explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

70: Guitar Hero

2019-05-07T17:32:04Z

172.68.58.47: Some technical details about the GH games and Star Power mechanics

{{comic
| number = 70
| date = March 1, 2006
| title = Guitar Hero
| image = guitar hero.jpg
| titletext = And then do it again in a moment now that they're out of Star Power.
}}

==Explanation==

''{{w|Guitar Hero}}'' is a series of video games (originally a single game) currently distributed by {{w|Activision}}. In the game, players simulate playing the guitar on famous guitar songs using a plastic guitar-shaped controller with five color-coded buttons on the neck representing guitar frets and a rocker bar on the body simulating a strumming motion. The game now includes other instruments such as drums and vocals, although not at the time this comic was published.

While the player plays the game, an animated band is shown on the upper half of the screen, and an extended guitar neck is shown vertically on the bottom half of the screen with horizontal frets, often called the "note highway". As the song progresses, coloured markers or "gems" indicating notes travel down the screen in time with the music; the note colours and positions match the five fret keys on the guitar controller. Once the notes reach the bottom, the player must play the indicated notes by holding down the correct fret buttons and hitting the strumming bar in order to score points. The image in the comic is similar to what is shown when playing ''Guitar Hero''.

In this comic, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] suggests that, were he in a real rock band, he would perform a mellow song, but intentionally put a complicated guitar solo in, not for musical value, but solely to antagonize ''Guitar Hero'' players with an impossible solo. As the comic suggests, a random flailing would likely make for a very difficult passage to play in ''Guitar Hero''. This is highlighted by the previous statement that the song would otherwise be mellow, lulling the player into a false sense that the song was easy to play and relaxing. Even worse for Guitar Hero players, if there was anyone who is good enough to play the solo, they would still have no fun playing the song if it is otherwise very mellow.

The title text refers to a mechanic in Guitar Hero called "Star Power." Normally, when a player misses too many notes in a short time, their character is booed off the stage, and they have to restart. Using Star Power temporarily boosts the score from each note, so the player can clear a difficult section of the song even if they haven't hit most of the notes. So, when faced with Randall's impossible guitar solo, most players will immediately use Star Power to survive it. However, it takes time to build up Star Power, and it all gets expended at once, so if the song has a second stretch of wild flailing, the player won't be able to escape and will fail. (Also note that in ''{{w|Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock}}'' and many other titles of the series, a full meter of Star Power lasts for eight measures, so as long as the song is mildly fast (80BPM would more than suffice for a 4/4 or 12/8 time signature), 30 seconds would be enough already.)

Probably, the "impossible solo" proposed here would turn useless, as there are some songs where the artist actually flails the guitar, and the developers translated that in gameplay as a bonus where the players can freely spam their controller/guitar for extra points.

==Transcript==
:[On a stage, Megan is in the background as a singer holding a microphone. In the center is Hairy with an electric guitar. The catwalk has bumps to resemble the tracks of Guitar Hero.]
:Hairy: When I'm in a rock band, I'm gonna do a cool, mellow song. Then in the middle I'll stop, announce "this part is just to be an asshole to people playing Guitar Hero," and then flail wildly on the strings for 30 seconds.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Guitar Hero]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2139: Email Settings

2019-04-20T05:26:53Z

172.68.58.47: fixed typo in previous edit

{{comic
| number = 2139
| date = April 19, 2019
| title = Email Settings
| image = email_settings.png
| titletext = What are all these less-than signs? What's an HREF? Look, we know you live in a fancy futuristic tech world, but not all of us have upgraded to the latest from Sun Microsystems.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by someone who can't use e-mail. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic shows some email settings with a few less than helpful options.

'''Default Reply Behavior:''' Normal reply behavior would be to reply to the person who sent the original email. Typically in email programs there is an option to Reply to all (reply all) other recipients of an email in addition to the sender. Depending on the email usage pattern this is a potentially useful or a potentially annoying option. Forward to address book takes this one step further by sending your reply to every person who is in your address book, whether they received the original email or not.

'''Vacation Autoresponder:''' This is a message that is automatically sent out in reply to an email to let them know that you are away and won't be replying until you return. While on vacation is the usual behavior, but since email systems typically have no way of knowing that you're on vacation other than this setting itself, it won't be able to comply (although some email providers, such as Gmail, could figure out if you're on vacation using information gleaned from your emails, such as hotel and flight confirmations). "Always" is a less useful option.

'''Reply to all newsletters with "thank you for the newsletter!":''' This option is completely unnecessary, in that newsletters are usually automated and shotgunned out to thousand of addresses at once, often with a do-not-reply from address.

'''Attachment limit:''' These attachment limits are all pretty small, with 300 kilobytes being fairly useless for anything, 1.4 megabytes being the size of an old floppy disk, and 5 megabytes, while better, is smaller than most high resolution cell phone camera pictures. It being in beta means that it might not be as dependable. However, setting the maximum attachment size would likely not be a user setting; it would be a setting the email system enforces on the user. In the past with slow connections and very limited mailbox sizes, this option was useful to keep the message size in check. In the present, Gmail still has the same 25MB attachment limit it had in 2004.

'''Default email format:''' plain text is self explanatory; plain text with no special formatting options. HTML means that it can have markup to allow for bold text, colors, etc. CSS is in reference to cascading style sheets, which is a styling option often combined with HTML, but useless on its own. With emails it is typically used as inline CSS.

'''Reply to HTML emails with "Whoa, buddy, what's all this code?":''' HTML email is a format for sending email with rich-text contents, which may include images and links. If your email client isn't configured for HTML, the content may look like text interspersed with a bunch of weird code. Since HTML email is a common format, replying this way to every HTML email you receive can be an effective way to annoy people. This may be a "throwback" option: a few years ago, email systems didn't always recognize HTML emails, so if you sent an HTML email you might very well receive this kind of reply.

'''Character set:''' ASCII is the character group containing all of the letters in the English alphabet, as well as the digits and common symbols. The Non-ASCII set contains all of the non-English alphabets and the rest of the (lesser used) symbols. Some of those characters, such as those from Cyrillic and Greek, resemble letters from the Latin alphabet; when spammers use these resemblances to deceive users, it is called an {{w|IDN homograph attack}}, but now that this email client is set to exclude ASCII characters, the user must use the same technique to communicate with speakers of most European languages. Older computer programs often only allowed ASCII characters or a much more limited set of characters than the full amount of recognized Unicode characters, but it would be unusual today for an email program to default to only allow for ASCII characters, though someone might want to deliberately set things that way. The second option is nonsense though as though you would likely want to allow other characters, you would definitely not want to allow ONLY those and exclude the ASCII characters (so people couldn't use regular letters or numbers or the most common punctuation).

'''Smart autocomplete:''' Some email platforms, including Gmail, have the ability to use machine learning to suggest possible, usually short reply options for you to choose from. If the original email asks if you want to go to dinner, the auto-complete replies might be, "Yes", "No", "How about Friday?" and then you could choose one, or type your own reply. The third option to automatically respond to all emails with suggested reply is putting a lot of faith in the computer, and is likely to backfire quickly, even more so, if your recipients also have activated this option.

'''Important emails:''' Showing important emails is the expected behavior, and hiding only them would be a very strange thing to want to do. If it is set to hide only certain emails, a program would definitely do the opposite, and hide emails judged to be most likely unimportant "spam" emails.

'''Show unread email count...:''' Seeing your unread email count is normal behavior, and a good way to see what a failure you are at reading your email. A projected unread email count based on when the system expects you to die, and how well you do at reading your email on a day to day basis is probably going to be depressing or in the extreme could be so overwhelming to be the actual cause of death on the projected date.

'''Signature:''' A signature is a bit of canned text that gets added to the end of an email, often containing your name, and sometimes a bit of other information like a title and other contact information. Having the choices being None and "That's my email. Hope you liked it!" is less useful. Less useful signatures somewhat came into vogue after Apple used it for cheap iPhone advertisement and others made fun of the Apple users who kept those default signatures, by using quite creative signatures themselves.{{Citation needed}}

The title text also references HTML email, in which angle brackets (i.e, less-than and greater-than symbols) are used to show the opening and closing tags of elements. "href" is a common attribute in HTML elements denoting the location a hyperlink will take you to upon being clicked. This is likely another "throwback" reference, Sun Microsystems being a former maker of Unix workstations popular in the late 1980s and 2000s (now part of Oracle Corporation). The message could also be written by someone receiving an HTML email which is not recognized as one and directly shown on the screen.

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

:'''Email Settings'''
:[A list of controls with radio buttons and checkboxes]
:Default reply behavior
::( ) Reply
::( ) Reply All
::(*) Forward to address book

:Vacation autoresponder
::(*) While on vacation
::( ) Always

:☑ Reply to all newsletters with "Thank you for the newsletter!"

:Attachment limit
::( ) 300 KB
::(*) 1.4 MB
::( ) 5 MB (Beta)

:Default email format
::(*) Plain text
::( ) HTML
::( ) CSS

:☑ Reply to HTML emails with "Whoa, buddy, what's all this code?"

:Character set
::( ) ASCII (Unicode 0-127 only)
::(*) Non-ASCII (Unicode 128+ only)

:Smart autocomplete
::( ) Do not suggest replies
::( ) Suggest replies
::(*) Automatically respond to all emails with suggested reply

:Important emails
::(*) Show
::( ) Hide

:Show unread email count...
::(*) Now
::( ) On my projected day of death

:Signature
::(*) "That's my email. Hope you liked it!"
::( ) None

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Email]]

2139: Email Settings

2019-04-20T05:24:47Z

172.68.58.47: Filled in lacking explanations of what's odd about certain options.

{{comic
| number = 2139
| date = April 19, 2019
| title = Email Settings
| image = email_settings.png
| titletext = What are all these less-than signs? What's an HREF? Look, we know you live in a fancy futuristic tech world, but not all of us have upgraded to the latest from Sun Microsystems.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by someone who can't use e-mail. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic shows some email settings with a few less than helpful options.

'''Default Reply Behavior:''' Normal reply behavior would be to reply to the person who sent the original email. Typically in email programs there is an option to Reply to all (reply all) other recipients of an email in addition to the sender. Depending on the email usage pattern this is a potentially useful or a potentially annoying option. Forward to address book takes this one step further by sending your reply to every person who is in your address book, whether they received the original email or not.

'''Vacation Autoresponder:''' This is a message that is automatically sent out in reply to an email to let them know that you are away and won't be replying until you return. While on vacation is the usual behavior, but since email systems typically have no way of knowing that you're on vacation other than this setting itself, it won't be able to comply (although some email providers, such as Gmail, could figure out if you're on vacation using information gleaned from your emails, such as hotel and flight confirmations). "Always" is a less useful option.

'''Reply to all newsletters with "thank you for the newsletter!":''' This option is completely unnecessary, in that newsletters are usually automated and shotgunned out to thousand of addresses at once, often with a do-not-reply from address.

'''Attachment limit:''' These attachment limits are all pretty small, with 300 kilobytes being fairly useless for anything, 1.4 megabytes being the size of an old floppy disk, and 5 megabytes, while better, is smaller than most high resolution cell phone camera pictures. It being in beta means that it might not be as dependable. However, setting the maximum attachment size would likely not be a user setting; it would be a setting the email system enforces on the user. In the past with slow connections and very limited mailbox sizes, this option was useful to keep the message size in check. In the present, Gmail still has the same 25MB attachment limit it had in 2004.

'''Default email format:''' plain text is self explanatory; plain text with no special formatting options. HTML means that it can have markup to allow for bold text, colors, etc. CSS is in reference to cascading style sheets, which is a styling option often combined with HTML, but useless on its own. With emails it is typically used as inline CSS.

'''Reply to HTML emails with "Whoa, buddy, what's all this code?":''' HTML email is a format for sending email with rich-text contents, which may include images and links. If your email client isn't configured for HTML, the content may look like text interspersed with a bunch of weird code. Since HTML email is a common format, replying this way to every HTML email you receive can be an effective way to annoy people. This may be a "throwback" option: a few years ago, email systems didn't always recognize HTML emails, so if you sent an HTML email you might very well receive this kind of reply.

'''Character set:''' ASCII is the character group containing all of the letters in the English alphabet, as well as the digits and common symbols. The Non-ASCII set contains all of the non-English alphabets and the rest of the (lesser used) symbols. Some of those characters, such as those from Cyrillic and Greek, resemble letters from the Latin alphabet; when spammers use these resemblances to deceive users, it is called an {{w|IDN homograph attack}}, but now that this email client is set to exclude ASCII characters, the user must use the same technique to communicate with speakers of most European languages. Older computer programs often only allowed ASCII characters or a much more limited set of characters than the full amount of recognized Unicode characters, but it would be unusual today for an email program to default to only allow for ASCII characters, though someone might want to deliberately set things that way. The second option is nonsense though as though you would likely want to allow other characters, your would definitely not want to allow ONLY those and exclude the ASCII characters (so people couldn't use regular letters or numbers or the most common punctuation).

'''Smart autocomplete:''' Some email platforms, including Gmail, have the ability to use machine learning to suggest possible, usually short reply options for you to choose from. If the original email asks if you want to go to dinner, the auto-complete replies might be, "Yes", "No", "How about Friday?" and then you could choose one, or type your own reply. The third option to automatically respond to all emails with suggested reply is putting a lot of faith in the computer, and is likely to backfire quickly, even more so, if your recipients also have activated this option.

'''Important emails:''' Showing important emails is the expected behavior, and hiding only them would be a very strange thing to want to do. If it is set to hide only certain emails, a program would definitely do the opposite, and hide emails judged to be most likely unimportant "spam" emails.

'''Show unread email count...:''' Seeing your unread email count is normal behavior, and a good way to see what a failure you are at reading your email. A projected unread email count based on when the system expects you to die, and how well you do at reading your email on a day to day basis is probably going to be depressing or in the extreme could be so overwhelming to be the actual cause of death on the projected date.

'''Signature:''' A signature is a bit of canned text that gets added to the end of an email, often containing your name, and sometimes a bit of other information like a title and other contact information. Having the choices being None and "That's my email. Hope you liked it!" is less useful. Less useful signatures somewhat came into vogue after Apple used it for cheap iPhone advertisement and others made fun of the Apple users who kept those default signatures, by using quite creative signatures themselves.{{Citation needed}}

The title text also references HTML email, in which angle brackets (i.e, less-than and greater-than symbols) are used to show the opening and closing tags of elements. "href" is a common attribute in HTML elements denoting the location a hyperlink will take you to upon being clicked. This is likely another "throwback" reference, Sun Microsystems being a former maker of Unix workstations popular in the late 1980s and 2000s (now part of Oracle Corporation). The message could also be written by someone receiving an HTML email which is not recognized as one and directly shown on the screen.

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

:'''Email Settings'''
:[A list of controls with radio buttons and checkboxes]
:Default reply behavior
::( ) Reply
::( ) Reply All
::(*) Forward to address book

:Vacation autoresponder
::(*) While on vacation
::( ) Always

:☑ Reply to all newsletters with "Thank you for the newsletter!"

:Attachment limit
::( ) 300 KB
::(*) 1.4 MB
::( ) 5 MB (Beta)

:Default email format
::(*) Plain text
::( ) HTML
::( ) CSS

:☑ Reply to HTML emails with "Whoa, buddy, what's all this code?"

:Character set
::( ) ASCII (Unicode 0-127 only)
::(*) Non-ASCII (Unicode 128+ only)

:Smart autocomplete
::( ) Do not suggest replies
::( ) Suggest replies
::(*) Automatically respond to all emails with suggested reply

:Important emails
::(*) Show
::( ) Hide

:Show unread email count...
::(*) Now
::( ) On my projected day of death

:Signature
::(*) "That's my email. Hope you liked it!"
::( ) None

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Email]]

883: Pain Rating

2018-04-15T02:33:37Z

172.68.58.47: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 883
| date = April 8, 2011
| title = Pain Rating
| image = pain rating.png
| titletext = If it were a two or above I wouldn't be able to answer because it would mean a pause in the screaming.
}}

==Explanation==
In medical examinations, a doctor will sometimes ask the patient to {{w|Pain scale|assess their pain}}, to give the doctor a rough idea of the patient's condition. [[Cueball]] is asked by doctor [[Ponytail]] to compare the pain in his arm with the worst pain that he can imagine; however, a one-to-ten scale is not useful for Cueball because in his imagination the worst possible pain reduces him to a huddled ball, makes him forget his injured arm(which he somehow is able to bend without screaming), and rescales his current pain to a 1. Apparently, he has the capacity to imagine pain so intense that it dwarfs any possible real-world pain, thus skewing the scale, and this is what his friend [[Megan]] refers to when Ponytail asks what is wrong with his imagination. (According to the [http://xkcd.com/883/info.0.json official transcript] Megan is the patient's friend, and Ponytail is a doctor).

The title text further emphasizes that idea: If the pain was higher than ''one'' on his pain scale, it would already be so high that he would be reduced to uncontrollable screaming.

A similar doctor Ponytail is shown in [[996: Making Things Difficult]] with Megan and again in [[1713: 50 ccs]] along with both Cueball and Megan. In [[647: Scary]] Cueball (as [[Rob]]) also ends up in such a huddled up position.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail in a doctor's coat is carrying a clipboard and consulting with Cueball, who's sitting on a high medical table one arm down the other holding on to this arm at the inside of the elbow.]
:Ponytail: Any pain?
:Cueball: My arm really hurts.

:[Zoom out of same scene to include Megan is standing behind Ponytail.]
:Ponytail: How would you rate the pain, from one to ten, where ten is the worst pain you can imagine?

:[This frame-less panel zooms in on Cueball sitting on the table.]
:Cueball: The worst pain I can imagine?

:[Zoom in on the top of Cueball who ponders this, raising a thoughtful hand to his jaw.]

:[Same image but Cueball appears to be shocked having taken both hands in front of his mouth, four small lines coming out from the top of his head.]

:[Zoom out again as Cueball huddles up on the table, legs all the way up to his chin, arms tightly folded around the knees. Ponytail leans back towards Megan, both whispering as indicated with smaller font.]
:Cueball: One.
:Ponytail: ...What the hell is wrong with his imagination?
:Megan: It's not a normal place.

{{comic discussion}}

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

1881: Drone Training

2018-04-15T02:09:00Z

172.68.58.47: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 1881
| date = August 25, 2017
| title = Drone Training
| image = drone_training.png
| titletext = The joke will be on him in a few weeks when animal control shows up and takes custody of his Roomba.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Black Hat]] enters a pet store run by [[White Hat]]. He wants to buy something to help him train his drone, which keeps flying into the wrong rooms. This is absurd as drones are semi-autonomous flying machines, not living creatures like dogs or cats, which can be trained to do tricks, or stay in the correct areas (inside his property). He also wants a shock collar for his {{w|Roomba}}, which would train it to stay inside or at least on his lawn.

{{w|Cat repellents}} are devices or substances for training cats or repelling them from furniture or other areas. An example of a cat repellent spray which can be created at home as shown here: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Friendly-but-Effective-Cat-Repellent/ Friendly (but Effective) Cat Repellent].

Roomba is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner and controlling it by electric shocks from a {{w|Shock collar|shock collar}}, normally used for dogs, is more than questionable. Those collars are legal in the US but they are banned in many other countries. A Roomba was previously mistaken for a dog in [[1558: Vet]].

This might be playing with the concept of machine learning. Knowing Black Hat, he might be poking fun at people's assumptions that modern robots are more advanced than they actually are. It is also possible, however, that he just wants to terrify people with the idea of robot abuse/conditioning, and even more likely that he genuinely believes he can force robots to obey him via inflicting suffering.

The title text may mean one of three things: The endeavor will become a total flop when the Roomba gets rid of the collar and terrorizes the neighborhood; as a result dogcatchers from the {{w|Animal control service|animal control service}} will arrest this "wild animal." Or animal control services will confiscate the Roomba to save it from its abusive owner. Or, possibly, the text refers to White Hat, who also owns a Roomba, and it will be taken into custody because it has not been trained with a shock collar.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat stands in front of a store counter facing White Hat who stands behind.]
:Black Hat: My drone keeps flying into the wrong rooms. Do you have anything to discourage it?
:White Hat: Sir, this is a pet store.

:Black Hat: Yeah, I was thinking one of those spray bottles for cats.
:White Hat: I don't think you can train a drone.

:[White Hat hands a spray bottle over the counter.]
:Black Hat: Eh, they say that about cats, too. Plus, these days they probably all come with deep learning or whatever. Drones, I mean. Maybe cats too.
:White Hat: Fine, here's a bottle.

:Black Hat: Do you sell a shock collar that can fit around a Roomba?
:White Hat: I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

==Trivia==
*This is the first comic since [[1875: Computers vs Humans]] that does not involve the [[:Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017|August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse]] as subject matter.
*This is the first comic where Black Hat and White Hat speak directly to each other.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Drones]]
[[Category:Roomba]]

White Hat

2018-04-15T02:06:22Z

172.68.58.47: Added Drone Training, as they do indeed interact with each other.

{{Infobox character
| image = white_hat.png
| caption = White hat as seen in [[973: MTV Generation]]
| first_appearance = [[260: The Glass Necklace]]
}}
'''White Hat''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. He is distinguished by his eponymous white hat which appears to be in the shape and style of a {{w|boater}}. His appearance is identical to that of [[Black Hat]] other than the color of their respective hats. Unlike Black Hat, however, White Hat doesn't necessarily represent the same character in each appearance.

Interestingly, the two characters have been depicted together only in [[1110: Click and Drag]], [[1000: 1000 Comics]], [[1708: Dehydration]], [[1881: Drone Training]], and [[1756: I'm With Her]] although they actually speak in the same setting in [[1708]] and speak to each other in [[1881]], the other three being [[:Category:Large drawings|large drawings comics]] where they do not meet. The same goes for the other white hat guy, [[Beret Guy]]. See more on how little these three interact in xkcd in the explanation for [[:Category:Characters with Hats|Characters with Hats]].

In early comics, White Hat appeared mostly as a rare secondary character. But starting with comic [[915: Connoisseur]], White Hat began appearing more often and developed more of a personality, often playing the role of a philosophically misguided person. In this way, he's a bit of a {{w|straw man}}, making logical fallacies to help advance [[Randall|Randall's]] point (see also [[973: MTV Generation]], [[1215: Insight]], [[1255: Columbus]] and [[1277: Ayn Random]]). Other times, he is simply an alternative to [[Cueball]] or one of the other main characters.

In [[603: Idiocracy]] a character with a white hat appears, but it is a rounded safari hat very unlike White Hat's usual boater. He also has a very different mindset so there is no reason to believe that he is White Hat at all, and the comic has been removed from the list of those with White Hat. The main reason for the initial misunderstanding is that White Hat had already appeared in his normal hat three times before that comic, and Safari Hat guy has never been shown again, except in [[1000: 1000 Comics]].

==See also==
*[[:Category:Comics featuring White Hat|Comics featuring White Hat]]

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]

1962: Generations

2018-03-03T21:57:48Z

172.68.58.47: /* Explanation */ Fix "All Good Things..." Wikipedia link

{{comic
| number = 1962
| date = March 2, 2018
| title = Generations
| image = generations.png
| titletext = For a while it looked like the Paperclip Machines would destroy us, since they wanted to turn the whole universe into paperclips, but they abruptly lost interest in paperclips the moment their parents' generation got into making them, too.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE PREVIOUS-PREVIOUS-PREVIOUS GENERATION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is making fun of the various names we give "generations", and also predicting some future ones. The release of this comic coincides the [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/defining-generations-where-millennials-end-and-post-millennials-begin/ Pew Research Center's recent announcement that they have decided where the Millennial generation ends].

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! scope="col"| Generation
! scope="col"| Time period
! scope="col"| Explanation
|-
| The Founders
| 1730 - 1747
| Most of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States United States' Founding Fathers] were born in this period. (But not all: Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was born two generations prior.)
|-
| Generation ƒ
| 1748 - 1765
| ƒ was used to represent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s "long s"] in the typography used in Colonial America. It can be seen in many historical documents from the period. It is also the symbol that represented the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_guilder guilder], the currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002.
|-
| The Adequate Generation
| 1766 - 1783
| Randall apparently found nothing notable about this generation, positive or negative.
|-
| Generation Æ
| 1784 - 1801
| Æ is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æ diphthong] Aesh - its name sounds like X, though it is pronounced as a long e or IPA /æ/. This character is commonly transcribed differently into British English and American English as ae and e respectively making a difference in spelling in words such as encyclopaedia/encylopedia. One of the key influences on this is Webster's dictionary, first published 1828.
|-
| The generation we cut a lot of slack because they produced Lincoln
| 1802 - 1819
| Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, and is regarded as one of the best presidents of all time. The comic states that the other people born in this generation were "cut a lot of slack" because of him. As with the Oops, one of us is Hitler generation, it is absurd to define an entire generation by defining its most famous member.
|-
| The Gilded Generation
| 1820 - 1837
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Generation_(Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_theory) So named under the Strauss-Howe generation theory], though they use the time period 1822-1842 instead. This likely refers to the "{{w|Gilded Age}}" of American history, roughly the last three decades of the 19th century.
|-
| The Second-Greatest Generation
| 1838 - 1855
|
This is a reference to the Greatest Generation, below, and could be implying a similarity between the accomplishments and sacrifices of this generation - who fought in the first U.S. Civil War and who passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution - to those of the Greatest Generation. There is also some humor in the name: what Randall means is that this generation was, supposedly, second best in terms of its greatness. However, the wording could be interpreted to mean that they are chronologically the second generation to be called "greatest", even though they actually were born first.
|-
| Generation – • • –
| 1856 - 1873
| This may be referring to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Morse_code#Comparison_of_American_and_International_Morse Morse Code] for the number 9, although this is the eighth generation in this list. More likely, it is referring to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code the letter X] instead in International Morse Code. This may be an error on Randall's part, since the generations are an American phenomenon. Alternatively, this be a past example of similar cohort of Gen Xers, mirrored by the later "More Gen-Xers somehow". Regardless, this is also a reference to the rise of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy telegraphy], though it was "born" prior to 1856.
|-
| The kids who died in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines
| 1874 - 1891
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour#The_Industrial_Revolution Child labor] had been widely used since before the start of the Industrial Revolution, but this is when people started doing something about it - and also, when the need for an educated workforce arose, applying substantial economic pressure on societies to put children in school instead. It would be more accurate to label this generation, "The kids who stopped dying in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines".
|-
| Oops, one of us is Hitler
| 1892 - 1909
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler Adolf Hitler], possibly the most hated (and, by most definitions, evil) man in living human memory as of this comic's posting, was born during in 1889. Aside from the fact that this places him in the previous generation, it seems beyond silly to blame everyone else who was born during this period for being born in the same generation as him. Among those who eventually heard of him (thus, excluding those in isolated areas or who died before he rose to power), the vast majority of them would not hear of him until well after 1909. In reality, this generation is known as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Generation Lost Generation], though the dates are somewhat skewed.
|-
| The Greatest Generation
| 1910 - 1927
| Named by journalist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Brokaw Tom Brokaw] in 1998 in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Generation a book of the same name], this is the first generation on the list to have a real, commonly accepted name, and was named as such due to being the generation that survived the hardships of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression Great Depression] immediately before being drafted to fight in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II World War II].
|-
| The Silent Generation
| 1928 - 1945
| Coined by Time Magazine in 1951, the Silent Generation grew up during a time of paranoia and very little activism due to phenomena such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism McCarthyism] making it dangerous to speak out.
|-
| Baby Boomers
| 1946 - 1963
| A spike in births was seen following the return of soldiers to the US from European and Pacific theatres of war. These children enjoyed the benefits of US prosperity whilst the rest of the world rebuilt, lived in fear of nuclear annihilation and watched the Space Race.
|-
| Generation X
| 1965 - 1981
| "X" here refers to an unknown or undefined element, not specifically a placement in the alphabet as Y and Z (see below) seem to imply, and was used throughout history to refer to alienated youth in general as early as the 1950s, only being applied specifically to this generation in 1991. Generation X's time period was one of sweeping societal change and rapid technological advancement.
|-
| Millennials
| 1982 - 1999
| The last children born in the 2nd Millennium. Initially called Generation Y, as they were thought to be so boring the only thing of note was that they came after Generation X, by people that hadn't anticipated the internet.
|-
| Generation 💅 (nail polish emoji)
| 2000 - 2017
| This begins the hypothetical future generation names, though this generation was already fully born as of this comic's posting. Social media was established and rising during the formative years of this generation, and the widespread adoption of emoji began during this time. The [https://emojipedia.org/nail-polish/ Nail Polish Emoji] (U+1F485) is used here. Currently known as Generation Z in reality, though the comic implies it may change due to emojis ultimately replacing the alphabet entirely.
|-
| Zuckerberg's Army
| 2018 - 2035
| Continuing on the above, this may be presuming the dominance of FaceBook during the childhoods of this generation, and corresponding social norming as ultimately directed by its leader Mark Zuckerberg. Ironically, as of this comic's posting, [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-quit-young-people-social-media-snapchat-instagram-emarketer-a8206486.html young users were already leaving FaceBook for other social media sites]. May also be a reference to "Dumbledore's Army" in ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix''. It is uncertain whether Zuckerberg's Army is in alliance or at war with the other social media militaries of the mid-21st century.
|-
| The Hovering Ones
| 2036 - 2053
| This may posit increased adoption of cybernetics, which (as with any technology) are more easily adopted by the young who do not have to unlearn previous ways. If advances allowed someone to hover all the time, such that one would not need to walk, this generation's name suggests that becoming so widely used among this generation that they became known for it.
|-
| Spare Parts
| 2054 - 2071
| Continuing on the above speculation about cybernetics, this presumes enough apathy or sociopathy among this generation's parents that giving birth (or other means of creating a new human) was often done to create bodies from which organs could be harvested (presumably primarily for the benefit of their elders).
|-
| More Gen-Xers somehow
| 2072 - 2089
| As with "Generation -..-", this may be positing that Generation X like traits pop up about 3/4 of the way through each century.
|-
| The Paperclip Machines
| 2090 - 2107
| This, and the alt text, are references to the concept of a [https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer paperclip maximizer], where an AI might be designed to be helpful, but end up being harmful. The clicker game [http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Universal Paperclips] makes this concept playable. Furthering the above speculation of cybernetics, this generation might be primarily artificial intelligences, though of limited ability to set their own priorities (a flaw which would be fixed in later generations).
|-
| The Mixed Bag (produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon, and 2 Hitlers)
| 2108 - 2125
| As with the above examples, a generation may become known for its most famous members, but it is not useful to define an entire generation by them.
|-
| The Procedural Generation
| 2136 - 2143
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation Procedural generation] is a way of creating data automatically, rather than capturing it via sensor (including when the "sensor" is a keyboard and the data is typed in). This confusion of the term "generation" could refer to more artificial intelligences that were created via routines instead of directly coded, which would likely stem from attempts to improve child creation once most children were explicitly manufactured instead of relying on evolution-granted biological means.
|-
| Generation Ω
| 2144 - 2161
| "Omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and used as a symbol of endings. Given the above generation names implying increasingly artificial children, this may suggest the last generation that is recognizably a generation. This does not necessarily mean the end of children or the end of humanity, just that anything after 2161 is widely recognized to no longer have even notional generational coherence - perhaps because of drift (children born to one group during a given time are wildly different enough from children born to another group at the same time that people give up trying to group them by time), child gestation and maturation times (for example, if it became common for a child to go from conception to adulthood in less than a year), or exceptions to what counts as a "child" (for example, if it becomes possible and common to create clones that are somewhere between free-willed beings and mind-controlled drones, and this sufficiently supplants creation of completely free-willed children, regardless of whether the children are artificial intelligences or old-fashioned biological children).
|-
| Star Trek: The Next Generation
|2360 - 2378
|''{{w|Star Trek: The Next Generation}}'' was a TV show set in the future. The first episode of ''TNG'', "{{w|Encounter at Farpoint}}", takes place in 2364, and it concluded with "{{w|All_Good_Things..._(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)|All Good Things...}}", which took place in 2370. The final canonical adventures of the cast of ''The Next Generation'' did not occur until the events of ''{{w|Star Trek: Nemesis}}'' in 2379.
|}

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

:"Generations" are arbitrary. They're just labels we use to obliquely talk about cultural trends.
:But since Pew Research has become the latest to weigh in, and everyone loves a good pointless argument over definitions...

:''xkcd presents''
:A Definitive Chronology of the Generations

:1730-1747 The Founders
:1748-1765 Generation ƒ
:1766-1783 The Adequate Generation
:1784-1801 Generation Æ
:1802-1819 The generation we cut a lot of slack because they produced Lincoln
:1820-1837 The Gilded Generation
:1838-1855 The Second-Greatest Generation
:1856-1873 Generation '''-··-'''
:1874-1891 The kids who died in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines
:1892-1909 Oops, one of us is Hitler
:1910-1927 The Greatest Generation
:1928-1945 The Silent Generation
:1946-1963 Baby Boomers
:1964-1981 Generation X
:1982-1999 Millennials
:2000-2017 Generation 💅 [nail polish emoji]
:2018-2035 Zuckerberg's army
:2036-2053 The Hovering Ones
:2054-2071 Spare Parts
:2072-2089 More Gen-Xers somehow
:2090-2107 The Paperclip Machines
:2108-2125 The Mixed Bag (produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon and 2 Hitlers)
:2126-2143 The Procedural Generation
:2144-2161 Generation Ω
:2360-2378 Star Trek: The Next Generation

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

Talk:1906: Making Progress

2017-10-23T20:58:11Z

172.68.58.47: is "countless/COUNT()" a pun?

What about "countless" and "COUNT()" in the title text? I think that's a pun... [[Jacob|User:Nobody]] at 1 January 1970 12:00 AM UTC

1899: Ears

2017-10-09T12:46:24Z

172.68.58.47: /* Explanation */ Missing apostrophe

{{comic
| number = 1899
| date = October 6, 2017
| title = Ears
| image = ears.png
| titletext = My theory is that most humans have been colonized with alien mind-control slugs that hold the earbuds for them, and the ones who can't wear earbuds are the only surviving free ones.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are sitting in a park together and appear to be cloudwatching. Cueball asks if Megan has ever looked up in the sky and wondered, implying that he is thinking deep thoughts while allowing his mind to wander. It is possible, but not evident, that Cueball is listening to some audio device through {{w|Headphones#Ear-fitting headphones|earbuds}}, and his wondering is caused because he looked up at the sky and they fell out, leading to the thoughts about what it would be like to have "normal shaped ears" so he could wear earbuds without that happening. (This joke is directed towards a large group of people who cannot use earbuds successfully because they fall out.) Megan's response could either be making fun of Cueball and the stuff that goes on in his head with the random conversation points he tends to bring up, or agreeing with him that earbud wearers' ears are mysterious.

The comic appears to be a variation on a famous and often-quoted fragment from {{w|Voltaire}}'s satirical novella ''{{w|Candide}}'', wherein Dr. Pangloss states that we live in '{{w|the best of all possible worlds}}', among other reasons because '…noses were made to wear spectacles, and so we have spectacles'.

The title text may be a reference to the ''{{w|Animorphs}}'' book series or any other of a large number of similar stories, in which humanity is being colonized by parasitic alien slugs called [http://animorphs.wikia.com/wiki/Yeerk Yeerks], that enter a human's brain through the ears and can control them. Randall/Cueball here is suggesting that the reason most humans can wear earbuds is because the Yeerks hold the earbuds in place. Randall seems partial to ''Animorphs,'' but it could also be referencing {{w|List_of_Star_Trek_animals#Ceti_eel|Star Trek Ceti Eels}}.

Another possibility, given the earbud/music reference is that Randall is making a joke about {{w|earworm}}s.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting with his back towards Megan who is lying on her back on a grassy hill. Both are looking up at a sky with small puffy clouds (one large, two small, and four tiny). In the background fields are visible below their vantage point.]

:[Same setting, but with the clouds removed, to make room for Cueball's text.]
:Cueball: Do you ever just look up at the sky and wonder...

:[Same setting, zoomed a bit out to make more of the background fields visible, still with the clouds missing due to the text from the two people.]
:Cueball: "What are normal peoples' ears shaped like, that earbuds stay in without falling out?"
:Megan: Man, who ''knows'' what's going on in there.

{{comic discussion}}

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

Talk:1891: Obsolete Technology

2017-09-19T02:39:56Z

172.68.58.47:

Wasn't DOS still running behind Win95, and integrated into the OS similarly to the Linux shell? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.59.154|162.158.59.154]] 14:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
:Even worse than that. DOS was not "integrated" into Win95 or Win98, but Win95 and Win98 were built to run atop DOS. Windows NT did away with that dependency on DOS.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.102|141.101.105.102]] 22:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
::Win Me were also built to run atop DOS. Win NT were considered server system, only later Win 2000 and Win XP brought NT-based Windows to home machines. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:38, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

This reminds me of this Raganwald article on Blub: [http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/10/are-we-blub-programmers.html Are we blub programmers?] Adequate doesn't mean best for the job; this comic presents the other side of the coin, don't upgrade just for upgrade's sake. --[[User:Jgt|Jgt]] ([[User talk:Jgt|talk]]) 14:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

The computer doesn't look like an early PC from the MS-DOS era. Reminds me more of the previous generation: à so-called mini-computer or a terminal connected to a mainframe.
Zetfr 15:32, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

:You are right, but I think we should make allowances to the look as this is stated to be an 'industrial' computer. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.52|172.68.110.52]] 16:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

https://www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Education-Centers/Fireworks has a link to the 2016 Fireworks Annual Report, which has some useful statistics on page 2, the executive summary.
--[[User:Ozmandias42|Ozmandias42]] ([[User talk:Ozmandias42|talk]]) 20:08, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I just finished working on upgrading an industrial control system. In the plant's control rooms, the interfaces and terminals were relatively new, running Windows 7 Ultimate. However, the DBMs in the server room that managed the control network were running MS-DOS 6.22, and they still worked just fine. The client was only upgrading the system because the OEM no longer provided support or replacement components.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.11|108.162.238.11]] 21:44, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

What bothers me about old technology is that security updates stop while the rest of the world gains an ever-increasing exploit advantage over people connecting to the same Internet. Along with the risks to them, it's worse when compromised devices act as workhorses to leverage "millions of papercuts" against the rest of the system. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 00:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Hm, while it makes sense to stick to a DOS based system if nothing newer is required, the comparative of fireworks/nuclear weapons is incorrect. Upgrading those MSDOS systems to something newer (which could be just freedos) would perhaps incur on huge unnecessary expenses at most, while "upgrading" fireworks to nuclear energy would not only would make them far more expensive, it would make them far, far more dangerous and deadly. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.123|162.158.69.123]] 00:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

:What surprises me is that anything for which MS-DOS includes drivers would still be physically running after this long... in the comic scenario, they went 20 years without needing to replace key components? That said, for a lot of the older industrial systems, running something LIKE Dos, such as FREEDOS, or various custom boot environments which use DOS command formats, would probably make perfect sense. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.47|172.68.58.47]]

Talk:1886: Typing Notifications

2017-09-07T02:03:14Z

172.68.58.47:

Sorry for the double explanation, if there was any notification that someone else had added an explanation before I was done editing (I saw an empty explanation when I started editing) I missed it. I went (mostly) back to the first explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.172|141.101.88.172]] 17:19, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I believe that in some instant messaging systems just by clicking in the text box or just by changing focus to the text box causes a notification to the other person that you are typing. So, if I click into the text box and then go to another application and come back and resume focus, multiple notifications are sent, and there is an expectation that a message is coming that never comes. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 17:23, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

'''Hey, WhatsUp???''' --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:24, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I miss ytalk {{unsigned ip|162.158.182.22}}

[[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.47|172.68.58.47]] 02:03, 7 September 2017 (UTC) Wouldn't this comic make more sense if Randall were the person REPLYING to the chat message, not the person who originally sent it? although that would probably mean that we were seeing the chat window from the perspective of the anonymous second user...