explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2907: Schwa

2024-03-16T13:04:14Z

172.69.223.163: Lingusitic rant

In what crazy dialect do these all use the same 1 vowel? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.73|172.68.210.73]] 22:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:I can think of several. I was immediately reminded of Lucy Porter's Hull accent ([https://www.google.com/search?q=hull+accent+oh+no some examples, including videos/audio, here]), but I can also think of New Zealand (more 'i'ish vowels, at least stereotypically), South African (down a couple of tones from that), and a number of state-side accents that ''conceivably'' are what Randall's drawing upon. [...as ninjaed, below, by 172.71.166.190 at 22:30]
:My own accent (when given its full reign) actually tends to be consonant-light ("o'er" for "over", such that my vowels tend to be ''two or three'' separate tones in a row), so it doesn't work so well. But if I shift my focus to try to impersonate people from ten miles to the north (or a dozen or so miles east) from where I grew up then I can actually get quite close to 'perfect monovowelism' (still suppressing the consonants!). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.139|172.69.79.139]] 22:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:All of them? I had to read the explanation to get what constitutes a schwa, but then I read the comic again, and yeah, they're all roughly the same sound, in the average North American accent anyway. Only exception is the word "A", which people might often pronounce like the letter "A", which of course isn't a schwa, :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Personally I pronounce those pretty much all the same (I live in Boston like Randall but don't have an actual Boston accent)
--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.190|172.71.166.190]] 22:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I didn't think it was considered schwa when stressed as in "up" and "love". But my dictionary has a schwa in its pronunciation guide for both, so I guess I was wrong. But this basically means the usual "short U" pronunciation is schwa. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:Some dialects split the vowel at the end of "comma" from the vowel in "strut," but most North American dialects don't. So in pronouncing dictionaries, you will sometimes see the strut vowel written ʌ and the comma vowel written ə even though they might be exactly the same in your accent. In vowels that split comma and strut, schwa is rarely stressed, but that's not a rule. This is sometimes confused by American teachers, who try to explain why they see two different symbols for the same sound. But they really are different sounds, and Americans just don't use /ʌ/ at all. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This all works in a generically american accent, except for the i vowel in onion, which cannot be schwa-ified in any english accent I've ever heard. [[Special:Contributions/
172.69.34.171|172.69.34.171]] 23:27, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:Depends. {{wiktionary|onion|Wiktionary says}} /ˈʌn.jən/ (any particular places?) or /ˈʌŋ.jɪn/ (Canada) (and an obsolete version that I'd imagine the Kiwis to use).
:If the /j/ ''isn't'' considered a vowel then you could definitely justify something like "un-yun" or "ern-yern" or even "in-yin" (amongst various ''other'' like-vowel versions)...
:If you do the /j*n/ more as in {{wiktionary|eon|/ˈi.ɑn/, /ˈeɪ.ɑn/, /ˈiː.ən/, /ˈiː.ɒn/ or /ˈeɪ.ɒn/}} then clearly you can't switch to "uhn-uh-uhn" quite so easily. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.69|162.158.74.69]] 23:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:It says every vowel SOUND, which is different than "how each vowel sounds". The sound of that I is a Y. The O following it indeed uses the schwa. :) That's my guess, anyway, I don't know these pronunciation things that deeply. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
:This dipthong has a consonant in it. What is going on? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.182|172.69.65.182]] 12:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I can't read the words "love cult" without thinking of DHMIS 3. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 00:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

If someone actually read this conversation to me using only schwa, I don't think I'd understand it. I usually consider myself a fluent English speaker, but my native language - Polish - doesm't have this vovel at all. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.231|162.158.103.231]] 07:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
:Yeah, I think for us non-native speakers this is quite hard to replicate. I had to read the sentences out loud several times before I heard it. The standard British English I learned at school 35 years ago tends to have less Schwas in it, I guess. In German we do have some Schwas, mainly towards the end of words, but I don't think it is possible to construct whole sentence without any other vowels. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.157|162.158.155.157]] 07:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I’m american (boston area) but some of these vowels do sound different from others to me, although it still seems it would be clear and ok if they’re all said the same. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.182|172.69.65.182]] 12:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Randall seems to have terminally confused the schwa [ǝ] with [ʌ] as in "cup". I've never seen such an incorrect xkcd. In the UK, the Manchester accent almost universally consists of [ǝ] and even they wouldn't be able to use [ǝ] for "onion" [[Special:Contributions/172.69.223.163|172.69.223.163]] 13:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

2899: Goodhart's Law

2024-02-28T10:33:51Z

172.69.223.163: /* Additional examples of Goodhart's Law */

{{comic
| number = 2899
| date = February 26, 2024
| title = Goodhart's Law
| image = goodharts_law_2x.png
| imagesize = 295x321px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [later] I'm pleased to report we're now identifying and replacing hundreds of outdated metrics per hour.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[White Hat]] suggests creating a meta-metric, "number-of-metrics-that-have-become-targets," and making it a target.

First, the comic introduces and defines {{w|Goodhart's Law}}, which is the observation that when a metric — a {{w|performance indicator|measure of performance}} — becomes a goal, efforts will be unhelpfully directed to improving that ''metric'' at the expense of systemic objectives.

For example, imagine a scenario in which a car dealership is looking to grow profits, and its managers decide to focus on increasing a component metric of profit: how many cars it sells. So they offer a bonus to their salespeople to sell more cars. But then the salespeople offer deep discounts to rack up sales, rendering the car sales unprofitable. This example shows how a ''metric'' (cars sold) can become the ''target'', replacing the real target, profit growth, if individual incentives are not properly managed.

White Hat's suggestion could be a good or a bad idea. It all depends on how the bonus incentive is awarded:

* A '''good implementation''' would award bonuses only for finding metrics which truly aren't serving their purpose, so the organization's managers could fix the measurement issues, and then only if the effort in finding and removing them did not outweigh the benefit of removing them. If bonuses are awarded only for approved submissions and the identifications result in real improvements, the organization will benefit in each individual case. However, even a prima facie 'good' implementation could drive significant activity seeking out metrics that are eventually rejected as deserving a bonus, undermining the overall benefit.

* A '''bad implementation''' would offer a bonus to every identification, regardless of quality. This would incentivize the identification of even quite useful metrics — and perhaps even the ''creation'' of new metrics-as-targets for the sole purpose of then removing them and collecting the bounty.

The title text imagines this '''bad implementation''', leading to the creation of a new metric (metric changes per hour) and the organization identifying — and ''replacing'' — hundreds of metrics per hour, crowding out actual focus on the organization's true goals. It's the ultimate example of "change for change's sake."

Part of the joke is that White Hat's original suggestion — the new metric causing the issue and one that ''should'' be replaced — seems to be ironically surviving the replacement of hundreds of other metrics.

This comic illustrates that the thoughtless combination of Goodhart's Law and poorly designed incentives can have ruinous results for an organization.

While there is a temptation to game any metric, measurement is the main objective way of describing the success of an activity and assessing the effect of changes. "Data-driven" or "evidence-based" approaches are used to drive measurable improvements in various areas of society. The proper usage of organizational metrics and incentives is the focus of {{w|managerial accounting}}, a field within organizational management. Discussions of Goodhart's Law have noted [https://commoncog.com/goodharts-law-not-useful/] that people may respond to a metric by either (1) improving the system, (2) distorting that system (examples below), or (3) distorting the data (e.g., governments publishing false or cherry-picked economic data). Channeling energy toward improvement requires an organization to make (1) more appealing (flexibility and culture) and the others less (transparency, culture, reduced pressure to meet unrealistic goals). Figuring out how to do that involves a slow and thoughtful process unlike White Hat's unilateral jump to a new metric.

===Additional examples of Goodhart's Law===
* The classical example of Goodhart's Law is the {{w|Perverse_incentive#The_original_cobra_effect|Cobra Effect}}: anecdotally the British rule in India paid bounties for dead cobras as a pest control effort. This worked at first, but soon people began breeding cobras for income.
* A school's exam results may ''suggest'' how well the school works with its pupils, but may lead to rigidly "teaching to the exams" and lead to less enjoyment and ability of life-long learning, or even flexibility in non-academic activities.
* A hospital measures inpatient ''Length of Stay'' because shorter stays save money and also free up beds for any admitted patients waiting in the ER. But if improperly incentivized, doctors may discharge inpatients too early, causing some to "bounce back" to the hospital as a costly readmission.
* A call center measures the number of calls handled per hour, but poorly decides to overly incentivize this metric to make the workers more productive; that leads workers to cut calls short, frustrating customers.
* The hypothetical {{w|Instrumental convergence#Paperclip maximizer|Paperclip Maximizer}} concept demonstrates how having a seemingly benign metric as a goal might still result in almost unlimited adverse effects, if unchecked.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and White Hat are standing and talking, White Hat with hand on his chin.]
:Cueball: When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric.
:White Hat: Sounds bad. Let's offer a bonus to anyone who identifies a metric that has become a target.

{{comic discussion}}

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

2898: Orbital Argument

2024-02-25T12:29:44Z

172.69.223.163: Category:Compromise

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

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

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

By one way of looking at it, it happens that he is also correct. Because two bodies exert equal but opposite gravitational forces on each other, each orbits around the average location of the other, and therefore they both orbit a common center. This {{w|Barycenter (astronomy)|barycenter}} is located somewhere between the two bodies; the distance of each body's center of mass from the barycenter is proportional to the other body's mass. This is most apparent in systems where the two bodies have similar masses, but it is present to an extent in all orbital pairs, even when one body is far more massive than the other. For this reason, Earth does not orbit the center of the stationary Sun as described by the heliocentric model. However, the Earth-Sun barycenter is only slightly different from the Sun's own true center, still well within the Sun. It is around this which the Sun wobbles, in contrast to the way the Earth orbits around this unequally proportioned midpoint.

The equivalent Jupiter-Sun barycenter, meanwhile, is located just ''above'' the 'surface' of the Sun due to the masses involved being not as different (but still significantly so), and the much greater distance between them. As each of the planets and the Sun are simultaneously orbiting/'being orbited' (and every planet also measurably pulls on every other, etc, even discounting every smaller and/or more distant body in the universe), the combined solar-system's barycenter is a less simply-defined point (that being more likely to be within the Sun, at any given point of time), which can often be considered to more simply average out to "<each planet> orbits the Sun" for most purposes, and Cueball is therefore ''least'' correct, and it would be a false solution to give his worldview an equivalence of validity.

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

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

Another example of the middle ground fallacy was used in [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition]], although in that case the person offering the compromise solution was not portrayed as getting the right answer by accident.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[From left to right, Cueball, White Hat and Megan standing. Cueball and Megan are arguing. Cueball is raising a finger while Megan's arms are outstretched. White Hat stands between them, both hands out in an equivocal gesture.]
:Cueball: The sun orbits the earth!
:Megan: The earth orbits the sun!
:White Hat: When two people disagree, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Maybe the earth and the sun orbit a common center!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's annoying when people are right by accident.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Compromise]]