explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2567: Language Development

2023-07-23T19:25:46Z

172.69.79.159: Vandalism reverted (but sensible comment by same editor maintained.)

Has a small, child-size, stick figure been used before? I did not find a category on explainxkcd. This might be an interesting trivia to add. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.129|198.41.242.129]] 18:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
: There have definitely been kids on xkcd before. For example: [[1145: Sky Color]] (but I'm sure there are others). --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 20:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:::That is not a baby. There have been several comics talking about or depicting babies, and lots with kids. The kid you showed there has her own category [[Science Girl]] and has thus been used alot. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
:: Other examples are [[674: Natural Parenting]], [[441: Babies]] and [[1650: Baby]] [[User:Kvarts314|Kvarts314]] ([[User talk:Kvarts314|talk]])
:::Yes nothing odd there, but we could of make a category for comics with babies or mentioning babies, but not like a character page... Could that be relevant? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:56, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
:::: I think it would be relevant. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.133|172.68.110.133]] 12:36, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
:::::Created: [[:Category:Comics featuring babies]] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually words linguists use when they try to talk in very old languages sometimes sound like the things my little son might say between his first perfectly pronounced single words.--[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 18:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Someone needs to say “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.151|172.70.206.151]] 18:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Looking at Wiktionary, I believe the child is saying "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/milk#Etymology_1 Milk] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/please#Etymology_1 Please]" See also [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h%E2%82%82mel%C7%B5- Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂melǵ-] [[User:Bpendragon|Bpendragon]] ([[User talk:Bpendragon|talk]]) 18:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps "milk [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plek place]"?

Hopefully he won't say the proto-Indo-European word for "bear". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.26|162.158.74.26]] 19:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Pat
:You mean *hrktos? 20:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:: Oops. I think a brown one ate my IP address.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.92|162.158.187.92]] 20:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:::I think you mean [[2381: The True Name of the Bear|Arth?]] ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:56, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The pace of early stage development isn't necessarily an indicator for continued development pacing. I didn't start Proto-Indo-European until I was almost 2, but had completed full vowel shift before second grade. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.73|108.162.237.73]] 21:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:I corroborate this. I hadn't made many full sentences in Proto-Indo-European until around 4, but by 3rd grade I had fully changed to modern english. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.215|172.70.126.215]] 23:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Though the explanation eventually touches on this (perhaps multiple editors got in there and shuffled this nearer the end) I believe it should really have ''started'' with something about how Language Development (in a child) is being confused/conflated with Language Development (in human (pre)history). It would get straight to the point, I believe. It could then continue to go the further mile in getting into the deconstruction of it all. I'm leaving it unedited by myself, for now, because it deserves a lot more text-shuffling and refining than I can promise to do myself right now, but putting this idea out there to pique the interest of other possible editors. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.79|172.70.85.79]] 21:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:I have done this now. Originally I and someone else both submitted a really long description at the same time and my "merge" in my limited time was just to put my text after his. Now that I have more time, I've gone through and tried to weave the two in a more logical way, and have it starting with the basic explanation of the joke. I'm new to contributing at this level so if someone wants to check it over to make sure it looks good, feel free. [[User:Levininja|Levininja]] ([[User talk:Levininja|talk]]) 00:34, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

"Old English developed out of Proto-Germanic. Modern English developed out of Old English with many additions from French..." According to John McWhorter, English is the product of Germanic tongues (spoken by Angles or Saxons?) creolized with the local Celtic languages such as the ancestors of Welsh and Cornish. That involved a blending of grammar and some vocabulary. Later came pidginizing with Norse speech of the Vikings, where details like case inflections were blurred or lost. Romance borrowings came yet a bit later, with 1066 and all that Norman Conquest business. 
McWhorter's ''Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English'' is perhaps worth a read; hope I haven't mutilated the gist of it too much. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.245|172.70.110.245]] 01:01, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I second a mention/explanation of the whole "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" idea mentioned above. In biological evolution that turned out to be an error, and it's obviously an error here, too. [[User:Mschmidt62|Mschmidt62]] ([[User talk:Mschmidt62|talk]]) 02:34, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

If the baby is speaking Proto-Indo-European (with some emerging Germanic) at age 1, and Elizabethan English by age 2, is anyone able to work out by what age they would be speaking our present form of English? --[[User:Enchantedsleeper|enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 10:23, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
:Elizabethan English is very close to Modern English on the timeline so by a few months they'll speak our English. They would have already started forming their own vowel shifts and other unknown English innovations by the age of 3, possibly predicting the future of English.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.218.75|172.70.218.75]] 11:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

The awesome subtext of this comic--and I'm not sure if it was intentional--is that English-speaking children really do learn proto-Indo-European words first, then proto-Germanic, then Middle English, then Norman French, and so on. Our simplest words are our oldest words, and Pa/Ma are relatively unchanged from a possible pre-PIE language (because similar sounds appear in Semitic languages). Our most basic words are usually our oldest words. Our pronouns and articles are proto-Germanic, and the next level of complexity are Anglo-Saxon in origin--mostly animal names and common items and actions. Only when we get into complexity do we encounter the French influences, and then newer words or compounds. The reason for this goes back to how languages change. As a new language "takes over" the first words they replace are legal (because who's running the courts), and high-end goods. Then commercial language shifts, and if there's a religious aspect or educational systems set up you'll see that come over as well. The hardest things to penetrate are the furthest from the invading speakers' influence: farm animals (why we use Anglo-Saxon "cow" for the animal but French "beef" for the meat from it, etc.) and finally the home. And yes, when you have a couple of parents interested in linguistics, they really do point out to each other the origin of their children's speech. Uh...should I be admitting this? [[User:MGoSeth|MGoSeth]] ([[User talk:MGoSeth|talk]]) 15:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
:Well, as far as cow/beef (and sheep/mutton, etc) that was 'distance from influence' in that the (old-style) francophones of the new ruling-classes rarely concerned themselves with the husbandry side and just used their native term for the eventual food-word whilst the long-standing native anglo(saxo)phone farmers got on with the rearing of the livestock with the animal-word. It wasn't a problem to 'penetrate' the usage but likely more a disinclination to even try, leaving a division of language by context.
:In other bits of English, both anglic and francish roots begot 'equal' terms (though at times class-divided as snobbery ''or'' inverse-snobbery drove particular speakers to decide to favour particular groups of synonyms) and thus expanded the language with near-duplicates.
:While dialects all over retained words even more niche than the farm/food distinction. Many NE-English terms, both basic and more complex, hold over from the era of Viking incursions and rule before even the francofied Nor(th)mans of Normandy as well as prior Celtic terms that survived the germanic and pre-germanic cultural influxes.
:More obvious in rural situations (at least for presumably archaic pronunciation, e.g. a ewe being a 'yeow') because industrialisation and driven population accumulation in the 'new' cities rather mashed valley-by-valley/dale-by-dale differences together into Mancunian/Bradfordian/etc superdialects (with still a few locality-based specificities, like the Thee-Thar/Dee-Dar divide over a few miles of industrial South Yorkshire or the "We was/I were" verb-(dis)agreement up in parts of the North Riding cities.
:It's been a while since I studied this, so forgive me if I'm out of date with the latest conclusions, but it was always so interesting how they came to conclusions of what artefacts were what particular age of linguistic 'fossil'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.126|172.70.91.126]] 17:20, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
:When you think about it, the baby is saying the words for "milk" and "please" in succession, which means it's saying "milk, please" in Proto-Indo-European. The baby is asking for milk.--[[User:Yellow Candy 8432|Yellow Candy 8432]] ([[User talk:Yellow Candy 8432|talk]]) 18:56, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2792: Summer Solstice

2023-06-23T23:01:30Z

172.69.79.159:

Related to [[1878: Earth Orbital Diagram]]? [[User:Purah126|Purah126]] ([[User talk:Purah126|talk]]) 00:32, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
:Great minds think alike*. Hadn't read down here when I leapt in and added that link (and made some other very minor tweaks). Or at least leapt in once I'd found it myself (not rembering its title or enough of its keywords), having had to trawl through [[:Category:Astronomy]] and visit almost all likely titles and several unlikely ones. Which was enjoyable, so not a problem. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.92|172.70.85.92]] 00:58, 22 June 2023 (UTC) ''* - fools never differ... :P''

I think there's a 3rd option for what the "fix" entails: eliminating Earth's axial tilt so it's always equinox (12 hour days almost everywhere, perpetual dawn at the poles). The title text specifies "on the equator", not "near" the equator. The only way for eclipses always "on" the equator is if the equator is always aligned with the ecliptic. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 02:06, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

:Wouldn’t that cause a lot of trouble with stuff like crop growth patterns? —[[User:Purah126|Purah126]] ([[User talk:Purah126|talk]]) 16:58, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that to make the solstices match the earliest sunrise/sunset might require straightening out the Earth's tilt as well. Making it a circular orbit I think actually makes the summer solstice even further from the latest sunset (but the winter solstice closer to latest sunrise). [https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/equation-of-time.html]. Oh but straightening the tilt would mean no more solstices at all, hm. Maybe what's required is an elliptical orbit but with the sun at the center rather than a focus. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.153|172.70.111.153]] 14:27, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

:I think elliptical orbit with the Sun at the center is not stable. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:05, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

While we're at it, can we please make the year, lunar phase period, and day neat ratios of one another? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.44|172.69.247.44]] 13:52, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

:I'll email someone at NASA about it, don't worry. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 20:54, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
:Should we make it 360 days/year (360 is a highly composite number) or should we go with 400, for easy multiples? Either then means we have to redefine the length of the week. I'm OK with 50 eight-day weeks. I propose the new day to be called Randallday. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:51, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
::Definitely 360, it would nicely match there being 3600 seconds in hour. Also, the bigger change you would do the worse effect would it have on biosphere. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Why? There would only be a small lengthening of the day (~1.5%), presuming the actual time length of the year is the same. BTW, do flatearthers call it a biodisc? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 01:00, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

: Will we get a vote on whether the moon orbit is 'fixed' to give us total eclipses, annular, or a mix of both?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.20|141.101.98.20]] 08:39, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Anyone have any What If? type insights about any unintended consequences of the proposed changes? Thinking more of the physical and natural rather than societal, but anything might be an interesting addition to the article. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.28|172.68.35.28]] 14:58, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
:Tides, possibly ocean currents. Need a physicist for details (I'm a marine biologist; tides are on my radar, tide modeling isn't), but regularization of Earth and Moon orbits would remove many of the gravitational drivers of things like "spring" and "neap" tides, leading (it sez here) to permanent changes to littoral zones and their biotas, and (ditto) impacting coastal zone management strategies, especially if the "new normal" (and consistent) tides were much higher or lower than previous means. Arguably, an ocean biosphere already under stress from global warming would resent having to put up with yet another anthropogenic set of challenges. Hm? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.169|162.158.186.169]] 16:41, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Great Randal[l]s think alike... I had just posted [https://www.facebook.com/merlyn/posts/pfbid027XNEX93Yud8iU8LYbmvtw6B7QwSBfYJhkmMpaza3DXM6HENxTmuz623FhyzL5aQAl this to Facebook] a day before seeing Randall's work. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 04:45, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

ALTER EARTH'S ORBIT AND TILT - STOP GLOBAL DISASTERS AND EPIDEMICS 
ALTER THE SOLAR SYSTEM. REORBIT VENUS INTO A NEAR EARTH-LIKE ORBIT 
TO CREATE A BORN AGAIN EARTH (1990) 
-- Alexander Abian 
[[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 17:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

So, "six days" does that mean June 28th, 2023 is the latest sunset of the year? I'm kind of shocked that there's not already a citation here showing this fact (if that's the actual day). Anyone? [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 21:54, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
:It may change according to the place. According to some ephemera, I have at hand, Edinburgh (Scotland) has its earliest sunrise on 18th June, latest sunset on 24th June. London (England) 17th and 25th June, respectively. Pittsburgh (PA) is 14th and 27th/28th. Milan (Italy) 15th/16th and 26th/27th, etc. Both latitude (effecting the moment the Sun's path dips below the horizon) and longitude (how the exactly cyclic patterns cross the shifted day/night cycle) interact. Which means that it's highly dependent on where the xkcd characters ''are''. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]] 23:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Talk:290: Fucking Blue Shells

2023-06-17T09:19:07Z

172.69.79.159:

I see Randall has yet to master the art of snaking. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 00:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, in my case at least, stubbed toes result in more swearing than broken bones. Having broken seven, I'm somewhat of an authority on the matter. [[Special:Contributions/74.125.183.194|74.125.183.194]] 15:18, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
:I'm confused about how you can even break 7 bones. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 10:55, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

That's odd, to my recollection the use of the term "Deep Magic" in programming was a reference to the Narnia novels, as in "deep magic from the dawn of time". This isn't specified in the Jargon File? I'm quite certain that's how I heard it explained, circa 1986. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.91}}

I believe that the proper way to play mkart at 200 ccs is to swear nonstop while you race and your kart refuses to turn, and then watching the highlight reel and laughing at your complete failure. [[User:RedHatGuy68|RedHatGuy68]] ([[User talk:RedHatGuy68|talk]]) 02:07, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Actual transcript of my first I've seconds on Rainbow Road: Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. FUUUUUUUUUK. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shiii-iii-iii-iiit! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.35|108.162.246.35]] 19:32, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Fuck.This is completely true, as I play Mario Kart 7, and I swear every time 1 of those Blue Shells hit me.I never get them, but everybody else gets them.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.6|162.158.49.6]] 14:07, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: The blue shell dodge with mushroom is (supposedly) possible in Mario Kart 8 as well.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.33|162.158.74.33]] 03:15, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
: You can also use the Super Horn in 8, and the POW Block in Wii. I'm not sure about 7 or ones before Wii though. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]] 09:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

2773: Planetary Scientist

2023-05-09T23:10:47Z

172.69.79.159: Undo revision 312705 by 172.71.146.17 (talk) Nope...

{{comic
| number = 2773
| date = May 8, 2023
| title = Planetary Scientist
| image = planetary_scientist_2x.png
| imagesize = 303x349px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = This rumpled fabric at the corner looks like evidence of ongoing tectonic activity.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT THAT'S PROBABLY FULL OF WATER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Ponytail, a {{w|planetary scientist}}, is shopping at a mattress store. The store clerk seems to be giving her a guided tour of various models of mattress, including the most popular model shown in the comic.

Ponytail asks if the bed is a {{w|waterbed}}, a type of mattress which is filled with water instead of the usual solid material. The clerk, Cueball, begins to explain to her that it's actually a hybrid made of foam (among other things, maybe water, but it's usually the terminology used for a significantly hi-tech {{w|Memory foam|foam}}/{{w|Mattress coil|spring}} combination construction, rather than just the former or the latter with or without minor padding), but Ponytail interrupts him, saying that she believes it actually is a waterbed based on "how it moves."

The comic caption reveals the punchline, that because {{w|planetary oceanography|subsurface oceans}} have become so ubiquitous in the study of planetary science (especially because they serve as an indicator for the potential for life on another planet), Ponytail is starting to see them ''everywhere'', even in clearly unrelated contexts such as mattresses. Here, the water in the waterbed is analogous to a planet's subsurface ocean (i.e. both being water underneath a solid outer layer). Alternatively, the comic could be commenting on the difficulty of discerning {{w|hydroxyl}} spectra of water absorbed in mineral {{w|hydrate}}s from free water in remote detection studies of the {{w|Lunar water|Moon}}, asteroids, and Jovian moons.

The title text goes in a similar direction with planetary science, having Ponytail tell the now-confused clerk that the rumpled fabric on one part of the bed seems like "evidence of ongoing tectonic activity," referencing {{w|plate tectonics}} and how protruding geographic formations (such as mountains) are formed through it. Again, the punchline is the relentless penetration of Ponytail's occupation into her everyday life.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is shopping for a mattress and Cueball points with one hand towards a mattress to their left. It lies on a bed with two mattresses on top of each other, there is a price tag on the one on top. To their right is another bed with one mattress also with a price tag. Both price tags have a $ sign on them. There are five wall posters behind them. To their left is one with a picture of a bed with unreadable text above and below. Next to it is a smaller note with three lines of unreadable text. To their right is a poster with a zoom in on a mattress with some item on top of it that looks like a wineglass. There is a line of unreadable text above. Next to that are two slim posters, one has a large word "Sale" on it, but the rest of the text on that and on the one below is unreadable.]
:Cueball: And this is one of our most popular models.
:Ponytail: Is it a waterbed?
:Cueball: No, it's a hybrid foam--
:Ponytail: No, look at how it moves. I'm pretty sure it's a waterbed.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Planetary scientists are starting to see subsurface oceans everywhere.

{{comic discussion}}

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

609: Tab Explosion

2023-02-20T12:46:21Z

172.69.79.159: /* Explanation */ A better way of explaining the 'explosion'.

{{comic
| number = 609
| date = July 13, 2009
| title = Tab Explosion
| image = tab_explosion.png
| titletext = Cracked.com is another inexplicable browser narcotic. They could write a list of '17 worst haircuts in the Ottoman Empire' and I'd still read through to the end, then click on all the links at the end.
}}

==Explanation==
{{tvtropes|HomePage|TV Tropes}} is a popular site which allows conversation on {{w|tropes}}. A common joke with the site is how you will read a page, find a certain trope, which will lead to you opening another tab on your web page in order to read after you're done with the original one. Then, as you read further down this article, and others, you'll open even more pages. Pretty soon, this will cause an extremely long cycle of opening new pages and closing old ones, not necessarily at the same rate.

In the comic, this is exactly what happens to [[Cueball]]. He starts on a single page, then opens more and more tabs on different pages. Pretty soon, he finds himself stuck in a loop of opening pages.

The last frame refers to {{w|Rickrolling}}, which is the practice of being linked to {{w|Rick Astley|Rick Astley's}} "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ| Never Gonna Give You Up]" on YouTube.

The title text refers to the comedy site [http://www.cracked.com Cracked.com]. This site is also known for its addictive articles. Most articles are formatted in the same way the title text notes. Eventually, Cracked itself wrote a column that [http://www.cracked.com/blog/clippy-finally-messes-with-the-wrong-word-doc/ paid tribute to this cartoon]. (See the very last line ''With that in mind, we present to you the 17 Worst Haircuts in The Ottoman Empire''.)

The original comic links to TVtropes' page of {{tvtropes|UniversalTropes|Universal tropes}}. TVtropes has taken notice and has a welcome letter for you at the end of the main article: "Oh, and {{xkcd|609|hello}} to all you {{tvtropes|Webcomic/xkcd|xkcd}} readers. (And [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=609 thank you] {{tvtropes|TVTropesWillRuinYourLife|for the information}}!)" Here the "thank you" link actually links to ''this'' page, the "hello" links to the comic on xkcd and the other two links are to two articles on TVTropes, the first about xkcd and the last one being an in-joke about how "TVTropes will ruin your life". The addition of this many links is likely meant to be ironic.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:Cueball: Huh.

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball stares at the computer.]
:Cueball: I never noticed that!

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:Cueball: Haha, yeah.

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:Cueball: So true.

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball stares at the computer.]

:[Cueball stares at the computer.]

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball stares at the computer.]

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:''Click''

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
:Megan (off-screen): Are you in there?
:Cueball: Help!

:[Megan walks in behind Cueball who is still sitting at the computer. The bottom of the image is covered in Megan's last line]
:Megan: Okay, who linked you to TVTropes? What's ''with'' that site?
:Cueball: Can't ... stop...
:Megan: It's like Rickrolling, but you're trapped all day.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

Talk:2739: Data Quality

2023-02-20T00:51:46Z

172.69.79.159:

Hash tables aren't lossy, maybe Randall means hash functions? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:06, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I was thinking more a (subset of) a {{w|Rainbow table}}, than an associative array... Although such things tend not to preserve/respect item order (in reading, writing and altering in general), which is potentially information-lossy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.185|172.69.79.185]] 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::Hash tables have an ultra-low collision rate, as compared to the transforms used in packetwise error-correction... Since the comic is primarily focused on contrasting media fidelity with direct alteration of the content, ciphers seem a less direct association than content distribution networks? Given the context presented, my immediate association was the use of both piece & whole-pack hash verification, which has a collision rate so low terms like "number of particles in the universe" start entering the conversation. Upon further consideration, I wonder if Randall is referring to plain old CRC32 hash checking? Or the SHA hashes commonly used to verify disc downloads? (If it passes SHA *and* torrent content checking, I'd say you've probably got better chances of 1:1 integrity, than any original medium has of retaining it?)
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:51, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

GIF's aren't lossy either, though often other formats can't be converted to GIF without discarding information. [[User:Bemasher|Bemasher]] ([[User talk:Bemasher|talk]]) 18:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I think that's the point. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.203|172.68.50.203]] 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:GIFs are lossy in the very act of creating them: the actual colors of the real object have to be smashed down into (I think it’s) 256 different colors, resulting in an image that even human perception recognizes as crappy. Even the so-called ‘lossless’ formats such as PNG are lossy in the act of creation, just not as drastically as GIFs. A truly ‘lossless’ format would have to specify the exact intensity of every wavelength of electromagnetic radiation emanating from every atom of the original object. Good luck with that. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.99|172.71.151.99]] 01:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
::It's subjective whether formats (even .gif) can be recognised as 'crappy'. The display format may further tune down everything so that something defined with 65536 colours is more like 256, or it could work well with any given stippling/halftoning/dithering to produce something more like the better original than the file data strictly allows (even from 6bits-per-pixel, or 3) when viewed at sufficient remove. And a .gif of a block-coloured diagram is notably better than a typical .jpg of one, despite the technically superior palette the later has. (Nobody says that an image has to be from a real-life subject, with all kinds of missing data, such as photons thst happen to hit the gap between CCD pixels but might be considered important and might well have been captured with the Mk 1 Eyeball and significantly 'noticed' by the nerves and ultimately the respective processing usters of the brain behind it... Which has a complete set of 'analogue lossiness' to it, anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.203|172.71.242.203]] 16:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Someone needs to add a table describing all the formats in the chart. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:Yep. It needs a description of each point on the graph. I'm on my phone though... and feeling lazy after shoveling snow.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::I'm tempted, but it would require learning how to MAKE a table, and my ideal table would be 5 columns, '''''TOO WIDE!''''', LOL! Table label, what scale (data quality or item quality), a description (the main thing needed), the cat version from the Title Text, and finally how the cat example applies/parallels the comic version. I could lose the "what scale" as only one isn't data quality, and I guess I could see two tables, Comic and Title/Cat (adding to cat also the Table Label column).[[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
:::Tables are actually [https://mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables quite easy to do] (if you don't intend to do much complex stuff), but also very easy to slightly mess up (temporarily - Preview is your friend, especially if you need to rowspan/colspan at all). For this purpose, nothing fancy. Header row, other rows, nothing particar special in alignment, sorting, colour (foreground and/or background), etc. It'll be fairly intelligently fitted to the browser window, according to the contents.
:::However, here (when you might have large amounts of narrative in one column), perhaps just ";"-prefix a mini-header (can include "(in Title text)" or other shorthand details) and then have ":"-prefixed 'definition' prose that rambles on about each item in freehand text. I would suggest that's as complicated as you need it, no real need for tabling at all. (But, without wanting to show you how to use a hammer, then making every problem now look like a nail to you, I think you could handle ''learning'' the basic table-markup/learning where to get the more complex stuff. So there you are.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.197|172.70.91.197]] 16:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems there are two definitions of data quality that Randall is juxtaposing for comic effect: in one, quality data is data that represents the original phenomenon without error or degradation. In the other, he's applying the concept of quality to the phenomenon itself – data is better if it describes a better phenomenon. My cat is better than your cat, therefore data about my cat is better than data about your cat. I'd like to see this concept in the explanation of the page but don't know how to add into the flow of the current text.[[User:K95|K95]] ([[User talk:K95|talk]]) 19:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I already put that in earlier. See the second sentence of the second paragraph, I called it "general excellence". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

"Data are transferred in bits"...Hear, hear. I'm over 60, I still remember of stuff that is called "analog" ;-) {{unsigned|172.71.160.37|20:07, 17 February 2023 (UTC)}}
:Note, however, that we are transferring data digitally for over four thousand years. That's how long is technically possible to make a lossless copy of written story. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::That's only if you're lucky enough to be still reading it in the original <s>Klingon</s> language, etc... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.184|172.69.79.184]] 22:53, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:::'''"It is a Klingon name!"''' 😾
:::Transcription definitely suffers from a Darmok & Jalad type contextual dependency.
::: [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I think that "Better data" is a reference to gainful compression, and that "my better cat" doesn't specifically refer to the author but to the lyrical subject (as in poems). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.203|172.68.50.203]] 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

TIFF can contain a JPEG, which makes it technically a lossy format. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.33|172.69.109.33]] 23:26, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
:And an actual JPEG ''may'' be {{w|Lossless JPEG|lossless}}. (I still remember JPEG2000 being 'a thing', amongst the other situations mentioned there, but that wasn't even what I was thinking of whn I started this reply!) Yet, I think we're talking broad sweeps here. Not strict accuracy. There's Randall's trolling of us with GIF as 'lossy', frexample... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]]

2739: Data Quality

2023-02-19T20:56:50Z

172.69.79.159: /* Details */ Detail and expand upon the JPG etc group.

{{comic
| number = 2739
| date = February 17, 2023
| title = Data Quality
| image = data_quality_2x.png
| imagesize = 671x211px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [exclamation about how cute your cat is] -> [last 4 digits of your cat's chip ID] -> [your cat's full chip ID] -> [a drawing of your cat] -> [photo of your cat] -> [clone of your cat] -> [your actual cat] -> [my better cat]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SUPERIOR FELINE. There should probably be a table of the values, explaining what each value means, maybe a second table of how the Title Text elements fit each data point - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}


Digital data are transferred in bits, and {{w|data loss}} is the process by which some of these bits are lost or altered during data transport. Data can also be compressed to make transmission and/or storage more efficient; some {{w|compression algorithms}} discard some data to improve the compression (this can be acceptable in audio or visual data, since the difference may be hard for humans to perceive).

This comic shows a chart in the form of a line, moving in increasing quality from most lossy to most lossless. However, the highest quality, "better data", is using a different sense of the term "quality". In the context of data transmission or compression, it refers to how accurately the result represents the original. But in this case, he's referring to its more general excellence.

The title text uses your cat as an example of this range of losses (or, in the case of the latter reaches of the graph, gains) in the data. The most lossy is an exclamation about how cute your cat is, which is ephemeral and obviously carries very little significance in terms of actually providing specific, transferrable information about your cat. The example then progresses into your cat's chip ID; presumably your cat has been microchipped, and between the last four digits (commonly used in sensitive information as an identifier without revealing the full number) or the entire chip ID, provides a still-uninformative yet slightly improved way of identifying your cat. A drawing of your cat and a photo of your cat would portray the cat reasonably well, while a clone of your cat and (of course) your actual cat would be the best way of gaining data about your cat. However, as in the actual comic, the final, most lossless (in this case, with the most gain) form of data transfer has nothing to do with your cat, but is simply Randall's better cat. This is apparently made out by Randall to be the pinnacle of cat data.

=== Details ===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Item
! Explanation
|-
| {{w|Bloom filter}}
| A Bloom filter is a probabilistic data structure that can efficiently say whether an element is probably already a dataset, while it can say "element is not in set" with 100% accuracy. If a Bloom filter is used to compress the contents of a book, the Bloom filter can re-tell the story - just by guessing.
|-
| {{w|Hash table}}
| A hash table allows you to find data very fast. Randall probably means hashing the contents of entire books. Calculating a hash value for an entire book means that there is (most probably) a unique relationship between the book and a hash value - e.g. "58b8893b2a116d4966f31236eb2c77c4172d00e9". This means the book will yield this exact hash value, and this hash value can only mean this book (though it's impossible to reconstruct the book's content from a hash vaue). It is a highly efficient, but is meaningless.
|-
| {{w|JPEG|JPG}}, {{w|GIF}}, {{w|MPEG-1|MPEG}}
| Image and video formats that are considered 'lossy'. JPG (or "JPEG") format and the MPEG {{w|MPEG-2|group}} {{w|Advanced Video Coding|of}} formats typically use a range of data-compression methods that save space by selectively fudging (thus losing) what details it can of the image (and audio, where appropriate), to make disproportionate gains in compression; best used for real world images (and films) where real-world 'noise' can afford to be replaced by a more compressible vesion, without too muuch obvious change.
GIF compression is not 'lossy' in the same way, i.e. whatever it is asked to encode can be faithfully decoded, but Randall may consider its limitations (it can only write images of 256 unique hues, albeit that these can come from anywhere across the whole 65,536 "True color" range, plus transparency) to be a form of loss, as conversion from a more sophisticated format (e.g. PNG, below) could lose many of the subtle shades of the original and produce an inferior image. For this reason, GIF format became one best left to render diagrams and other computer-generated imagery with swathes of identical pixels and mostly sharp edges (and to utilise the optional transparent mask). Alternatively, he may just have included it as a joke/nerd-snipe.
|-
| PNG, ZIP, TIFF, WAV
| lossless compression of pictures and audio (WAV)
|-
| Parity bits for error detection
| In the number 135, the sum of digits is 9. So, the number 135 could be written as "135-9". If the number was tampered with, the parity bits could tell you so (in some cases). But a change from "135" to "153" could not be detected that way. There are more reliable means to detect errors: The obsolete CRC-32 and MD5, and the much more modern {{w|Secure Hash Algorithm|SHA}}.
|-
| Parity bits for error correction
| There are ways to restore the original data with the given additional data.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A line chart is shown with eight unevenly-spaced ticks each one with a label beneath the line. Above the middle of the line there is a dotted vertical line with a word on either side of this divider. Above the chart there is a big caption with an arrow pointing right beneath it.]
:<big>Data Quality</big>
:Lossy ┊ Lossless

:[Labels to the left of the dotted line from left to right:]
:Someone who once saw the data describing it at a party
:Bloom filter
:Hash table
:JPEG, GIF MPEG

:[Labels to the right of the dotted line from left to right:]
:PNG, ZIP, TIFF, WAV, Raw data
:Raw data + parity bits for error detection
:Raw data + parity bits for error ''correction''
:Better data

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Cats]]

2733: Size Comparisons

2023-02-05T19:38:43Z

172.69.79.159: /* Explanation */ spacebar!

{{comic
| number = 2733
| date = February 3, 2023
| title = Size Comparisons
| image = size_comparisons_2x.png
| imagesize = 238x373px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you shrank the Solar System to the size of Texas, the Houston metro area would be smaller than a grasshopper in Dallas.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TEXAS-SIZED CRICKET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Cueball]] attempts to emphasize to [[Ponytail]] what {{w|Texas}}'s size is (as the largest state in the {{w|contiguous US}}, although the second largest state in the whole of the {{w|US}}), by making a size comparison. He states that with Texas expanded to the size of the {{w|Solar System}}, the {{w|ant}}s in Texas will be as large as {{w|Rhode Island}} (the smallest US state). However, Cueball on purpose (according to the caption) just proves how small Texas actually is compared to the Solar System (which is a lot larger).{{Citation needed}}

A common analogy for expressing a statistic (such as area/volume/population size/population density) of unfamiliar things is to compare that thing to some other reference that people are likely to already have an understanding of, if only through past comparisons. For instance, it is said that a human-sized {{w|flea}} could jump the equivalent height of the {{w|Eiffel Tower}} (if jumping ability scaled with animal size; which it does not, due to how some of the different numbers involved will scale to the square or cube of the linear factor, so such aspects as power-to-weight ratios and sheer biomechanical strengths cannot be maintained). In this case, Randall is comparing objects that are extremely different in scale (the state of Texas and a small insect), but then blowing Texas up to yet another size many orders of magnitude larger, and then comparing it with something else his addressee has no comprehension of, with the result that the comparison is of no value in understanding how big Texas is (which could be supposed to be Cueball's intended impartation), or what ants have to do with anything in the first place. The only message you get in the end is that "Texas is much bigger than an ant," which most people already know.{{Citation needed}}

There are a lot of definitions for how large the Solar System is, but one that is used (and easily agreed upon) is based upon {{w|Neptune}}'s {{w|Apsis#Perihelion and aphelion|aphelion}} (the farthest point from Sun of the outermost planet). Using the {{w|Area of a circle|circle area equation}}, we might say that the 'area' of the solar system is 6.49×1019 square kilometers (2.506×1019 square miles), which is a lot, with Texas's area being in turn measured as 696,241 km² (268,820 mi²). The difference in size is the huge factor of 9.32×1013 (not a [[2707: Astronomy Numbers|simple number]]). Ants, unfortunately for the calculations, vary vastly in size, but Rhode Island's area is known to be 3,144 km² (1,214 mi²). We can therefore back-calculate that Randall's average "ant" would occupy 33.73 square millimeters. Roughly measured, an ant has an "aspect ratio" of 1:2 (width to length), and such an assumption leads to a length of 8.21mm, which falls easily into the range of 2–25mm for various possible species and types of ants. Therefore, Randall's calculated comparison indeed holds up as valid.

The title text refers to the opposite, with the entire Solar system being scaled down to the size of Texas. {{w|Houston}} (a city in Texas) has a {{w|Greater Houston|metropolitan area}} (an area extending a bit beyond the city itself) that, if ''shrunk'' by the same factor as before, would be smaller than a grasshopper in {{w|Dallas}}, another city in Texas. (This, of course, only works if Houston's environs are part of what is shrunk, yet the grasshopper – and perhaps at least part of its apparent hometown of Dallas – remains unchanged.) The calculations to verify this hinge upon Houston's metro area normally being considered to be 26,061 km² (10,062 mi²), and hence becoming 279.6 square millimeters. A grasshopper may be considered thinner than an ant, so we shall use the aspect ratio of 1:3 instead, to give a length of 28.96 mm, or almost 3 centimeters and approximately an inch. This falls within the range of 1–7cm range, that may be found [https://animalcorner.org/animals/grasshopper/ quoted in some places], but is significantly smaller than [https://a-z-animals.com/blog/the-10-largest-grasshoppers-in-the-world/ notably large species]. Whether the Dallas grasshopper is any particular variety (or even a native, rather than an exotic pet) is not expounded upon.

On the other hand, the comparison would be meaningful the other way around: "The Solar System is so big that if you shrink it to the size of Texas, (the shrunken) Rhode Island would now be as small as (unshrunken) ants".

This is another comic in the series of [[My Hobby|Randall's Hobbies]].

==Transcript==

:[Cueball speaking to Ponytail.]
:Cueball: Texas is so big that if you expanded it to the size of the Solar System, the ants there would be as big as Rhode Island.
:Ponytail: Wow!
:Ponytail: ...Wait.

:[Caption below panel]
:My hobby: Unhelpful size comparisons

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

2733: Size Comparisons

2023-02-05T19:37:44Z

172.69.79.159: /* Explanation */ As you got there just before *I* was going to clarify it... Rephrased more towards what I was going to say.

{{comic
| number = 2733
| date = February 3, 2023
| title = Size Comparisons
| image = size_comparisons_2x.png
| imagesize = 238x373px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you shrank the Solar System to the size of Texas, the Houston metro area would be smaller than a grasshopper in Dallas.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TEXAS-SIZED CRICKET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Cueball]] attempts to emphasize to [[Ponytail]] what {{w|Texas}}'s size is (as the largest state in the {{w|contiguous US}}, although the second largest state in the whole of the{{w|US}}), by making a size comparison. He states that with Texas expanded to the size of the {{w|Solar System}}, the {{w|ant}}s in Texas will be as large as {{w|Rhode Island}} (the smallest US state). However, Cueball on purpose (according to the caption) just proves how small Texas actually is compared to the Solar System (which is a lot larger).{{Citation needed}}

A common analogy for expressing a statistic (such as area/volume/population size/population density) of unfamiliar things is to compare that thing to some other reference that people are likely to already have an understanding of, if only through past comparisons. For instance, it is said that a human-sized {{w|flea}} could jump the equivalent height of the {{w|Eiffel Tower}} (if jumping ability scaled with animal size; which it does not, due to how some of the different numbers involved will scale to the square or cube of the linear factor, so such aspects as power-to-weight ratios and sheer biomechanical strengths cannot be maintained). In this case, Randall is comparing objects that are extremely different in scale (the state of Texas and a small insect), but then blowing Texas up to yet another size many orders of magnitude larger, and then comparing it with something else his addressee has no comprehension of, with the result that the comparison is of no value in understanding how big Texas is (which could be supposed to be Cueball's intended impartation), or what ants have to do with anything in the first place. The only message you get in the end is that "Texas is much bigger than an ant," which most people already know.{{Citation needed}}

There are a lot of definitions for how large the Solar System is, but one that is used (and easily agreed upon) is based upon {{w|Neptune}}'s {{w|Apsis#Perihelion and aphelion|aphelion}} (the farthest point from Sun of the outermost planet). Using the {{w|Area of a circle|circle area equation}}, we might say that the 'area' of the solar system is 6.49×1019 square kilometers (2.506×1019 square miles), which is a lot, with Texas's area being in turn measured as 696,241 km² (268,820 mi²). The difference in size is the huge factor of 9.32×1013 (not a [[2707: Astronomy Numbers|simple number]]). Ants, unfortunately for the calculations, vary vastly in size, but Rhode Island's area is known to be 3,144 km² (1,214 mi²). We can therefore back-calculate that Randall's average "ant" would occupy 33.73 square millimeters. Roughly measured, an ant has an "aspect ratio" of 1:2 (width to length), and such an assumption leads to a length of 8.21mm, which falls easily into the range of 2–25mm for various possible species and types of ants. Therefore, Randall's calculated comparison indeed holds up as valid.

The title text refers to the opposite, with the entire Solar system being scaled down to the size of Texas. {{w|Houston}} (a city in Texas) has a {{w|Greater Houston|metropolitan area}} (an area extending a bit beyond the city itself) that, if ''shrunk'' by the same factor as before, would be smaller than a grasshopper in {{w|Dallas}}, another city in Texas. (This, of course, only works if Houston's environs are part of what is shrunk, yet the grasshopper – and perhaps at least part of its apparent hometown of Dallas – remains unchanged.) The calculations to verify this hinge upon Houston's metro area normally being considered to be 26,061 km² (10,062 mi²), and hence becoming 279.6 square millimeters. A grasshopper may be considered thinner than an ant, so we shall use the aspect ratio of 1:3 instead, to give a length of 28.96 mm, or almost 3 centimeters and approximately an inch. This falls within the range of 1–7cm range, that may be found [https://animalcorner.org/animals/grasshopper/ quoted in some places], but is significantly smaller than [https://a-z-animals.com/blog/the-10-largest-grasshoppers-in-the-world/ notably large species]. Whether the Dallas grasshopper is any particular variety (or even a native, rather than an exotic pet) is not expounded upon.

On the other hand, the comparison would be meaningful the other way around: "The Solar System is so big that if you shrink it to the size of Texas, (the shrunken) Rhode Island would now be as small as (unshrunken) ants".

This is another comic in the series of [[My Hobby|Randall's Hobbies]].

==Transcript==

:[Cueball speaking to Ponytail.]
:Cueball: Texas is so big that if you expanded it to the size of the Solar System, the ants there would be as big as Rhode Island.
:Ponytail: Wow!
:Ponytail: ...Wait.

:[Caption below panel]
:My hobby: Unhelpful size comparisons

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

Talk:2732: Bursa of Fabricius

2023-02-02T06:31:51Z

172.69.79.159:

One of the reasons for the success of humans is that the tools of humans do not depend on the structure and strength of the human body. Using fire as an example, a single person with a fire stick can burn down an entire forest in a matter of hours. Fire is not limited by the person who started it. The same goes for any other tool we make. ~ [[user:megan|Megan]] she/her [[user talk:megan|talk]] [[special:contribs/megan|contribs]] 18:35, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Here's the wiki for Bursa of Frabricius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bursa_of_Fabricius

And the wiki for Hieronymus Fabricius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Fabricius [[User:Mr. I|Mr. I]] ([[User talk:Mr. I|talk]]) 18:51, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

So ''that's'' why I can't find the Gräfenberg spot! [[User:LunarNapolean|LunarNapolean]] ([[User talk:LunarNapolean|talk]]) 20:34, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
:Perhaps you should have met {{w|R. G. Waldeck|Frau Gräfenberg}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.96|172.70.85.96]] 22:10, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

At first I thought the top character was swinging on a rope like in https://xkcd.com/208/, but now I see he's actually flying. So is he supposed to be Fabricius? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:15, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps the presence of the organ in avian dinosaurs prevented their demise after the asteroid. [[User:KingPenguin|KingPenguin]] ([[User talk:KingPenguin|talk]]) 23:33, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

omg return of safari hat guy from [[603]]!! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.67.54|172.69.67.54]] 00:44, 2 February 2023 (UTC)Bumpf

Adam's apple is named for the legend that a piece of forbidden fruit was stuck in the biblical Adam's throat. I guess you could call him the discoverer, but that's a stretch. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.49|172.68.35.49]] 06:21, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

'Adam's Apple' isn't named after its 'discoverer', but after the Biblical Adam, because it resembles having a piece of the 'forbidden fruit' stuck in one's throat. The earliest use of the name occurs in a 1662 English translation of Thomas Bartholin's 1651 work 'Anatomia', but the Latin phrase translated, 'pomum Adami', had been in use in medical texts across Europe from at least 1600AD.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]] 06:31, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2727: Runtime

2023-01-21T20:35:05Z

172.69.79.159:

It has to be said that a first season of a series generally will be written ''as'' a whole season (give or take any pilot/feature-length-special that may be the heralding first episode). Whereas film sequences don't tend to be purposefully made/anticipated together (notable exceptions: Back To The Futures 2 & 3, the LOTR and (later) Hobbit trilogies, various sub-sets of Star Wars (the prequel and sequel trilogies, certainly, the OT's second and third conclusions to the story started with Ep4)). Sometimes it runs well enough to get up into high numbers of at least sufficiently similar-yet-innovating releases that satisfy the theme (the Fast And Furiouses... the whole Bond œuvre..?), though sometimes it might stutter (Highlander 2!) and may or may not actually recover. Either way, it risks becoming a made-for-TV-movie sinkhole (as Disney knows well enough), unless it was always intended to reproduce some previously successful serialisation (Tolkein's stuff, as already alluded to; J.K. Rowling's surprisingly popular product). I think, therefore that Cueball is right to more dread the effort of dealing with some multi-sequel monstrocity of a film-canon, compared to whatever degree of {{tvtropes|EarlyInstallmentWeirdness|First Season Disservice}} he has suffered or heard that he must suffer before the kinks are properly ironed out in seasons 2-6. (Then it goes funny for 7, 8 and most of 9, until the story arc evolves into something that gets it to series 20 before a bit of cancel/uncancel shenanigans plague the production, spin-offs (including a prequel series and/or an animated version) take over the franchise and relegate the old stars to cameo-actors, the franchise then gets a Series: The Movie! which either does surprisingly well or surprisingly manages to upset the whole diverse fanbase in loads of differing ways... or some variation on all that.)
 ...but, anyway, it's not surprising. Yet it ''does'' probably qualify as an interesting point that fully deserves to be highlit or else we might never have thought of it for ousrselves, in as many words. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.64|172.71.178.64]] 03:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think 8 moves are of about equal length to 1 season. I picked 8 random movies from the list of movies I'm planning to watch and it totaled 18¼ hours. Then looked at some series first seasons. The Mandalorian is 5½ hours, Wednesday is 6 hours, Friends is 6¼ hours, even an outlier like Dragon Ball Z is only 10½ hours. The premise of the comic probably still stands though, but can be explained by the fact that with a series it also gives the promise of more hours of good material. With movies if the first 8 are bad there might not be many good ones after that. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 04:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
:You picked some BAD examples, though... AFAIK, Mandalorian and Wednesday are straight-to-streaming shows. STS, specialty channel, and non-North American shows (British, Australian) have particularly short seasons of 6, 8, or 10 episodes. A standard season is between 22 and 26 episodes at the very outside, usually around 24. Also, such discussions don't generally happen about half hour sitcoms & cartoons like Friends or Dragon Ball Z, most shows are hour shows (44 minutes without ads instead of 22). Quick and dirty math - rounding to 20 and 40 minute episodes, or 3 per hour and 3 per 2 hours - means you picked a weirdly short season of Friends of 18.75 episodes, their 26 episode seasons (as I recall they tended to hit 26) would be nearly 9 hours usually. Hour-long shows, using the average 24 episodes, is 16 hours. A usual average movie length these days is 2h per (used to be 1.5 until I'd say the late 90s, movies could be as short as 1:15 and rarely hit 2, but SO MANY long movies in recent decades) means 8 movies ALSO averages about 16. The math works out if you use standard, middle of the road examples - no long movies like Titanic or short seasons like streaming shows. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
:It's not just about the length, although yes, it's rare for movie series to have more than 8 movies. It's about continuity. Movies tend to be relatively stand-alone (although there are counterexamples, like LOTR) so watching 8 of them just to "get" the 9th is rarely needed. Meanwhile, with series, you usually NEED to watch the first season - or at least big part of it - to get the basic premise of the show. It's more likely you get away with skipping second one, if it actually gets better in third or fourth season (like ST:DS9, although you probably can just watch first four episodes then skip rest of first season and whole second and not miss much). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The runtime of most movies is O(n), but the runtime of some TV shows is O(n log n) because you have to go back for context. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.114|162.158.2.114]] 04:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I was surprised nobody noticed or made mention that with Doctor Who you CAN'T watch from the true beginning (not really) because of all the lost episodes from the 60s and 70s! So I added that to the explanation. I've collected every episode, but for those lost ones all I have is that they have the audio and some pictures so someone made a slideshow as a replacement, or they have the audio and someone animated a replacement (many of these replacements are shorter than an episode, though). And sometimes it isn't even full stories missing - as nearly every story spanned multiple episodes - so LOTS of stories aren't complete. So nobody can TRULY watch every episode from the beginning any more (I've done my best and got to season 3 before I couldn't find time any more). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 08:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Is "The original Doctor Who, running from 1963-1989 was extremely low budget, and is generally considered to be not as good as the revived series (2005-present), which has a much higher production budget and is typically much more popular with modern viewers (who mainly ignore the older episodes)" actually true? Most of the discussion I've seen is not particularly kind to the revival relative to the heyday of the third through seventh doctors. It seems like someone just made this up to fit the comic's underlying narrative. An actual citation is actually needed. I would suggest in this case that being its own thing means that the quality varies from writer to writer more than from year to year. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.145|172.70.210.145]] 08:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
:Without having read your comment, I made changes there that might help. But, really, the joke is ''not about'' Doctor Who (outside of the title text)v, and while there is much useful info to impart, the point is that it just isn't covered by the comparison and might even need to begiven a Trivia-like add-on for the detail, and leave the main bit as a "it's complicated!" to not distract..? ;)

I think the title text is less about the number of seasons of Doctor Who and more about the fact that people tend to suggest you start with the 9th Doctor. In other words, they're suggesting you skip the first 8 Doctors. [[User:Mrgvsv|Mrgvsv]] ([[User talk:Mrgvsv|talk]]) 15:22, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
:I don't know anyone who thinks the revival has been better than the Pertwee and Baker years. Since 2018 there's been no respect for continuity or canon, just one long retcon festival. It's not a story, it's a set of shorts with a theme. Not that the original was too great with continuity to begin with, of course. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.91|172.70.211.91]] 19:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
::Horses for courses. I don't rate much of Nine's tenure (except as a useful re-emergence of the franchise), and the structure of the stories had changed (gone with the serials, apart from a few multi-episode stories, and of course the integration of series-arcs; then the awkward reliance on ''only'' a Christmas/New Year episode-or-two without even proper free reign in a mini-season or longer), but Classic was Executively Meddled With in its own ways more suited for the time and there was enough fan-grief at the time for all of that, and confusion by the more casual viewers.
::Yes, perhaps a bit too much introverted navel-gazing and unsubtle nod-nod-wink-wink to the perceived obessesives. Some of the writers may be a bit too much fans themselves. And yet others just plan reckless and ''not'' as solidly faithful as we might wish them to be to our own personal headcanon.
::But that's not unique to Who. And I can't judge the series's merit only on ''my'' enjoyment. There's far more than that to the successful commercial continuation. And this is a discussion that could ''really'' alienate those we might hope to appreciate the 'real' series, whatever that is. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]] 20:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I interpreted the title text as saying that, although Doctor Who would by any reasonable metric (consistency of writing, consistency of worldbuilding, how compelling and/or realistic and/or complex villains are, plausibility, philosophical resonance, CGI, etc.) be rated as 'bad' or 'unlikely to be good' in almost any season, it is nonetheless good for the vast majority of it. But I don't want to put that in unless somebody else reads it that way too.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.32|172.68.35.32]] 15:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
:To some extent I agree. I've heard enough times "You've never watched DW? I think you'd enjoy Blink..." (or "The Girl In The Fireplace", or "A Good Man Goes To War" or "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" or "The Five Doctors" or... ...whatever the speaker thinks will appeal to the curiosity and/or particular interests of their Who-curious but surprisingly still 'cherry' partner in conversation).
:There are some episodes/serials/entire seasons that I'd not suggest as an intro, but An Unearthly Child is valid, as is Rose (consigning the whole available run of of Classic and especially the TV-Movie to "maybe later, just to get an idea"). But there are clunkers (or "hilarious in hindsight", like the rather ''less'' impressive 'preview' of the London Olympics in Fear Her) that I'd say to watch along the way through a series but not try to make too much judgement of as you advance onwards to other intresting points (Army Of Ghost, etc) or episodes which actually need quite a bit of prior knowledge to appreciate (Turn Left).
:But this is going to be a subjective deal between the existing fan and the 'potential new recruit' that I can only really generalise about. And likely mystify some others as to my choice of examples and attitudes towards them! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.231|162.158.34.231]] 19:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

2659: Unreliable Connection

2022-12-30T10:16:39Z

172.69.79.159:

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2706: Bendy

2022-12-07T13:38:36Z

172.69.79.159: /* Explanation */ Axis break clarification

{{comic
| number = 2706
| date = December 2, 2022
| title = Bendy
| image = bendy_2x.png
| imagesize = 291x209px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Squaring the circle is really easy with some good clamps.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created while BENDING OVER PULLBACKWARDS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Geometry usually represents 2D polygons with simple straight lines. In the comic, the lines are compared to a physical object, and are shown to have the property of bendiness. Randall claims this simplifies geometry as now triangles can have arbitrarily defined side lengths by merely stretching the lines, but it is unclear what benefits this may have over current Euclidean geometry. These lines cannot have Euclidean properties, but other non-Euclidean systems have been invented in the past with non-standard properties.<ref>{{w|Non-Euclidean_geometry}}</ref> One such non-Euclidean space can be modelled as the surface of a sphere. If the sphere had a circumference of 20, the triangle with three sides of length 5 would be right angled (at all three vertices).

This comic may be a reference to axis breaks in graphs, which shrink large segments and enhance readability and are denoted by a wiggly line on the axis in question, though this is more frequently done with angular zig-zags than the smoother curves as depicted.

The title-text talks about "{{w|Squaring the circle}}" (not to be confused with {{w|Tarski's circle-squaring problem|circle-squaring}}), a famous geometry problem based around constructing a square with the same area as a given circle, using a compass and straightedge, which was proven to be impossible (even with more powerful forms of construction, such as marked straightedges or origami) in 1882 as pi is a transcendental number. However, it then goes on to describe a way to literally turn one of these bendy shapes from a circle into a square - namely using clamps.

==Transcript==
:[There are two right triangles. The one to the left is a standard right triangle with the right angle denoted by a small square at that corner. The lengths of the sides are denoted around it, but it has been scribbled out with red lines. The triangle to the right has the same general shape as the first one, but with the legs appearing longer but bent with about three wiggles each near the right-angled corner. As with the first triangle, the side lengths are denoted around it, but they are not the same as for the first. Around this triangle is a red line circling about two times around it.]
:Left triangle: 3 4 5
:Right triangle: 5 5 5

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Huge geometry breakthrough: Turns out those lines we make triangles out of are bendy!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Math]]