ternary diagram (very common in geology), so soils with more clay plot towards the upper corner, soils with more sand to the bottom left, and soils with more silt to the bottom right. This chart has been used humorously as an alignment chart ([https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/8wakd4/anakin_soil_reference_chart/ for example]) and may have been the inspiration for Randall to use scientific diagrams as alignment charts. In addition to being Lawful Good, this grid cell is also the upper left cell of the chart and will be read first, making it a good place to put this chart as a "jumping off point".
|-
|Neutral Good
|{{w|Punnett square}}
| Punnet squares are a visual method of determining what traits an organism might have based on the traits of the organism's parents. It relies on the principle that a trait is either dominant (indicated with capital letters) or recessive (indicated with lowercase letters). The exact combination of dominant or recessive genes that a child organism receives from their parents determines their traits. It is important to understand the terms "heterozygous", "homozygous" …” These refer to the pairs of alleles in an organism’s genotype, indicating mixed or same alleles, respectively. Randall later uses “heterozygous” in the title text. Note that it is possible for a phenotype to be expressed the same between some heterozygotes and homozygotes, e.g., persons with genotypes heterozygous ”Aa” and homozygous “AA” will both express blood type A.
Therefore, the Punnett Square is a good chart because it is both a simple and true geometric predictor of inheritance, but it tends to neutral because of complicating factors such as polygenic inheritance; these and other factors will cause genotypic frequency to deviate from expected 1:2:1 patterns.
|
|-
|Chaotic Good
|{{w|IPA vowel chart with audio|IPA vowel chart }}
|This chart shows the relationship between different vowels according to the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}}. The position of the vowel on the chart serves roughly as an indicator of the position of the tongue in the mouth of the speaker. As different vowel sounds are created by changes in different parts of the mouth, including lip roundness which is expressed in the chart implicitly as an invisible third dimension, vowel identification is qualitative and often up to interpretation, and vowel expression can change dramatically from region to region or even person to person within the same language, the categories described by the chart might be considered chaotic.
|-
|Lawful Neutral
|Phase diagram
|A {{w|phase diagram}} shows the equilibrium phases of matter present for a particular temperature, pressure, and composition. The diagram included is a unary phase diagram of a typical material that has a solid, liquid, and gas phase depending on the temperature and pressure for a fixed composition. Phase diagrams are useful for understanding how a material may change as its conditions change. For example, the air pressure of Mars is such that there is no temperature at which liquid water can exist in equilibrium. Water exists as ice until the temperature reaches a point where it sublimates directly into steam.

Phase diagrams follow the laws of thermodynamics and concern themselves with the order in which things ''should'' be, so they are inherently lawful.
|-
|True Neutral
|Alignment chart
|All alignment charts are neutral unless humans contaminate them.
|-
|Chaotic Neutral
|CIE chromaticity diagram
|The {{w|chromaticity}} diagram is a chart of colors. Visible colors form a shape like a triangle with two bulging sides in the diagram. The curved line within the diagram shows the chromaticities of {{w|Black body|black bodies}} over a range of color temperatures. The chromaticity diagram shows colors independent of luminance.
The chart is not a simple geometric shape, so it is labeled as chaotic. Points on the diagram can be specified as combinations of three underlying iluminants (the colors of which may not all be visible). It can also be described in polar form with angle and radial distance from some central point, where the maximum radial distance depends on the angle.
|
|-
|Lawful Evil
|Political compass
|Political Compass [https://www.politicalcompass.org/] separates ideas about governance into economic and social political thought. For example, Gandhi and Stalin supposedly both had similar economic perspectives (collectivist) but radically different social perspectives (libertarian vs authoritarian).

As politics is how laws are made, this is inherently lawful. Attempting to represent all politics in terms of two very general axes is a gross oversimplification, which is likely why it is listed as evil.

Like the USDA soil chart, the political compass has actually been [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/political-compass used as an alignment chart], largely to mock the original political compass chart.
|-
|Neutral Evil
|{{w|QAPF diagram|QAPF rock diagram}}
|This diagram is used to classify coarse-grained felsic (low magnesium and iron) igneous rocks by the relative volumes of the minerals quartz, alkali feldspars, plagioclase feldspars, and feldspathoids in the rock. It consists of two ternary diagrams - quartz and feldspathoid minerals cannot coexist (they will react to form feldspars) so only three of these components will be in any given rock. Rocks in the upper triangle of the diagram contain quartz, with rocks with more quartz plotting closer to the top, while rocks in the lower triangle contain feldspathoids, with rocks with more feldspathoids plotting lower. Rocks closer to the left corner of the diagram contain more alkali feldspar and rocks closer to the right corner contain more plagioclase feldspar. The field on the diagram for granite is labeled in the comic, but each area outlined on the diagram has it's own rock name (monzonite, syenite, granodiorite, etc.). All the rocks that the QAPF diagram is used to classify look superficially like granite, but their chemistry, mineralogy, and origin differ.
The QAPF diagram and the names of the more obscure rock types on it can be somewhat arcane, which may be why it is considered evil here.
|-
|Chaotic Evil
|Omnispace classifier
|The other eight diagrams shown in this comic, squished together into one, with the shapes of the diagrams corresponding to those of the originals. The diagram is labeled chaotic, since it does not have a simple geometrical shape. Probably self-referential humour, in that the diagram created for this comic is considered to be chaotically evil.
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Talk:173: Movie Seating

2020-01-04T20:11:53Z

172.68.34.172: A naive solution?

I think that "two friends ... each sitting three seats away" takes "they" a little too literally. [[User:Daddy|Daddy]] ([[User talk:Daddy|talk]]) 06:17, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Look at it like this. Placing them _friends_ apart guarantees lower background noise so you can actually watch the movie. {{unsigned ip|108.162.231.227}}

Truthfully, I feel one-way crush should be second priority 05:09, 14 November 2015 (UTC) Lonely...

I know I'm horrifically late on this one, but surely swapping 4 and 7 is the solution which minimizes strangers in "Do not keep 8 away from 6".
There is currently no path from 8 to 4. Swapping 4 and 7 downgrades the link to 5 to an Acquaintance from Friendship, but offers a viable path between all members. Unless we're intentionally forcing 8 to talk to 6? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.99.64|162.158.99.64]] 08:20, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

The solutions are making assumptions about the weighting of friends, relationships, and acquaintances. For example, maybe someone in a relationship would achieve maximum enjoyment if the SO is seated next to a stranger so all focus is on them. {{unsigned|Flewk}}

If we take the "keep 8 away" solution and put 8 in middle of 6 and 3, wouldn't the result be strictly superior to the "do not keep 8 away" one? It'd have the same number of adjacent relationships, but 6 would be seated next to a friend instead of an aquaintance, which is better. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.82|141.101.104.82]] 16:38, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

8 doesn't know 1 or 5, so "keep 8 away" solution is bad. He would be alone then. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.58|162.158.238.58]] 15:44, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe it's best to separate the couples so that no one has to be the third wheel. I propose [1,3,4,5,7,8,6,2]. Now, it might be unfair to #1, since his only connection is his girlfriend, so [3,4,5,7,8,6,2,1] works as well. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.226.124|198.41.226.124]] 19:52, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Bit of a naive solution, here. But if we assume the acquaintance is the weakest/least important of the relationships, we can just flatten the graph as if they were not there. So 8,6,1,2,3,4,7,5 (or 8,6,2,1,3,4,7,5 depending on who 1 would like to sit with more: 3 or 6)
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.172|172.68.34.172]] 20:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

In most movie theaters here in Atlanta, seats are indeed reserved. To deal with the declining profit margins and way that seating for anything but new blockbusters tends to be half empty, the theaters have replaced the small, uncomfortable festival seating with a small number of assigned recliners. I kid you not. It makes the high ticket prices seem more worthwhile. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 04:16, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

2218: Wardrobe

2019-10-21T23:36:46Z

172.68.34.172: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2218
| date = October 21, 2019
| title = Wardrobe
| image = wardrobe.png
| titletext = If you'd just agree to hold your meetings in here, you'd have PLENTY of time to figure things out before the deadline.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MAGIC WARDROBE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic references ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}'', a series of fictional books by {{w|C.S. Lewis}} (later {{w|The Chronicles of Narnia (film series)|made into movies}}) about some children from England who adventure to a hidden land, Narnia. In the first book of the series (by publish date), ''{{w|The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe}}'', Narnia is accessible via the back of a wardrobe. {{w|Mr. Tumnus}} is a {{w|faun}} in Narnia who accompanies the children on some of their adventures, and [[Megan]] goes into Narnia via the wardrobe to consult with him on a pressing question.

The question has to do with membership in the {{w|European Union}}. The United Kingdom, a member of the E.U. at the time of this comic, voted in 2016 to exit the E.U. (a process called {{w|Brexit}}), but working out the details of this separation has proven quite problematic. One of the major issues has been the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; both are on (and make up) the island of Ireland, but Northern Ireland is part of the U.K. while Ireland is a separate country that will remain part of the E.U. If/when the U.K. exits the E.U., it will have different customs regulations than the Republic of Ireland, and there will need to be some kind of customs border, probably either between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, or between the island of Ireland and the island of Great Britain (which has England, Scotland, and Wales). The former would necessitate customs checks on the island of Ireland between the two parts of it, creating a barrier on that island unacceptable to many who live there, while the latter would separate Northern Ireland to some extent from the rest of Great Britain, which is unacceptable to many citizens of both Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Resolving this issue has been a major sticking point in the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

The portal in the wardrobe represents ''another'' border of England, namely the border between England and Narnia. This 'border', of course, exists only in fiction, but the joke here is that it must be dealt with in the Brexit negotiations, further complicating an already messy situation. Cueball suggests solving the situation by simply locking the wardrobe (which was never very accessible, even in ''The Chronicles of Narnia''), effectively isolating England from Narnia and making the border problem moot.

The title text references the amount of time it has taken to complete the Brexit negotiations, currently three-plus years and counting. The negotiators have set a series of deadlines to complete the negotiations, but have repeatedly had to extend those deadlines because they haven't reached any agreement. The current deadline is Oct. 31, 2019, a little over a week after this comic was published, but [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/19/eu-says-britain-has-requested-an-extension-of-brexit-deadline-after-uk-lawmakers-delay-vote.html that deadline too will probably be extended]. In the Chronicles of Narnia, time moves inconsistently in Narnia. Usually passing quicker in Narnia than on Earth. The Pevensie siblings enter the wardrobe as children, have extensive adventures in Narnia lasting many years, and then return to the real world to find that they are children again and that only a few hours have passed. The suggestion here is that holding the slow Brexit negotiations in Narnia would take relatively little time in the real world, and the whole affair could be completed much more quickly, in time for the deadline.

Megan addresses an individual by the name of Tumnus when she enters Narnia; Mr. Tumnus was the faun whom the Pevensie siblings met, but they traveled to Narnia during World War II, which would mean that many lifetimes would have passed in Narnia between then and now. Perhaps this Tumnus is a descendant of that faun, or perhaps the relative pace of time varies for the sake of plot convenience.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan entering a wardrobe, while Cueball stands outside.]
:Megan: I'll go ask.
:Megan: You wait here.

:[Cueball stands outside the wardrobe.]

:[Cueball stands outside the wardrobe, and voices can be heard from inside the wardrobe.]
:Tumnus: Halt! Who goes there?
:Megan: Hey Tumnus. Quick question.
:Tumnus: Yes?

:[Cueball walks away from the wardrobe, towards the right of the panel. Voices can be heard from inside the wardrobe.]
:Megan: Is Narnia in the E.U.?
:Tumnus: Yes, we joined after you did.
:Megan: Oh great, ''another'' border to deal with.
:Cueball (from outside the wardrobe): I'll go find a lock for the door.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Chronicles of Narnia]]

Talk:2184: Unpopular Opinions

2019-09-12T20:27:02Z

172.68.34.172:

I wonder if it has to be below 50% with critic score, audience score, or both? [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 17:36, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
:Genisys has an Audience Score of 53%, so I think it has to be critic score (Tomatometer). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.124|108.162.241.124]] 21:42, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
::Critics and audiences are really two distinct groups. So to be "apples to apples", I'd think it would have to be a movie with an Audience score below 50. Disagreeing with something critics hated isn't that rare among the general audience. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.18|162.158.106.18]] 04:46, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
::The whole idea of the challenge doesn't make sense if the movie is "only" hated by a handful of random critics. As Randall points out, it is easier to hate a movie that everyone loves, so that is also true for critics. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.46|172.69.55.46]] 18:41, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
::I have to agree that basing it on the critic reviews only doesn't make much sense. I can find dozens of movies I like that are rated rotten by the critics, but nearly all of them got good audience reviews (Bright, Constentine, Super Troopers, K-Pax, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, etc). I can only find one that I like that that scores under 50% with both groups, Southland Tales, and even I'll admit it has many flaws. I suspect Randal Monroe was looking at movies that were rated "Rotten" by both groups (green icon and <60%), vs "fresh" (red icon > 60%). But the rules were already a bit too lengthy to spell it out explicitly. [[user]][[User:Whereisspike|Whereisspike]] ([[User talk:Whereisspike|talk]]) 21:42, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/dvd-streaming-all?minTomato=0&maxTomato=49&services=amazon;hbo_go;itunes;netflix_iw;vudu;amazon_prime;fandango_now&genres=1;2;4;5;6;8;9;10;11;13;18;14&sortBy=tomato Movies] on DVD or streaming, tomatometer 49% down to 0%.

Plenty of Twilight fans will raise their hands - it is rated 49% --[[User:Thomcat|Thomcat]] ([[User talk:Thomcat|talk]]) 18:09, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
:Well, I'm around the typical age of (original) Twilight fans, and none of the movies in the saga came in my adult life. (But they're all below 50%)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.147|162.158.103.147]] 18:27, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I mean, Shaft got a 30% on the Tomatometer and a 94 on the audience score, and I loved it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.22|108.162.241.22]] 18:57, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Do Waterworld, in spite of the fact that it only ticks two of the boxes, count? I really liked that one.
:I also liked Waterworld (44%, 1997) and The Postman (9%, 1995) (both with Kevin Kostner, and sort of the same story). Assuming the definition of adult is 18, they both qualify for the adult part, but not the after 2000 part. I also loved Star Wars Episode I, but sure enough, it's above 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. [[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 17:28, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

:If it didn't come out while you were an adult, then it doesn't count. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:16, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
:My immediate search was also for Water World. Would it also not count when you didn't watch it until after 2000? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.46|172.69.55.46]] 18:35, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't watch enough movies (or know Rotten Tomatoes well enough) to participate in this particular challenge, but it seems like every time I enjoy a video game, it turns out to have a sizeable and vocal hatedom. I seriously can't relate to the caption here. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.165|162.158.107.165]] 20:25, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Batman v. Superman is probably a good answer for a fair number of people-it has a reasonable number of fans (including myself) who liked it, despite its very poor rating (28%) [[User:SirEpp|SirEpp]] ([[User talk:SirEpp|talk]]) 21:05, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
: I went to that movie for finding the plausible reason why Batman who only fights criminal and Superman being too unreal for ever being angry for no reason might have a fight which each other. Got less than I expected, in this aspect. But Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Thor: Ragnarok and Iron Sky are objectively superb films the critics hated. Perhaps with the exception of the relationship between Valerian and Laureline, perhaps, though.[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 17:37, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Not a movie, per se, but I thought season 8 of Game of Thrones was fantastic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.88|162.158.214.88]] 22:23, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Critically panned films that I like include: Crimes of Grindelwald, Passengers, and Warcraft. Critically acclaimed films that I do not like: Avatar and Life of Pi. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.213|173.245.48.213]] 22:47, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
:Oooh, ''Passengers'' is a good one, I'm stealing that. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 01:16, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:I second Crimes of Grindelwald (37 RT), and add Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (48 RT), which I also enjoyed and actually recommend to people. Now these movies aren't "classics" or "great movies", they aren't perfect, but they are effective entertainment, and ''not'' because they "are so bad their good". Grindelwald has many effective scenes and acting, and Valerian is a very effective effort at making a movie out of a comic book that ''feels like a comic book''-- a fact I appreciated. Of course 48 RT is also just under the 50 RT threshold.[[User:Careysub|Careysub]] ([[User talk:Careysub|talk]])
:It's almost like you totally misunderstood the point of the comic. [[User:A74xhx|A74xhx]] ([[User talk:A74xhx|talk]]) 09:00, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
::How so? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.16|172.69.69.16]] 21:00, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Not under 50%, but I'm shocked that "The Secret Life of Walter Smitty" has only 51%... National Treasure has only 46%... I like this game, it is a test in optimism.
:"The Secret Life of Walter '''Mitty'''" deserves a low rating, particularly when compared to the original with Danny Kaye. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.73|162.158.107.73]] 05:31, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Frankly it would be easier to list the movies I like that aren't below 50% on rotten tomatoes. [[User:CJB42|CJB42]] ([[User talk:CJB42|talk]]) 00:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)s

My experience with rotten tomatoes ratings in particular is that they have no clue and I find their ratings useless. The challenge from Randall in this comic is a case in point: the first movie I though to check, “Another Gay Movie” gets a 40% on the tomatometer yet is one of my favorites. Same thing with all the “Eating Out” movies: good comedies that I enjoy, yet Tomatometer scores of 16%, 44%, and 17% for the first three. (And why is “Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds” so much higher ranked than 1 or 3? It’s not that different...)
I think the criteria that Randal assumes (but doesn’t mention) is that the movie has to be a box office hit that appeals to mainstream audiences.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.73|162.158.107.73]] 03:55, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't see why Suicide Squad got trashed. It was light, colourful, had an engaging story, and well made. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.253.209|172.68.253.209]] 04:04, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Sucker Punch. There, I said it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.77|141.101.99.77]] 07:36, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:I definitely came to this discussion thinking of this movie. It's properly interesting, but it's also easy to see why critics and half the audience hate it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.64|162.158.34.64]] 10:03, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

There's a certain type of movie that 'h8ers' will auto-trash before they even come out (especially "Gender-switched version of a classic", like that ''Ghostbusters'', and "Strong female type", like ''Wonder Woman'' - as easy examples of those that some people love to hate, regardless of actual merit). So I recon there'd be good mileage in keeping an eye on (for example) the double-whammy that is the upcoming Female Thor movie. If it doesn't ''actually'' turn out to be so bad that you personally don't like it, I predict that it'll be pre-release troll-sniped down below 50% in "popular" opinion and even if they're not at all right about their guess there'll be a window of opportunity before any counter-viewpoint from actual viewers ups the score again. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.66|141.101.107.66]] 10:21, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:No one hated Wonder Woman. It has 93%, and is arguably the best live action superhero movie that DC has released so far. Ghostbusters was a money grabbing remake that brought nothing new. It COULD have been great with almost no effort, by getting someone to write an original script that built on the things that came before that everyone loves, instead of trying to replace it with an inferior version. The only one to blame is the Hollywood studios that would rather throw money at something that already exists instead of taking a risk on an unknown. Then they add insult to injury and tell everyone that the reason they failed isn't because they made bad decisions, but because ''people don't like seeing women in leading roles'', which is not true in any form. No real people care if the lead is male or female. They care about a good story, good acting, and having a good time watching a movie they paid their money for. [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 17:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

What the heck are all these Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller movies doing at sub-50%? I didn't know people supposedly hated Night at the Museum that much. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.67|172.68.189.67]] 17:13, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to the link I found two: Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I don't consider them like super-good, but I like them. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:09, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to the link I found four: Hancock, Knowing, The Lovely Bones, The Book of Eli.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.28|162.158.150.28]] 11:06, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Immediately: Venom (29%) I like to pretend I like it for the "so bad it's good", but here in anonymous interwebzland, I can admit I just enjoyed it (despite expecting to hate it for the retcon). Does it matter that the RT audience score is 81%? I often find that my enjoyment of a movie is inversely proportional to how much critics didn't, and it seems I'm not alone.[[User:Daemonik|Daemonik]] ([[User talk:Daemonik|talk]]) 09:43, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the point here is that people feel more comfortable disliking something than liking it. It isn't that we don't all have movies that we like that other people hated, it's that many of us are afraid to say it. Also, t's not a movie, but I honestly enjoyed that one episode of ''Stranger Things''. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 04:20, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I admit a weakness for the Roland Emmerich movies ("The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012"). OK the science behind the events is pretty rubbish, but they are decent action movies nonetheless with a few enjoyable twists (like the USA having to beg Mexico to let them emigrate south in TDAT).

I'm shocked no one else has mentioned Jupiter Ascending yet; there was a decent amount of silliness in that movie, but I genuinely found it super compelling, and it deserves better than a 27%. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.90|172.68.65.90]] 16:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

300 got very mediocre reviews (52% on Metacritic), but I'ts absolutely one of my all-time favourite action movies. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.46|172.69.55.46]] 16:04, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Geostorm. Didn't even need the link for that. [[User:Conster|Conster]] ([[User talk:Conster|talk]]) 21:57, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Like another user said, Roland Emmerich movies like TDAT and 2012 are ones I'll always be a sucker for. Also, The Book of Eli (2010) is actually a great movie IMO despite having a 48% on RT. I always put that as a classic. Meet the Fockers (2004) is funny, too.

Side note: Armageddon is a pre-2000 movie (1998), but I think most would agree that it's a classic apocalyptic movie.

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.33|162.158.74.33]] 14:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Also, a reminder that the original Purge movie has a 39% on RT. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.33|162.158.74.33]] 15:00, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

How, by all that is holy, does The Human Centipede get a 49% Tomatometer rating? Give me a win for Mr Popper's Penguins, though. [[User:Observer of the Absurd|Observer of the Absurd]] ([[User talk:Observer of the Absurd|talk]]) 18:48, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
== Post-2000? ==

Anyone have an idea why "post-2000" is a criteria? [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 23:58, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
:Maybe because Rotten Tomatoes was launched close to the end of the 1990s, so post-2000 movies are the only ones that have been reviewed as they came out? Or perhaps it's to limit the scope of "movies that came out in your adult life", since adult life could go back a long way for some people. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 01:16, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:I don't know for certain, but I feel incredibly confident that it's the timing of Rotten Tomatoes, that older movies that came out before the site existed won't be thoroughly / properly covered. Like if you look closely you'll see the 40% rating on this movie comes from only 1 vote. I suspect Randall feels that as of 2000, there was enough activity on the site to provide sufficient coverage. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:40, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:Pre-2000 films, being prior to RT, have the 'benefit'  of studied hindsight. Anybody who bothers to review [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003722_casino_royale the ''original'' Casino Royale], which would be my choice for this if I were allowed, just has far too much baggage to be thinking the same as with something just being appreciated in the context as a new-release. Including me, probably, across the many years since I first saw that film and fell in love with it, despite the obvious and total car-crash of its Development Hell! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.66|141.101.107.66]] 10:21, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:And there's a lot of selection bias in who reviews movies from pre-2000 as anyone who reviews a movie probably only went to that movies page and wrote a review, because they either really like the movie, or really really really hate it.[[User:Whereisspike|Whereisspike]] ([[User talk:Whereisspike|talk]]) 21:56, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
:It's stated in the explanation: it is so that most respondents would choose a movie that they have seen in their adult life and avoid the "childhood nostalgia" bias where you have fond memories of a movie watched as a kid but that you wouldn't enjoy watching as an adult.

I KNOW that there are many, many movies I can apply to this challenge - I often find myself enjoying unpopular movies. Plus, critics suck, they seem to always forget that this is ENTERTAINMENT. A clever movie that is dull as dirt and makes you fall asleep should NOT receive high praise, it fails at the primary function - but I can't think of them in the moment. About a week ago on Facebook I had a memory, a list of facts about Eurotrip, where the article called it a flop, while I loved it, so probably that one. This comic triggered my first ever visit to Rotten Tomatoes, who lists Eurotrip as I think 46%, but much higher for Audience score, so I THINK it counts? What bumps me is that it seems like "Audience Score" would be popular opinion, making Eurotrip actually a Popular movie, which seems like then it wouldn't apply here. ???? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:40, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
:Got one! I love The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Rotten Tomatoes scores it a 17% Tomatometer, 44% Audience score. Dunno why, I found it so cool, so enjoyable! I often wish there was a sequel or even a series. :)[[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Hypothesis: People generally give more positive then negative reviews, and positive reviews also cause more people to watch. The number of watching for something bad is therefor lower, while a good movie is watched so often there is always a critic.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.190|172.69.55.190]] 10:19, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

What the hell is wrong with people who don't like Ghost Rider or Daredevil? — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 19:03, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

My favorite bad movies Wild Wild West, The One, Returner, Equilibrium, The Warrior's Way [[User:Houligan|Houligan]] ([[User talk:Houligan|talk]]) 15:59, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I liked 50 First Dates. But for my really controversial opinion, I'm gonna say not only was Armageddon a terrific movie, but it got enough of the science right to earn our suspension of disbelief :D
--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.245|172.68.142.245]] 21:59, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Is [[653: So Bad It's Worse]] related enough to be mentioned in the explaination or trivia? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 12:16, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I just came here to say, "Pandorum".

How to talk to girls at parties (2018) - [[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.113|172.68.46.113]] 20:49, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Guilty Pleasure: ''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'' - [[User:Acrisius|Acrisius]] ([[User talk:Acrisius|talk]]) 06:54, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Think of a video-game based movie you actually like. It probably fits this. 2001's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 2005's Doom have 47% and 34% audience rating, respectively, and I loved both of those (despite the fact that they had basically nothing to do with the games). A few game-based movies have over 50% audience rating, but even then, only 2-3 ever got above 50% with the critics. Heck, even the Pokemon movies got horrible critic ratings (the second movie came out in 2000, so you'd have to start with the third to adhere to that 'post-2000' rule)...

==My big, late comment==

So my three are
:''50 First Dates'' (I'm a sucker for hopeless romantic-type stuff and the gross out comedy didn't go too far to cancel it out),
:''Bruce Almighty, because Morgan Freeman killed it as God, and
:''Book of Eli, because that twist is awesome on the successive watch, and even on the first if you figure it out early

However, I take issue with a STRICT limitation of "post-2000", and I would just say if you're going to choose one post-2000, it has to be a personal favorite, like personal top-50 or so movie, and for me, those would be
:''Hook'', because Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman did their duty to the script and deserve at least 50% on the tomato meter, no matter what balls the other characters or plot dropped,
:''Robin Hood: Men in Tights'', because the cast, characters, gags, and anachronisms are essentially timeless; from Broomhilda breaking the concrete when the horse dodged her; to Blinkin... idunno, everything Blinkin; to Chapelle's added attitude and flavor; and all the character's breaking the fourth wall... goodness... the critics missed this one
:''Boondock Saints'' - not for everyone, but dang, it's just a really interesting and slightly morbid romp of a story about vigilantes rising up against organized crime, mixing humor in with seriousness in just the right amounts and just about perfect pacing

Ok, so I also think there are a few that really don't deserve the low rating they got, even if they weren't the best or my "favorites" - my rubrick for adding them here was if I thought they deserved at least 30% more on the tomato meter. if they're just s teeny bit low (like 10%) then that's too close to personal taste for me to add as an argument, so...
:I Think ''Crimes of Grindelwald'' shgould have gotten more like a 70%, mostly for the world building they continued from the first movie
:I really liked ''Jumper'' (just not QUITE enough to stick my neck out for the real list above) - really great concept that wasn't ruined by bad acting, even if it wasn't exactly enhanced - should have been more like 50%
:''The Day The Earth Stood Still'' - again, not the best movie in existence, but got a bad rap - just above 50% seems more appropriate to me
:''After Earth'' - far from either of the Smith's best works, but more deserving than 11% for the world and effects
:''Planes'' - maybe the sequel was too much, and of course it's largely a cash grab and targeted at kids, but it was a decent story and the characters were executed wellabove 25% - I'd say it should even be just barely fresh, so 60%
:''Chappie'' - I think it was just really interesting, despite the stretches technologically speaking, giving a window (sort of) into a culture not well represented in the U.S. - basically I think it should be just barely fresh as well

And finally what I'm really glad nobody spoke up about are a few of my pet peeves - movies that deserved a low score and got it, but every once in a while I hear people saying they enjoyed it. I'm just glad nobody prior to this seems to have mentioned: Semi Pro and any of the Transformers travesties. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for that.

Talk:2170: Coordinate Precision

2019-07-03T01:54:49Z

172.68.34.172: peace and inclusion need neither laws nor force

The coordinates seem to show a NASA building, so in the end you're still soing something space related. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.196|172.69.55.196]] 19:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)Some random European.
:The more precise coordinates are actually in the middle of the Rocket Garden at the Visitor's Center of the Kennedy Space Center complex. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:58, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The atom-level coordinates are obtained by appending digits of e and pi to the Rocket Garden coordinates. [[User:Ichoran|Ichoran]] ([[User talk:Ichoran|talk]]) 20:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I always find it very funny to see all those decimals. Regular GPS devices have an uncertainty of 3 meters if there is no interference from trees, buildings or whatever. That puts you at about 4 to 5 decimals I guess. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:A Google Maps webpage URL includes coordinates to seven decimal places. [[User:EmuSam|EmuSam]] ([[User talk:EmuSam|talk]]) 20:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::Sure but out there with your handheld GPS or normal consumer device that includes a GPS receiver you won't get more precision than about 3 meters. And when your at the higher latitudes you're probably not getting that. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

So combining this comic with #2169, is Randal suggesting he'll be at the Rocket Garden on July 28th (much as he did in #240)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 20:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:It says ''June'' 28th. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.22|162.158.126.22]] 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::No, the date of that comic is June 28, but the title text says: [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:51, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:::Ah, that makes sense. For some reason my app only showed the first part of the tirle text --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.94|162.158.126.94]] 23:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::::The COMIC says "June 28th." The TITLE TEXT says "July 28th." Apparently the government computer predictive text was trained from different input. [[User:Mwburden|mwburden]] ([[User talk:Mwburden|talk]]) 15:26, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Regrettably, there are two dimensions missing, Z and T. Without Z (elevation)+/- you could be in space or in a neutrino detector. T is only relevant for dynamic objects, but there again, the Americas are going West at a measurable rate! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 21:30, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The seventh row is likely a reference to comic number 1358 where two stick figures try to find waldo via satellite. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.125|172.69.226.125]] 21:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC) kisara, 21:42, 1 July 2019 (utc)

10^-40 degrees on the surface of the earth translates to about 0.7 planck lengths. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.234|162.158.106.234]] 21:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Do the coordinates 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W really correspond to the tip of the Delta rocket? I checked and it was pointing to a small patch of ground next to the rocket, not the tip of the rocket itself. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:20, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:No, you need to go to five decimal places to get the rocket. In that respect, I think he might be off by one digit of precision in his descriptions. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 12:04, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I would like to mention that neither number seems to fit into a standard double float value. I made a fiddle showing this. [https://dotnetfiddle.net/k7yK0Y#] [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 01:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:Floats are stored base 2, so representing them exactly as decimal often requires many more digits than is actually necessary (for complicated number theory reasons, a float can always be represented exactly as decimal, which would not be true if floats were stored in base 3). For this reason, programming languages that can format floats round them, usually to a number of digits where it will be possible to reconstruct the original float (though C# apparently takes off a couple extra digits, since those digits are almost never significant). To illustrate this, I used Rust to print many more digits of a float than would be shown normally [https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=6796c2459ceabea1a03d7113b676dd8f]. The latitude coordinate in the comic could be the result of printing a double precision float, but the longitude coordinate could not be. Also note that it takes almost 50 digits to reach an exact base 10 representation, even though only 14 or 15 of those digits are actually needed to reconstruct the original float. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 18:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

May be my pet peeve... ...but adding an additional error to every piece of input data [and maybe every intermediate result] in order to show that either the precision the original measurement ends here or that all further digits of the measurement read "0" often introduces an error that can add up surprisingly quickly => I personally prefer raw floats that indicate there probably was no error analysis to rounded data and won't get tired on telling people to explicitely state what precision they can expect.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.70|162.158.114.70]]

If the smallest subnormal 32 bit float is a Planck length, then the largest 32 bit float is 10 sextillion times the diameter of the observable universe. If the value 1.0 of a 64 bit float is a cubic Planck length, then the largest float is 100 sextillion ''googol'' times the volume of the observable universe. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 17:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It'd be neat to have a map that shows the precision of given coordinates; like how Google Maps shows transparent blue circle with a wider radius if it's location detection isn't very precise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.76|172.69.170.76]] 19:10, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Something about the formatting of the table seems to be messing up the main page. Not sure what it is, but it happens just after the '110 km (70 mi)' so might be related to the span. Not a major problem as it's fine on the comic page and the main page will change tomorrow anyway. [[User:A(l)Chemist|AlChemist]] ([[User talk:A(l)Chemist|talk]]) 19:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

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information is people
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.172|172.68.34.172]] 01:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2170: Coordinate Precision

2019-07-03T01:27:04Z

172.68.34.172: You're a person, too.

The coordinates seem to show a NASA building, so in the end you're still soing something space related. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.196|172.69.55.196]] 19:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)Some random European.
:The more precise coordinates are actually in the middle of the Rocket Garden at the Visitor's Center of the Kennedy Space Center complex. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:58, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The atom-level coordinates are obtained by appending digits of e and pi to the Rocket Garden coordinates. [[User:Ichoran|Ichoran]] ([[User talk:Ichoran|talk]]) 20:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I always find it very funny to see all those decimals. Regular GPS devices have an uncertainty of 3 meters if there is no interference from trees, buildings or whatever. That puts you at about 4 to 5 decimals I guess. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:A Google Maps webpage URL includes coordinates to seven decimal places. [[User:EmuSam|EmuSam]] ([[User talk:EmuSam|talk]]) 20:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::Sure but out there with your handheld GPS or normal consumer device that includes a GPS receiver you won't get more precision than about 3 meters. And when your at the higher latitudes you're probably not getting that. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

So combining this comic with #2169, is Randal suggesting he'll be at the Rocket Garden on July 28th (much as he did in #240)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 20:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:It says ''June'' 28th. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.22|162.158.126.22]] 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::No, the date of that comic is June 28, but the title text says: [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:51, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:::Ah, that makes sense. For some reason my app only showed the first part of the tirle text --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.94|162.158.126.94]] 23:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::::The COMIC says "June 28th." The TITLE TEXT says "July 28th." Apparently the government computer predictive text was trained from different input. [[User:Mwburden|mwburden]] ([[User talk:Mwburden|talk]]) 15:26, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Regrettably, there are two dimensions missing, Z and T. Without Z (elevation)+/- you could be in space or in a neutrino detector. T is only relevant for dynamic objects, but there again, the Americas are going West at a measurable rate! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 21:30, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The seventh row is likely a reference to comic number 1358 where two stick figures try to find waldo via satellite. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.125|172.69.226.125]] 21:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC) kisara, 21:42, 1 July 2019 (utc)

10^-40 degrees on the surface of the earth translates to about 0.7 planck lengths. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.234|162.158.106.234]] 21:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Do the coordinates 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W really correspond to the tip of the Delta rocket? I checked and it was pointing to a small patch of ground next to the rocket, not the tip of the rocket itself. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:20, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:No, you need to go to five decimal places to get the rocket. In that respect, I think he might be off by one digit of precision in his descriptions. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 12:04, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I would like to mention that neither number seems to fit into a standard double float value. I made a fiddle showing this. [https://dotnetfiddle.net/k7yK0Y#] [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 01:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:Floats are stored base 2, so representing them exactly as decimal often requires many more digits than is actually necessary (for complicated number theory reasons, a float can always be represented exactly as decimal, which would not be true if floats were stored in base 3). For this reason, programming languages that can format floats round them, usually to a number of digits where it will be possible to reconstruct the original float (though C# apparently takes off a couple extra digits, since those digits are almost never significant). To illustrate this, I used Rust to print many more digits of a float than would be shown normally [https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=6796c2459ceabea1a03d7113b676dd8f]. The latitude coordinate in the comic could be the result of printing a double precision float, but the longitude coordinate could not be. Also note that it takes almost 50 digits to reach an exact base 10 representation, even though only 14 or 15 of those digits are actually needed to reconstruct the original float. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 18:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

May be my pet peeve... ...but adding an additional error to every piece of input data [and maybe every intermediate result] in order to show that either the precision the original measurement ends here or that all further digits of the measurement read "0" often introduces an error that can add up surprisingly quickly => I personally prefer raw floats that indicate there probably was no error analysis to rounded data and won't get tired on telling people to explicitely state what precision they can expect.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.70|162.158.114.70]]

If the smallest subnormal 32 bit float is a Planck length, then the largest 32 bit float is 10 sextillion times the diameter of the observable universe. If the value 1.0 of a 64 bit float is a cubic Planck length, then the largest float is 100 sextillion ''googol'' times the volume of the observable universe. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 17:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It'd be neat to have a map that shows the precision of given coordinates; like how Google Maps shows transparent blue circle with a wider radius if it's location detection isn't very precise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.76|172.69.170.76]] 19:10, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Something about the formatting of the table seems to be messing up the main page. Not sure what it is, but it happens just after the '110 km (70 mi)' so might be related to the span. Not a major problem as it's fine on the comic page and the main page will change tomorrow anyway. [[User:A(l)Chemist|AlChemist]] ([[User talk:A(l)Chemist|talk]]) 19:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

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/ \
/____\
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.172|172.68.34.172]] 01:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

2170: Coordinate Precision

2019-07-02T11:24:16Z

172.68.34.172:

{{comic
| number = 2170
| date = July 1, 2019
| title = Coordinate Precision
| image = coordinate_precision.png
| titletext = 40 digits: You are optimistic about our understanding of the nature of distance itself.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CARTOGRAPHER. Each table entry needs to be individually explained. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Coordinates are data points used to identify a location on the planet Earth. However, a given coordinate covers a square region of land, and thus leaves some ambiguity; thus, greater precision requires an increasing count of decimal points in your coordinates. This comic uses this information to roughly identify how precise a given coordinate length might be.

The coordinates at [https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Cape_Canaveral&params=28.5234_N_80.6830_W_type:landmark_region:US-FL_scale:10000 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W] (in {{w|decimal degrees}} form; in {{w|geographic coordinate system}} form using degrees, minutes, and seconds, 28° 31′ 24.24″N, 80° 40′ 58.8″W) are pointing to the {{w|Rocket Garden}} at {{w|Kennedy Space Center}} in {{w|Merritt Island, Florida}} (usually referred to as '''{{w|Cape Canaveral}}''')—specifically, the tip of the [https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/-/media/DNC/KSCVC/Blog-Images/Rocket-Garden/rocket-garden-with-labels.ashx?h=860&w=1173&la=en&hash=7B9ADC7AFF5370E462AC98D9651945B806B77B2C Delta] rocket.

The sixth entry in the table, with seven digits of precision, includes the caveat that, while your coordinates map to areas small enough on the Earth's surface to indicate pointing to a specific person in a room, "since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who". This is probably a reference to the fact that persons are animate, and different persons can occupy the same position at different times. It might also be a reference to the various ''{{w|geodetic data}}'' or ''geodetic systems'' — different ways of dealing with the fact that the earth is neither perfectly spherical nor perfectly an oblong ellipsoid. The various data do not make much difference at six digits of precision, but at seven, there is enough skew depending on which system is in use that the person in a room you are referring to with the coordinates is ambiguous. It is unstated, but the remaining lines in the table with ever-greater precision suffer from this same issue and are equally ambiguous without datum information.

The final entry, with seventeen digits of precision, suggests that either the user is referring to individual atoms in the much-larger-scale whole-Earth coordinate system, or (perhaps more likely) has not bothered to format the values from the GPS module for viewing in the software UI in any way whatsoever, resulting in a value that is {{w|False precision|meaninglessly precise}} because the measurement wasn't that {{w|Accuracy and precision|accurate}} to begin with. Even if the value is accurate, locating individual atoms by coordinates is not actually useful in most cases, and the motions of multiple systems within our physical world (continental drift, subtle vibrations, etc.) would render the precise value obsolete rather quickly.

For the decimal places past the 5th on the latitude, the digits given are actually the decimal expansion of the constant ''e'' (2.7182818284), while for the decimal places past the 6th on the longitude, the digits given are the decimal expansion of the constant ''pi'' (3.14159265358).

The title text references how at sufficiently small distances, our understanding of reality itself begins to break down. Smaller than the {{w|Planck length}}, which is more than a quintillion times smaller than the diameter of a proton, the ideals of Euclidean geometry no longer apply and space itself may be composed of a {{w|quantum foam}} where the very geometry of spacetime itself fluctuates, meaning coordinate systems based on an assumption that space doesn't change would no longer work. String theory, on the other hand, assumes that at a short enough distance the world is composed of ten space dimensions, which precludes the use of a two-dimensional coordinate system.

==Chart==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Decimal places
! Resolution*
! In the comic
! Location
! Explanation/notes
|-
| 0
| 110 km (70 mi)
| Something space-related
| Somewhere near the east coast of Florida
| This resolution is enough to point out a large-scale feature like a country, a mountain range, a large lake, or a significant island on a map of the world. It can also be used to tell if certain celestial phenomena are visible from a given location.
|-
| 1
| 11 km (7 mi)
| A specific city
| Cape Canaveral
| Cities typically span a couple kilometers/miles in diameter and are far enough from each other to distinguish them at this resolution. There are exceptions though, and the veracity of this statement depends greatly on what constitutes a “city”, which varies greatly by location and history.
|-
| 2
| 1.1 km (¾ mi)
| A neighborhood
| Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
|
|-
| 3
| 110 m (360 ft)
| A suburban cul-de-sac
| The Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center
|
|-
| 4
| 11 m (36 ft)
| A particular corner of a house
| Somewhere near the center of the Rocket Garden
|
|-
| 5
| 1.1 m (3½ ft)
| A specific person in a room (given geodetic datum information)
| The [https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/-/media/DNC/KSCVC/Blog-Images/Rocket-Garden/rocket-garden-with-labels.ashx?h=860&w=1173&la=en&hash=7B9ADC7AFF5370E462AC98D9651945B806B77B2C Thor-Delta] rocket in Rocket Garden
| As the comic notes, different persons can occupy the same position at different times. It might also point to the differences between {{w|geodetic datum}}s – different ways to map geodetic coordinates to specific points on the Earth's surface – become large enough that one needs to specify the one in use when supplying coordinates to this degree of precision (or greater, of course). Since the Earth is not a perfect ellipsoid, different parts of the planet conform best to ellipsoids of slightly different proportions, resulting in different coordinates for a specific location; not to mention that locally used datums have local reference points, which means that the local and global standards are slowly drifting away from each other with the tectonical plates.
Note that the comment in the comic concerns only the {{w|North American Datum|NAD 1983}} datum which is fairly close to the international, “one size fits all” standard {{w|WGS-84}}. Other datums may be shifted by tens or even hundreds of meters (yards), making geodetic datum specification necessary for less precise coordinates as well.
|-
| 7
| 1.1 cm (⁷⁄₁₆ in)
| Waldo on a page
| Presumably the very tip of the rocket
|
|-
| 9
| 0.11 mm (4⅜ thou)
| A specific grain of sand
| rowspan=3 | N/A
|
|-
| 15
| 110 pm (1.1 Å)
| Raw floating point precision or an individual atom
| A double-precision (64-bit) floating point variable stores 52 significant bits (with an implicit 1 in front), so that 180.00000000000000 and 179.99999999999997 may be represented as distinct values. (This is only 14 decimals, however; the larger the integral part, the less bits remain to represent the fractional part.) This level of precision is useful for mitigating rounding errors in computations, but this advantage only shows if the last few digits are treated as non-significant and thus, ideally, hidden from view.
To actually track individual atoms (which may be as close to one another as 32 pm) or to represent continental drift up to the second, one would need to work with coordinates in ''quadruple'' precision. Tracking atoms, however, needs very sensitive (and expensive) equipment with a severely limited range (according to our current understanding of science and technology). Using a global-scale coordinate system when a micrometer-scale would fit much better is either an abuse of the system and a great waste of memory and computing power, or it means that a significant portion of the Earth's surface has been blanketed by quantum microscopes, which would be an abuse and a waste of many other things as well.
|-
| 40
| 1.1 × 10<sup>–11</sup> ym (1.1 × 10<sup>–35</sup> m)
| Near (or past) our current understanding of the nature of distance
| This is where the resolution reaches the Planck length. At this scale, the very structure of spacetime (and thus, the notion of distance) may be different than what we know; measuring anything to Planck length precision would necessitate such tremendous amounts of energy in one place. This would both create minuscule black holes and, more importantly, move whatever particle you were trying to pinpoint.
|}
<nowiki>*</nowiki>Since the Earth is not exactly spherical, the actual length of one degree of latitude varies between 110.574 km (68.707 mi) at the equator and 111.694 km (69.403 mi) at the poles, while one degree of longitude is 111.320 km (69.171 mi) at the equator, 55.800 km (64.673 mi) at lat. 60°, and 0 km (0 mi) at the poles.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Single panel containing a table with two columns for "Lat/Lon Precision" and "Meaning" and a caption above the table.]
:Caption: What The Number of Digits in Your Coordinates Means

:[Row 1]
:Lat/Lon: 28°N, 80°W
:Meaning: You're probably doing something space-related

:[Row 2]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5°N, 80.6°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a specific city

:[Row 3]
:Lat/Lon: 28.52°N, 80.68°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a neighborhood

:[Row 4]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523°N, 80.683°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a specific suburban cul-de-sac

:[Row 5]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to a particular corner of a house

:[Row 6]
:Lat/Lon: 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to a specific person in a room, but since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who

:[Row 7]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5234571°N, 80.6830941°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to Waldo on a page

:[Row 8]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523457182°N, 80.683094159°W
:Meaning: "Hey, check out this specific sand grain!"

:[Row 9]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523457182818284°N, 80.683094159265358°W
:Meaning: Either you're handing out raw floating point variables, or you've built a database to track individual atoms. In either case, please stop.

{{comic discussion}}

2170: Coordinate Precision

2019-07-01T20:00:14Z

172.68.34.172: