explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1999: Selection Effect

2018-05-29T13:36:10Z

172.68.54.40: mainstream involuntary study example

<noinclude>:''"1999", this comic's number, redirects here. For the comic named "1999", see [[855: 1999]].''</noinclude>

{{comic
| number = 1999
| date = May 28, 2018
| title = Selection Effect
| image = selection_effect.png
| titletext = fMRI testing showed that subjects who don't agree to participate are much more likely to escape from the machine mid-scan.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|edited by Help I’m stuck in a scientific study Elaine Roberts - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The title refers to the effect in scientific fields where the people who agree to work with a researcher can affect the outcome. For example if I said I wanted to do a study on an embarrassing condition, people who know they have it might be more apprehensive and thus not participate. This can skew the results to say that the condition is rarer than it is. This is called the {{w|selection bias}}, or more precisely, the {{w|self-selection bias}}. Ironically, to avoid any selection bias, researchers would have to force their ''randomly'' selected subjects to participate in their study, but yet the uneasiness shown by the mandatory subjects again skews the results.

Ponytail says that people who agree to be in a study at their lab are less likely to attempt to escape. This makes sense, since if you agreed to the study, you know why you are there, while if you didn't, you may have been kidnapped. This implies that Ponytail has recently kidnapped people for a study, and that most of the people she kidnapped called the police, as one should do when being kidnapped{{Citation needed}}. The comic shows Ponytail being allowed to present the results of this study at a conference; reputable scientific journals and conferences should not legitimize studies that clearly violate their ethical norms, such as by failing to obtain informed consent from human subjects before experimenting on them. Unfortunately, involuntary studies are published and presented, one of the most well-known recent examples being [http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/6/30/facebook-ethics-labratsemotionalcontagion.html Facebook's emotional contagion study]. It is not clear how many people who did agree to participate may have attempted to call the police for assistance regardless; compare the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment Stanford Prison Experiment]. This is similar to previous comics where obvious things are presented in obfuscated, scientific ways.

The title text says that people who didn't agree to go inside an MRI machine are more likely to escape the machine mid-scan. Again, this makes sense, because being put somewhere against your will makes you unsure what is going on, making you try to find a way out.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail stands on a podium giving a presentation in front of a chart with some box plots.]
:Ponytail: Our research shows that compared to the overall population, people who agree to participate in scientific studies are significantly less likely to call the police to rescue them from our lab.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Science]]

1978: Congressional Testimony

2018-04-10T04:11:20Z

172.68.54.40:

{{comic
| number = 1978
| date = April 9, 2018
| title = Congressional Testimony
| image = congressional_testimony.png
| titletext = James Cameron's Terminator 3 was the REALLY prophetic one. That's why Skynet sent a robot back to the 1990s to prevent him from ever making it, ultimately handing the franchise over to other directors.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created in the future by the director of "Terminator 17, he is back and he is pissed". What did Randall mean by the comic...? Do NOT delete this tag too soon or in the past.}}

[[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are discussing {{w|Facebook}} CEO {{w|Mark Zuckerberg|Mark Zuckerberg's}} upcoming {{w|United States congressional hearing|testimony before Congress}}. The prepared testimony was released on the day this comic was released (after?). See ''[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/09/congress-released-mark-zuckerbergs-prepared-testimony-ahead-of-wednesdays-hearing.html Congress releases Mark Zuckerberg's prepared testimony ahead of Wednesday's hearing]''. Facebook is facing questions on the {{w|Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal}} involving the collection of personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users by the political targeting firm Cambridge Analytica.

Megan then starts talking about re-watching ''{{w|The Terminator}}'', a movie about a killer robot sent back in time by {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}}, a computer system that became self-aware (AI) and tried to kill off humans. The robot was sent back to try to kill the mother of the leader of the resistance before he was born. In the movie the killer robot, The Terminator, played by {{w|Arnold Schwarzenegger}}, looked up the mother's name, Sarah Connor, in the {{w|phone book}} of a {{w|phone booth}} to find her address. It turned out there were three Sarah Connors in the city, and he choose the two wrong Sarahs first...

Megan notices that it was weird, how in the movie it was a nuclear launch system that turned on humans, and built humanoid robots to hunt humans down, and then today it turned out that it was rather the modern version of said phone book that turned into our version of Skynet, Facebook. Cueball can only agree with her how funny things always turn out in retrospect.

It is unclear if [[Randall]] is:
*1. Commenting on his lack of interest in the news regarding yet another internet tool being used for purposes for which it was not intended by comparing it to the much more interesting movie "Terminator".
*2. Pointing out that using programs in ways for which they are not originally designed is actually quite common in both reality and fiction.
*3. Pointing out that Facebook stores names and phone numbers and could thus be considered to have a phone book database...
*4. All of the above

The title text makes the claim that {{w|James Cameron}}, who directed the first two films, was planning to make a third movie in the 1990s, which would have been the really prophetic one, i.e. the one that would have destroyed Skynet for good. So in the future Skynet, having seen the result of this movie, wished to prevent the movie from ever being made, so it sent back yet another robot which prevented Cameron from directing it. Instead {{w|Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines}} was first released in 2003 and directed by {{w|Jonathan Mostow}}. Although Cameron is credited for writing it, it was only for creating the characters. Since then two other movies have been made and a third is planned for 2019, all with different directors.

In a [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181852/trivia?item=tr0744921 trivia on IMDb] it is stated that the studios had long wanted to make a sequel, thus this was already a plan in the 1990s, the second movie, {{w|Terminator 2: Judgment Day}}, had been released in 1991. But Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to do it unless James Cameron was directing. Cameron eventually told his friend to "take the money and run"... Maybe because a Schwarzenegger terminator was blackmailing him to sell out his greatest franchise.

This comment is reminiscent of the last row in the comic [[566: Matrix Revisited]], released 9 years before this, where Randall makes it clear that he would have wished that the {{w|The Matrix}} had not had any sequels to take the original down to a lower level. Seems like he has the same feelings for the first two Terminator movies, compared to the third and later movies in the franchise. And would rather fantasize about how great Terminator 3 would have been had it been directed by Cameron.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball sitting against a leafless tree; they are on opposite sides.]
:Megan: Mark Zuckerberg is testifying before Congress this week.
:Cueball: Should be interesting.

:[Beat panel.]

:Megan: I recently re-watched ''Terminator''.
:Cueball: Yeah?

:Megan: It's weird that the thing that evolved into Skynet wasn't our nuclear launch systems '''''or''''' our humanoid robots.
:Megan: It was the phone book where the Terminator looked up Sarah Connor's address.
:Cueball: Funny how things turn out.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:1816: Mispronunciation

2017-03-27T16:32:56Z

172.68.54.40:

Epitome is an interesting one for me, since I read it phonetically (same as Randal's example), and didn't figure out that "e-pi-tō-mē" and "eppy-tome" were the same word until mid to late teens. I still have to stop myself from reading it wrong when I see it on the page... [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 15:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I think there's another level beyond the obvious, especially in the title text. You're pronouncing the word 'epitome' in whatever way you always have (inside your head), he's making clear that he's not saying it the way you say it.. so how do you read the comic? The sentence only makes sense if you say it aloud, but you can't because you don't know how he's pronouncing it.[[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 16:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitome_of_Hyperbole

Talk:1812: Onboarding

2017-03-27T14:05:14Z

172.68.54.40:

Carbon actually is used a lot in servers. Plastics, which are heavily used in electronics, are made of carbon chains. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.40|172.68.54.40]] 14:05, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Uff, Americans really say "carbon-neutral". Taking this literally and there is no greenhouse problem, only some black dirt... Nevertheless bismuth is an important element in electronics, not only IBM.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

:Given that this is Beret Guy, it doesn't have to mean solder. It's entirely possible one of his mysterious shops has sold him a generator that burns bismuth powder or something; in which case "produces bismuth" would really mean releasing it into the atmosphere in the same was most power plants release carbon. Or some kind of nuclear process that does actually produce bismuth. Or maybe someone's told him to use a server once then recycle it, and due to not knowing what they're doing the recycling team has ended up with a massive surplus of one metal. All crazy options, but this is a guy who's plumbed soup into the electrical system, so… who knows? -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.187|162.158.154.187]] 13:42, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
::Carbon is a solid like bismuth. No power plant releases carbon, this American inaccuracy about "carbon-neutral" is part of the joke because "carbon-'''dioxide'''-neutral" would be correct. More on bismuth see below.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 03:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Considering Beret Guy has shown that he was able to [[1293: Job Interview|get soup from an electric outlet]], maybe those all-digital restrooms are actually able to digitize bodily waste to dispose of it easily.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.22|141.101.88.22]] 08:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Digital Restrooms - no pipes.
You have to move the wase by hand, and a hand has fingers == digits? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.233|162.158.91.233]] 10:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
: Is it just me? Digital restrooms with no pipes together with the mention of cursed WiFi did remind me of those tubes the internet is made of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes]... ;-) --[[User:Felis Catus|Felis Catus]] ([[User talk:Felis Catus|talk]]) 11:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
:: Yes, that was my reaction also. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.10|108.162.222.10]] 11:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Lin-Manuel Miranda did some skits on PBS's The Electric Company. I suspect that is the reference to the mistake. 00:53, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

;Bismuth?
Might this be over complicating things a bit? Carbon is an element. Bismuth is another element, albeit a more improbable one.

That may be the only joke: they have no carbon footprint but instead spew massive amounts of bismuth, which what?

To suggest this is a joke about nuclear reactor technology or (very old) mainframe assembly technology seems to be a stretch. 14:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC) Skeptic

I'm inclined to agree with Skeptic; I actually think the sole point of using bismuth might have been to make the horrible pun in the alt-text. 15:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC) CGH

Antimony is used as a replacement for lead in common solder. Bismuth is used in low temperature solder. I have some coils of it somewhere on the desk here. (It's tough soldering to LEDs on star boards!) [[User:ExternalMonolog|ExternalMonolog]] ([[User talk:ExternalMonolog|talk]]) 14:35, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

TBH I was wondering if the bismuth/business joke was also a slight reference to Steven Universe, since the comic Hoverboard would indicate Randall is familiar with the show.{{unsigned ip|108.162.246.185}}
: I read bismuth as a pun on bi-monthly (or bi-month) for short. Most teams within a business will have a regular meeting every week or fortnight - the latter happening (typically) twice a month. 'Business' sounds closer, but doesn't fit so well logically for me. -- Ray

I don't think the SU connection is very likely because there's no real connection made to the show. I think that the first mention is just for the surrealism of it producing something unrelated to (and much less common than) carbon, and the second just for the pun (which, if I'm honest, probably made me laugh harder than all the actual good jokes on xkcd over the years).{{unsigned ip|162.158.155.68}}

: I actually mentioned the SU thing because that specific pun (bismuth/business) is used several times by the character Bismuth.{{unsigned ip|108.162.246.185}}

There are in fact two possibilities for the source of bismuth:
*Since 2006 in the European Union the usage of lead is restricted (see: {{w|Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive|RoHS}}). Like many other manufacturers IBM adopts this regulations on its [https://www.ibm.com/ibm/environment/products/46g3772_oct2016.pdf Baseline Environmental Requirements For Supplier Deliverables to IBM] for "Lead in solders for servers, storage and storage array systems." A common replacement is bismuth. Furthermore tin-bismuth has the advantage of its low melting point when used as solder.
*The smallest lead-bismuth cooled reactor {{w|Gen4 Energy}} would not fit into a server room. But a coal plant doesn't either so the statement needs some rework.
So both possibilities make sense but only the solder is actually in use. No such reactor is build yet, it's only a design proposal.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 03:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd agree with those above to remove reference to bismuth coming from mainframe solder - that would be 'extracting,' not producing. Whatever the mechanism, IMO the reasons are for the pun and ... because bismuth is [https://goo.gl/images/rTNpXJ ''stunningly beautiful!'' [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 18:59, 18 March 2017 (UTC)]

I'm amazed how far discussions can go to find the hidden meaning of a nonsensical sentence. Shirluban [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.106|141.101.88.106]] 12:27, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Shirluban, LOL! Remember, this is Beret Guy. He often mentions impossible things. I understand this to mean that something about how the server works makes it literally magically eject pieces of bismuth. And so does (presumably) Ponytail, as she predicts that metal piles up in the server room, which Beret Guy confirms. It seems pointless to try to figure out how this could realistically happen, Beret Guy is by nature unrealistic. :)

As for "carbon-neutral", it's my understanding that this is a widely accepted shortcut for the term "carbon-dioxide-neutral", just that this shortcut has the unintended side effect of leaving less intelligent people unaware that the "dioxide" is implied, and therefore thinking there's something wrong with carbon itself. I'm certain that this comic by no means is referencing carbon - the solid metal - itself. - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 04:38, 22 March 2017 (UTC)