explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2156: Ufo

2019-05-29T13:19:13Z

172.69.68.129: Added transcript.

{{comic
| number = 2156
| date = May 29, 2019
| title = Ufo
| image = ufo.png
| titletext = "It's a little low for a weather balloon; it might be some other kind." "Yeah. Besides, I know I'm the alien conspiracy guy, but come on--the idea that the government would care about hiding something so mundane as atmospheric temperature measurement is too ridiculous even for me."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

Harry: Hey Scully, have you seen the navy UFO videos?

Scully (offscreen): Oh, the History Channel thing?

Scully: I don't know about the other two videos, but in one of them, if you take the angels and ranges on the HUD and do a little geometry, it kind of suggests the object isn't really moving. It just looks like it because the plane's camera is panning.

Scully: The pilots got excited for the same reason we did. Then the media got into it. But i think what they saw was a round, white object floating at 13,000 feet.

Harry: So your theory is that the military claims to have footage of aliens, but you think it's a giant cover-up to hide that it's a weather balloon?

Scully: Some kind of balloon, yes.

Harry: Pretty weird conspiracy.

Scully: Maybe the shadowy forces that control the world just want to believe, too.

{{comic discussion}}

197: Ninja Turtles

2019-05-16T18:33:35Z

172.69.68.129:

{{comic
| number = 197
| date = December 15, 2006
| title = Ninja Turtles
| image = ninja turtles.png
| titletext = The henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady have hijacked the musical genres for us just like the Lone Ranger hijacked the William Tell Overture for our parents.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles}}, or Ninja Turtles, are a pop-cultural phenomenon especially prominent in the late 1980s and 1990s. The four turtles are named for four artists of the European Renaissance: {{w|Leonardo da Vinci}}, {{w|Michelangelo|Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni}}, {{w|Donatello|Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi}}, and {{w|Raphael|Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino}}. Due to the popularity of the Ninja Turtles in a variety of media, some of the names are now better known through their Ninja Turtle connection than their original artist forebears. The pie charts provide an approximation of this effect - Leonardo da Vinci remains one of the most notable artists of the period, and thus "Leonardo" is depicted as more notable for the artist. Donatello is the most obscure of the four as an artist, and consequently the majority of the current notoriety of "Donatello" is as a Ninja Turtle.

The title text alludes to a similar phenomenon, as two villain characters from the same Ninja Turtles show called {{w|Bebop and Rocksteady|"Bebop" and "Rocksteady"}} are now better known as the characters than for the musical genres they are named for. Similarly, the {{w|William Tell Overture}} became so closely tied to the character of the Lone Ranger in media for the previous generation that, to many, the William Tell Overture is in effect "The Lone Ranger Theme."

==Transcript==
:[Four pie graphs, each colored green and brown.]
:Leonardo
:[Almost one-half green.]
:Michelangelo
:[More than one-half green.]
:Donatello
:[Five-sixths green.]
:Raphael
:[Roughly half-and-half.]
:[A legend]
:Notoriety as a
:[Brown.] Renaissance artist
:[Green.] Ninja turtle

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Pie charts]]

Talk:2149: Alternate Histories

2019-05-14T19:59:09Z

172.69.68.129:

Does anyone think some of this might be a shot at the Kaiserreich/story inside kaiserreich/so on thing?

In *my* alternate history, Al Gore loses the presidency, but it is to Bill Nye. As a result, Bill Nye causes sweeping educational reform. However, this causes the U.S. to buckle in comparison to the world economy, as the lowered military power (about a 3% decrease by the end of his presidency in comparison to the "true" timeline) means that Indonesia is able to push their limits a little, leading to Kuwait, West Timor and Luxembourg doing the same. Also, because of the lack of a Haliburton loophole, the Everglades are larger than today. Unfortunately, when David Tenant tried out for the role of the Doctor, this results in a live alligator attacking him. This throws the show biz industry into a tailspin, and so... - SD [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.196|162.158.78.196]] 19:54, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
:''Un''fortunately? ... I think we disagree on our choice of practitioner. ] ; >
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 23:36, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

:Something of the meme must have leaked through the æther, one way or another. Just yesterday I was involved in intensive discussions about how world history would have turned out with a different power-structure had the Darien Scheme not gone totally wrong, Scotland had cornered the Pacific/Atlantic trading markets, had been in a position to accept ''England'', et al, into ''its'' parliamentary structure in a differing version of the Union, and created a particularly caledonially-influenced New World and Scottish Empire (provisionally titled the 'gaelosphere') from where the future (or at least contermperaneously alternate) history of the world developed out of. There was no mention of hovercraft, admitedly, but I now imagine they'd have been terribly useful upon certain parts of the isthmus, or particularly in dealing with the treacherous tides running through Caledonia Bay by Fort St Andrew. So, GOOMHR! If it's not we who should get out of his, of course [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.119|162.158.158.119]] 22:44, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Let's assume that any given alternate history has a 1% chance of being detailed enough to consider the alternate history's alt-history, and (for simplicity's sake) that no alternate histories develop in such a way as to eliminate interest in alternate histories. Given these assumptions, reaching the 500th level would require...um, my calculator isn't giving me an answer, let's just say a LOT of top-level alternate histories where the Nazis won WW2 to get anything that reached that deep. Even if each alt-history had coinflip odds of reaching the next level, you'd still need something like 3.3e150 alternate histories to get that deep; even 90% odds need 7.5e22 alt-histories.
This sort of infinite regression is only practical if some aspect of an alternate history makes it and its descendants more likely to generate further alt-histories. At this point, evolution would kick in and before you got more than a dozen levels deep nearly all alt-histories would be from well-adapted alt-histories. It seems likely to me that alt-histories with lots of little details and weird contrivances would be more likely to spawn alt-histories, so this comic seems pretty accurate in that regard. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 16:56, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

== Hands ==

The hands on the 500 deep versions are quite different. Does anyone have an idea of what that might refer to? ~ ''Please sign your posts with'' "<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>"
:I thought they were big bangly bracelets. [[User:Yomikoma|Yomikoma]] ([[User talk:Yomikoma|talk]]) 19:54, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
:I think they are puffy shirt sleeve cuffs: [http://effortlessgent.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/seinfield-660x474.jpg] [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:31, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
: Let's compromise and say "big circle shapes on their arm connectors."
The hands changed because history changed. DUH! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.100|162.158.214.100]] 12:41, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
== Hat ==
Is there a name for the hats Cueball and Megan are wearing, or is it just a top hat that Randall added a ball to to make it look different? [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 22:35, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
:I imagine the Nth-Alternate Universe version of the page https://theoutline.com/post/868/why-do-we-all-have-pom-pom-balls-on-our-hats might mention them. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.86|162.158.155.86]] 22:51, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
There has never been a hat that wasn't ridiculous.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.210|172.68.65.210]] 23:38, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
EVERYONE looks better wearing a hat. DUH! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.100|162.158.214.100]] 12:41, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
== Created by <nowiki>[thing]</nowiki> ==
Is there a category or history filter or something to specifically list all of the "created by a [thing]" tags that have appeared over time? CYBERNETIC HORSE EMPEROR is the best phrase I have heard all day. It is going straight into my Robotech\Rifts RPG campaign.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 23:36, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
: Thank you very much, and not that I know of, sadly. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.102|141.101.105.102]] 11:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

== Plausibility of scenario ==

I have a few issues with the current explanation saying it is impossible for such a scenario to arise, though I'm not sure how exactly to restructure it. First, past events can be altered as an explanation for alterations to the timeline, demonstrated clearly in-comic ("the pajama craze never caught on" explains the future of "truman becomes god-emperor"). So, things could be changed before the world war, and thus anything is theoretically possible. Second, it's clear the humor and understanding of the comic doesn't require a judgement of how likely the scenario is. So that section of the explanation is at best unnecessary and at worst wrong, I think. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.31|172.68.189.31]] 09:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2141: UI vs UX

2019-04-24T19:33:33Z

172.69.68.129:

The comic as a whole is making fun of how meta software developers get about the user experience, seeking to name all the different types of interactions a user can have with an app or webpage.
This comic is massive for me on my desktop (chrome); I wonder if this is a joke about bad UX or if it is a genuine error? [[User:Fwacer|Fwacer]] ([[User talk:Fwacer|talk]]) 18:50, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

:It's not this big on xkcd.com. Did it start this big and got fixed on the original site? Update: replaced with the image from xkcd.com which was much smaller. [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 18:55, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

::Looks like it is fixed now, but yes it was also that big on xkcd.com initially. [[User:Fwacer|Fwacer]] ([[User talk:Fwacer|talk]]) 19:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

To me, it comes across as a hyperbolic play on the common confusion between the meaning of UI and UX. [https://twitter.com/sdw/status/709853249407361024] [[User:Ahiijny|Ahiijny]] ([[User talk:Ahiijny|talk]]) 19:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

It makes sense that it would be alpha and omega, but I originally thought it was the "proportional" symbol. I only ask because alpha is lowercase and omega is uppercase, although perhaps this was to avoid confusion with the Latin "A". [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 19:13, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
:Concerning the lowercase/uppercase difference, since alpha is the beginning and omega is the end, then consider that in the beginning we are born little and then grow up - we start out as lowercase and end up as uppercase. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:30, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This is a joke on integration, yes?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.129|172.69.68.129]] 19:33, 24 April 2019 (UTC)