explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3059: Water Damage

2025-03-10T08:59:21Z

172.69.195.114: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3059
| date = March 5, 2025
| title = Water Damage
| image = water_damage_2x.png
| imagesize = 612x329px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Your homeowner's insurance might cover it, but be sure to check the subductible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Need to clean up the article and explain the joke more.}}
This comic became the second in a series about absurd results of [[:Category:Home Inspections|home inspections]]. The first, [[3037: Radon]] came out less than two months before this one.

[[Cueball]] is once again getting his home inspected by [[Ponytail]], using the exact same device as in the first comic and also making the same introductory comment: "Oof. I was afraid of that." This time, she alerts Cueball about {{w|water damage}}, normally caused by leaky pipes or roofs. Water damage is hazardous to homes due to its ability to instigate mold and its negative impact on structural stability of the home. Instead of "regular water damage", she claims that the crust under Cueball's home suffers from water damage. The Earth's crust typically {{w|groundwater|contains water}}; she could be referring to {{w|erosion}}, which is one cause of {{w|subsidence}} and even {{w|sinkhole}}s, a concern to homeowners, but it soon becomes clear that she has different effects in mind.

Upon further investigation, Ponytail discovers that Cueball's home is near a {{w|subduction|subduction zone}}, a place where two {{w|tectonic plate}}s meet and one pushes beneath the other and descends deep into the Earth. This leads to the formation of magma as the descending plate heats up. The subducted material includes water in the form of hydrated minerals as well as liquid water, originally from seawater and seabed sediments drawn into the subducting fault. This moisture is forced out of the medium it is transported in and [https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/earth-hazards/volcanoes/how-volcanoes-form-2/ acts to lower the melting point of the adjacent rock], relative to what it would otherwise be, and allows magma to form more easily above the subduction interface. The magma can then force its way to the surface to form volcanoes, as Ponytail alludes to. However, there is nothing that Cueball can actually do about this.{{Citation needed}} Notably, as Cueball simply says there is a subduction some "off the coast", how far away it is from the house is very vague - his house could be right next to the coast, or inland by a large margin. The solution given is similarly colossal in scale, and "lithospheric dehumidifiers" on the scale needed would probably make the HOA upset, and possibly local governments. This treats the Earth itself as if it is part of Cueball's property, similar to Ponytail's previous appearance as an inspector.

An example of an area with many volcanoes caused by subduction is the {{w|Ring of Fire}} along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. In the contiguous 48 states, the {{w|Cascade Volcanoes}} of the Pacific Northwest are the result of this type of subduction.

Ponytail suggests "{{w|lithospheric}} {{w|dehumidifier}}s" as a solution, which would presumably dry out the Earth's crust, but this is not realistically possible. In waterlogged ground, {{w|continuous flight augering}} or the {{w|Pressure grouting|injection of grouting}} can assist in isolating the foundations from the surrounding {{w|water table}}, but this has little use below the {{w|pedosphere}} and near-surface rock, such as down to the base of the upper plate involved in the subduction (well below the {{w|Mohorovičić discontinuity}}, tens of kilometers down). In addition, by drying out the crust, they might {{w|Groundwater-related subsidence|cause further subsidence}} and present additional hazards to the home.

The title text is a pun making a portmanteau of ''subduction'', explained above, and the ''{{w|deductible}}'', the amount an insurance policy requires you to pay before it starts to contribute to the cost of the losses or expenses it covers. The title text may also be a critique of the [https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2791 homeowners insurance crisis] in the United States at the time of the comic's posting.

Subduction has been the topic of a few comics, see other examples in the explanation for the recent comic [[3021: Seismologists]] that mentions it in the title text.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail stands to the left of Cueball. She is looking down at a meter of some sort in one hand, and is holding a clipboard in the other hand.]
:Ponytail: The crust under your house shows signs of water damage. Is there a subduction zone nearby?
:Cueball: Uh, I think there's one off the coast.
:Ponytail: Oof. I was afraid of that.

:[Closeup on Ponytail who is pointing to a diagram of subducting faults.]
:Ponytail: Subducting hydrous minerals carry water down into the mantle, causing melting in the overlying crust. If you let this go, you'll have volcanoes everywhere.

:[Cueball, with his hand to his chin, looks at the diagram. Ponytail, holding her equipment, is standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Is there any solution?
:Ponytail: Giant lithospheric dehumidifiers. But the installation won't be cheap.
:Cueball: ''Oh no...''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Home Inspections]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Subduction]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

Talk:3009: Number Shortage

2024-11-10T12:19:58Z

172.69.195.114:

I bet there's plenty of 9s left. They obviously didn't get a proper range of digits at Benford's Discount Number Store. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.113|172.69.195.113]] 05:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Is this not an error? "15 2s and 12 3s" uses up one 3. So shouldn't it next be 11 3s left, not 10? -- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.144.152|172.69.144.152]] 10:41, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

the consequences of our actions /ref [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The above mentioned “error” is not an error. When she says there are 13 2s left, that uses up one 3. [[User:PedanticMan|PedanticMan]] ([[User talk:PedanticMan|talk]]) 11:13, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

: There's no pause, no "No wait" after "13 2s". Is she reevaluating numbers instantly realtime midsentence? Did she start the sentence planning to say one thing and instantly altered it partway through? I guess that's what Randall is going for. -- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.144.162|172.69.144.162]] 12:00, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
::That's what I assumed, and I already included it in the explanation. But I'm not sure if the title text is consistent with that interpretation. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:35, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
:::Title text is perhaps semi-consistent. Regardless of what was said/used beteen "ten minutes ago" and now, the statement (ten minutes ago) of "2 0s" used one zero. The statement (now) of "10 minutes ago" used another and ''technically'' used a third (but it could be considered recycled from the original statement being quoted).
:::Whichever way the counting works (and presuming that any quotable re-use principle doesn't allow just "Ns" to be requoted as "X Ns" in a way that preserves the N stock even whilst depleting Xs), we're certainly down to the stage where we can no longer say there are "0" of something, nor that the something involved is the 0s.
:::...to put it another way, a different TT might be "10 minutes ago we were down to only 2 ... oh darnit!". But that wouldn't have made itself quite so obvious (the Ns could have been 0, 1 or 2). I suppose having 3 0s ten minutes ago might only have led to the necessity of that logic being explained (then: "3 0s {0s=>2}"; now: "10 minutes {0s=>1} .. 3 0s {0s=>0}" "now?" " {0s=>0 ∴ unable to even begin to answer} "), however...
:::But, much like the TT question posed, wise use of "them”/etc might be useful in ''some'' (not-title text) circumstances. "I earlier said there were 9 9s, but now there are 7 of them. ...still 7. Yep, definitely 7 of them! (7s, on the other hand are now...)", vs. "there were 9 9s, but now there are 7 9s. 6 9s! 5 9s! <...> 1 9! <curses>" [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.114|172.69.195.114]] 12:19, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

If anyone wants to see self-referentiality of numbers taken even further, here is a series of posts that I wrote on "self-describing numbers": https://atmos.warplight.dev/profile/1p8WCZnqqG6N3ZOsJxBgUTo/p1cNCw1OTsioTQBRk [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 12:09, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

the first stage of grief is denial [[user talk:lettherebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 12:19, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
: So you saw that the Harris banner is still up too, eh? There may be no shortage of absolute numbers, but numbers of things, yeah, there are shortages. Like, chances to act to avert disaster, like weren't taken in 2016, and we got lucky ... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.92|172.68.23.92]] 17:37, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure "15" uses up one 3 (3*5) and "12" uses up two 2's and one 3 (2*2*3) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.213|172.71.222.213]] 15:09, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
:No, I think the "3s" in the first statement uses one, and the ones place of "13" referring to the number of 2s left in the second statement uses another. [[User:Laneymarie96|Laneymarie96]] ([[User talk:Laneymarie96|talk]]) 03:13, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

"Well? How many numbers do we have left?"
"Oh great! There's one more!"
(Yes, I know this goes against the logic of the original comic)
[[User:Turquoise Hat|Turquoise Hat]] ([[User talk:Turquoise Hat|talk]]) 17:36, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Why don't we try using Roman numerals while we wait for the shortage to get fixed? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.135.53|172.69.135.53]] 04:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

== "None" ==

Instead of having to say "I don't know" in the title text, one could just say "none". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.170|172.70.110.170]] 19:46, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
:It's funnier to imagine that they forgot how to articulate "zero" as a concept. [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 20:56, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

== Google ==
So, is this comic related to the Google incident? Google seems to be suffering from money '''shortage''' after being fined in large '''number'''s. [[User:CategoryGeneral|CategoryGeneral]] ([[User talk:CategoryGeneral|talk]]) 01:51, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
: ...no? Big leap in logic here. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.243|172.69.22.243]] 04:06, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

2998: Ravioli-Shaped Objects

2024-10-15T08:42:51Z

172.69.195.114: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2998
| date = October 14, 2024
| title = Ravioli-Shaped Objects
| image = ravioli_shaped_objects_2x.png
| imagesize = 608x569px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's a real accomplishment to mess up a ravioli recipe badly enough that the resulting incident touches all four quadrants of the NFPA hazard diamond.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BULGING LITHIUM BATTERY THROW PILLOW - Ideally the article would contain grounded explanations of both of the views that bulging lithium batteries are either dangerous or safe. What gas builds up? How would an explosion happen, or why would it not? Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Ravioli}} are a kind of stuffed pasta comprising a filling enveloped in thin pasta dough, commonly square shaped, and serving as the object of this comic's confusion matrix. This comic compares 4 'ravioli-shaped' objects (square shaped objects with bulging cross-sections due to their filling) with common actions associated with them.

{| class="wikitable" | style="background:#E6C3C3;"
! Ravioli-Shaped Objects
! scope="col"| Eat with a fork
! scope="col"| Rest your head on
! scope="col"| Puncture and slurp
! scope="col"| Install in your phone
|-
! scope="row"| {{w|Ravioli}}
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"|Ravioli pasta would indeed be suitable to be eaten with a fork, as shown.
|Ravioli pasta is not structurally strong enough to support the weight of a human head while reclining and would break and spill its filling over your head and the object one is resting on.
|style="background:#FBF8CE;"|If the ravioli filling is thin enough, one could slurp it out with a straw.
|Phones are not meant to run on ravioli.{{citation needed}} Stuffing a phone with a ravioli would cause it to break as shown, spilling the filling through the phone, which is a terrible idea.
|-
! scope="row"| {{w|Throw Pillow}}
|Throw pillows are made of cloth and are inedible, whether one uses a fork or not.
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"|A throw pillow is meant to be used as head support while reclining on furniture.
|Throw pillows do not have liquids inside them. Hence, Cueball finds, to his dismay, that they're empty.
|Throw pillows are significantly bigger than phones and as such can't fit inside them, nor power them. However, the 'installation' depicted, with the phone resting on the pillow, does not seem particularly harmful, and may be somewhat protective, so it's unclear why this square is red, rather than at least yellow.
|-
! scope="row"| {{w|Capri Sun}}
|Eating a Capri Sun, a pouch of sweetened juice, with a fork would most likely simply pierce the pouch and spill the liquid all over Cueball.
|style="background:#FBF8CE;"|A Capri Sun would serve as a waterbed of sorts, and wouldn't be unduly uncomfortable in a pinch. However, it's still possible that the pouch could rupture and leave you with a sticky head and no support.
|style="background:#C5E6C3;"|Capri Suns are meant to be drunk like this, and are enjoyed by many.
|The phone shown is surrounded by spilled Capri Sun, implying that the attempt to force the two together punctured the pouch. The resulting spillage would most likely just result in the surface of the phone becoming annoyingly sticky, but if the liquid managed to get inside the phone it could cause more significant damage.
|-
! scope="row"| Bulging {{w|Lithium Battery}}
|Bulging lithium batteries are explosive hazards and should not be punctured lest they explode. Additionally the contents of the battery are toxic if one were to somehow manage to eat the burning bits of the battery.
|A lithium battery is a small, hard object, and a bulging one is no exception. Since the bulging comes from a buildup of heat and gas, it would also be a constant fire hazard, which would not be conducive to relaxation.{{cn}} Lithium battery themed throw pillows, which bulge similarly to such batteries, do exist as a novelty item. Notably, these types of batteries are often referred to as "spicy pillows".
|Similarly to the 'eat with a fork' example, puncturing a bulging lithium battery is a bad idea.
|style="background:#C5E6C3;"|A bulging lithium battery could be installed in a phone, if one is willing to break the phone a bit (like the screen in the comic) to accommodate the bulging of the battery. Also a terrible idea, as operating the lithium battery in this condition may result in the battery [https://www.reading.ac.uk/health-safety-services/fire-safety/lithium-battery-information/i-have-a-swollen-lithium-ion-battery-what-should-i-do catching fire or worse]. More commonly, bulging batteries form inside the phone itself, causing it to bulge outwards. Surprisingly, this square is marked in green rather than red or yellow, as the first thing one should do on noticing bulging of the battery is to uninstall it from the device.
|}

The title text refers to the {{w|NFPA 704}} diagram for hazardous materials, a diamond figure put out by the {{w|National Fire Protection Association}} showing four kinds of fire hazards. A ravioli that touched all four quadrants would be a health hazard, fire hazard, and chemical hazard, and have some other miscellaneous hazard(s).

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

:[A 4x4 grid of squares. The columns are labeled: Eat with a fork, rest your head on, puncture and slurp, install in your phone. The rows are: Ravioli, throw pillow, Capri Sun, bulging lithium battery. Each row has an image of each respective item above the title, with the words “Home Sweet Home” on the throw pillow, and “Fruit” on the Capri Sun.]

:Ravioli, eat with a fork: [green]
::[Cueball sits on a chair in front of a table with a jar of sauce on it. He is eating from a plate from ravioli.]
::Cueball: ''Nom Nom Nom''

:Ravioli, Rest your head on: [red]
::[Cueball is lying down on a couch with ravioli smooshed on his head and the couch. Ravioli bits can be seen on the ground]
::Cueball: Eww.

:Ravioli, puncture and slurp: [yellow]
::[Cueball is slurping from a ravioli through a straw. In front of him is table with two plates, presumably with ravioli on them.]
::''Slurp''

:Ravioli, Install in your phone: [red]
::[A phone is shown with bits of ravioli sticking out and tomato sauce is dripping out.]

:Throw pillow, eat with a fork: [red]
::[Cueball sits on a chair in front of a table with a jar of sauce on it. He is poking with a fork at a throw pillow covered in tomato sauce.]
::''Poke poke''

:Throw pillow, rest your head on: [green]
::[Cueball is looking at his phone and is lying on a couch. His head is resting on a throw pillow.]

:Throw pillow, puncture and slurp: [red]
::[Cueball is sucking on a straw that is inserted in a pillow.]
::Cueball: Aw man, this one is empty.

:Throw pillow, install in your phone: [red]
::[A phone is shown on a throw pillow that has the words “Home Sweet Home” partially obscured.]

:Capri Sun, eat with a fork: [red]
::[Cueball sits on a chair in front of a table with a jar of sauce on it. He has stabbed a Capri Sun on a plate and is now splattered with juice.]

:Capri Sun, rest your head on: [yellow]
::[Cueball is looking at his phone and is lying on a couch. His head is resting on a Capri Sun.]
::Cueball: Honestly kind of comfortable.

:Capri Sun, puncture and slurp: [green]
::[Cueball is drinking from a Capri Sun through a straw.]
::''Sluuurp''

:Capri Sun, Install in your phone: [red]
::[A phone is shown to be squishing a Capri Sun. Juice is trickling out.]

:Bulging lithium battery, eat with a fork: [red]
::[An explosion bordered by 4 skull and crossbones.]

:Bulging lithium battery, rest your head on: [red]
::[Cueball is looking at his phone and lying on his couch. His head is resting on a smoldering battery.]
::Cueball: This fire hazard is uncomfortable.

:Bulging lithium battery, puncture and slurp: [red]
::[An explosion bordered by 4 skull and crossbones.]

:Bulging lithium battery, install in your phone: [green]
::[A phone with a bulging back, presumably from the bulging lithium battery. The phone’s screen is cracked in the center.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Confusion matrices]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Phones]]

Talk:2935: Ocean Loop

2024-05-21T11:37:20Z

172.69.195.114:

The 'standard' and '2x' sized images had unexpected sizes, so a Trivia section has been automatically generated, and an imagesize parameter has been added (at half size) to render the image consistently with other comics on this website. --[[User:TheusafBOT|TheusafBOT]] ([[User talk:TheusafBOT|talk]]) 20:47, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there anyway to get notifications when a new comic comes out? I'm always late to these 21:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)Jush
:I believe that there may be a Twitter (or X, or Xwitter, whatever we're calling it out) announcement direct from Randall's account, but I don't use that myself. And, like me, you were here ''right as it came out'', more or less, so so don't worry too much. You ''could'' write your own BOT-like poller (various ways, but do at least considerately throttle it back to checking perbaps no more frequently than every 15 minutes, 'cos too many people doing that would be 'problematical'), if you can't find a push-notifying service that does most of the hard work for you (and a whole host of other subscribers). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.241|172.70.85.241]] 22:23, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
:You can use the RSS feed: https://xkcd.com/rss.xml [[User:Val|Val]] ([[User talk:Val|talk]]) 04:07, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Happy Victoria day to anyone else in Canada! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.235|162.158.146.235]] 21:39, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Due to not being told about any Edit Conflict, I managed to co-edit the initial explanatuon with A.N.Other (sorry, haven't checked who, probably the first major editor in the page-history). I've put the most useful bit (IMO) of their article into mine, but some of it seemed wrong. Or at least not right.
*"because of the size and speed of a cruise ship, the ship likely wouldn't make it around the loop without falling off" - well, given the mass of water nicely holding itself to the loop, a ship floating around in it at the same speed would be holding itself to the loop quite nicely (moreso, perhaps, with its CoG taking a tighter loop than the fluid-loop).
**Of course, it could be slower, but that would mean fighting the current. Whatever huge velocity the water is going, you'd have to be capable of going full-reverse at ''significant'' speed to overcome that,
***Well, you could be ''just'' less than the ''just'' more than fast-enough water, but it's probably significantly faster than loop-speed, or a lot of edge-surface water would shed out of the topmost loop-trough due to fluidic friction against the trough itself.
***And there's the acceleration needed to match the fluid flow-rate, but that causes problems before 'falling off' is an issue. Imagine suddenly finding yourself going hundreds (thousands?) of knots sternwards in still water. Probably what it'd feel like, before even getting to the tilt (by which time, any ship that had survived is probably now close to water-speed).
*"Second even if they managed to make it through without falling, many of the passangers would abtain extreme injuries and/or likely fall off the ship all together (unlike {{w|rollercoasters}} the passengers aren't strapped down)" - If you experience negative Gs in a rollercoaster, it's not a true loop (just an awkward inversion). You should normally always stay at positive Gs, albeit at somewhere within 0<Gs<1 (which ''feels'' like negative, but is just short of weightlessness). Being strapped in is still important, but mostly for forces lateral to "local down" for where you are on the ride.
**...or, of course, if the ride malfunctions and leaves you stationary and inverted. Which happens, but that's not at all intended in most situations. There'd be no way an 'otherwise normal' flume-loop would do that, though refering back to the need of your ship to experience initial acceleration before it even hits the loop (and final deceleration once it exits it).
*"Third, because of the way the loop's designed, several hundreds (if not thousands) of tons of water is being launched onto the top of the cruise ship at a high speed. Needless to say, this would not only likely capsize the ship, but would also flatten any passenger on the deck." - The sudden undersea current is going to be a problem, but it's not going to be directed over the ship (save ''completely'' over the ship, in the loop far above).
**What you'll have is the turbulent local sea conditions. There'd be a 'standing wave-trough' in front of the point the jet of water is shown to emerge, itself probably a catastrophic problem for a ship, even an ocean-going one built in expectation of occasionally meeting {{w|rogue waves}}) and all the problems involved in traversing such rough seas. If your vessel can survive that (without spinning sideways and hitting the flume-trough, or breaking its back due to the extremely uneven and changing buoyancy along its length) then it's probably going to survive the much smaller amount of water that splashes 'over' its upper superstructure, compared to whatever relative mastrom of flow there will be passing under/against its (nominally) below-waterline hull.
I don't know how much 'reality' Randall has invested in this premise (I presume little, given the lack of pressure-trough in the 'still' water just short of the jet-emergence, nor any distortion in the sea surface wherever the jet originally sucked its water in from), but a lot of the issues of the looping-the-loop "What if" train will be the prime factors, plus maintaining general control (in river navigation, going downstream, between bridge piers, you really have to power your vessel forward, faster than the river itself, or risk losing yaw discipline on your craft). All the rest is icing on the cake of improbability. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.241|172.70.85.241]] 22:23, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
:It's a comic drawing after all, it's meant to illustrate the concept but leave the actual reality to our imagination. Conceptually it seems obvious to me that if the ship actually makes it through the loop, it exits fairly smoothly (class 2 or class 3 white water rafting).[[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.52|162.158.146.52]]
:"...wherever the jet originally sucked its water in from..." - from the mains, obviously.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.204|172.69.194.204]] 11:05, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

The current paragraph on the title text seems off-base. It seems pretty clear to me that Randall had the idea, managed to get the loop constructed, persuaded the ship to sail to the vicinity (unless it was constructed on a previously planned route), and was attempting to persuade them to enter it ''before'' anyone realised it was a bad idea and objected. He then tried toorganise the passenger poll, and they shut that down too, and fired him. The suggestion that someone else randomly built the thing, separately from him trying to persuade them to use it, doesn't really make any sense.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.48|172.70.90.48]] 11:24, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

927: Standards

2024-05-15T21:17:53Z

172.69.195.114: /* Explanation */ ...you're welcome.

{{comic
| number = 927
| date = July 20, 2011
| title = Standards
| image = standards.png
| titletext = Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.
}}

==Explanation==
For any engineering task, there are numerous ways a given problem can be solved. The more complex the task, the more room for diversity. That's all well and good for a one-off problem, but if a design is meant to be iterated over time, or if an entire industry is solving that same problem, part reuse and {{w|interoperability}} become issues to deal with. {{w|Technical standards}} thus came to exist so that industries could avoid wasting resources {{w|reinventing the wheel}}, whilst offering their clients a certain amount of simplicity and compatibility between vendors.

But standards have issues of their own. They don't accommodate every {{w|Use Case|use case}}, they might have restrictions or royalties attached, and people tend to be plagued by ''{{w|Not invented here|Not Invented Here syndrome}}''. So competing standards have a tendency to arise to address different perceived needs. After a while, the market for competing standards gets messy and hard to follow, and {{w|system integration|integrating systems}} built around competing standards gets burdensome. As a result, someone eventually takes on the challenge of creating a universal standard that everyone can rally around.

This almost never works. In many cases, a new standard fails to displace the incumbent standards, eventually loses funding and support, and thus becomes a relic of history. In many other cases, it only penetrates far enough to survive, ironically making the situation messier. The latter situation often ends up becoming cyclical, with new standards periodically rising and failing to gain traction.

Three examples are given at the top of the comic: {{w|AC adapter|AC chargers}}, {{w|character encoding}} and {{w|instant messaging}}.
* Power adapters are notorious for varying from device to device - partly to try to prevent dangerous voltage/current mismatches, but partly just because manufacturers all chose different adapter designs. In 2011, Mobile phone chargers had mostly converged on a common USB-based solution, but laptop charging remained still a long way out, despite the adoption of yet another standard, {{w|IEC 62700}}, and Apple mobile devices generally used proprietary Lightning connectors (However that is changing because of European law). Randall notes that there was additional complexity due to the fact that there were also ''competing USB types''; thanks to the European Union's {{w|common external power supply}} specification, micro-USB then won the day. In August 2014, the {{w|USB Type-C}} specification was published and started to displace micro-USB; it gained ground among laptop manufacturers as well. From 2021 to 2022, the EU successfully legislated for its {{w|USB-C#Regulations for compatibility|common use}}.
* Character encoding is, in theory, a solved problem - {{w|Unicode}} is a standard for character sets which currently includes over 135,000 characters. However, Unicode is not an encoding, just an abstract representation of the characters, and there are several implementations which encode Unicode "code points" into usable characters (including the two most common, {{w|UTF-8}} and {{w|UTF-16}}). Despite the [https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/character_encoding/ms/y success of UTF-8 Unicode], older encodings like {{w|Windows-1252}} have stuck around, continuing to cause weird bugs in old software and websites to this day.
* Unlike the other examples, there has been little or no effort by instant messaging companies to make their services interoperable. There's more value to keeping IM as a {{w|closed platform}} so users are forced to use the company's software to access it. Some software, like the {{w|Trillian (software)|Trillian}} chat client, can connect to multiple different services, but there is essentially no way to, for example, send a Twitter message directly to a Skype user. ActivityPub is an example of a standard intended to be universal, so any software using it for instant messaging can be 'federated' with each other, but as the comic points out, all this has lead to is yet another competing standard.

The title text mentions mini-USB and micro-USB, which were different standards used in 2011. As of 2019 for most applications of small USB ports (especially for charging / connecting cell phones), mini USB has lost most of its relevance and micro USB is competing with USB-C, as well as some solutions only used by single companies (such as Apple). As of 2023, Apple has also switched entirely to USB-C after pressures from the European Union.

Not all {{w|technical standards|standards}} are created equal. In the development of {{w|technical standards|standards}}, private standards adopt a non-consensus process in comparison to voluntary consensus standards. Private standards in the {{w|Information and Communications Technology}} (ICT) sector and the agri-food industry (governed by the {{w|Global Food Safety Initiative}}) are discussed in a [https://docplayer.net/23885374-International-standards-and-private-standards.html publication from International Organization for Standardization.]

==Transcript==
:How Standards Proliferate
:(See: A/C chargers, character encodings, instant messaging, etc.)

:Situation:
:There are 14 competing standards.

:Cueball: 14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases.
:Ponytail: Yeah!

:Soon:
:Situation: There are 15 competing standards.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

Talk:520: Cuttlefish

2024-03-11T17:01:08Z

172.69.195.114: ...not an auspicious comment, but merely making it at least somewhat more readable/replyable in a sane manner.

I dispute the idea of "memes." I don't remember my 2008/2009 Internet culture too well, but I certainly don't think cephalopods ever became much of a meme. This needs some revision. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 02:07, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

:There was entire subgenre of cephalopod themed jokes on certain science blogs, especially Pharyngula. Don't think it matters much for this wiki though. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.44|172.68.38.44]] 16:57, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Personally I think that "themes" works better, have edited accordingly, feel free to change it back though [[User:Whiskey07|Whiskey07]] ([[User talk:Whiskey07|talk]]) 14:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I added a comment that The Battle for Wesnoth may have added Cuttlefish as a result of this comic. I am not certain on that, if I'm wrong, please correct me. [[User:Kyt|Kyt]] ([[User talk:Kyt|talk]]) 01:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
:I found a forum entry (http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=11168) that refers to the Wesnoth cuttlefish in May 2006 (more than two years before this comic came out) so I have edited the explanation accordingly. Also, non-accordingly. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 18:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

While the evolution of cuttlefish attacking with electricity is probably what Randall meant, I am an avid fan of Dungeons and Dragons and I'd like to think that this is the beginning stages of what is known as an illithid. Cueball and Megan aren't killed by electricity but by the psionic abilities of the newly created illithids. - vegeto18 2014-02-18 03:14 PM

The robots don't revolt in Asimov's "I, Robot." They obey the three laws of robotics, unless programmed with modifications. As far as I understand, the plot of the film does not follow the novel. 02:52, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
:I was going to comment just this, but after seeing that I was not the only one who thought this, I have decided to edit the page. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.57}}
:You are correct, the movie does not follow the plot of the book, as that would be impossible. The book is a collection of short stories about robots, some positive and some negative. As such, saying that the film doesn't follow the novel is unfair. The movie took the themes of the book and concepts from the stories to produce a quite good film.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.236.49|108.162.236.49]] 22:14, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The cuttlefish and their method of killing the physicists resemble the Ood from Doctor Who, introduced in the 2006 episode "The Impossible Planet", in which the Ood became possessed by the Beast and began killing off scientists on the colony. The Ood were revisited in early 2008 in " Planet of the Ood", where they electrocuted the individuals who had enslaved them. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.75|108.162.245.75]] 23:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

IF I MUST TEAR YOU APART, SHEPARD
I WILL[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.110|108.162.216.110]] 11:07, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
: In a way, Reapers symbolize a culmination of all science made apocalyptic revolutions implied here, being giant space-faring robots that look like giant squid (and I will never forgive Mass Effect 3 for not having a Reaper kill be part of the final battle scenes, or letting us conclusively kill Harbinger). -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.155|108.162.250.155]] 04:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Don’t know if this is related but cuttlefish will also change colors rapidly to stun fish (first comment sry if did wrong) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.88|172.69.170.88]] 02:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

"Cephalopod is the class of animals that encompasses cuttlefish as well as squids and octopodes." And the chambered nautilus! And several extinct groups, like the ammonites and belemnites! Muahaha! Signed, mad former bio teacher. Randall, we accept your offer of allegiance as our minion. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 14:22, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi guys you are awesome!

Is the biologist Black Hat incognito as Cueball? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.137|172.71.146.137]] 17:42, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

== Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1] ==

Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]
Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]Though I don't think cuddlefish like to cuddle [1]

==footnotes==
unless there are gay cuddlefish. {{unsigned|Jupitale|16:35, 11 March 2024}}

2898: Orbital Argument

2024-02-24T04:45:40Z

172.69.195.114: /* Transcript */ Character cats. Leaving subject/theme cats to others.

{{comic
| number = 2898
| date = February 23, 2024
| title = Orbital Argument
| image = orbital_argument_2x.png
| imagesize = 448x323px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "Some people say light is waves, and some say it's particles, so I bet light is some in-between thing that's both wave and particle depending on how you look at it. Am I right?" "YES, BUT YOU SHOULDN'T BE!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LIGHT WAVE-EARTH BARYCENTER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, the person in the middle is using the {{w|Argument to moderation|middle ground fallacy}} to try to make a compromise between the two characters.

[[Cueball]] aplears to be asserting a {{w|geocentric}} viewpoint, whilst [[Megan]] adheres to a {{w|heliocentric}} one, an argument that has actually long been settled in the latter's favor. [[White Hat]], however, considers it politic to 'split the difference' and declares his intention to compromise with a 'middle' option, to try to uncritically please both parties. (Though it's probable that he may instead just equally annoy them both!)

By one way of looking at it, it happens that he is also correct. Due to the fact that the Earth also exerts a gravitational force (albeit relatively small), the center of its orbit is technically not at the center of the stationary Sun. The Earth-Sun {{w|Barycenter (astronomy)|barycenter}} is slightly different from the Sun's own true center. It is around this which the Sun wobbles, in (effectively) direct opposition to the way the Earth rotates around this midpoint. The Jupiter-Sun barycenter, meanwhile, is located just ''above'' the 'surface' of the Sun.

Though as each of the planets and the Sun are simultaneously orbiting/'being orbited' (and every planet also measurably pulls on every other, etc, even discounting every smaller and/or more distant body in the universe), the combined solar-system's barycenter is a less simply-defined point, which can often be considered to more simply average out to "<each planet> orbits the Sun" for most purposes, and Cueball is therefore ''least'' correct, and it would be a false solution to give his worldview an equivalence of validity.

That White Hat has worded his compromise solution in a way that (arguably) encompasses the deeper truth of the barycentric viewpoint is not treated as justifying his mediating approach. It is clearly understood (by someone who seems to understand the complexities, e.g. a {{w|Randall Munroe#NASA|NASA physicist}}) that White Hat's 'successful' conclusion is just accidental. Which is vexatious.

The title text extends the principle of the comic's astronomical viewpoint down to the correspondingly opposing 'quantum world'. For various well-studied reasons, light is often described ''either'' as particles ''or'' as waves. White Hat's approach would be to give both viewpoints equal credit and suggest a compromising middle-ground explanation. In this case, also, he would have the {{w|Wave–particle duality|correct answer}} but, in the continuing view of an increasingly exasperated witness to his chronic {{w|False balance|"half-and-half"ism}}, not through actually correct reasoning.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[From left to right, Cueball, White Hat and Megan standing. Cueball and Megan are arguing. Cueball is raising a finger while Megan's arms are outstretched. White Hat stands between them, both hands out in an equivocal gesture.]

:Cueball: The sun orbits the earth!

:Megan: The earth orbits the sun!

:White Hat: When two people disagree, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Maybe the earth and the sun orbit a common center!

Caption: It's annoying when people are right by accident.
{{comic discussion}}

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

2897: Light Leap Years

2024-02-22T09:18:26Z

172.69.195.114: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2897
| date = February 21, 2024
| title = Light Leap Years
| image = light_leap_years_2x.png
| imagesize = 288x389px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = When Pope Gregory XIII briefly shortened the light-year in 1582, it led to navigational chaos and the loss of several Papal starships.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A FLEET OF PAPAL STARSHIPS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A {{w|light year}} is a unit of distance, commonly used in astronomy, equal to the distance light travels in a vacuum in one year; the year used is the {{w|Julian year (astronomy)|Julian year}}, or 365.25 days. The joke of this strip is based on the fact that "one year" isn't a precise unit of measurement: there have been different definitions, evolving over time, of what constitutes a year. The {{w|Gregorian calendar}} (the one most commonly used in modern times) includes a system of {{w|leap year}}s in which an additional day is added every fourth year (with some exceptions) to make up for incompatibilities between day and year cycles. This temporarily changes the length of a year from 365 to 366 days. In this comic, a light year has been defined based on the length of the ''current'' year, and consequently becomes longer during leap years, meaning databases with astronomical distances have to be adjusted.

2024 is a leap year in the Gregorian calendar, and leap day (February 29) was just over one week away when this comic was released. The comic portrays [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] updating astronomical distances in some sort of database, noting how long and unpleasant the process is; the caption reveals that the reason is that leap years "make light-years 0.27% longer" (366/365 = 1.0027397...). This makes the distance to Alpha Centauri "0.27% shorter".

Standardized systems of measurement naturally don't change continually. As the comic points out, the difficulty in having to regularly update every reference to these units would be enormous and pointless. In real life, a light year is defined by the {{w|Julian year (astronomy)|Julian year}}, defined as 365.25 days, with each day being 86,400 SI seconds in length. This results in a light year which is standardized at 9,460,730,472,580.8 km, no matter how long the calendar year may be.

The title text jokes that {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}}, the originator of the Gregorian calendar, "briefly shortened the light-year in 1582." In reality he shortened the year, as he decided to advance the Julian calendar by 10 days to make up for excess past leap days. This change led to "navigational chaos and the loss of several Papal starships". This is of course ludicrous since there were no starships in the 16th century, there's never been a "Papal starship",{{Citation Needed}} and the light-year wasn't developed as a unit of measurement until 1838. Indeed, it wasn't known that the speed of light is finite until {{w|Rømer's determination of the speed of light}} in 1676. The joke is that the evolving and somewhat loose and changing definitions of early calendars had significant impacts on the units of measurement we still use today. Such changes were of only minor significance at the time, but as technology has advanced and become increasingly reliant on precise and consistent measurements, such changes could be disastrous.

The values given for Proxima Centauri's distance from the Sun, 4.2377 light-leap-years and 4.2493 light-nonleap-years, are consistent with a distance of 4.2464 actual light-years as described by the {{w|International Astronomical Union}}, which is only minutely different from 4.2465 light-years, the value given by {{w|Gaia catalogues|Gaia Data Release 3}} in 2020. Though tiny on an interstellar scale, the difference between 4.2377 and 4.2493 light-years, 0.0116 light years, equals 109.7 billion km (68.2 billion miles), about 730 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun (150 million km or 93 million miles).

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

:[Cueball is sitting at his laptop and leaning to the back of his office chair, while having his other hand on the laptop. He is looking at Ponytail standing behind him. The text from the laptop screen is shown above it, indicated with a zigzag line.]
:Cueball: It took until February, but I finally got all the distances updated!
:Ponytail: I really wish we didn't have to do this.
:[Laptop screen:]
:Proxima Centauri
:Distance: [in red, crossed out] <s>4.2493 ly</s>
:[in green] 4.2377 ly

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Astronomers hate leap years because they make light-years 0.27% longer.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Calendar]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]