explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3011: Europa Clipper

2024-11-13T14:37:51Z

172.69.195.176: /* Explanation */ replace underscore with space

{{comic
| number = 3011
| date = November 13, 2024
| title = Europa Clipper
| image = europa_clipper_2x.png
| imagesize = 333x356px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They had BETTER make this a sample return mission.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a JOVIAN DESSERT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The {{w|Europa_Clipper|Europa Clipper}} space probe was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, on 14 October 2024. It is expected to arrive at Jupiter and begin exploration of Jupiter's moons, particularly {{w|Europa_(moon)|Europa}}, in 2030.

Europa is an icy moon. Water ice covers its surface. Beneath the ice, there is expected to be liquid water, which may contain living microbes. The surface ice, in the comic, is likened to the caramel crust on the dessert {{w|Crème_brûlée|crème brûlée}}; the dessert was invented in France, which is, of course, part of Europe. To eat the dessert, the crust is broken with a spoon. The joke is that, to sample the liquid ocean expected on Europa, its crust (water ice) must be broken, and the satellite is equipped with a spoon for that purpose. No such spoon is present on the actual spacecraft.{{Citation needed}}

The title text expands on the main joke by stating that the spacecraft "had BETTER" return samples of the dessert/water ocean to Earth. Desirable as this might be (for non-gustatory reasons, as the taste of Europa's water ocean would likely be a surprise, to write no more, to a person expecting the flavor of custard), it is impractical. It is not mentioned whether Randall expects the sample to be served with {{w|Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Explorer|juice}}.

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

:[A satellite has two rectangular solar panels, a circular dish of the front, and a massive spoon on the bottom, twice the length of its solar panels]

:[Below the panel:]
:Good news: NASA's '''''Europa Clipper''''' is en route to Europa and has successfully deployed its crème brûlée spoon.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2015: New Phone Thread

2024-10-24T11:37:05Z

172.69.195.176: /* Ballot machine */

I feel the explanation could possibly give a sample text of what the person is actually trying to say [[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.113|172.68.46.113]] 05:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)Innertuber40

I have an alternate interpretation: The first thing I thought this comic was about is all the people who are typing on phones and the messages actually sent contain weird words any typos because of the phone's autocorrection feature (or swipe keyboards which are accurate most of the time but error prone nevertheless). So this particular phone actually is sending what the user is writing (or wants to write) and does not change the message. Examples: http://barabare.blogspot.com/2011/05/funny-phone-t9-typo-errors.html [edit:] I mean, this goes so far that occasionally on online forums you see people with the message "Writing from phone, message may contaion errors. Sorry" or something like that in their signature. So a phone that actually writes what you are typing (or what you thought you were typing) might actually be a good thing. Cueball is just astonished that his new phone does exactly that. [edit2:] But then again, some of the messages in the comic really indicate in the direction the current explanantion is going. So, nevermind :) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
:When I read it I also had that idea (being impressed by accurate typing) but it seemed too odd so I came to explain xkcd to look it up. I'm not convinced of either explanation at this point. For the current explanation (that the phone is autocorrecting to say spam) one would expect there to be a phone in the news doing something like that. This could be a hyperbole version of a phone is doing inserting product names like with BlackBerry expanding the acronym BB to their name on some phones. But I haven't heard of that anywhere and blackberry is not news. If someone knows of a current phone this behaviour is referencing please post a link? Thanks, rusl[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.113|108.162.246.113]] 07:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
:Thought the same thing. Obscure subjects are of course a mainstay of xkcd.com, but in the past some Wikipedia research explains away the obscurity with certainty. Not this time.[[User:GODZILLA|GODZILLA]] ([[User talk:GODZILLA|talk]]) 11:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
: Was thinking the same. Sometimes I write weird sentences, because the word I actually chose in autocorrect is replaced with a different one. For example, I am typing "wha" and chose "whatever" from the suggestion list, and I am 100% certain it got chosen correctly. And then when I look at the message, after I hit "post", it will only show up as "what". So my example sentence would look like "Yeah, what", isntead of "yeah, whatever". [[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.249|172.69.54.249]] 08:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Putting the "artifice" into "artificial intelligence". I too didn't understand the strip at first... briefly considered reading it from bottom to top. Now I agree that the user's phone is censoring and rewriting everything, and we're seeing the censored version. Another real world reference: a forum where your posts are blocked without telling you; you see your posts in place but no one else does. I've used forums where some imbecile moderator blocked me that way from spite... of course THIS site's moderators wouldn't do that! (You don't like words in capital letters?? Uhoh.) Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.121|162.158.154.121]] 11:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the “I’l never get a new phone” and “buy the new Mobile Pro 3” are completely inserted by the phone, not just modified user posts. They don’t seem to flow properly if we assume the user posted them, and we can see the surprise when the first of the two messages is posted; something that would fail to surprise the user to the degree he(?) is after already going through the rest of the messages. The “order now” message, in particular, seems a lot more like advertiser-speak than corrected user speak. [[User:Dyaomaster|Dyaomaster]] ([[User talk:Dyaomaster|talk]]) 21:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
:“I’ll never get a new phone” sounds like it originally was "Forget it, i give up. I'll just get a new phone." which seems natural for the user to post. Probably the “buy the new Mobile Pro 3” was also a warning not to buy the phone, which was changed almost completely into an advertisement.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.62.16|172.68.62.16]] 00:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a Doctor Who episode in which a Dalek speech module distorts statements in a similar, but much more spooky way. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 07:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
:In case anyone else was wondering, according to Bing: I think the episode they are referring to is Dalek, the sixth episode of the first series of the revived Doctor Who. In this episode, the Doctor and Rose encounter a Dalek that has been captured and tortured by a collector of alien artefacts. The Dalek escapes and goes on a rampage, but also shows signs of emotion and compassion after absorbing some of Rose’s DNA. The Dalek speech module is damaged and sometimes distorts its words, such as saying “I am in pain” instead of “Exterminate” or “Why do you survive?” instead of “You are an enemy of the Daleks”. This creates a contrast between the Dalek’s usual cold and ruthless behaviour and its newfound feelings. The episode explores the themes of identity, morality, and redemption for both the Doctor and the Dalek. {{unsigned|JackGreenEarth|17:58, 17 September 2023}}
::I wouldn't say that the speech module ''distorts the words'' of the Dalek. (It always distorts the ''timbre'', as it were; witness Dalek!Clara in the Assylum, once we see 'her' outside of her own little soufle-cooking mind-environment.) The 'Dalek' dalek is just plain wanting (or needing) to say those unusual words, just like the Cabinet War Room "British Military invention" ones would ask "Would. You. Like. Some. Tea???", and mean to (under the guise of being created for the Allied war effort by their stooge/plant).
::Yes, they may have a normally limited vocabulary, but mostly because they don't have much to say except the old classics (or variations, like "Exterminaten!!!"(??), when in Germany for The Stolen Earth/wossisname-key bit). They can still hold full (and philosophical) conversations with those they are forced (or deign) to speak with.
::I'm trying to think of any example (classic or reboot serieses(eseses)) in which a Dalek doesn't say what it ''intends'' to say (bluff doesn't count, either), and coming up blank (probably kick myself when someone reminds me of an instance).
::Though I'm rather minded, instead, of how the 'Mars Attacks!' film martians take the seriously misconfigured 'Earth translator' with them, proclaiming their continued friendship even as they death-ray everyone. (Even then, I think that they do this knowingly, for vicious fun... or just not bothered what it's saying, and still for fun!) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.227|172.71.98.227]] 20:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

I feel the first two "posts" suggest, the post only look different when viewing from someone else's device?
Although the following posts do not support this anymore. -- someone without an account.
:I think this is correct. The posts look exactly as the user wrote them on the user's own device/account, but when viewed by someone else, the forum/phone software censors and modifies the content of the posts. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.82|162.158.63.82]] 02:05, 11 July 2018 (UTC) A Nonny Mouse

== possibly connected to just announced Google "Smart Replies"? ==

Google lately announced new function to their keyboard on Android: reading messages on others communicator (like Facebook Messanger) and suggesting several short replies to choose from. It might be connected. pm7 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.140|162.158.88.140]] 10:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
:I suspect that it's rather referencing the recent case of phones clandestinely sending random gallery images to ppl in the addressbook.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.196|141.101.96.196]] 11:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I think this happens to people who try to leak high-stakes information (or etc) without understanding what they are up against. I found this comic very validating to read. The point of the “order now” button is to make it clear that what we see was not written by the author. This happened to the author on Facebook, but once they tried to tell somebody it began happening on their messaging app too. Use a merkle tree messaging system that allows you to keep your private key offline if you’re saying something important. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.142|108.162.219.142]] 15:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, am I the only one here this has actually happened to? The Google keyboard often seems *very* reluctant to swipe-write insulting words, & it's especially frustrating when trying to write about the phone itself while it's doing things like changing "inaccurate" to "accurate" & "stupid" to "great". Note that the swipe action required to write the word "stupid" bears '''''no''''' resemblance to the swipe action for "great"; Sometimes the suggested words seem so obtuse it feels deliberate. (Note, it just did it to me again; I'm editing to correct "great" to "stupid")
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:11, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
:I doubt it's intentionally reversing the meaning. My guess as to what's happening: they give insulting words an artificially low weight in their algorithm because they don't want to produce them by accident. It comes up with the word "great" rather than some other random word because their natural language processing algorithm recognizes that a word of that sort fits the context. [[User:Ids1024|Ids1024]] ([[User talk:Ids1024|talk]]) 16:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
::I agree that under-weighted negative words combined with context suggestions (& some Branding-first assumptions) are what causes the illusion that intentional reversal is occurring; but the illusion is crazy complete sometimes. I'm pretty sure this comic is based off some actual corrections, extended only slightly toward hyperbole. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 11:05, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

== EU copyright directive?

Might be related to controversial article 13 of EU copyright directive which will be voted on today (5 July 2018) and which will in practice mandate automated censorship AI on all social networks and alike sites operating in EU. More info on https://saveyourinternet.eu/ (the same directive with dreaded "link tax" in art.11 --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.207|162.158.93.207]] 23:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

== Wrong Link?

The link to the word "plaudit" in no way matches the context of the sentence. 12:25, 8 July 2018 (UTC)Someone who doesn't have an account.

== Missing closing equals sign

Should this get a [[:Category:Self-reference]] tag? [[User:ConscriptGlossary|ConscriptGlossary]] ([[User talk:ConscriptGlossary|talk]]) 03:58, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

== Ballot machine ==

I heard the news about a ballot machine changing the voters' choices. [[User:ConscriptGlossary|ConscriptGlossary]] ([[User talk:ConscriptGlossary|talk]]) 06:45, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
:*sigh* Which news? There was much news (more just of a "I heard that..." level of reporting quality) and it's absolutely more likely that someone voted X, confirmed X and X got recorded (or they mishit Y, perhaps due to an electronic version of the Butterfly Ballot problem, and had to unconfirm it and hit X ''properly''), than a machine effectively went "Ha ha! You voted X but I'm going to tell them you said Y!".
:(Much more 'sensible' for intentional voter-fraud or unintentional errors to crop up down the line, when the machine gets asked for the whole lot of anonymised results and nobody who knows anything about what individuals actually (thought they) voted for see an 'adjusted' tally.)
:I gather you're too young to remember back to the 2000 US elections (if not beyond), with games and claims galore happening pretty much every election cycle (at least in the US, where it seems to be a valid tactic to attack the way every single vote happened in ways that discredit the result in your favour). Mostly without proof or even proven false/bad-faith. Not surprised if it's already cropped up, in places with voting open.
:(Here in the UK, physical voting only happens on the day itself and seems to work. Historically, there were reasons to spread even the non-postal voting out significantly, across the US, but surely decent electoral conditions (and employment rights) could now currently make a lot of that unnecessary. But it can be hard to do Democracy, maybe it'll improve in the future.)
:...TL;DR;, I don't know what your point is, but I'm ''assuming'' it's just something to do with the quadrennial fight for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which is (to be frank) a boringly regular deluge of he said/she said unjustified rumour which just drowns out and smudges what should be a fairly simple "count 'em up and deal with it" process. Can we at least save this kind of thing until the strangely long November-to-January period when the inevitable arguments will at least know ''what's'' being argued as true or false? For all you know, Vermind Supreme will get an unassailable majority (popular ''and'' EC) and Jill Stein will get far enough up in next place to eventually convincingly form the official second party. Until then, not even worth the effort I took to write this. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.176|172.69.195.176]] 11:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

3000: Experimental Astrophysics

2024-10-21T12:41:14Z

172.69.195.176: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3000
| date = October 18, 2024
| title = Experimental Astrophysics
| image = experimental_astrophysics_2x.png
| imagesize = 317x490px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Our experiment will be expensive, but we believe it will produce important spin-offs, especially if we manage to hit the sun from the right angle.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SOLAR FLARE WITH ABNORMAL PULSAR READINGS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|Thorne–Żytkow object}} is an object theorized by Kip Thorne and Anna Żytkow, which is a red giant or red supergiant with a neutron star at its core. There have been no confirmed sightings, but HV 2112 and HV 11417, both in the Small Magellanic cloud, are strong candidates.

Cueball is asking for a grant for funding for research into these theoretical astral bodies, the implication being that they are asking funding for telescope time, or even an entirely new telescope, in order to make such investigations possible. However, the caption reveals that he is asking for something completely different: funding to ''create'' the object, with a slingshot. Normally, astrophysical science is an observational discipline, but the title of the comic (made explicit by the caption text) suggests that this is intended to be a 'practical' experiment to induce a TŻO into existence by actually sending a neutron star into our own Sun.

Cueball is complaining that no one is willing to fund this experiment to create the Thorne–Żytkow object for direct observation. This would be impractical, for several reasons. First, you would need to find (or create!) a neutron star and bring it here, which requires amounts of energy, mass, and precision that we have no current possibility of achieving. Secondly, having a neutron star anywhere near the Sun would most likely destroy the solar system as a whole.{{Actual citation needed}} Moreover, having a neutron star inside it would immediately turn the Sun into a red giant, which normally takes billions of years and will [[1606|ruin the weather]]. The funding body, presumably based on Earth, would probably find the end result would not generate a favorable {{w|environmental impact statement}}, given the almost inevitable destruction of their planet.

A spin-off usually means something additional that was not originally planned. The title text in this comic is a two-layer joke on the phrase "spin-off", meaning that hitting the Sun off-center (from the right angle) would likely have many unintended consequences, but also cause the Sun to start rotating abnormally, due to the added angular momentum, in the same way as hitting a ball on the side makes it spin. A similar idea (the engulfment of a planet or companion star) has been proposed to explain the apparently anomalous rotation of the red supergiant Betelgeuse.

"Spin-off" could also refer to material being flung off the Sun due to the impact of the neutron star. If the right material is sent in certain directions, it could have useful, or more likely just 'interesting', properties.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing on a circular podium with a screen behind him. He is holding his palm out towards an unseen audience. On the screen there is a large circle with a solid inner line and a ragged outer line. And then there are two much smaller circles also with solid inner lines and ragged outer lines. One of them is drawn just outside the large circle to the left. An arrow is pointing from this to the center of the large circle, breaking the large circle's edge. It points at the other small circle, which is drawn at the center of the large circle.]
:Cueball: A Thorne-Żytkow object is a hypothesized nested star — a red giant with a neutron star inside it.
:Cueball: So far, no TŻOs have been definitively observed, but your grant could help us change that.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:We're struggling to get funding for our project to slingshot a neutron star into the Sun.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

Talk:2974: Storage Tanks

2024-08-21T15:09:27Z

172.69.195.176:

The symmetry of the truss intrigues me. Struts that are diagonal across the faces of the cuboids is normal, but is it a real thing to also use the body diagonal? Never seen that IRL, not sure if it makes sense from the statics. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.247.82|172.70.247.82]] 22:16, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
: Struts as shown provide some left-right stability, but not as effectively as struts across the face would. They also provide some redundant front-back stability with the struts running along the faces. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.71.90|172.68.71.90]] 14:47, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
: I mentally modeled the flexibility modes, and it very much depends upon whether the verticals are solid (with their resistence to bending playing a big part alongside the incident horizontals'/diagonals' exactvmethod of attachment) or are just sections of rod between a suitable receiver-'node' at each junction.
: in particular, the strength of any one of the three 'boxes' (each level between adjacent horizontal cross-sectional perimeters) is somewhat less secure, as a single level can 'fold' sideways over each side's vertical-diagonal strut (along with the respective front/back horizontals, held 'square' by the internal cross-brscing). Only the continuation and linking with the other 'boxes' really guarantees any innate stability, and if each node is free-twisting then the likely first result of any failure is that the tower topples forwards and/or backwards as it folds up due to the unbraced facing and hindside quadrilaterals.
: But it does depend a lot upon the exact nature of the linkages (which can only be guessed at), and other failure-modes could involve node-slippage if they merely grip the cross-braces to the entirely top-to-bottom poles and there's potential for sliding there instead of primarily rotation (or over-stressed failure in any given length of rod).
: The support (or additional pressure) provided by the access staircase is also probably a factor. It could even be the most important bit in holding it up! ...if firmly anchored at the other end and robust enough in itself.
: I'd definitely add other diagonals (including opposite-type body-diagonals, perhaps tied to the existing one as they pass right across each other), just to be sure. The more the better, of course, but there's probably a limit through diminishing concerns. And too many diagonals primarily in a helical pattern could concentrate forces into a particular type of rotational failure if you also add too much brace-weight in doing so. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 15:07, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a pretty menial job for the "head of security". I think he would delegate this to a security guard. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
: They may be head of a department of one.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.139|172.70.85.139]] 08:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
:: That's part of the joke, that the #1 concern of the Head of Security is calculus teachers wielding power drills for class demonstrations. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 17:33, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

The explanation mentions there might be more complex calculus examples where the shape might not be a cylinder. I think some further explanation could be added that this does not change the pressure (hydrostatic paradox) but indeed change the rate of emptying the object. If differing cross sections are relevant at all. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.103|108.162.221.103]] 05:40, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
: Non-prismatic geometries are I think the ones being alluded to here, i.e a frustrum with the pointy end down will have a greater reduction in pressure for a given volume of flow towards the end than at the start, which may offset the reduction in absolute pressure. I've also seen examples where the flow rate is considered constant and the problem is to work out the fluid depth as a function of time, e.g. filling a pyramidal pool from a hose. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.4|172.70.58.4]] 16:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Its the most difficult job in history, even the best workers couldn't stand 1 day as head of security.[[User:I HAVE NO NAME|I HAVE NO NAME]] ([[User talk:I HAVE NO NAME|talk]]) 05:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I have to admit, I thought I knew calc as I had two semesters of it, but I had to look up what he meant by this. Ouch [[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.55|172.70.242.55]] 13:01, 20 August 2024 (UTC)student

If anyone could suggest something I can do for my class now that I can no longer drill holes in tanks, I'd appreciate the advice, thanks. [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 16:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Someone should do the math on the calculus problem as presented, as well as the algebra version. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 17:33, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
: Randall, like all good mathematics textbook authors, left the problem as an exercise for the reader. Does this happen often enough to warrant a tag? [[User:Paddles|Paddles]] ([[User talk:Paddles|talk]]) 05:57, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:: Yes... [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 10:10, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Is there anyone else who thought the calculus teacher was abusing the tank as a model for the complex plane, demonstrating how to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removable_singularity remove a singularity] from a holomorphic function? I wasn't confronted with that particular tank-emptying problem in high school, so my first encounter with "holes" in maths was in complex analysis. The title text was a mystery. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 10:10, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

As a mathematician, I'm surprised I didn't know about this idea. (It's definitely not my field!) I actually thought the flow would be constant, an algebraic problem. Oh, I'm sure I saw these types of problems in Calculus (and I remember problems like this in Differential Equations), but I thought those were just to make the math more complicated, not based in reality... So is it the weight of the liquid remaining above the hole that is the source of the pressure (i.e., would it be the same if the top of the tank were open), or is it the air pressure in the tank as the volume of liquid decreases and volume of air increases? [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 11:08, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:A sealed-top would change the dynamics (like trying to pour the contents of a 2 litre (or whatever the US equivalent is) pop/soda bottle, it will tend to 'glug glug glug' intermittently unless you: a) incline the bottle to allow an optimum amount lf free akr back into the emltying bottle or, b) initialise the up-ended emptying with a spin sufficient to create a 'waterspout' effect up through which the replacement air can (more) freely pass.
:Though there are other possible factors, in that example, including the potential pressure of any self-releasing carbonation pressure (e.g. giving the bottle a shake, or a foreign body, before releasing the 'pour') and/or squeezing/'milking' the soft plastic container strategically to create another form of pressurised expulsion.
:For the 'classical' problem, one should probably assume sufficient inward venting (either an open/part-open top or a second hole drilled near the top to effect this purpose) as well as a reasonably unexotic liquid (neither molasses, cornstarch-mixture, anything that is actually a very fine dry powder, anything that reacts significantly with/upon air, any liquid very close to its vapour-point nor ''specifically'' supercooled helium) or any additional elements (stirrers, baffles, spongey inners, inner membranes or the contents being a layered combination of imiscable liquids of different densities that may or may not react slightly all across the interface plane). Most things that aren't actually exotic (and even a few that are, and might warrant a warning /¡\) are close enough to water to treat as if just that, at least under the further assumption that we're working at or around Standard Temperature and Pressure. But a slightly different density, viscosity and surface tension (plus the nature of the container, e.g. extreme hydrophilic or hydrophobic inner coatings where water is involved) ''could'' (in combination) drastically change the actual outcome given enough of the right kind of simultaneous differences imparted. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.37|172.70.86.37]] 14:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

2957: A Crossword Puzzle

2024-07-30T08:32:50Z

172.69.195.176: /* Trivia */ Trivial formatting issue, but the CGs should know what they're doing by now..

{{comic
| number = 2957
| date = July 10, 2024
| title = A Crossword Puzzle
| image = a_crossword_puzzle_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x937px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hint: If you ever encounter this puzzle in a crossword app, just [term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality].
}}

==Explanation==
{{notice|<big>'''SPOILER ALERT!'''</big> Stop scrolling! These crossword clues comprise a single hidden joke, which you can figure out yourself. If you read on, the joke is spoiled and your chance of finding out the joke yourself is gone instantly!|image=warning!!.png}}

This crossword may seem extremely difficult, with questions covering a wide variety of trivia, linguistics, mathematics in various forms, alongside wordplay typical of crossword puzzles. But the joke is that every single letter of every single answer is "A".

The name of this comic, “A Crossword Puzzle”, is a double entendre which could, in itself, be considered a cryptic clue; the “A” can be interpreted both as the indefinite article “a”, and as an identifier saying that this crossword puzzle is specifically an “A” puzzle, due to the answer being all “a”s.

The title text is a play on a "type A" personality. The term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality is "Type A". In the context of the title text, this answer is a hint that the entire puzzle can be completed in a crossword-solving app by typing the letter A repeatedly.

===Explanation of clues===
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Location !! Clue !! Explanation !! Squares
|-
| 1-Across || Famous Pvt. Wilhelm quote || Reference to the {{w|Wilhelm scream}}, a widely used stock sound effect. || 10
|-
| 11-Across || {{w|IPv6}} address record || An IPv4 record is an "A" record; an IPv6 record is four times the length and is designated an "AAAA" record. || 4
|-
| 15-Across || “CIPHERTEXT” decrypted with Vigenère key “CIPHERTEXT” || A "{{w|Vigenère Cipher}}" translates the original text by the distance from A from the key, letter by letter. For instance, if the plaintext is "XK" and the key is "CD", the C shifts X 2 forward to become Z, and the D shifts K 3 forward to become N, yielding a ciphertext of "ZN". Since the ciphertext and the key are the same in this case, decryption just shifts all the letters back to A, akin to subtracting a number from itself and getting 0. || 10
|-
| 16-Across || 8mm diameter battery || An {{w|AAAA battery}} is a 1.5 V battery that measures 8.3 mm in diameter, 2.2 mm smaller than the more common AAA battery. || 4
|-
| 17-Across || “Warthog” attack aircraft || The {{w|A-10 Warthog}} is an attack aircraft. Here, A-10 has been turned into AAAAAAAAAA (ten As). || 10
|-
| 18-Across || '''E'''ve'''r'''y t'''h'''ir'''d''' le'''t'''te'''r''' in the word for “inability to visualize” || {{w|Aphantasia}} is the inability to experience mental images. Following the example of the pattern in the clue, taking the first letter and every third one after (rather than just every third letter) we determine that '''A'''ph'''a'''nt'''a'''si'''a''' gives us the word "aaaa". This clue is particularly mean because of how it instructs you to visualize the letters highlighted within the word in order to get the answer. || 4
|-
| 19-Across || An {{w|acrostic}} hidden on the first page of the dictionary || The first page of the dictionary (if you ignore the copyright page and the index) is the list of words starting with A. An acrostic of this page, taking the first letter of each line and arranging them in order, would just be a sequence of As. || 15
|-
| 21-Across || Default paper size in Europe || {{w|A4 paper}} (here written as AAAA) is the default size in Europe. At 210×297 mm, it is approximately 0.24″ narrower and 0.71″ longer than the 8.5″×11″ paper used in the United States, and due to having an aspect ratio of 1:sqrt(2), can be cut or folded in half to create two half-sized sheets (A5) with exactly the same aspect ratio. A4 is, itself, also a halving of A3 and of identical ratio, as is the case with all A-sizes higher and lower in the sequence.|| 4
|-
| 22-Across || First four unary strings || A unary number system represents numbers using just one symbol. For example, 7 in unary would be 1111111. The first four strings in unary, if you used A as the first (and only) symbol, would be A, AA, AAA, AAAA. || 10
|-
| 23-Across || Lysine codon || {{w|Lysine}} is an amino acid, with codons AAA and AAG. || 3
|-
| 24-Across || 40 CFR Part 63 subpart concerning asphalt pollution || [https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-63/subpart-AAAAAAA?toc=1 "40 CFR Part 63"] refers to federal air pollutant regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations. The subpart for "asphalt processing and asphalt roofing manufacturing" is AAAAAAA (also part LLLLL). || 7
|-
| 25-Across || Top bond credit rating || The highest {{w|credit rating}} for bonds is AAA. || 3
|-
| 26-Across || Audi coupe || First of three Audi references. {{w|List_of_Audi_vehicles|Audi's car models}} range from A1 (subcompact hatchback) to A8 (full-size luxury sedan); the A5, the one referenced here, is a compact executive {{w|coupe}}. || 5
|-
| 27-Across || A pair of small remote batteries, when inserted || Two {{w|AAA_battery|AAA}} batteries, which are often used to power remote controls for domestic devices. These have been combined to give AAAAAA — "Inserted" is often a cryptic hint that one word should surround another, although such a cryptic clue would normally also contain a more direct clue (albeit ambiguously) to the full answer. || 6
|-
| 29-Across || Unofficial Howard Dean slogan || A reference to Howard Dean, an American Democrat who ran for the party's nomination in 2004. He famously [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6i-gYRAwM0 yelled at a rally] in a way that was thought to be bizarre and which, it is thought, doomed his campaign. || 7
|-
| 32-Across || A 4.0 report card || A 4.0 GPA, at least {{w|Academic_grading_in_the_United_States|in the USA}}, is all As. This clue assumes seven classes. || 7
|-
| 33-Across || The “Harlem Globetrotters of baseball” (vowels only) || The {{w|Savannah Bananas}}, the vowels for whom are aaaaaa. The {{w|Harlem Globetrotters}} are an exhibition basketball team, with the Savannah Bananas following a similar formula in baseball. || 6
|-
| 34-Across || 2018 Kiefer song || “[https://genius.com/Kiefer-aaaaa-lyrics AAAAA]”. This is the only five-letter song title in Kiefer's 2018 album ''Happysad''. || 5
|-
| 35-Across || Top Minor League tier || The top {{w|Minor League Baseball}} tier is AAA. || 3
|-
| 36-Across || Reply elicited by a dentist || With your mouth open at the Dentist, the only reply a dentist can elicit from a patient is AAAAAAA || 7
|-
| 38-Across || Anaa’s airport || {{w|Anaa}} is an atoll in the {{w|Tuamotu archipelago}} of {{w|French Polynesia}}. AAA is the {{w|IATA}} code for its airport. || 3
|-
| 41-Across || Macaulay Culkin’s review of aftershave || In the movie ''{{w|Home Alone}}'', Kevin (played by {{w|Macaulay Culkin}}) puts on his father's aftershave lotion. The eight-year-old boy is not used to the lotion's antiseptic and screams as the stinging sensation kicks in. || 10
|-
| 43-Across || Marketing agency trade grp. || The {{w|American Association of Advertising Agencies}}, also called the 4As (here AAAA). An abbreviated word in a clue, here "grp.", is a common way to signal that the answer also should also be written as its abbreviation. || 4
|-
| 44-Across || Soaring climax of Linda Eder’s ''Man of La Mancha'' || Refers to [https://youtu.be/BWP7l0OTXJI?t=130 the 18-second-long wordless passage in Eder's opus], or possibly the final high note in the song “The Impossible Dream”. || 15
|-
| 46-Across || Military flight community org. || The {{w|Army Aviation Association of America}}, or AAAA. || 4
|-
| 47-Across || Iconic line from ''Tarzan'' || Tarzan has a famous {{w|Tarzan yell|war cry}} he shouts, usually when swinging from a vine. || 10
|-
| 48-Across || '''E'''v'''e'''r'''y''' o'''t'''h'''e'''r letter of Jimmy Wales’s birth state || The birth state of {{w|Jimmy Wales}}, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is Alabama. Taking every other letter of '''A'''l'''a'''b'''a'''m'''a''' gives "Aaaa". || 4
|-
| 49-Across || Warthog’s postscript after “They call me ''mister'' pig!” || Pumba in ''{{w|The Lion King}}'' yells "aaaaaaaaaa" while charging at the hyenas who insulted him. || 10
|-
| 50-Across || Message to Elsa in ''Frozen 2'' || The call which Elsa hears in ''{{w|Frozen 2}}'' is a sequence of four notes which resemble the requiem music "{{w|Dies Irae#Music|Dies irae}}". The sequence is sung entirely with an open rounded vowel sound, or a soft "a" sound. || 4
|-
| 51-Across || Lola, when betting it all on Black 20 in ''Run Lola Run'' || In ''{{w|Run Lola Run}}'', Lola ({{w|Franka Potente}}) [https://youtu.be/OTSz1w-cuZM?si=2vc51WCWvn20Hjoo&t=116 screams loud enough to affect the outcome] of a roulette wheel where she has just bet all her money on Black 20. The scream could be transcribed as "AAAAAAAAAA" || 10
|-
| 1-Down || Game featuring “a reckless disregard for gravity” || ''{{w|AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity}}'' - notably the title is commonly extended in promotional material beyond 6 As. || 6
|-
| 2-Down || 1010101010101010101010102→16 || 10101010 10101010 10101010 in binary is equivalent to "AAAAAA" in hexadecimal. || 6
|-
| 3-Down || Google phone released July ’22 || The {{w|Pixel 6a}} was released in July 22. Stylized in this puzzle as "AAAAAA" ('A'×6) || 6
|-
| 4-Down || It’s five times better than that ''other'' steak sauce || Five times better than {{w|A1 steak sauce}} would be A5, stylized in this puzzle as AAAAA. || 5
|-
| 5-Down || ToHex(43690) || The decimal number 43690 converted to hexadecimal is AAAA. || 4
|-
| 6-Down || Freddie Mercury lyric from ''Under Pressure'' || A drawn-out 'Aaaaahhhh' rising in pitch, from a song by Queen and David Bowie. || 15
|-
| 7-Down || Full-size Audi luxury sedan || Second of three Audi references. As mentioned previously, the A8 referenced here is their full-size luxury sedan. || 8
|-
| 8-Down || Fast path through a multiple choice marketing survey || The "fast path" is just to select the first option over and over again. Usually the options are labeled A, B, C, and D (or more) - choosing the first option for every question would be answering entirely with As. || 7
|-
| 9-Down || 12356631 in base 26 || Randall is expressing base 26 using the letters of the alphabet with 1=A, in which case 1235663110 = AAAAAA26. (It's unclear how one would express the digit 026 this way.) || 6
|-
| 10-Down || Viral Jimmy Barnes chorus || A reference to the music video for Kirin J Callinan's song “{{w|Big Enough}}”, which features rocker {{w|Jimmy Barnes}} in a cowboy hat screaming "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" while in the sky over mountain scenes. || 15
|-
| 11-Down || Ruby Rhod catchphrase || Ruby Rhod is a radio host in the film ''{{w|The Fifth Element}}''; he has a scene with a memorable scream. || 5
|-
| 12-Down || badbeef + 9efcebbb || In hexadecimal, badbeef and 9efcebbb add together to equal AAAAAAAA (195,935,983, 2,667,375,547, and 2,863,311,530 in decimal respectively). || 8
|-
| 13-Down || In Wet Leg’s ''Ur Mum'', what the singer has been practicing || In the song "{{w|Ur Mum}}" by {{w|Wet Leg}}, the bridge starts with "Okay, I've been practicing my longest and loudest scream", which is apparently eight As long. || 8
|-
| 14-Down || Refrain from Nora Reed bot || The "Endless Scream" bot on social media, made by Nora Reed, posts "AAAAAAAAAAA" (with or without an h) at varying lengths. || 8
|-
| 20-Down || Mario button presses to ascend Minas Tirith’s walls || In ''Mario'' games you typically use the A button to jump. In games where you don't press a button to move (e.g., games with a joystick), then the button presses required to ascend a vertical structure would probably all be A. This clue might have been inspired by the {{w|A-button challenge}} / [https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge A Button Challenge], which tallies the number of A presses needed to beat ''Super Mario 64''. Additionally, {{w|Minas Tirith}} is a fictional city in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' with seven concentric rings, each with a wall around it and higher than the last ring. Presumably, it takes seven jumps to get to the highest area of the city, so the answer is "AAAAAAA". || 7
|-
| 24-Down || Vermont historic route north from Bennington || {{w|Vermont Route 7A}}, or AAAAAAA. || 7
|-
| 26-Down || High-budget video game || A high-budget video game is usually referred to as a Triple-A game, or AAA. || 3
|-
| 28-Down || Unorthodox Tic-tac-toe win || {{w|Tic-tac-toe}} is usually won by getting either three Xs or three Os in a row, making XXX and OOO normal Tic-tac-toe wins. One could achieve a win of AAA by making the unorthodox choice of playing with the letter A instead of X or O. Alternatively, Randall is envisaging the grid as defined by rows 1, 2, 3, and columns A, B, C, so an AAA win would be simply playing in the first column each time - a strategy which should be obvious and easy to stop, even for young children who have not yet worked out that ''any'' route to winning can be blocked. || 3
|-
| 29-Down || String whose SHA-256 hash ends “…689510285e212385” || <code>printf AAAAAAAA <nowiki>|</nowiki> sha256sum</code> outputs <code>c34ab6abb7b2bb595bc25c3b388c872fd1d575819a8f55cc689510285e212385</code>.
Note that this 'clue' would be normally be ''particularly'' difficult, in isolation, as the nature of a {{w|hash function}} means that it is possible for multiple inputs to produce a given output, and that finding any of these (and definitely identifying ''all'' of them, to ensure you have the correct original) would require a {{w|brute-force attack}}; i.e. a test of all possible initial states to discover which of them might be viable candidates. Even more problematic is that we are only given a partial hash string, meaning we are possibly talking of a multiple of full hashes, each of them with a possible multiplicity of original plaintexts behind them. However, given the context of this puzzle, it's reasonable to guess that a sequence of 8 As might be the answer, and indeed its hash does match the clue given.
 The number of possible hashes in the clue is 1664/1616, i.e. 1648, or approximately 6x1054, although there really is no reason (aside from the fundamental impracticality) to try to solve this problem from each and every 'hash end'. Instead you would 'only' check every combination of 8 letters (presuming no digits, punctuation or whitespace would be inserted, that no “foreign”/accented characters are present and that uppercase is universally presumed, is 268; i.e. ~208 {{w|billion|short-scale billion}} possibilities) and discover which (one?) of these sufficiently matches the hash fragment given. Testing a hundred of these every second, it would take a little over 66 ''years'' to complete the task of checking every single possibility (rather than stopping at the first confirmed answer, which might well be the initial one in this particular case).
 In the context of a crossword such as this, however, you can significantly reduce this search by having established (or at least sufficiently narrowed down) the answers to the various across-clues which intersect with ever character of it (this form of crossword grid being of the {{w|Crossword#American-style crosswords|dense type}}, with no singly-clued spaces as with the more open lattice-types), reducing the necessary checks drastically. This could mean, having solved at least some of the perpendicular answers, that you have enough information to 'guess' at some likely answer, and then merely need to ''confirm'' that whatever guess(es) you make will resolve themselves into the clue-answer provided. (Much as you might with a more normally difficult clue, where you merely have to satisfy yourself that the surprise answer is at least justified as resulting from the original hint.)
| 8
|-
| 30-Down || Arnold’s remark to the Predator || A reference to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFYPVxHKdc this scene] from ''{{w|Predator (film)|Predator}}'', starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. || 8
|-
| 31-Down || The vowels in the fire salamander’s binomial name || The vowels in {{w|Salamandra salamandra}} are aaaaaaaa. || 8
|-
| 32-Down || Janet Leigh ''Psycho'' line || The iconic scene in ''{{w|Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho}}'' is the shower scene, in which {{w|Janet Leigh}} gives a long piercing scream as she is murdered. This can be written as 8 As if one wishes. || 8
|-
| 34-Down || Seven 440Hz pulses || A sound with a frequency of 440 Hz is a middle "A" note. Seven such pulses would be AAAAAAA. || 7
|-
| 37-Down || Audi luxury sports sedan || Third of three Audi references. The A6, the one referenced here, is their executive car. Actually, the A7, their executive liftback sedan, would fit the prompt of "luxury sports sedan" better, but 37-Down only has room for six As. || 6
|-
| 38-Down || A half-dozen eggs with reasonably firm yolks || Eggs can be [https://www.saudereggs.com/blog/egg-grading-system/ "graded on a variety of aspects"], with grades B, A, or AA. Eggs with a reasonably firm yolk are graded A, so having half a dozen of them gives you AAAAAA eggs. || 6
|-
| 39-Down || 2-2-2-2-2-2 on a multitap phone keypad || A "{{w|multi-tap|multitap keyboard}}" is a text entry system for mobile phones. Most numbers are associated with three letters, and tapping the same number multiple times in rapid succession selects the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd letter. 2 is "A", 22 is "B", 222 is "C", 3 is "D", etc. 2-2-2-2-2-2 translates to "AAAAAA". (If pressed quickly enough, this input may accidentally wrap around the letter list twice and simply result in a "C".) || 6
|-
| 40-Down || .- .- .- .- .- .- || .- is {{w|Morse Code}} for A. It reads out as AAAAAA. || 6
|-
| 42-Down || Rating for China’s best tourist attractions || China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism provides ratings for many tourist attractions in China on a scale from A to AAAAA, with AAAAA being the best. Examples of well-known tourist attractions with the AAAAA rating include the {{w|Forbidden City}}, sections of the {{w|Great Wall of China}}, and the {{w|Terracotta Army}}. || 5
|-
| 43-Down || Standard drumstick size || 5A is a common, middle-range size for drumsticks (the sticks used to play drums, not the drumsticks that get eaten). Here, it's written as AAAAA. || 5
|-
| 45-Down || “The rain/in Spain/falls main-/ly on the plain” rhyme scheme || An AAAA {{w|rhyme scheme}} means each of the four lines ends with the same sound. Furthermore, the sound in question is the standard vocalization of the letter A. {{w|The Rain in Spain}} is a song from the musical {{w|My Fair Lady}}. || 4
|}

==Transcript==
:[A square 15x15 crossword puzzle is shown. Only 21 of the 225 squares are black. The black squares are in a pattern that are 180 degree rotationally symmetrical. Three black squares down from the 11th column and similarly three black squares up from the 5th column. Three black squares out from the right in row 7 and then two more black squares diagonally up from the end. Similarly three black squares out from the left in row 9 with two more black squares diagonally down from the end. A single black square is three above the first black square on the diagonal going down to the right and similarly there is a black square three under the first of the diagonal squares going down to the left. (Row 6 column 12 and Row 10 column 4). Finally there are three black squares on a diagonal crossing over the central point by going up from the left through the central point (Row 8 column 8). There are numbers at the top of every column (except the one that is a black square) and similarly at the left edge of all rows (except the one that is a black square). There are also numbers at the bottom of every black segment (except the one that reaches the bottom) and all rows after black segments except the one that reaches the right edge. In total all numbers from 1 to 51 are written. They are written in reading order from 1 to 51.]
:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

:[Below the square there are two columns of clues for each number that belongs to across (rows) and to the right there is one column of clues for each number that belongs to down (columns). Both segments have an underlined and bold title above the clues. ]
:<big>'''Across'''</big>
:1. Famous Pvt. Wilhelm quote
:11. IPv6 address record
:15. "CIPHERTEXT" decrypted with Vigenère key "CIPHERTEXT"
:16. 8mm diameter battery
:17. "Warthog" attack aircraft
:18. '''E'''ve'''r'''y t'''h'''ir'''d''' le'''t'''te'''r''' in the word for "inability to visualize"
:19. An acrostic hidden on the first page of the dictionary
:21. Default paper size in Europe
:22. First four unary strings
:23. Lysine codon
:24. 40 CFR Part 63 subpart concerning asphalt pollution
:25. Top bond credit rating
:26. Audi coupe
:27. A pair of small remote batteries, when inserted
:29. Unofficial Howard Dean slogan
:32. A 4.0 report card
:33. The "Harlem Globetrotters of baseball" (vowels only)
:34. 2018 Kiefer song
:35. Top Minor League tier
:36. Reply elicited by a dentist
:38. ANAA's airport
:41. Macaulay Culkin's review of aftershave
:43. Marketing agency trade grp.
:44. Soaring climax of Linda Eder's ''Man of La Mancha''
:46. Military flight community org.
:47. Iconic line from ''Tarzan''
:48. '''E''''''v''''''e''''''r''''''y'''''' o''''''t''''''h''''''e''''''r''' letter of Jimmy Wales's birth state
:49. Warthog's postscript after "They call me ''mister'' pig!"
:50. Message to Elsa in ''Frozen 2''
:51. Lola, when betting it all on Black 20 in ''Run Lola Run''

:<big>'''Down'''</big>
:1. Game featuring "a reckless disregard for gravity"
:2. 1010101010101010101010102→16
:3. Google phone released July '22
:4. It's five times better than that ''other'' steak sauce
:5. ToHex(43690)
:6. Freddie Mercury lyric from ''Under Pressure''
:7. Full-size Audi luxury sedan
:8. Fast path through a multiple choice marketing survey
:9. 12356631 in base 26
:10. Viral Jimmy Barnes chorus
:11. Ruby Rhod catchphrase
:12. badbeef + 9efcebbb
:13. In Wet Leg's ''Ur Mum'', what the singer has been practicing
:14. Refrain from Nora Reed bot
:20. Mario button presses to ascend Minas Tirith's walls
:24. Vermont historic route north from Bennington
:26. High-budget video game
:28. Unorthodox Tic-Tac-Toe win
:29. String whose SHA-256 hash ends "...689510285e212385"
:30. Arnold's remark to the Predator
:31. The vowels in the fire salamander's binomial name
:32. Janet Leigh ''Psycho'' line
:34. Seven 440Hz pulses
:37. Audi luxury sports sedan
:38. A half-dozen eggs with reasonably firm yolks
:39. 2-2-2-2-2-2 on a multitap phone keypad
:40. .- .- .- .- .- .-
:42. Rating for China's best tourist attractions
:43. Standard drumstick size
:45. "The rain/in Spain/falls main-/ly on the plain" rhyme scheme

==Trivia==
*This comic got a [[Header_text#A_Crossword_Puzzle|comic-specific header text]] after the first day it was up.
**This was because one of the comics Randall lists as one of those he enjoys, [https://www.buttersafe.com/ Buttersafe], had already posted a similar comic back in 2011: [https://www.buttersafe.com/2011/02/17/crosswords/ Crosswords].
**Randall had forgotten this, but now pays tribute to this, stating that he must have been accidentally inspired by that comic.
*[[User:Elfakyn|Elfakyn]] posted a link to a picture of the solved crossword puzzle in the [[Talk:2957:_A_Crossword_Puzzle#Solved_puzzle_picture|comments]] and allowed it to be included here:
[[File:2957_A-Crossword_Puzzle-Solved.png|500px|center]]
*All the black squares are in a symmetrical pattern, which is generally the case for crossword puzzles in the US and UK. See description of the pattern in the [[#Transcript|transcript]].
*Crosswords have been mentioned previously in [[2896: Crossword Constructors]].
*Out of 60 clues in the puzzle, 10 are references to screaming or yelling, making the puzzle approximately 17% screams.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Video games]]

2420: Appliances

2024-07-25T12:22:57Z

172.69.195.176: Undo revision 347152 by 172.71.159.66 (talk) Redlinked category.

{{comic
| number = 2420
| date = February 3, 2021
| title = Appliances
| image = appliances.png
| titletext = If you had an oven bag and a dryer that runs unusually hot, I guess you could in theory make tumbled eggs.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic shows a {{w|confusion matrix}} of the applicability of various household appliances to different tasks. Green indicates an excellent performance, yellow not ideal, but usable, and red dismal or destroyed. The diagonal is green as it shows the tasks done by the machines they are supposed to be performed by. See [[#Table|table]] below. The comic is similar to [[1890: What to Bring]] and [[2813: What To Do]], but those comics do not use yellow or another intermediate color.

Plain salmon fillets can be easily {{w|Dishwasher salmon|cooked in a dishwasher}}, so it is marked "cooked", and thus "cook a frozen dinner" is only yellow on the dishwasher entry, rather than full red. This might also apply to most other types of fish (trout was a prior subject for this process), as commercially-prepared frozen dinners tend to be breaded white fish such as cod, mackerel, smelt, etc. for price and logistical reasons (retaining their taste and firmness through the cooking, freezing, thawing and reheating processes). That's if it is not a recipe built around fish, as with a tuna casserole, in which case it is probably entirely subject to whether the whole of the pre-cooked and frozen meal can be sufficiently and defrosted and raised to a safe and palatable temperature.

The stove/oven has three green as it can also cook a microwave frozen dinner, although slower, and can toast bread, again slower than the toaster. It is by far the machine that has the fewest red entries, only one, as it cannot wash clothes. It can also not clean dishes, but it might sterilize them, thus that entry is yellow. It may actually dry the clothes, but is liable to burn them and is therefore yellow.

The microwave oven can also cook eggs, thus it has two green, the only other than the stove/oven with more than one green.

The toaster and the washing machines are the only ones without any yellow, and with only one green, for making toast/washing clothes - they are thus the appliances with the fewest other potential uses (zero). The washing machine will at least not destroy the clothes if you try to dry them, but it has the opposite effect, thus still red. The toaster will not destroy the dishes, but will potentially just make the dirt burn harder.

The title text mentions that it would be theoretically possible to cook eggs in a dryer, but it is not a common use for a dryer.{{Citation needed}} The joke is that it is not called {{w|scrambled eggs}} but tumbled eggs. It also mentions that the dryer has to become hotter than usual for a dryer (maybe dangerously hot for the clothes for it to work). And then the eggs should be cracked and put in an oven bag, that really needs to be tight and well zipped.

The table displays a diagonal line of greens from top-left to bottom-right, as is typical with a table where the first row option is deliberately compatible with the first column option, the second row with the second column, etc. What is perhaps more interesting is where the non-diagonal greens appear (and, to some extent, the yellows), indicating appliances or uses that are more flexible and range beyond being of a mere one-trick pony.

==Table==
{| class="wikitable"
!
! scope="col"| {{w|Toaster}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Dishwasher}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Microwave oven|Microwave}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Washing machine}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Kitchen stove|Stove/oven}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Clothes dryer|Dryer}}
|-
! scope="row"| Make toast
| Yes, a toaster's function is to make toast from bread.{{citation needed}}
| No. A dishwasher would likely turn bread into mush, and the result is unlikely to be edible.
| No. A microwave could heat up bread, but would not brown the bread and make it crunchy. In this image, it appears that the bread is getting unevenly burnt.
| No. A washing machine would break the bread into several pieces and is unlikely to be edible.
| Yes, toast can be made using a stove or an oven.
| No. A dryer would burn the bread due to its heat and would break it up into crumbs due to its tumbling.
|-
! scope="row"| Wash dishes
| No. A toaster would not be able to wash dishes and is likely to do nothing to make them clean (again, other than sterilization by heat).
| Yes, a dishwasher's function is to wash dishes.
| No. A microwave cannot clean dishes, or even sterilize them through exposure to adequate heat, as glass/ceramic or plastic dishes cannot absorb microwave radiation in sufficient quantities to generate heat. Metal cutlery can, but only specially-designed varieties are supposed to be placed into a microwave because metal usually winds up reflecting the microwaves and causing damage to the oven's interior through electrical discharge.
| No. A washing machine would break the dishes. The pieces would be clean, but unusable as dishes unless more robust than regular crockery.
| Maybe, a stove or an oven could theoretically sterilize dishes with high heat (but this would not clean off any stains or stuck food particles).
| No. Worse than the washing machine, the tumbling of a dryer would thoroughly pulverize porcelain dishes.
|-
! scope="row"| Cook a {{w|TV dinner|frozen dinner}}
| No. A traditional toaster would not be able to cook a frozen dinner. A {{w|toaster oven}} combination would be able to do so (see stove/oven).
| Maybe. The fish could be cooked in a dishwasher, however, the rest might not, but this is not a typical use of a dishwasher.
| Yes, a microwave is normally used to cook a frozen dinner.
| No. A washing machine would make the dinner soggy and inedible.
| Yes, a stove or an oven could also be used to cook a frozen dinner. The image shows the dinner being removed from its packaging and placed in a baking pan.
| No. A dryer would make the frozen dinner inedible due to its tumbling action.
|-
! scope="row"| Wash clothes
| No. A toaster would not be able to wash clothes and would instead leave burn marks.
| Maybe. A dishwasher would be able to get the clothes wet but the washing may be uneven.
| No. A microwave would just burn the clothes and not do any washing.
| Yes, a washing machine's function is to wash clothes.
| No, a stove or an oven would burn the clothes and not do any cleaning.
| Maybe. A dryer would heat the clothes and kill germs, but not get any stains out.
|-
! scope="row"| Cook eggs
| No. A toaster would not be able to cook eggs. This image seems to show that eggs were cracked directly into the toaster, which causes a large plume of smoke.
| No. A dishwasher generally cannot cook eggs. However, it does seem that [https://spoonuniversity.com/how-to/5-foods-cook-dishwasher this is plausible to do].
| Yes. A microwave could be used to cook eggs, {{w|poached egg|poached style}} as shown in the image, or also {{w|scrambled eggs|scrambled}}.
| No, a washing machine would destroy the eggs.
| Yes, a stove or an oven is typically used to cook eggs (and other foods).
| No. A dryer would overheat the eggs and tumble them to shreds.
|-
! scope="row"| Dry clothes
| No. A toaster would not be able to dry clothes and would instead leave burn marks.
| No. A dishwasher would be able to get the clothes wet but would not do any drying.
| Maybe. A microwave could (unevenly) get clothes dry.
| No, a washing machine's function is to wash clothes and would just get the clothes wet. A washing machine's spin cycle could dry clothes to some extent but is not intended to fully wring all the water out of clothes.
| Maybe, a stove or an oven could be used to get clothes dry but runs a high risk of burning them, especially on parts that are in contact with metal.
| Yes, a dryer's function is to dry clothes after they are washed.
|}

==Transcript==

:[The comic is laid out like a grid, with usages for common household appliances the left-hand side (Make toast / Wash dishes / Cook a frozen dinner / Wash clothes / Cook eggs / Dry clothes) and appliances for these activities across the top (Toaster / Dishwasher / Microwave / Washing machine / Stove/oven / Dryer). The grid illustrates the "match-ups", with a green square denoting a "correct" match-up, a yellow square denoting something that may work somewhat, and a red square denoting something that most certainly won't work.]

:[From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the images in the squares are as follows:]

*'''Make toast''' with a '''Toaster''': Green square, toasted toast with stripe pattern.
*'''Make toast''' with a '''Dishwasher''': Red square, slightly broken soggy toast in a puddle of water.
*'''Make toast''' with a '''Microwave''': Red square, non-toasted and unevenly burnt toast.
*'''Make toast''' with a '''Washing machine''': Red square, a few small soggy pieces of toast in a puddle of water.
*'''Make toast''' with a '''Stove/oven''': Green square, toasted toast with somewhat irregular pattern.
*'''Make toast''' with a '''Dryer''': Red square, large pile of breadcrumbs.
*'''Wash dishes''' with a '''Toaster''': Red square, intact glass, somewhat bent fork, and slightly cracked and sooty plate.
*'''Wash dishes''' with a '''Dishwasher''': Green square, clean glass, fork, and plate.
*'''Wash dishes''' with a '''Microwave''': Red square, slightly broken glass, intact fork, and sooty plate.
*'''Wash dishes''' with a '''Washing machine''': Red square, broken glass, intact fork, broken plate.
*'''Wash dishes''' with a '''Stove/oven''': Yellow square, Text reading "Sterilized, at least" with an arrow beneath it pointing at a slightly cracked glass, intact fork, and sooty and cracked plate.
*'''Wash dishes''' with a '''Dryer''': Red square, a large pile of broken porcelain and glass with part of a fork sticking out of it.
*'''Cook a frozen dinner''' with a '''Toaster''': Red square, badly burnt food box emitting smoke.
*'''Cook a frozen dinner''' with a '''Dishwasher''': Yellow square, Text reading "Fish might be cooked" with an arrow beneath it pointing at a food box two-thirds filled with water.
*'''Cook a frozen dinner''' with a '''Microwave''': Green square, cooked food box.
*'''Cook a frozen dinner''' with a '''Washing machine''': Red square, crumpled food box two-thirds filled with water.
*'''Cook a frozen dinner''' with a '''Stove/oven''': Green square, sideways view of steaming cooked food box with lid removed.
*'''Cook a frozen dinner''' with a '''Dryer''': Red square, open crumpled food box with burnt edges. Burnt food stuck to the panel's borders.
*'''Wash clothes''' with a '''Toaster''': Red square, smoking T-shirt with large stripe-shaped burns and flames rising from the top.
*'''Wash clothes''' with a '''Dishwasher''': Yellow square, unevenly wet/washed shirt.
*'''Wash clothes''' with a '''Microwave''': Red square, slightly smoking shirt with spread-out burns and some flame on one sleeve.
*'''Wash clothes''' with a '''Washing machine''': Green square, clean wet shirt.
*'''Wash clothes''' with a '''Stove/oven''': Red square, shirt with a large semi-burned area.
*'''Wash clothes''' with a '''Dryer''': Yellow square, slightly dirty-looking shirt.
*'''Cook eggs''' with a '''Toaster''': Red square, toaster emitting a huge cloud of dense smoke.
*'''Cook eggs''' with a '''Dishwasher''': Red square, slightly cracked eggs in a puddle of some kind.
*'''Cook eggs''' with a '''Microwave''': Green square, egg in egg cup with text "(Poached)" beneath.
*'''Cook eggs''' with a '''Washing machine''': Red square, eggshell fragments in a puddle, presumably the egg.
*'''Cook eggs''' with a '''Stove/oven''': Green square, fried egg with beans on a plate.
*'''Cook eggs''' with a '''Dryer''': Red square, a pile of eggshell dust, and possibly scrambled eggs.
*'''Dry clothes''' with a '''Toaster''': Red square, mostly wet shirt, with parts in the middle being somewhat dry. Smaller stripe-shaped burns.
*'''Dry clothes''' with a '''Dishwasher''': Red square, entirely wet shirt.
*'''Dry clothes''' with a '''Microwave''': Yellow square, dry shirt with smaller burns.
*'''Dry clothes''' with a '''Washing machine''': Red square, wet shirt.
*'''Dry clothes''' with a '''Stove/oven''': Yellow square, dry shirt with small burn-like patches.
*'''Dry clothes''' with a '''Dryer''': Green square, dry shirt.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]

2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-09T12:33:07Z

172.69.195.176: Error

{{comic
| number = 2954
| date = July 3, 2024
| title = Bracket Symbols
| image = bracket_symbols_2x.png
| imagesize = 592x569px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = ’"‘”’" means "I edited this text on both my phone and my laptop before sending it"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ([{《"Somewhat satisfied rob- I mean human"》}]) - Please~~ change this comment when editing this page. Do *NOT* delete this tag too soon.}}
Brackets, also called parentheses, are typographical symbols used to delimit a section of text. Unlike most typographical symbols, brackets usually come in pairs, and the end bracket is typically the mirror image of the start bracket.

This comic shows a variety of (mostly) real bracket symbols, along with Randall's description.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Descriptions
|-
! Symbols
! Comic text
! Real use
! Explanation of the joke
|-
|( )
|Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside
|The regular curved bracket is the most commonly used in literature, and typically denotes aside remarks that are relevant to, but not part of, a sentence (for example, a clarifying explanation). In stage plays, teleplays and screenplays, they can indicate stage directions. It is also frequently used in mathematical expressions and programming languages as a grouping operator, to force a particular order of evaluation.
|Randall explains, accurately, that these are regular parentheses. No joke yet.
|-
|[ ]
|Square brackets (more secure)
|In literature, square brackets often denote meta-textual information, such as {{w|Gloss (annotation)|glosses}}, omissions for brevity, editorial comments or translation-related notes. In mathematics, they are often used for {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrices}} or {{w|Interval (mathematics)|closed intervals}}. Sometimes they are used as outer parentheses for easier visual matching in complicated expressions. In programming languages, square brackets are commonly used as the indexing operator, with the index being placed inside the brackets. They may also be used to denote specific data structures such as arrays or lists. In language definition syntaxes such as {{w|Extended Backus–Naur form}}, square brackets indicate something optional.
|The straight edges and sharper corners make these brackets resemble a solid box, presumably made of a hard material, which would be a more secure container than the "soft"-looking curved brackets. They also resemble staples, which are used to hold things in place securely. This may also be a pun on "open" and "closed" intervals, with the joke being that a "closed" interval is more secure than an "open" one, since it is harder for things to leave a closed container without your consent.
|-
|{ }
|This stuff is expensive so be careful with it
|Known as "curly brackets" or "braces". Rarely used in normal text, although may be used in expanded form to 'enclose' multiple optional lines following/preceding a single element of common purpose (similar to the 'split and recombined tracks' of [[2243: Star Wars Spoiler Generator]]). In mathematics, usually used to denote {{w|Set (mathematics)|sets}}, but other usage is possible. In programming languages they are popularly used to denote the start and end of a block of code, to the point that there is an entire group of languages informally known as '{{w|List of programming languages by type#Curly-bracket languages|curly-bracket languages}}'. In language definition syntaxes, curly brackets often denote that an expression can be repeated multiple times.
|Curly brackets look fancy, like gates with ornate ironwork. Randall implies a world where expensive stuff is set aside using the fanciest brackets available. Writing them by hand is also more complicated than regular or square brackets (in a way making them slightly more time consuming/expensive).
|-
|‶ ‶
|Someone is talking
|Used to denote speech or citations in normal text. There are various styles from the identical pairing " " to the 66-and-99-like “ ” which differentiates opening and closing quotes. The comic appears to use a handwriting-only slope-variation.
The straight (ASCII) style is commonly used in programming languages to denote text that is data, rather than code, such as literal messages intended to be displayed to the user.

Word processors commonly implement “smart quotes” by detecting the use of the single-type keyboard character at each end of a possible quote and converting it into the fancier left/right versions (though this is not always desired, leading to the default behaviour being disabled or reverted).
|Typical form of quotation marks. Quotation marks are most often used in literature to mark dialogue (words said by characters talking) as opposed to descriptions or narrative. Some languages or communities use different typographical conventions such as „German quotation marks“. See also below for British and French conventions.
|-
|‵ ‵
|Someone British is talking
|[https://www.grammarly.com/blog/single-vs-double-quotes/ Allegedly 'British quotation marks'], although this may be disputed by actual Brits who were taught otherwise. Single quotes might be more often used as '{{w|scare quotes}}' or a related form of 'emphasis' marker. One possible distinction is that single-quotes give non-literal paraphrasing, wherever double-quotes are used for the verbatim reporting of words (spoken or written).

In programming languages single quotes are used for diverse purposes. In C and Pascal families they are used to delimit single characters as opposed to strings of characters, which use double quotes. In many scripting languages like Unix shells, Perl, Python, JavaScript and others single quotes are used for strings as an alternative for double quotes, in some cases with different rules for interpreting the contents of such string. In Visual Basic single quotes (unpaired) are used to mark comments. There are other uses, depending on the language.

As with the double quotes above, the comic versions appear to be handwriting-specific, with no easy-to-use equivalents in commonly used computer fonts.
|Alternative form of quotation marks. Some British media use these to mark dialogue, for historic reasons, though in modern usage the double quotes may be more common [https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/marks and acceptable].

Single quotes within double quotes (and/or double quotes within single, as necessary) can also be used to more clearly indicate reported words as part of an outer quote, i.e. when you're quoting one person and their statement contains a quote of someone else. The main quotation would be surrounded with double quotes, while the nested quotation is delimited with single quotes (or vice-versa, depending upon the house style in use). This may even be further alternated to arbitrary depth!
|-
|‹ ›
|An Animorph is talking
|{{w|Bracket#Angle_brackets|Angle brackets}}. Aside from telepathic speech in prose, it's often used in comics to indicate that a character is speaking a foreign language that has been translated for the reader's benefit – at least notionally. Angle brackets are heavily used in {{w|HTML}} as markup tags to define how the source of websites intends to convey various stylistic and/or semantic distinctions.
|Books like the series {{w|Animorphs}} or science fiction novels use these when a character is communicating nonverbally, for example via telepathy. In the ''Animorphs'' series, this is called [https://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/Thought-speak thought-speak], or sometimes "thought speech".
|-
|« »
|A French Animorph is talking
|French quotation marks. Used for quotes within quotes in some languages. For quoting conventions in different languages, see [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/formex/physical-specifications/character-encoding/use-of-quotation-marks-in-the-different-languages this document].
|These symbols are French quotation marks - that's their actual name - and are used in French texts as the first-level quotes. Here Randall is mixing the SF convention described above with actual French use.
|-
|<nowiki>|</nowiki> |
|I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me
|Vertical bars in mathematics are used for the {{w|Absolute value}} function.
|The absolute value of a number is its value with all negative and positive signs stripped off; in practical terms this is used to ensure a given value is positive (ex. <nowiki>|-69| = 69</nowiki>). If for whatever reason you need to "protect" your equations from negative numbers (which does come up in programming from time to time) the absolute value function has you covered — though it may not always be denoted with vertical bars. {{w|Sigil}}s are symbols used in magic, often for protection from evil.
|-
|* * _ _ / /
|I have a favorite monospaced font
|These symbols are conventionally used in text-based computer communications (such as emails, chats, Usenet News articles) to denote *bold*, _underlined_ or /italic/ font; some client programs interpret them and display actual bold text etc.
|The kind of person who uses these symbols is the kind of person who uses a {{w|terminal emulator}}, which allows users to select one's favorite (preferably monospace) font. A {{w|Monospace font}} is a font (set of shapes used for letters, numbers and symbols) in which every character has the same width, unlike a {{w|Typeface#Proportional_font|variable-width (proportional) font}}, in which, for example, the letter I is much narrower than W. While a proportional font is more pleasant to read, monospace is easier to represent in simple mechanical or electronic devices, and has been used almost exclusively in the advent of computer technology, specifically in text-only environments such as {{w|computer terminals}}; these most often had only one bare-bones font that did not provide separate glyphs for different styles of character (weight, slant) or the ability to superimpose characters (directly adding underlines).
|-
|~~
|I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014
|Used in the [https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/#strikethrough markdown specification] to denote text with a horizontal line through it, known as "strikethrough". Used by most places that implement the markdown spec, such as Discord, Reddit, most wikis, Github and Tumblr.
|Strikethrough markup can be found on sites like Tumblr, Reddit or Discord to indicate that you didn't really mean something you said, and such usage peaked in the mid-2010s. This could also reference the trend of putting tildes after words or sentences to indicate the words are being said in a lilting or sing-song manner, or to indicate it is being said in a cute, nice, seductive timbre or as a particular part of a subcultural reference, e.g. in {{w|Furry fandom}}. Applied to a chosen username, it may be made to make it stand out, or else add sufficiently uniqueness despite the core name being likely to be in common use.
|-
|[([{()}],)]
|These Python functions are not getting along
|The square brackets denote a mutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/introduction.html#lists list], the round brackets an immutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#tuples-and-sequences tuple] , and the curly brackets a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#sets set]. It is valid to have them nested like this. [] could also be a slice (a bit of a list or tuple) and {} could be a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries dictionary], but the syntax is wrong for these.
|Random parentheses - Spaghetti code (badly maintained or written) in programming languages including Python will often be badly organized creating a mess of indentations and brackets used to create functions or loops etc.
|-
|⌊ ⌋
|Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary
|Mathematical symbols meaning "floor" (i.e., round down to the nearest lower integer).
|Mathematicians stereotypically prefer to work with abstract symbols and concepts rather than numbers or indeed anything that might pertain to the real world. When presented with an "actual" ({{w|real number|real}}) number, it is possible that a mathematician may wish for it to be rounded to the nearest integer to make it simpler, or handle it using {{w|number theory}}.
|-
|∫  ∫
|Why are you trying to read my violin?
|∫ looks like the {{w|Integral symbol}} which itself is derived from a {{w|Long s}}. In mathematics it is usually paired with the differential of the variable of integration (e.g., dx). A reverse integral symbol is not used in Western mathematics typesetting; it occasionally appears in mathematical texts written in Arabic, along with other symbols likewise adapted to Arabic's right-to-left writing direction. The symbol also looks like a lowercase {{w|Esh (letter)|esh}} (ʃ), used in phonetic transcription.

There is no unicode symbol for the reversed version - it is displayed here as a reversed ∫. The esh symbol has a reversed counterpart in Unicode, but it's quite a bit shorter (ʅ).
|Violins are known for their characteristic {{w|F-hole}}s. This symbol also resembles half a pair  of curly braces.
|-
|<nowiki>| ⟩</nowiki>
|Don't stop here–this is quantum country
|This {{w|Bra–ket notation|notation is used in quantum mechanics}} to notate a vector. This is called a ket, and the mirrored sign <nowiki>⟨|</nowiki> is called a bra. Combining them as bra-ket gives the inner product <nowiki>⟨|⟩</nowiki>.
| This is paraphrasing the movie ''{{w|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas}}'', where {{w|Johnny Depp}}'s character Raoul Duke says "We can't stop here, this is bat country!" while hallucinating violently on drugs, though not as violently as later in the movie.
|}


The title text includes different kinds of quotes, including the ASCII " and ' as well as the Unicode “ and ” (which have both an opening and closing version).
By default, iOS uses the latter curly quotes, while Windows uses the former straight quotes (an OS-level application of the “smart quotes” described above). Editing the same text on both an iPhone and a Windows computer, in circumstances with a different approach to such general auto-replacement, can leave both types of quotes in the text.

Parentheses are a running joke on XKCD. Previous parenthetical comics include:
* [[297: Lisp Cycles]] - referencing the Lisp programming language's use of parentheses
* [[312: With Apologies to Robert Frost]] - the punchline is a close parenthesis
* [[541: TED Talk]] - about ending parenthetical statements with emoticons
* [[859: (]] - which has an open parenthesis with none to close it
* [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]] - making fun of Computer Science as a major for its tedious use of matching parentheses

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

:Bracket Symbols
:and what they mean

:( ) Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside

:[ ] Square brackets (more secure)

:{ } This stuff is expensive so be careful with it

:" " Someone is talking

:' ' Someone British is talking

:‹ › An Animorph is talking

:« » A French Animorph is talking

:| | I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me

:<nowiki>*</nowiki> * _ _ / / I have a favorite monospaced font

:~ ~ I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014

:[ ( [ { ( ) } ] , ) ] These Python functions are '''''not''''' getting along

:⌊ ⌋ Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary

:ʃ ʅ Why are you trying to read my violin?

:| ⟩ Don't stop here--this is quantum country

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Animorphs]]

Talk:2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-04T11:33:50Z

172.69.195.176:

ummm. How does editing this stuff work. Is this HTML? Why can't we have a gooey? Also, I only sort of get this comic, but it's not that funny.
<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="up">Here is some scrolling text... going up!</marquee>
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.102|172.69.58.102]] 05:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
: Have a WHAT? - [[Special:Contributions/172.70.179.88|172.70.179.88]] 09:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:: A [https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Gooey Gooey]. Although I'm not sure how that would help.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.121|172.70.163.121]] 11:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Did my best with my first ever contribution - I know there's a chart feature but I cba to relearn html. Feel free to fix it and PLEASE finish my bad explanations. [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

⌊⌋ are floor brackets (and you can now copy-paste them from here into the explanation as needed) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.33|162.158.126.33]] 06:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

As for the spaghetti, in Python, it'd be a list containing a tuple containing a list containing a set containing an empty tuple. Probably doesn't mean anything specific and pretty much useless), but it *is* legal code [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.164|162.158.126.164]] 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yay, I figured out how to use a table! [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm British, ex 60+ years and I'm sure I was taught in school to use "for first person speech" and 'for quoting others'. I hadn't even noticed printers doing the opposite. But there again I didn't go to Grammar School. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:I'm British, too, and as I recall my school says sixty years ago, the symbols () are just called brackets and parenthesis is just the grammatical construct in which they can be used. But you can use dashes or even commas to indicate a parenthesis. This has been discussed on such blogs has Ben Yagoda's Not One-off Britishisms. https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2015/12/15/square-brackets/ --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.178|172.70.90.178]] 08:16, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:Yeah - I don't know where this weird idea that British people use single quotes comes from - it's not my experience. Generally seems to be double quotes for direct speech, and single quotes for paraphrasing, scare quotes, 'jargonisms', etc. I've added to the explanation to reflect that a bit.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.176|172.69.195.176]] 11:33, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The integral sign (and its reverse) in the context of string instruments are the so-called 'F-holes', and they're not just decorative elements but help in the instrument(s) resonate more freely. Other shapes exist as well. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_hole here] for an in-depth explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.151.27|172.69.151.27]] 09:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

「かっこ」[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.151|108.162.250.151]] 09:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Randall missed an opportunity to reference catamorphisms i.e. banana brackets. There may be some better examples missed as well.

Who is that? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.156|172.68.186.156]] 10:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Likely reference to the quote and catchphrase "We can't stop here, this is bat country" from ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.242|162.158.134.242]] 11:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2949: Network Configuration

2024-06-25T08:29:57Z

172.69.195.176:

I'm not currently on a device that is easy to edit with, but this definitely belongs in the Cueball Computer Problems category. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 05:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be too much abstraction and virtualization in the OSI layers? OTOH the new civilizations are adapted to their packet. Probably made it easier to formulate the routing rules from what it should do, instead of how it should do it. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.62|162.158.94.62]] 08:13, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

...cursed. All of it. [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 08:27, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

The "always a netcat, but different function in each universe" seems very reminiscent of the gag in ''Hitch-hiker's Guide'' where every species has its own drink called something similar to "gin and tonic". [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.244|172.69.43.244]] 09:36, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

:Good catch. I'm not sure if it's a direct reference, but it's definitely in the same vein. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.193.142|162.158.193.142]] 13:26, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
::Though later (and therefore possibly an inspired trope), "Swedish Meatballs" (in its Earth form, at least) is apparently just as widespread in the Babylon 5 universe. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.96|172.69.194.96]] 14:18, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Please finish your parenthetical statements [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.227|162.158.41.227]] 15:33, 22 June 2024 (UTC))
::::Finished. Changed minds about commas and parens, before posting, but didn't properly bracket things. This way isn't the way I intended, but more undrstandable 'in and out' of subclauses than sticking with commas alone. (And without rewriting it all, which would, of course be better!) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.126|141.101.99.126]] 21:12, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Notably, most civilizations also develop something called VIM, but it's usually an STD.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Finally a reset button that really does what it says on the label! Now please excuse me while I'm off mammoth hunting. [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 18:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I am pretty sure the joke is that "reinventing all of civilisation" is an exaggeration of the perhaps manual nature of creating packets that Cueball has to do, no? The current explanation seems to take it too literally. {{unsigned ip|108.162.226.73|04:13, 25 June 2024 }}
:He has literally had to rebuild his chair, and do some sort of farming, so no, I don't think it's an exaggeration. Plus, it's Cueball.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.121|172.70.163.121]] 08:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
: (Snap. Edit-conflicted answer!) The comic does at the very least depict Cueball having taken time off to do some rudimentary gardening, though... Randall often ''does'' depict a (surprising) literal truth behind what we might normally assume, from the language used, is more akin to metaphor. So par for the course. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.176|172.69.195.176]] 08:29, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2869: Puzzles

2023-12-29T11:43:42Z

172.69.195.176:

Aunt Alice is obviously a reference to the standard Alice / Bob / Eve crypto protocol characters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.219|162.158.158.219]] 20:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Anyone know if this is an actual scene from an actual children's book? Or is it just sort of an ad hoc representation of how these things might typically go? -- MeZimm [[Special:Contributions/172.68.2.107|172.68.2.107]] 20:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:Something about this reminded me of *The 39 Clues*? Which I've never read, so I don't know why. Looking them up, Wikipedia says book 1 leads to the clue "iron solute", and the fact that it specifically anagrams to "resolution" (sounds backwards, I'd think the final one would be "iron solute") - never mind that it could be many, many other things, such as "tonsure oil" or "ursine loot" (honey) or "oriole nuts" or "urine stool" or lots of other less-immediately-interpretable-as-an-ingredient things. And never mind that this clue was supposedly hidden by Ben Franklin, old enough that I wouldn't trust anything that relies on very specific spellings. I would assume that other puzzles within the book, and the rest of the series, are of similar dubiousness. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.183|162.158.146.183]] 04:15, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

:"Aunt Gertrude" suggests *The Hardy Boys* series of children's novels. I don't recall this particular scene. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 20:38, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

::I don't think Aunt Gertrude ever set Frank and Joe a puzzle herself, but it is certainly evocative of several puzzles in the Hardy Boys. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.136|172.71.151.136]] 21:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:::Can anyone with stronger Hardy Boys knowledge add some examples? I never read the Hardy Boys books or similiar kid mysteries, so it's hard to imagine how thin those mysteries got, to be compared to "character name -> random letter/word association -> answer" as used here without some examples. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 22:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

::::I read seven of the earliest Hardy books plus about that many around #100, give or take. They didn't use a lot of word clues, it was more about who looks shady/innocent (but isn't), interviews, half-overheard crime plans, footprints, vehicle tracing, a suspect lost a hat/glove/crossbow, etc. The only word clues I recall off the top of my head were: shipment abbreviations (easy), a crook deathbed-confessing where he hid his loot (but the boys search the wrong building, confusing them), a bit of Morse Code (bonus for Frank sending it to Aunt Gertrude, and she understood despite the fact that she ''hated'' the idea of her nephews getting into danger), and two or three other coded distress signals (which the boys and/or their expert detective dad had already discussed beforehand). The most obscure of those signals I can recall was from The Mystery of Cabin Island -- Google that name plus "''alley'' cat" and you'll see how difficult it was (i.e. not at all) for them to guess that shady-guy-of-the-week Mr. ''Hanleigh'' was dangerous. (there was also a time when their computer-geek friend cracked a password, but it wasn't really a puzzle -- the computer belonged to a medieval faire technician, so I think the friend just brute-forced medieval words until he got in) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.126|172.70.175.126]] 00:18, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

::::The Mystery of Cabin Island included a substitution cipher that was not trivial (at least to crack by hand). The cipher told the location of the stolen medals. The Yellow Feather Mystery used a platen (a piece of paper with cutouts which, when placed on the proper source text, reveal the hidden message) as the device to reveal the location of a dead man's will. I also recall a time when the Hardy's pilot friend Jack Wayne was kidnapped and could only communicate in an obfuscated radio message that was something like 'beware the bite'. Turns out he mean the homophon 'bight', like a curve or recess in a coastline (it was a geograpical reference). There was a public domain Hardy story published earlier this year, The Crypto Mine Cypher, which involves a group of thieves that are stealing electricity to run a crypto mine as well as stealing NFTs and crypto via a drainer smart contract. Perhaps that would be more to Randall's liking? --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.14|172.69.58.14]] 06:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

::::The Secret of the Lost Tunnel has a good example of a multi-layered mystery involving codes. A piece of paper is hidden in an ammo box. The paper itself is a sort of book cipher that when decoded just gives a clue to location ("Find coin in iron"), not much better than "diG a hole in the Ground", really. Of course this was a reference to hiding a lot of gold in some cannon balls.

Could someone add a category for "Alice and Bob" comics? Right now, the list seems to be 177, 1323, 2440, 2691, 2869. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.38|162.158.233.38]] 22:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'm not convinced that [[2440]] should be in the list; at best, it's using similar naming patterns. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:48, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
::Eve is clearly mentioned in the title text (Evangeline the Adulterator, which is clearly a reference to Eve from 177).
::: ''Is'' Evangeline the Adulterator clearly a reference to Eve? [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
::: Well, 2440 doesn't mention anything about Evangeline the Adulterator except that she is named Evangeline and presumably adulterates. But in 177, Eve (not Evangeline) is the adulterat''ed'', not the adulterat''or''. That would be Alice, since Bob was in a relationship with Eve, not Alice. It feels disingenuous to say that they ''might'' be the same person; there's no proof they ''aren't'', but there are no reasons to think they ''are''. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 00:52, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
:::I've always felt that xkcd fans are better than even conspiracy theorists at finding connections that don't exist[[Special:Contributions/172.69.6.15|172.69.6.15]] 13:26, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
::::Conspiracy theorists don't actually exist, though. They're all actors spreading lies to distract from what's ''actually'' happening! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.12|141.101.98.12]] 14:09, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
:::::Clearly there had to be ''some'' way to blame the actor's strike, for all this global unrest recently. Thanks for clearing that up! ;S
:::::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:18, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I think Aunt Vergenie would leave a clue that has some specific content and requires some effort to understand, but isn't simply impossible to figure out without the key like Aunt Alice's. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.170|162.158.154.170]] 05:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Is it worth putting in this scene from Batman 66 as a similar example? Even if it is A. TV instead of book and B. Making fun of the idea itself
https://youtu.be/M-vAlR3-Ovg

Commissioner Gordon : It could be any one of them. But which one? Which ones?

Batman : Pretty *fishy* what happened to me on that ladder.

Commissioner Gordon : You mean where there's a fish there could be a Penguin?

Robin : But wait! It happened at sea. See? C for Catwoman!

Batman : Yet, an exploding shark *was* pulling my leg...

Commissioner Gordon : The Joker!

Chief O'Hara : All adds up to a sinister riddle. Riddle-R. Riddler!

Commissioner Gordon : Oh, the thought strikes me. So dreadful, I scarcely dare give it utterance.

Batman : The four of them. Their forces combined.

Robin : Holy nightmare

I feel like the explanation needs at least one example, from somewhere.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 10:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

: Same immediate association here. You soooo beat me to it...TVTropes doesn't call it "BatDeduction" for nothing. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.25|172.71.160.25]] 18:48, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
:: I think the 1966 Batman is a bad one, because that is mocking the whole phenomenon. But Batman Forever is an example, where this was seemingly played straight. Batman jumps from the solutions to Riddler's riddles, which are obvious but don't say much to the fact that the answers aren't the point. The riddles are pointing to numbers, and then when the digits are combined in the right way, they form an alphanumeric code. The code spells out A,M,R, which then is supposed to be read as MR E —> mystery, and enigma is a synonym for mystery. Ergo Edward Nigma is the Riddler. The kicker is that it was completely obvious that Nigma was the Riddler, if one put three seconds of thought into how the Riddler was committing his crimes, instead of making a blind leap from the riddles.
Aunt Alice did, but when she told her will to her lawyer Bob, Eve listened in and got the tresure before... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:28, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

This reminds me a lot of the classic E.Nesbit book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Amulet

However, I don't think they had an aunt Gertrude. I read tons of Hardy Boys books but I don't remember Aunt Gertrude ever giving clues like this, either.
[[User:Gtschemer|Gtschemer]] ([[User talk:Gtschemer|talk]]) 16:11, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

A lot of the books (& even comics) I've read were pretty old, & it strikes me that the ''opposite'' of what this comic claims, seems more accurate in my experience? Older stories have a lot of legit world-war \ cold-war tactics depicted, whereas newer stories (including those meant for "adults") often have something absurdly simple; presumably so that the most naive readers can get an "ah-ha" moment?
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:29, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

This one made me think of the Encyclopedia Brown books. Most of those puzzles were baffling if you thought about it for more than 5 minutes, like the stolen money was stored in stuffed penguins in a museum display on the artic wildlife, the reason that Brown figured that out was penguins were only in the southern hemisphere, which doesn't explain where the penguins to be stuffed with money came from in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.225|172.68.26.225]] 16:26, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
:You said it yourself: The southern hemisphere... Ultimately. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.179|172.71.242.179]] 17:31, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Hang on, Cousin Mallory is trying to eavesdrop again. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.67|172.71.167.67]] 18:26, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

The important question, though: is it Gertrude as in gif or Gertrude as in gin? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.223.189|172.69.223.189]] 10:17, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
:It's actually Gertrude as in gnome.... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.176|172.69.195.176]] 11:43, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2872: Hydrothermal Vents

2023-12-26T12:01:35Z

172.69.195.176:

Current text: "... but could theoretically repopulate the surface if there were ever extenctions in the real world, as there have been in prior times."

Should extenctions be extinctions?

[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.176|172.69.195.176]] 12:01, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

2868: Label the States

2023-12-21T17:16:04Z

172.69.195.176: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2868
| date = December 15, 2023
| title = Label the States
| image = label_the_states_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x500px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Even with a blank map, a lot of people can only name 45-50 of the 64 states.
}}

==Explanation==
[[File:label the states 2x highlighted.png|thumb|301px|The map with the extra states highlighted.]]
[[File:Blank US Map (white on gray and black).svg|thumb|301px|A real map of the United States for comparison.]]
This is a blank map of the United States. At first glance, it looks correct, because all the large states with distinct shapes are correctly represented, but some states have been added. For example:

* On the west coast, Washington, Oregon, and California all have their normal shapes, but there is a new rectangular state south of Oregon and north of California.
* East of this, two more nearly rectangular states have been added between Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah.
* A column of five rectangular states has been inserted between Montana/Wyoming/Utah/Arizona and the Dakotas/Nebraska/Colorado/New Mexico.
* Another somewhat rectangular state has been added between South Dakota and Nebraska.
* Ohio and Indiana have been narrowed with a new state being created between them.
* New states shaped like Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina have been added directly south of those states.
* New Hampshire now has a state that looks like its reflection between itself and Maine.

In summary, a (disjointed) row and a whole column of states have been added, and two new states have been added between Indiana and Ohio and between New Hampshire and Maine. The external shape of the United States ends up slightly modified to accommodate the new states. As the title text says, there are now 64 states on Randall's map, not 50.

In comic [[2394: Contiguous 41 States]], the opposite has been done, removing states so that there are 41 states instead of 50 or 64.

The title text comments on the cliché that Americans are bad at geography, parodying comments that Americans cannot name many of the US states. A statistic is mentioned saying that most people can only name 45-50 states, which is almost all of the actual states, but looks poor in comparison to the 64 states in the comic's map. Since the extra fourteen states are made up and do not have names,{{cn}} people will not be able to name them and get a perfect 64/64 score. The cliché is also parodied in [[850|850: World According to Americans]].

Being mean to people by asking them to name states on bad maps was also mentioned in the title text of [[1653: United States Map]].

==Transcript==
:Geography Challenge: Can you label all the states?

:[An unlabeled map of the United States, but instead of 50 states, there are borders for 64.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:US maps]]

2867: DateTime

2023-12-17T15:17:19Z

172.69.195.176: /* Explanation */ tyop

{{comic
| number = 2867
| date = December 13, 2023
| title = DateTime
| image = datetime_2x.png
| imagesize = 679x478px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's not just time zones and leap seconds. SI seconds on Earth are slower because of relativity, so there are time standards for space stuff (TCB, TGC) that use faster SI seconds than UTC/Unix time. T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RUSSIAN DATE-TIME SYSTEM BETWEEN Tа AND Tб - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Ponytail]] asks [[Cueball]] how to calculate the time elapsed between two instants. A Cueball not intimately familiar with the complexities of the way humans measure time naively assumes that this is given by the difference of the timestamps. A Cueball who is familiar panics and states that it is impossible to know, and further that it is forbidden to even ask the question.

Randall's use of the term "DateTime systems" covers [https://metacpan.org/pod/DateTime any] [https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html number] [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.datetime?view=net-8.0 of] [https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html situations], and the complexities are hardly confined to any particular programming language, or indeed computers as a whole. Some of these complexities include time zones (and changes to time zones), the international date line, daylight saving time and differing observation (or non-observation) thereof in different areas (and changes to the observation of daylight saving time over time), leap days and leap seconds, etc. Another complexity is found in relativistic effects, in which the flow of time varies depending on how deep in a gravity well one is; {{w|Barycentric Coordinate Time}} and {{w|Geocentric Coordinate Time}} (in French, TCB and TCG respectively - the reference to TGC in the title text appears to be a typo) are time systems used for space missions and orbit calculations that handle this. A partial list of such minutiae may be found at [https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Time]. The title text of the comic also references some of them.

The statement that "it is impossible to know" is because Ponytail did not provide enough information in the question: She needed to specify the location and time zone of both observations, and possibly the exact values of T1 and T2 to the nanosecond. The statement "and a sin to ask" is obviously {{w|Hyperbolic_motion_(relativity)|hyperbolic}}; it's an expression of the fact that determining the answer accurately can be complicated and programming systems that attempt to do this can be frustrating.

"T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]": This is a colloquial expression that riffs on the more common "God only knows" as well as "Hell knows and Heaven suspects", to suggest that the thing in question is even more unknowable than the usual type of unknowable thing, to the point where it may be an evil invention of the Devil designed to cause complexity and frustration for the people having to deal with it.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail is talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Event #1 happened at time T1.
:Cueball: Okay.

:Ponytail: Then event #2 happened at time T2.
:Cueball: Mhmm.

:Ponytail: How would you calculate how much time elapsed between T1 and T2?

:[The comic splits into two paths, each with a caption at the top.]

:[Path 1, upper right panel]
:Caption: Normal person:
:Cueball: T2 minus T1.

:[Path 2, lower right panel]
:Caption: Anyone who's worked on datetime systems:
:[Cueball has his arms raised.]
:Cueball: '''''It is impossible to know and a sin to ask!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

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

2867: DateTime

2023-12-17T15:16:42Z

172.69.195.176: /* Explanation */ Python really isn't the obvious target, you can find "DateTime" libraries (or, within a library, standard referential objects) all over the place. Probably original "it's all Python" user had trained their Google to give Python answers..

{{comic
| number = 2867
| date = December 13, 2023
| title = DateTime
| image = datetime_2x.png
| imagesize = 679x478px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's not just time zones and leap seconds. SI seconds on Earth are slower because of relativity, so there are time standards for space stuff (TCB, TGC) that use faster SI seconds than UTC/Unix time. T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RUSSIAN DATE-TIME SYSTEM BETWEEN Tа AND Tб - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Ponytail]] asks [[Cueball]] how to calculate the time elapsed between two instants. A Cueball not intimately familiar with the complexities of the way humans measure time naively assumes that this is given by the difference of the timestamps. A Cueball who is familiar panics and states that it is impossible to know, and further that it is forbidden to even ask the question.

Randall's use of the term "DateTime systems" covers [https://metacpan.org/pod/DateTime any] [https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html number] [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.datetime?view=net-8.0 of] [https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html situations], and the complexities are hardly confined to any particular provramming language, or indeed computers as a whole. Some of these complexities include time zones (and changes to time zones), the international date line, daylight saving time and differing observation (or non-observation) thereof in different areas (and changes to the observation of daylight saving time over time), leap days and leap seconds, etc. Another complexity is found in relativistic effects, in which the flow of time varies depending on how deep in a gravity well one is; {{w|Barycentric Coordinate Time}} and {{w|Geocentric Coordinate Time}} (in French, TCB and TCG respectively - the reference to TGC in the title text appears to be a typo) are time systems used for space missions and orbit calculations that handle this. A partial list of such minutiae may be found at [https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Time]. The title text of the comic also references some of them.

The statement that "it is impossible to know" is because Ponytail did not provide enough information in the question: She needed to specify the location and time zone of both observations, and possibly the exact values of T1 and T2 to the nanosecond. The statement "and a sin to ask" is obviously {{w|Hyperbolic_motion_(relativity)|hyperbolic}}; it's an expression of the fact that determining the answer accurately can be complicated and programming systems that attempt to do this can be frustrating.

"T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]": This is a colloquial expression that riffs on the more common "God only knows" as well as "Hell knows and Heaven suspects", to suggest that the thing in question is even more unknowable than the usual type of unknowable thing, to the point where it may be an evil invention of the Devil designed to cause complexity and frustration for the people having to deal with it.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail is talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Event #1 happened at time T1.
:Cueball: Okay.

:Ponytail: Then event #2 happened at time T2.
:Cueball: Mhmm.

:Ponytail: How would you calculate how much time elapsed between T1 and T2?

:[The comic splits into two paths, each with a caption at the top.]

:[Path 1, upper right panel]
:Caption: Normal person:
:Cueball: T2 minus T1.

:[Path 2, lower right panel]
:Caption: Anyone who's worked on datetime systems:
:[Cueball has his arms raised.]
:Cueball: '''''It is impossible to know and a sin to ask!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

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