explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2749: Lymphocytes

2023-03-14T06:06:05Z

172.70.162.47:

Battery cells have nothing to do with cell phones. The "cell" in cell phone is short for "cellular" and refers to the communication cells around each tower. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 03:09, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I was originally thinking the CD4+ would be a reference to ''Call of Duty 4'' and onwards, in which players scream (insults?) at each other while playing. But the feeling has subsided, after considering it. Mentioning it here, though, in leiu of adding it as 'factual'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 06:06, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

1500: Upside-Down Map

2023-03-07T12:41:48Z

172.70.162.47: Undo revision 307313 by ConlangGuide (talk) No, CG, it was entirely correct as it was. Unless there's been breaking news that I've missed, this morning.

{{comic
| number = 1500
| date = March 18, 2015
| title = Upside-Down Map
| image = upside_down_map.png
| titletext = Due to their proximity across the channel, there's long been tension between North Korea and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Southern Ireland.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays on the idea that maps with the {{w|South-up map orientation|south pole at the top}} will "change your perspective of the world". Most world maps orient north in the upward direction, placing the north pole as the top. Such an orientation is purely a matter of convention, as 'up' and 'down' don't apply in a planetary context. The north = up tradition probably emerged because most historical cartographers hailed from the northern hemisphere, and placed their own nations at the top. Some people and groups object that this convention subtly, but perniciously, advances the assumption that countries in the northern hemisphere are inherently more important than those in the southern hemisphere. This is especially sensitive because most of the wealthier and more powerful countries in the world are in the northern hemisphere, while relatively fewer southern hemisphere countries have as much wealth or global influence. Early maps had eastern Asia oriented at the top of the map, beyond Israel and the Holy Land in the middle, and western Europe at the bottom.

To remedy this, some advocate the use of maps with the south pole oriented at the top. Some want such maps in common use, while others simply use them to encourage people to rethink their assumptions about how the world should be seen. Such a map can easily be achieved by simply rotating a normal map 180 degrees, though the text labels would also be upside-down and harder to read. A [https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&q=upside-down%2Bmap%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bworld Google Images] search reveals many examples of upside-down maps with the text-oriented correctly for reading.

This map is a comedic play on such maps, where each landmass is in the same position it would be in a traditional north-top map but rotated 180 degrees (presumably around some central point of the landmass) to the orientation it would have in a south-top map. Such a map is, of course, almost completely useless in real life, because it completely distorts the relative positioning of the landmasses. Moreover, it keeps the northern countries at the top of the map, which means one of the chief complaints about traditional maps is unaddressed.

Note that individual islands are rotated about their own centers, rather than following the rotation of the neighboring continent; however, some are displaced as necessary to keep them from being overlapped by the rotated continents. For instance, {{w|Madagascar}} would be overlapped by the {{w|Sahara}} if it remained in position, but is instead displaced eastward to keep it in the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, all the islands of the {{w|Mediterranean Sea}} have disappeared under {{w|Asia}}.

Asia is so broad that almost the entire {{w|Indochinese Peninsula}} (with for instance {{w|Vietnam}} and {{w|Thailand}}) has been rotated out of the top of the map. Similarly, the map omits {{w|Antarctica}} in the south.

To keep their familiar shapes on a rectangular map, the continents would also have to be heavily distorted compared to their actual shapes, becoming much narrower (along the lines of latitude) near the poles and wider towards the equator. See also [[977: Map Projections]].

The basic climates for several areas would be distinctly different. For example, the former Central America area would be in the arctic zone, while Siberia would be subtropical.

This arrangement of the world's landmasses would have great advantages for trade because there are (presumably navigable) straits between the {{w|Americas}} and between Africa and Asia, removing the need for the {{w|Panama Canal}} and the {{w|Suez Canal}}.

The title text references the fact that, in this new map, the {{w|United Kingdom|UK}} is now next to Asia – specifically the {{w|Korean Peninsula}}. {{w|North Korea}} is mentioned in the text as having a history of hostile relations with nearby countries. However, on this map North Korea would be the part of {{w|Korea}} we today know as {{w|South Korea}}. Furthermore, {{w|Northern Ireland}} is now at the south of the {{w|island of Ireland}}, so the UK's full name would need to change to The United Kingdom of Great Britain and '''Southern''' Ireland. There have been several wars concerning the {{w|English Channel}}, mainly, but not only, between {{w|England}} and {{w|France}}. Likewise, there has been a history of animosity between Korea and {{w|Japan}}, separated by a similar body of water. Since, on this world map, a channel now exists between the UK and North Korea (the real world's South Korea) there could obviously have been many wars for the dominance over the said channel.

Along the same line of thinking, interesting speculations could be made about the following "new" facts:
*{{w|Cuba}} is now off the east coast (formerly west coast) of {{w|Canada}} (and the {{w|USA}}).
*{{w|Japan}} is next to the coast of {{w|Portugal}} and {{w|Spain}}.
*Madagascar lies next to {{w|Morocco}} and {{w|Mauritania}} on the east coast (formerly west coast) of the Sahara.
*{{w|Taiwan}} (officially called the Republic of China) is now next to {{w|France}}. This might be a game-changer for the {{w|Cross-Strait relations}}, an ongoing rivalry with {{w|China|China}} (officially called the People's Republic of China).
*{{w|Greenland}} lies next to {{w|Mexico}}.
*{{w|Sri Lanka}} is located next to the {{w|Yamalsky District}} of {{w|Russia}}.
*{{w|Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego|Tierra del Fuego}}, an island just south of the southern tip of South America, which is divided between {{w|Argentina}} and {{w|Chile}}, is now located in a similar manner next to {{w|Colombia}} and {{w|Venezuela}}, so it would probably have been divided between these two countries.
*The {{w|Falkland Islands}} (not named in the map – they are probably represented by the single island above the T in Tierra) where Argentina and the UK have an ongoing {{w|Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute|sovereignty dispute}}, could now be claimed by {{w|Ecuador}} or {{w|Peru}}.
*The Mediterranean islands seem to have vanished entirely, as they are now in approximately the same place as {{w|Mongolia}}.
*{{w|India}} is nowhere near the {{w|Indian Ocean}}.
*{{w|Norway}} almost touches the {{w|Philippines}}.

==Transcript==
:[Map of the world with all the landmasses rotated upside-down.]
:[Four oceans and all the visible continents have been named in large letters in a bold font. The Pacific has been named both to the left and right. Several islands (large and small) have been designated with name but in grey and in a much smaller normal font. For all continents the names are written on them. For the island the name is written in the ocean except for Greenland.]

:[Below the names on the map are given in the order they appear reading from left to right, first for the northern and then the southern hemisphere:]

:[Northern hemisphere:]
:'''North America'''
:Cuba
:Greenland
:'''Atlantic Ocean
:Iceland
:UK
:'''Asia'''
:Sri Lanka
:'''Europe'''
:'''Arctic Ocean'''
:Taiwan
:Japan
:'''Pacific Ocean'''

:[Southern hemisphere:]
:'''Pacific Ocean'''
:'''South America'''
:Tierra del Fuego
:'''Africa'''
:'''Indian Ocean'''
:Madagascar
:Indonesia
:'''Australia'''
:New Zealand

:[Below the main frame:]
:'''This upside-down map will change your perspective on the world!'''

==Trivia==
Map projections are also the subject of [[977: Map Projections]]. In fact, if this comic was released later, it would certainly have "Bad Map Projection #''n''" on the top, and would be part of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|the category]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Maps]]

User:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO

2023-02-26T18:49:23Z

172.70.162.47:

[[Talk:2741:_Wish_Interpretation|Wish granted]]: I hereby create you page for you to continue. Please delete my comment when you change it. Oh and maybe stop marking almost all you changes as minor. Guess it is a preset value which you should change. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
:He already [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User_talk:No_Idea_If_There%27s_A_Character_Limit_LMAO had one] with several comments in it already, not sure how there's two now??? And edits are all Major by default, at least for me, I have to specifically mark it Minor (I count my contributions/comments as Major and tweaks/edits as Minor, personally) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:23, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
::This is the User page (traditionally for "Hi, I'm ''username'', and I'm interested in..." things, whatever the nominal page-owner feels like saying off their own back..."). The other one is the User Talk page (for discussions perhaps initiated by others). Everyone with one should have the other (or can be given one), at the minimum.
::Oh, and NIITACL can at the very least remove ''this'' comment, if/when they claim this page for a "Hi, I'm..." scrawl of any kind. I would say they have absolute right (within various limits of legality of just what administrators may find problematic) to totally dictate the userspace pages, that others should (normally!) constrain themselves to chatting on the User Talk page, for NIITACL to reply to, ignore or remove as they themselves choose. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 18:49, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

2693: Wirecutter Recommendation

2023-02-15T00:49:09Z

172.70.162.47: /* Transcript */ Re-removed Title Text from Transcript (again... It customarily does *not* belong there)

{{comic
| number = 2693
| date = November 2, 2022
| title = Wirecutter Recommendation
| image = wirecutter_recommendation_2x.png
| imagesize = 430x333px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Their 'best philosophy of epistemology' picks are great, but you can tell they're struggling a little in the 'why you should trust us' section.
}}

==Explanation==
''[https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter Wirecutter]'' is a product review website, owned by ''The New York Times''. As such, ''Wirecutter'' is best used for comparing brands and models of consumer products. The comic, however, lists things that ''Wirecutter'' should ''not'' recommend, or that one should not choose based on ''Wirecutter'' reviews.

The first panel shows [[Cueball]] telling [[Ponytail]] that he decided to go with ''Wirecutter'''s recommendation when buying something unspecified. The second panel shows a list of different contexts for this conversation, ranking them from "Fine" to "Very Bad".

{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Thing Being Chosen!!Judgment!!Explanation
|-
|Vacuum cleaner||Fine||Vacuum cleaners are an everyday household item. Many brands and models are available offering a range of functionality at different prices. This is exactly the kind of thing where ''Wirecutter'''s reviews are helpful when deciding which kind to buy.
|-
|Headphones||Fine|||Headphones are also fairly ubiquitous, and ''Wirecutter'' would likewise be useful in such a scenario.
|-
|Electric scooter||Fine||While less common than the two above, electric scooters are still a popular electrical product, so ''Wirecutter'' is a decent choice for advice.
|-
|Favorite movie||Weird||Most people would say that your choice of favorite movie should be based on your own experiences, rather than someone else's opinions. Reviewing movies is a very different endeavor to reviewing products, and one would not expect ''Wirecutter'' to be particularly proficient with it. While a movie review website may be a reasonable source of recommendations on whether to see a particular movie at all, it would seem strange to choose one's own favorite movie based on a website's recommendation. In fact, though, precisely this kind of thing does happen, through mechanisms such as social proof and norm internalization.
|-
|Personal style||Weird||Not only does the term "personal style" encompass a vast range of topics, it is also (predictably) a deeply personal thing. These two factors mean that not only will ''Wirecutter'''s recommended likely not fully discuss every factor of your personal style, it also isn't the kind of service you'd use to choose something as nebulous and personal as your "personal style."
|-
|Neighborhood||Weird||It can be assumed this means "the neighborhood one lives in." In this case, it is odd to rely on ''Wirecutter'' for recommendations on where to live, as it is a product review website and since a respectable portion of that decision is up to personal circumstances, preferences, and local conditions that a national newspaper (even one with the resources of the ''New York Times'') will not be able to see. In a best case scenario, ''Wirecutter'' is recommending neighborhoods based on empirical data, such as local economic growth. There are [https://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to-live-in-america-2016-3 publications] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2022/07/28/the-best-and-most-affordable-places-to-live-in-america-in-2022/?sh=566a26ca6bbf that] [https://money.com/best-places-to-live/ rank] the "best cities to live in", which could relate to this topic.
|-
|Pet||Weird||While the ''type'' of pet may be more easy to rank on a website (especially with a pro/con system), picking an ''individual pet'' is an extremely personal decision that probably can't be considered covered by a product review website like ''Wirecutter''.
|-
|College major||Bad||The major someone chooses in college typically has a significant impact on the rest of their career, and choosing one is no trivial task that should depend on personal experience and preference. Like with some of the other topics, this is far too personal and important to be chosen by a product review site. As with "Neighborhood", any recommendations can only be based on empirical data like employment availability, tuition cost vs. expected salary, etc. [https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/top-ten-college-majors Rankings] [https://www.mydegreeguide.com/best-college-majors/ like] [https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/save-money/best-college-majors/ this] do exist, however, and are often used by prospective students to weigh the pros and cons of prospective majors.
|-
|Career||Bad||One's optimal career choice is subject to a wide range of highly personal factors, including your talents, ambitions, and capabilities. It is highly unlikely that a hardware review site like ''Wirecutter'' would be capable of accounting for every one of these factors for every conceivable viewer. Could be related to [https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs rankings] [https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-best-jobs-in-america-in-2022-ranked/ like] [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/12/these-are-10-best-us-jobs-of-2022-according-to-new-research.html this].
|-
|Religion||Bad||Do ''not'' base your religious worldview on the electronic device equivalent to Yelp. The idea of ''Wirecutter'' reviewing religion has appeared in a previous comic, [[2536: Wirecutter]].
|-
|Spouse||Very Bad|| In general, people pair off when choosing spouses. This would mean that ''Wirecutter'' would be required to either find one potential spouse for every reader (cumbersome, to say the least) or would recommend ''one'' spouse for multiple (possibly millions of) partners. Even assuming an accelerated divorce rate, it would be impossible for the choice spouse to actually accomplish the role.
Perhaps [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/wirecutter-recommends-the-best-partner this parody] by ''The New Yorker'' inspired this comic.
|-
|Dreams||Very Bad|| There are two possible definitions of "dream" that may be referred to here.
* When it comes to "the series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep," most people cannot consciously control what they dream about, so recommending this sort of dream is somewhat pointless. Further, as this information is largely inaccessible outside of the mind of the dreamer, ''Wirecutter'' has limited ability to make meaningful suggestions.
* On the other hand, if Cueball is relying upon ''Wirecutter'' to recommend "a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal," he is allowing one of the most personal and individual aspects of his life — something which may give life itself a sense of meaning — to be dictated by a consumer product review site. As with many entries here, this is something that most people have to come up with or discover for themselves; relying on a third party to recommend one FOR him is deeply unlikely to bring about long-term satisfaction.
|-
|Favorite child||Very Bad|| Assuming this is a reference to the reader's own children, it can be difficult and furthermore bad practice for a parent to choose their "favorite" child, and using ''Wirecutter'' to do this analysis is near impossible. And a website that purports to know more about how to judge the relative merits of your own family than you would be... interesting.
The alternative interpretation of assuming that this is from "all children, everywhere" is more difficult. There are approximately 1.3 billion persons under the age of 18, most of whom have at least one good quality,{{citation needed}} and defining a useful ranking in such a situation is functionally impossible.
|-
|Site for product recommendations||Very Bad|| This is a topic of which the authors, editors, and publishers of ''Wirecutter'' have a vested interest and clear bias. This implies that the people at ''Wirecutter'' would be self-serving when it comes to recommending recommendations, specifically.

Alternatively, they could be recommending ''another'' review site, which could call into question their judgment and make you wonder why you should trust them at all.
|-
|}

The title text references {{w|epistemology}}, a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and truth, for which [[Randall]] says ''Wirecutter'''s recommendations are great. Broadly speaking, epistemology attempts to answer the question "how do I know that what I know is true?", a very similar question to 'why you should trust us', which ironically the Wirecutter staff struggles to answer despite (or perhaps {{w|I know that I know nothing|because of}}) ostensibly having picked the best philosophies of epistemology.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail standing next to each other. Cueball has his palm raised.]
:Cueball: I just went with the one Wirecutter recommended.

:[A panel of four categories with topics next to them]

:[Fine category]
:Vacuum cleaner
:Headphones
:Electric scooter

:[Weird category]
:Favorite movie
:Personal style
:Neighborhood
:Pet

:[Bad category]
:College major
:Career
:Religion

:[Very bad category]
:Spouse
:Dreams
:Favorite child
:Site for product recommendations

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

2735: Coordinate Plane Closure

2023-02-08T15:04:32Z

172.70.162.47: Added basic transcript

{{comic
| number = 2735
| date = February 8, 2023
| title = Coordinate Plane Closure
| image = coordinate_plane_closure_2x.png
| imagesize = 271x376px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 3D graphs that don't contact the plane in the closure area may proceed as scheduled, but be alert for possible collisions with 2D graph lines that reach the hole and unexpectedly enter 3D space.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 2D graph that has accidently become 3D (and sentient) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

!!Math Notice!!

The coordinate plane will be closed Thursday between (1.5,1) and (2,1.5) to repair a hole.

If your graph uses this area, please postpone drawing until Friday or transform it to different coordinates.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2724: Washing Machine Settings

2023-01-16T09:47:34Z

172.70.162.47:

> [...] standing in front of a washing machine [...]

To be more exact, this is a combo washer dryer (also known as washer-dryer) - which looks like so called laundry center design (one unit, with washer on bottom, and what looks like heat-pump or vented dryer on top). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 10:01, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

: Thanks! I was wondering about that, since it doesn't look at all like any washing machine I've ever seen before [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 16:35, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Does anybody even own a houshold applicance whose manual was written by engineers - or at least someone who knows what the device they write the manual for is actually doing? I once had a toaster that came with a 96-page-manual that actually was good. But for most devices it is clear that they payed someone with less hands-on experience than GhatGPT to write one. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.187|172.68.110.187]] 14:40, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
:Most manuals these days don't seem to be written at all, consisting entirely of incomprehensible illustrations instead.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 09:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Even more important than the owner’s manual are the instructions written on the inside of your clothes. It turns out that those obscure runes actually mean something! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.170|172.71.142.170]] 17:28, 13 January 2023 (UTC)


It's been decades since I've seen an appliance user manual half as detailed as what Cueball describes. Mostly they say things like 'plug it in' & 'pressing Power button starts the device, pressing again turns it off'; ''never'' details such as 'Delicates mode reduces agitation'/spin etc. Even widely used software often goes without significant documentation. Randall makes a joke that user manuals already exist, but I feel they're rather rare!?
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:32, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
:I believe you're right, was coming here to complain that my user manual on my new washer does not explain what the various settings do, but says such useless things as "use cotton setting for cotton fabric". Telling me it's a hot water setting (which I don't want, as I never bother connecting the hot water to a machine) would be useful, but doesn't appear to be a feature of user manuals these days.

The manual for my washing machine actually lists the available programs along with a short description, tips (like "use less detergent for washing laces") and various metrics (like max load and energy consumption). However, this is for a machine installed at a home. Cueball in the comic seems to be standing in a laundromat. Even if those machines came with a manual, can the end-user actually access them? I guess you could pester an employee to dig them up for you...
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.134|172.68.50.134]] 22:10, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
:I don't think it's a laundromat, there would be more than one machine. I think the joke is based the fact that so many things are done with GUI applications these days, and they have very limited manuals, if any at all. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
:For my part, I'm not even familiar with that style of machine. Looks like some sort of top-loader base (haven't used one of them, a twin-tub, since the late-seventies/early-eighties when we transitioned to the first in a series of standard front loaders) with a tumble-dryer above (never bothered with a tumble-dryer since the university laundromat, and they were floor-to- ceiling with ''huge'' drums and eventually I worked out I was just feeding a huge slot machine where I couldn't even get the three lemons).
:But I deduce probably a stereotypical 'Merkin "big home, big utility basement" thing, rather than a more UK-market piece of whitegoods.
:As an equivalent example, you do at least see those huge two-door fridges (with ice-despensors in them) in the electrical goods stores, even though I know of no-one who has actually gone and got one. But washers and dryers always tend to be standard (and separate) front-loaders (with occasional 'retro' top-loaders), even if most people seem to consign the latter to a corner of the garage. (And I just use a washing line/drape in front of a warm radiator!) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.136|172.69.79.136]] 23:44, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Appliance use manuals seem to be written by legal staff, not engineers. Mine are full of warnings and "Do not ..." statements.
Specific to laundry appliances, settings on the washing machine never match those on the drier. For example, there is a drier setting for "Jeans" but nothing comparable for the washer. [[User:TCMits|TCMits]] ([[User talk:TCMits|talk]]) 15:47, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

While paper manuals are easy to lose, some appliances have manuals online / in PDF. Those tend to be easier to find. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 15:48, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

When I read this comic, my first reaction was that Randall was pretty much exactly describing the current process for learning how to use Stable Diffussion AI art generation, including it's dozens of different GUI's and Models. NOBODY has an actual manual written yet, although the user advice threads can get pretty detailed. On the other hand, we mostly use Reddit and Discord, not Quora. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.38|172.70.127.38]] 01:57, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

== Quora ==

Quora is the absolute worst. Nearly every time you see a Quora blurb in Google, you can bet that the opposite is true. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.79|172.70.114.79]] 06:43, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
:: Quora has invited me to earn money by getting a "Quora Patner" that posts controversal questions that cause much traffic. That was the moment I learned that it might not be worthwhile to spend precious lifetime at that site.--[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 14:45, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
:::: Wow. While that make sense from a purely business standpoint, it doesn't make sense from a "helpfulness to society" standpoint. I'll remember this when I see questions I wouldn't have expected someone to ask. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.25|172.70.174.25]] 17:46, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
: I think it's Quora where if I arrive by Google (or other search-engine!) I get to read it, but trying to then follow an 'internal' link to a related (or otherwise intruiging/sufficiently) question's page tries to get me to log in. (Which I refuse to do. Being fed up with ''having'' to have accounts for things I actually don't see the technical need for. Witness here, but for Quora I additionally manage to resist asking novel questions; or answering any in the face of so many other free opinions.) But if I'm weak-willed/desperate nough to decide that I actually do want to read what others have said about onward items then I'vs found that copying the link-question's ''text'' and going back to plug it into the searchbox will ''often'' give me a login-free access.
: Though, in that way of by-passing the more obvious clicks-to-revenue tricks of the Quora website itself, you are instead giving slightly more detail about yourself (or at least your current whims and flights of fancy) to your chosen search-provider. Which has potentially more ways to make business use of such things. (So, a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, arguably.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.135|172.70.162.135]] 11:35, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

977: Map Projections

2023-01-15T17:16:22Z

172.70.162.47: /* Goode Homolosine */

{{comic
| number = 977
| date = November 14, 2011
| title = Map Projections
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = map_projections.png
| titletext = What's that? You think I don't like the Peters map because I'm uncomfortable with having my cultural assumptions challenged? Are you sure you're not... ::puts on sunglasses:: ...projecting?
}}
{{TOC}}
==Explanation==
{{w|Map projection}}, or how to represent the spherical Earth surface onto a flat support (paper, screen...) to have a usable map, is a long-time issue with very practical aspects (navigation, geographical shapes and masses visualization, etc.) as well as very scientific/mathematical ones, involving geometry or even abstract algebra among other things. There is no universal solution to this problem: Any 2D map projection will always distort in a way the spherical reality. Many projections have been proposed in various contexts, each intending to minimize distortions for specific uses (for nautical navigation, for aerial navigation, for landmass size comparisons, etc.) but having drawbacks from other points of view. Some of them are more frequently used than others in mass media and therefore more well-known than others, some are purely historical and now deprecated, some are very obscure, etc.

[[Randall]] suggests here the idea that someone's "favorite" map projection can reveal aspects of their personality, then goes through a series of them to show what they can mean.

He may actually believe that all map projections are in a way bad. This could be inferred from the fact that he much later began publishing a series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]].
===Mercator===
[[File:MercatorProjection.jpg|frame|The Mercator projection]]
The {{w|Mercator projection}} was introduced by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. The main purpose of this map is to preserve compass bearings; for example 13 degrees east of north will be 13 degrees clockwise from the ray pointing toward the top of the map, at every point. A mathematical consequence is the mapping is conformal, i.e. if two roads meet at a certain angle on the surface of the Earth, they will meet at that same angle on the map. It also follows that at every point the vertical and horizontal scales are the same, so locally i.e. considering only a small part of the map, geographical features (shapes, angles) are well represented, which helps a lot in recognizing them on-the-field, or for local navigation in that small part only. For this reason, that projection (or a close variant) is used in several online mapping services (such as Google Maps), which means that it is frequently encountered by the general public. A straight line on the map corresponds to a course of constant bearing (direction), which was very useful for nautical navigation in the past (and thus made that projection very well-known).

However, from a global point of view, this projection is radically incorrect in how it shows the size of landmasses (for instance, Antarctica and Greenland seem gigantic), and furthermore, it always excludes a small region around each pole (otherwise the map would be of infinite height), so it doesn't provide a complete solution for the problem of map projection. The comic implies that people who like that projection aren't very interested with map issues, and typically use what they are offered without thinking much about it.

{{clear}}

===Van der Grinten===
[[File:VanDerGrintenProjection.jpg|frame|The Van der Grinten projection]]
The {{w|Van der Grinten projection}} is not much better than the Mercator. It was adopted by {{w|National Geographic}} in 1922 and was used until they updated to the Robinson projection in 1988.

The Van der Grinten projection is circular as opposed to the Mercator projection. The fictional person believes a circular map is more fitting to the real Earth's three-dimensional spherical nature because both are round. This belief fails to recognize that a two-dimensional circle has very little in common with the surface of a sphere, and thus this projection still causes a vast distortion of space and area. Because of this, Randall implies the Van der Grinten enthusiast to be optimistic and childishly simple-minded (e.g. "you like circles").

{{clear}}

===Robinson===
[[File:RobinsonProjection.jpg|frame|The Robinson projection]]
The {{w|Robinson projection}} was developed by {{w|Arthur H. Robinson}} as a map that was supposed to look nice and is often used for classroom maps. National Geographic switched to this projection in 1988, and used it for ten years, switching to the {{w|Winkel tripel projection|Winkel-Tripel}} in 1998.

{{w|The Beatles}} was a rock band that enjoyed great commercial success in the 1960s, and are widely considered the best act ever in the genre of popular music. The Beatles, coffee, and running shoes are all things that are very commonly enjoyed and largely uncontroversial, as well as being comforting. Liking these specific things suggests an ordinary, easygoing lifestyle paralleled by the projection.

{{clear}}

===Dymaxion===
[[File:DymaxionProjection.jpg|frame|The Dymaxion projection]]
Also called the Fuller Map, the {{w|Dymaxion map}} takes a sphere and projects it onto an icosahedron, that is a polyhedron with 20 triangular faces. It is far easier to unwrap an icosahedron than it is to unwrap a sphere into a 2D object and has very little skewing of the poles. {{w|Buckminster Fuller}} was an eccentric futurist who believed, for example, that world maps should allow no conception of "up" or "down". He was therefore more than happy to defy people's expectations about maps in the pursuit of mathematical accuracy.

Randall associates the projection to geek subculture and niche markets:
*{{w|Isaac Asimov}} was an American science-fiction writer, who (as well as publishing many textbooks) is considered the father of the modern concept of robots. He invented the {{w|Three Laws of Robotics}}. He also worked on more than 500 books throughout his career.
*{{w|XML}} is the eXtensible Markup Language. It is used to represent data in a format that machines can read and understand, as well as being human-readable. In practice, XML is cumbersome to read.
*{{w|Vibram FiveFingers|Toed shoes}} are a [[1065: Shoes|favorite]] of Randall's to pick on. In society they are seen as a {{w|geek}} clothing item.
*Brought to the world by {{w|Dean Kamen}}, the {{w|Segway PT}} was supposed to be a device that changed the way cities were built. In reality, most jurisdictions have put in place rules specifically against Segways, making them a frustration to own and use within the law (in some states in Australia, it is illegal to use them on public footpaths or roads). Also, the former owner of {{w|Segway Inc.}}, the late {{w|Jimi Heselden}}, accidentally rode his Segway off a cliff in 2010. Ninebot, then owner of the Segway brand, announced in 2020 that the flagship 2-wheeled self-balancing vehicle would be discontinued.
*At the time of comic release, 3D goggles, nowadays widely known as {{w|Virtual reality headset|VR headsets}}, were considered a gimmick at best. The original idea is as old as 3D graphics, but it never really took off until mid-2010s. Earlier products were very unwieldy and offered poor graphics quality, so no one took this technology seriously.
*{{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}} is an alternate keyboard layout to {{w|QWERTY}}. According to legend, QWERTY was invented to help keep manual typewriters from jamming (by placing the most used keys far from each other) but Dr. {{w|August Dvorak}} performed many studies and found the mathematically optimal keyboard layout to reduce finger travel for right handed typists. While some claim Dvorak is technically better than QWERTY, QWERTY had become the standard. Most keyboards were laid out in QWERTY format, but a lot of software exists to remap the keys to DVORAK for those interested in typing faster. Retraining the brain to use Dvorak takes perhaps a week. It has become a [[:Category:Dvorak|recurrent theme]] on xkcd.

{{clear}}

===Winkel-Tripel===
[[File:Winkel-TripelProjection.jpg|frame|The Winkel Tripel projection]]
Proposed by Oswald Winkel in 1921, the {{w|Winkel tripel projection}} tried to reduce a set of three (German: Tripel) main problems with map projections: area, direction, and distance. The {{w|Kavrayskiy VII projection|Kavrayskiy projection}} is very similar to the Winkel Tripel and was used by the USSR, but very few in the Western world know of it.

The comic links this projection to {{w|hipster}} subculture. The hipster stereotype is to avoid conforming to mainstream fashions. "Post-" refers to a variety of musical genres such as {{w|post-punk}}, {{w|post-grunge}}, {{w|post-minimalism}}, {{w|post-rock}}, etc. that branch off of other genres, and are generally considered less accessible than the genres that spawned them. Liking a genre just called "post-" implies that the listener prefers music that is less mainstream, and may have that as the only criterion for listening.

;Trivia
*In German "Winkel-Tripel-Projektion" means Winkel's triple projection, and therefore the hyphen shouldn't be there: "Winkel Tripel" or "Winkel tripel".
*This projection was later used in [[2242: Ground vs Air]].
{{clear}}

===Goode Homolosine===
[[File:GoodeHomolosineProjection.jpg|frame|The Goode Homolosine projection]]
The {{w|Goode homolosine projection}} takes a different approach to skewing a sphere into a roughly circular surface. An orange peel can be taken from an orange and flattened with fair success; this is roughly the procedure that {{w|John Paule Goode}} followed in creating this projection. Randall is suggesting that people who like this map also prefer relatively easy solutions to other things in life, despite those solutions having nuanced problems that are more difficult to address.

People often make arguments that if normal people ran the United States, then the US wouldn't be in the trouble it is. This is from the belief that career politicians are simply out to make money and will only act in the interest of their constituency when their continued easy life is threatened (usually around election time). While some form of this view is very common and probably pretty much correct, Randall is saying that someone who likes this map may take this to extremes.

Airline food is another, much maligned, problem. How do you store enough food to feed people on long airplane trips? What kind of food can be served in an enclosed, low-air-pressure environment? The common solution is to use some kind of prepackaged, reheated meal. Randall is saying that the people in favor of the Goode Homolosine wonder why the airlines don't simply order meals from the restaurants in the airport, store that food, and serve it, rather than using bland reheated food. However, this seemingly-obvious solution ignores how being in an airplane dulls your sense of taste. Airplane food is actually over seasoned for eating on the ground, meaning that if airlines switched to restaurant food it would probably taste even blander. There would also be issues with acquiring special meals (for example, vegetarian, Kosher, and Halal meals), especially if suitable restaurants were not in close range to the airport.

Older cars burned oil like mad fiends, and oil back then would become corrosive to the innards of an engine, so oil had to be changed often. But, with the introduction of synthetic motor oil and better designed engines, new cars only need their oil changed about every 10,000 to 15,000 miles. A common conspiracy theory is that modern automobile oil manufacturers still recommend that car owners change their oil every 3,000-5,000 miles to "drum" up more business, even though that frequency is unnecessary.

All of these references suggest that people who like the Goode Homolosine projection are fans of simple solutions to problems. However, while the solutions appear to be an easy, common-sense solutions, they all rely on over-simplifying the problem, and ignoring any problems introduced by the solution itself. For instance: the restaurants might have trouble making enough food for the whole plane, and it could get cold before being served; the air conditions [http://www.nbcnews.com/health/one-reason-airline-food-so-bad-your-own-tastebuds-6C10823522 aboard planes] can affect taste, so airlines say they optimize for this; there is no such thing as a "normal" person, and if there were, they would have less political experience than politicians, while remaining subject to the same pressures and problems with the larger political system; and the Goode Homolosine projection, while mostly resembling a flattened orange peel as suggested by the earlier analogy, does indeed cut down on distortion, but also has serious problems of its own, such as leaving huge gaps of nothingness between the continents, making distances across the oceans difficult to visualize.

{{clear}}

===Hobo–Dyer===
[[File:Hobo-DyerProjection.jpg|frame|The Hobo–Dyer projection]]
The {{w|Hobo–Dyer projection}} was commissioned by Bob Abramms and Howard Bronstein and was drafted by Mick Dyer in 2002. It is a modified {{w|Behrmann projection}}. The goal was to be a more visually pleasing version of the Gall–Peters.

As is discussed in the Gall–Peters explanation, the Gall–Peters was developed to be equal area, so that economically disadvantaged areas can at least take comfort in the fact that their country is represented correctly by area on maps.

Randall associates the Hobo–Dyer projection to "crunchy granola" — a stereotype associated with vegetarianism, environmental activism, anti-war activism, liberal political leanings, and some traces of {{w|hippie}} culture.

With feminism becoming mainstream and non-binary genders being more widely accepted, some have begun to invent gender-neutral pronouns so that when referring to a person whose gender is not known they cannot be offended by being referred to by the wrong pronouns. In {{w|Middle English}} 'they' and 'their' were {{w|Singular they|accepted genderless pronouns that could replace 'he', 'she'}} as well as be used to represent a crowd, but this usage is considered by some to be grammatically incorrect because of the plural/singular debate ([https://www.merriam-webster.com/video/the-awkward-case-of-his-or-her stupid Victorian Grammarians!]). There have been {{w|gender-neutral pronoun#Invented pronouns|many attempts at popularizing invented gender-neutral pronouns}} and they are beginning to achieve some degree of success in the mainstream.

{{clear}}

===Plate Carrée===
[[File:PlateCarreeProjection.jpg|frame|The Plate Carrée projection]]
Also known as the {{w|Equirectangular projection}}, it has apparently been in use since approximately 100 AD. The benefit of this projection is that latitude and longitude can be used as x,y coordinates. This makes it especially easy for computers to graph data on top of it.

According to the comic, the projection appeals to people who find much beauty in simplicity.

{{clear}}

===A Globe!===
[[File:GlobeProjection.jpg|frame|The Globe "projection"]]
In any good discussion there has to be at least one smart-ass.{{Citation needed}} This is a comic about map projections, that is, the science of taking a sphere and flattening it into 2 dimensions. The smart-ass believes that we shouldn't even try: a sphere is, tautologically, the perfect representation of a sphere.

To quote ''{{w|The Princess Bride}}'': "Yes, you're very smart. Shut up."

A globe is, obviously, the "map projection" used by {{w|Google Earth}} when zoomed out.

{{clear}}

===Waterman butterfly===
[[File:WatermanButterflyProjection.jpg|frame|The Waterman Butterfly projection]]
Similar to the Dymaxion, the {{w|Waterman butterfly projection}} turns a sphere into an octahedron, and then unfolds the net of the octahedron, which was devised by mathematician {{w|Waterman polyhedron|Steve Waterman}} based upon the work of {{w|Bernard J.S. Cahill}}.

Bernard Cahill published a [http://www.genekeyes.com/B.J.S._CAHILL_RESOURCE.html butterfly map] in 1909. Steve Waterman probably has the only extant "ready to go" map following the same general principles, though Gene Keys may not be far behind. Waterman has a poem with graphics in a similar vein to this xkcd comic that is worth reading.[http://web.archive.org/web/20120118095915/http://watermanpolyhedron.com/worldmap.html]

[https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/pcr.2016.48.issue-4/pcr-2016-0014/pcr-2016-0014.pdf Polyhedral projections] like Cahill, Dymaxion or Waterman typically offer better accuracy of size, shape and area than flat projections, at the expense of compass directionality, connectedness, and other complications.

The joke is that the person responding deeply understands map projections; anyone who knows of this projection is a person that Randall would like to get to know.

{{clear}}

===Peirce quincuncial===
[[File:PeirceQuincuncialProjection.jpg|frame|The Peirce Quincuncial projection]]
The {{w|Peirce quincuncial projection}} was devised by {{w|Charles Sanders Peirce}} in 1879 and uses {{w|complex analysis}} to make a {{w|conformal mapping}} of the Earth, that conforms except for four points which would make up the midpoints of sides and lie on equator (the equator is represented by a square and the corners connect the sides in the middle.)

{{w|Inception}} was a 2010 movie about {{w|meta}} {{w|lucid dream}}ing. It has a complex story that is difficult to follow and leaves the viewer with many questions at the end, and almost always needs to be watched multiple times to be understood.

The human brain is not well developed to deal with oddly obvious things. One example is that everyone has a skeleton, but everyone is surprised to see a part of their body represented by an X-ray. Another is the fascinating complexity of the human hand, a machine which is amazingly complex, driven by a complex interplay of electrical and chemical signals; yet is the size of the hand and so useful. A fascination with or fixation on {{tvtropes|ContemplatingYourHands|such thoughts}} is often associated with an altered state of mind brought on by marijuana consumption. Therefore, Randall may be implying that this map would appeal to stoners.

{{clear}}

===Gall–Peters===
[[File:Gall-PetersProjection.jpg|frame|The Gall–Peters projection]]
The {{w|Gall–Peters projection}} is mired in controversy, surprisingly for a map. {{w|James Gall}}, a 19th-century clergyman, presented this projection in 1855 before the {{w|British Association for the Advancement of Science}}. In 1967, the filmmaker {{w|Arno Peters}} created the same projection and presented it to the world as a "new invention" that put poorer, less powerful countries into their rightful proportions (as opposed to the Mercator). Peters played the marketing game and got quite a few followers of his map by saying it had "absolute angle conformality," "no extreme distortions of form," and was "totally distance-factual" in an age when society was very concerned about social justice. All of these claims were in fact false. The Mercator projection distorts size in favor of shape, and Gall-Peters distorts shape in favor of size, being especially inaccurate at the equator and the poles.

Anyone who loves such a politically charged map that has become popular by way of marketing stunts and false claims, Randall would rather not have anything to do with. Alternatively Randall just dislikes this map projection so much due to the above mentioned major inaccuracies, that he hates anyone who likes it.

{{clear}}

===Title text===
The title text makes a joke that goes to the familiar meme from ''{{w|CSI: Miami}}'', in which the star, David Caruso starts a sentence, then puts on his sunglasses and ends the sentence with a corny pun. In this case, the pun is on {{w|map projection}} and {{w|projection (psychology)|projection}} in psychology. Psychological projection is an unconscious defense mechanism wherein a person who is uncomfortable with their own impulses denies having them and attributes them to other people, and blames these people for these impulses. The Sunglasses internet meme has been used [[:Category:Puts on sunglasses|in other comics]] as well.

==Transcript==
:What your favorite
:'''Map Projection'''
:says about you
:[All of these are organized as Title, a copy of the particular projection underneath, and what it says about you under that.]

:*Mercator
:**You're not really into maps.
:*Van der Grinten
:**You're not a complicated person. You love the Mercator projection; you just wish it weren't square. The Earth's not a square, it's a circle. You like circles. Today is gonna be a good day!
:*Robinson
:**You have a comfortable pair of running shoes that you wear everywhere. You like coffee and enjoy The Beatles. You think the Robinson is the best-looking projection, hands down.
:*Dymaxion
:**You like Isaac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes. You think the Segway got a bad rap. You own 3D goggles, which you use to view rotating models of better 3D goggles. You type in Dvorak.
:*Winkel-Tripel
:**National Geographic adopted the Winkel-Tripel in 1998, but you've been a W-T fan since ''long'' before "Nat Geo" showed up. You're worried it's getting played out, and are thinking of switching to the Kavrayskiy. You once left a party in disgust when a guest showed up wearing shoes with toes. Your favorite musical genre is "Post–".
:*Goode Homolosine
:**They say mapping the Earth on a 2D surface is like flattening an orange peel, which seems enough to you. You like easy solutions.You think we wouldn't have so many problems if we'd just elect ''normal'' people to Congress instead of Politicians. You think airlines should just buy food from the restaurants near the gates and serve ''that'' on board. You change your car's oil, but secretly wonder if you really ''need'' to.
:*Hobo-Dyer
:**You want to avoid cultural imperialism, but you've heard bad things about Gall-Peters. You're conflict-averse and buy organic. You use a recently-invented set of gender-neutral pronouns and think that what the world needs is a revolution in consciousness.
:*Plate Carrée (Equirectangular)
:**You think this one is fine. You like how X and Y map to latitude and longitude. The other projections overcomplicate things. You want me to stop asking about maps so you can enjoy dinner.
:*A Globe!
:**Yes, you're very clever.
:*Waterman Butterfly
:**Really? You know the Waterman? Have you seen the 1909 Cahill Map it's based— ...You have a framed reproduction at home?! Whoa. ...Listen, forget these questions. Are you doing anything tonight?
:*Peirce Quincuncial
:**You think that when we look at a map, what we really see is ourselves. After you first saw ''Inception'', you sat silent in the theater for six hours. It freaks you out to realize that everyone around you has a skeleton inside them. You ''have'' really looked at your hands.
:*Gall-Peters
:**I ''hate'' you.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Maps‏‎]]
[[Category:Dvorak]]
[[Category:Puts on sunglasses]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Aviation]]

User talk:1337-PI

2023-01-12T02:00:45Z

172.70.162.47: ...skipped a typo.

== Deleting incomplete tags ==

You've removed many incomplete explanation and incomplete transcript tags. In most cases, the explanation/transcript was still incomplete, and you didn't say why you removed the tag. Please stop doing this, or at least provide a reason. [[User:Danish|Danish]] ([[User talk:Danish|talk]]) 23:25, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Look,they were complete,and I read explanations before I deleted tags.

887: Future Timeline
980: Money/Prices in tables

1140: Calendar of Meaningful dates

1799: Bad Map Projection: Time Zones

2412: 1/100,000th Scale World
2413: Pulsar Analogy
2414: Solar System Compression Artifacts
2417: 1/1,000th Scale World
2419: Hug Count
2422: Vaccine Ordering
2423: Project Orion
2426: Animal Songs
2428: Mars Landing Video
2429: Exposure Models
2432: Manage Your Preferences
2433: Mars Rovers
2434: Vaccine Guidance
2435: Geothmetic Meandian
2438: Siri
2439: Solar System Cartogram.were complete.

An example: #2412. One part of the incomplete tag was "Also Cueball's remark not mentioned yet." Cueball's "I got a Soyuz in my eye" ''still'' hasn't been explained. The rest of the incomplete tag wasn't addressed either; I don't know why you would think it complete. (Also, please remember to sign your posts.) [[User:Danish|Danish]] ([[User talk:Danish|talk]]) 01:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

When I deleted the tag the remark was not mentioned.[[User:1337-PI|1337-PI]]

:Exactly. Before the explanation is complete, the remark needs to be mentioned and explained. (also, you can quickly sign your posts by writing <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>) [[User:Danish|Danish]] ([[User talk:Danish|talk]]) 15:10, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

== "Of course,how the early life created particle accelerators is unknown." ==

(Firstly, you might want to insert the space after the comma....) By the terms of the current explanation, everything's going ''too'' fast to cohere into heavier atoms (and I'd have to check that, but trusting that this is the best way of putting it). Thus the early life needs to build particle ''de''celerators to artificially synthesise elements 5+ ;). ...not worth an article edit, or even an article Talk page ramble, but I thought you'd appreciate how my thoughts were already going, slightly before you made your contribution, given that we were considering the same sort of issue. Mostly coming from my appreciation of {{w|Strata (novel)}}, and the (supposed!) background history of the book's universe of having various precursor races which worked to engineer the universe in a manner that the successor races could arise and thrive (temporarily, as they re-engineer) in... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.56|172.70.86.56]] 01:55, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:735: Floor

2023-01-05T15:36:05Z

172.70.162.47:

Is the kid on the right standing in the lava, or is the little square mat around him supposed to be a raft or something? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 10:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

:Do you mean left? If it's the kid on the left, I think that according to the rules of childhood, standing on a rug can count as not being on the "floor" of course it depends on the rules you're playing by, but I think that's what's happening. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 16:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Why has nobody mentioned the film about the volcano... called... oh, yes, "Volcano". Tommy-Lee Jones (with help!) used dynamite and water and all kinds of other tricks to basically save... Los Angeles, wasn't it? Also, while Concorde is a nice mention (I miss it), apart from the dubious distinction of being grounded it's not really overly relevent to Volcanoes or even an air-space lock-down, is it? A more blanket grounding of planes could be mentioned and/or referenced, such as immediately post-9/11 over the US or even the larger, trans-European-and-beyond, grounding of planes due to the whole Icelandic thing which actually applies even ''more'' directly, and is probably more likely what is actually being alluded to.

Also, while I don't think I played 'Volcano', by that name, the rules I know for games like this are that the 'bare' floor (floorboards, linoleum, fitted carpet, tiles, whatever it is) is indeed magma, shark-infested ocean, electrified, an infinitely deep chasm or whatever the current make-believe is, with chairs, tables, rugs or even the likes of discarded socks (mostly things 'pre-deployed' prior to the start of the game, rather than placed as the need becomes apparent to 'bridge' a 'gap') being safe islands or platforms or similar for the purposes of the 'game environment'. Of course the mutability of said rules is probably typical of such childhood nomics, and so of course YMMV. [[Special:Contributions/31.111.2.74|31.111.2.74]] 21:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

When I was in CIT at summer camp (some years ago now), we were told not to tell kids (so as to make-believe) that the floor was lava because some children actually did feel anxiety about the ordeal (paired with other children clearly having fun worsening the matter). We were instructed to use alternatives such as non-shark-infested water, paint, having cooties, or peanut butter (because of allergies), the last of which I didn't understand/agree with as an adequate alternative under the original argument. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.43|108.162.216.43]] 19:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

:Yeah, that's kind of... what would that imply? For non-sufferers, it's at worst a little icky to walk in and ickier to contemplate eating if people have been stepping in it; for the most sensitive of sufferers, the only safe place is out of the room. (Of course "the floor is lava" already implies that convection doesn't exist within the confines of the game; perhaps airborne allergens don't, in that version?) [[User:Nyperold|Nyperold]] ([[User talk:Nyperold|talk]]) 06:19, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed that the art style, with the exception of the stick figures, appears to be similar to that of Calvin and Hobbes?

Although the title text precludes the possibility through direct implication, these kids seem unusually tall for Munroe's style; makes it kinda funnier imo. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.142.9|172.70.142.9]] 12:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
:Looking at the size of the chair one is standing on (and the table, etc), I think comparable to later 'kids', who often tend to be depicted sitting 'legs up' on chairs (in front of computer desks, e.g.) rather than standing on them (or dangling their legs) as their size difference to any standard figures is made clear. But this is a comparatively early comic. And who knows at what age all the kids really are, so scale of all 'young' figures will be on a continuum between infant and adult, not always consistent with other kids. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 15:36, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

2720: Biology vs Robotics

2023-01-05T11:43:24Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Rationalising a near-repeat of explanation (two or more original authors, not paying attention?)

{{comic
| number = 2720
| date = January 4, 2023
| title = Biology vs Robotics
| image = biology_vs_robotics_2x.png
| imagesize = 546x260px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Sorry, I've just always had these random things I don't like--like olives, or robots drilling holes in me without warning.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROBOT HOMEOMORPHIC TO A HUMAN WITH A HANDLE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, [[Cueball]] is walking along next to a robot holding a conversation – from this we can infer the robot holds {{w|sentience}} or even {{w|sapience}}. Cueball is complaining to said robot about the problems of biology, especially his own biology, whining that "biology is the worst" and "bodies have all these random problems". This is to some extent true, the human body has many flaws, ranging from {{w|Recurrent laryngeal nerve|mildly inefficient}} to {{w|Stroke|lethal-without-warning}}. The robot, an abiological entity ([https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/robotic-future/0/steps/26359 some] {{tvtropes|BrainInAJar|exceptions}} {{w|Biorobotics|apply}}) responds by posing a question which may or may not be intended as rhetorical.

The robot thus highlights an advantage that biological bodies have – i.e., the ability to heal themselves, while metal robots like this one don't and probably must seek out repairs. However, Cueball immediately points out that this ability only works "sometimes", and is often painful. First and foremost, one must actually survive a hole if they wish to heal from it, as death comes with some pretty big impacts on their continuing ability to do so. Secondly holes can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, in many widths and depths with many further complications (including the aforementioned death). For example, a small hole made for an earring would be easy to close, whereas one carved by {{w|List of the largest cannon by caliber|a 91.4cm mortar shell}} would be less easy to heal. There is also ambiguity in what counts as a hole. Is a cut a hole? Is surgery, etc? This variability is likely why Cueball says "Sometimes".

He also states that "it" is "not exactly fun". This is either sarcasm or an understatement, as {{w|Gunshot wound|some holes}} can really hurt. "It" is implied to be the holes themselves, as while the healing process can hurt, the formation of the hole (such as being shot) is often a '''lot''' more painful.{{Citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking to the left with a robot following behind him. It is a bit lower than Cueball and is made out of three rectangles, one almost a square representing the head with a part representing where it can see the surroundings and a small antenna on the back. This is connected with a thin neck to a large rectangle representing the torso. This torso has three smaller rectangles, one on the front and one on the back, and a larger one on the side. The latter could represent some sort of arm. Below this is a thin rectangle with, probably, eight small wheels, four are visible. Motion lines indicate that the robot is rolling after Cueball. Cueball is holding both arms up with his palms up, while walking and talking to the robot:]
:Cueball: Ugh, biology is the worst. Bodies have all these random problems.

:[Same setting but with Cueball walking with his arms down. A scatter burst from the top front of the robots "head" indicates that it speaks to Cueball:]
:Robot: Is it true that if someone makes a hole in you, it just closes up on its own?

:[Same setting but in a wider panel. The scatter burst indicating the robot is speaking know comes from the top rear end of the robots "head".]
:Cueball: Only '''''sometimes'''''. And it's not exactly '''''fun'''''.
:Robot: Noted. I'll try to avoid perforating your surface.
:Cueball: Thanks! It's kind of a pet peeve.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Food]]

2715: Pando

2022-12-23T14:48:11Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Comma mismatch, but (as commas abounded and covered other aside-levels) converted into a parenthetical-aside for readability. Have some doubts as to the linked article, at quick reading, but at least it is potentially Cited for support.

{{comic
| number = 2715
| date = December 23, 2022
| title = Pando
| image = pando_2x.png
| imagesize = 422x372px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The presents under the tree are actually a single gift connected by an underground ribbon system.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CHRISTMAS PANDA — Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Pando_(tree)|Pando}} is a {{w|Populus tremuloides|quaking aspen}} tree colony in {{w|Fishlake National Forest}}, Utah. Depending on how you measure[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWAA-SrrFUQ], Pando is the largest living organism on earth, and is thereby also the largest tree on earth. By dry mass (weight not including water), Pando is the largest living thing humans have found. There is [https://www.forbes.com/sites/linhanhcat/2019/02/22/largest-organism-in-the-world/?sh=43fdf2a444ac one fungus in Oregon] which may weigh more including water, but that fungus is not a tree.

Pando is a Tree colony, a type of {{w|Clonal colony}} made of trees. Clonal colonies all form from the same seed or other origin, and are all genetically identical. Tree colonies spread using their extensive root system. Under all trees there are {{w|Root|roots}}, which gather nutrients and water from soil. On clonal trees (such as the {{w|Populus tremuloides|Quaking Aspen}}, Pando's species), when roots from one tree surface they can form another stalk/tree. This additional stalk is a genetic clone of the original. This clone then grows its own root network, and where they surface they too form more clones. However, crucially, the roots between the clones do not naturally separate, so all clones naturally stay attached. Each clone has a limited lifespan, only a few decades/centuries, but the colony can live for millennia. For example, the only known wild example of {{w|Lomatia tasmanica|''Lomatia tasmanica'', aka King's lomatia}}, is a clonal shrub thought to be at least 43,600 years old, and Pando itself is thought to be around 14,000 years old.

{{w|Christmas}} is a celebration on the 25th of December, traditionally celebrating the birth of {{w|Jesus}}, which is often claimed to be built heavily upon pagan traditions[https://chefin.com.au/blog/these-6-christmas-traditions-are-actually-pagan-customs/] (though this is disputed by historians[https://historyforatheists.com/2020/12/pagan-christmas/]) and annual social customs, then arguably converted into a far more secular event (with or without rampant consumerism). This comic was published on the 23rd of December, 2 days until Christmas, or [[Christmas Eve Eve]]

The concept of a {{w|Christmas tree}}, itself, is rooted in various pre-Christian folkloric traditions and, in the modern era, may be adapted or adopted as required by local and personal circumstances. It need not be an {{w|Evergreen}} fir tree with an angel (or star) atop, though that is the oft-depicted image in either great detail or as a simplified cartoonish depiction, but can be merely any handy plant (or artificial substitute) strewn with such decorations and/or {{w|Christmas lights|lights}} as the owner wishes. Because humans are, well, humans, people and places often compete to hold the record for the largest Christmas tree. At time of publishing (and writing), the tallest Christmas tree is officially a 64.36m (221ft) tall {{w|Douglas fir}} that was displayed in {{w|Northgate Station (shopping mall)|Northgate Shopping Center}}{{Actual citation needed}}, Seattle, WA in 1950[https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/77271-tallest-christmas-tree][https://www.historylink.org/File/21359]. The most widely spread, however, is likely the [https://www.italybyevents.com/en/events/umbria/world-largest-christmas-tree-gubbio/ Christmas tree display] in {{w|Gubbio}}, a town in Umbria, Italy, where hundreds of trees on a mountain face are lit up with light to form a Christmas tree shape.

Sidenote: A lot of articles say that the Gubbio tree has a Guinness world record. However, I can't find a citation for that. If anyone can, please add it. That would be appreciated.

In this comic, [[Randall]] proposes putting Christmas lights all the way around Pando to turn into (technically) a Christmas tree. As Pando is the worlds largest tree then, if this plan were to be carried out, it would safely take the record and hold it for quite some time. [https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1Wgz5CxvxHC7FKMHWp5zkPQuQsZevBqU&usp=sharing Roughly tracing Pando on Google Maps] reveals its perimiter to be roughly 2.77km or 1.72 miles, or roughly 9,000ft. Allowing a little wiggle-room and securing, 9,300ft of christmas lights seems about right.

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

:[The main comic frame is a profile view of a number of separated trees, of varying heights and maturity, across each of which (of those with sufficient height) has apparently been draped a single chain of decorative lights that goes from off-image at one side to off-image at the other.]

:[Inset in the bottom right is a mini-map implicating that these light-linked 'trees' are actually all risers from a single large superorganism (as a shaded complex but contiguous shape labelled "Pando"), the map has a "N"orth pointer, a scale bar indicating the length of "1,000 ft" (approximately a third of the shaded mass's full width) and a convex hull perimeter line tightly fitting the shaded area that has an indicative arrow from a label informing us that its length would be "9,300 ft".]

:[Caption below:] Christmas Science Fact: Pando is approximately 9,300 feet away from being the world's largest Christmas Tree.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

Talk:2665: America Songs

2022-12-21T12:10:41Z

172.70.162.47: /* Recategorization */

Many of these rely on "ia"/"ie"/"io" serving as the 3rd and 4th syllables, so every song would be sung like "God Bless <s>Olimpiya</s> Algeriya". Virginia Beach appears to be the only one to escape this.--[[User:Magtei|Magtei]] ([[User talk:Magtei|talk]]) 19:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:As a Washingtonian, I pronounce Olympia without the diphthong (so four syllables; the “a” being distinct). It’s probably a dialect thing, and some pronunciations are more common than others, but as long as one fairly-common pronunciation scans, I think it’s fine. [User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 03:37, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
::Alright, bad example. Skipping it is unheard of in areas further south. Do you (or a large part of the US) fully pronounce most dipthongs, [https://www.howmanysyllables.com/syllables/syria Syria with three syllables], etc.?--[[User:Magtei|Magtei]] ([[User talk:Magtei|talk]]) 07:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I can't speak for the rest of the US, but in the case of places I usually pronounce the extra syllable. Virginia is the one exception I can think of right now. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 21:08, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
:There are also some locations with three-syllable names, such as Detroit Lakes or Fergus Falls (both located northwest of St. Cloud, Minnesota) which, although not listed by Randall, will also work and not use the noted syllables. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 02:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

This phrase, "scans to", has me confused. Can the explanation address what this is supposed to mean?
--anon 16:23, 29 August 2022
:You betcha [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 20:38, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
::What does scanning mean in relation to sung verse? Just syllables and their stress pattern, or is their more? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.28|172.69.34.28]] 23:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I'm not familiar with the term, but I assume it's related to scansion. If I'm right, it's probably just syllables and stress pattern. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 06:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
::::- There was a young man from Japan
::::- Whose limericks never would scan.
::::- And when they asked why,
::::- He said "I do try!
::::- But when I get to the last line I try to fit in as many words as I can."
::::...though – and this is me talking, not the famous limerick – after making sure your poetry rhymes (if you want it to; and/or assonate, consonate, etc) and scans (some words are tricky, as mentioned, according to dialect/accent/etc) you also need to check the meter (does it obviously flow and split in patterns like the iambic one where "da-DUM da-DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da-DUM" might be how it works with word-boundries).
::::You might be wise to avoid words like "vehicle" with theoretically, two to four syllables and all kinds of stress-patterns and vowel-sounds (c.f. stereotypical Deep South, north British, Aussie, etc), at least as an early (establishing) element. Maybe you can set up its far more knowable rhyme/scan/metering partner first and rely upon the reader adopting the intended variation (give or take the relatively opposing strengths of writer/reader accents, etc) after being given the prior clue.
::::I would personally say the scan(sion) is mostly the simple syllable count, and may need some writing tricks ("learned" as in "I learned something" and "learn'ed" as in "a very learned person") to convey well during sight-reading or initial internalised read-through.
::::On that, I personally have some problems reading "-ya" syllables as singular (depending upon what the preceding symbol is, I would consider it a "-ee-ah"/"-ee-uh" (or mid-point) with a cut-down "-ee-"), while I have no problem with the "-lm" dipthong/whatever (c.f. Northern Irish tends to clearly enunciate as "fill-um" for 'film', whilst I might almost consider it a syllable/beat of its own). But I suspect the right voice (internal or external) could convince me of any of those examples as given, eventually... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.105|162.158.159.105]] 13:46, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Aussie here: we tend to say (and sing) "Australia" with three syllables. For example, see the [https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/australian-national-anthem-scores Australian national anthem]. Occasionally two syllables: Straya mate!! But saying it with four syllables is perhaps an American thing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.207|162.158.2.207]] 21:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:Interesting! It probably is a dialect thing. As an American, I've always pronounced it with four. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 21:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

In the comic, Saskatchewan is spelled as Sasketchewan. Might be fixed later?

Just putting this here: https://www.quora.com/A-lot-of-place-names-in-the-USA-have-four-syllables-Minnesota-Chattanooga-Albuquerque-Tallahassee-Talladega-Massachusetts-Massapequa-Mississippi-Cincinnati-Sacramento-Indiana-Alabama-Oklahoma-etc-Is-there-a (with the understanding that "scanning" doesn't necessarily mean only the number of syllables, e.g. Al-BUH-ker-key has the wrong stress pattern.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.49|172.70.210.49]] 21:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 22:03, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
::''AlBUquerque, AlBUquerque, God shed his grace on theee...!'' [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 22:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to craft a Wikidata query for all the place names with four syllables following the .'.. stress pattern? We should probably say how many there are. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 23:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Jurassic park, Jurassic park, how lovely are thy branches… [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 23:31, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The pronunciation of Vidalia, Georgia, is "vi-DAIL-ya" -- three syllables, not four. It doesn't actually scan like "America". Seems like the comic is assuming the pronunciation is "vee-DAHL-ee-ah", which would scan.ing
:And the age old question of whether an optional schwa constitutes a syllable rears its head. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.161|172.69.134.161]] 05:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
::I came to say a similar thing about Montpelier. In Vermont, at least, it has three syllables. [[User:CeramicMug|CeramicMug]] ([[User talk:CeramicMug|talk]]) 10:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
:::Uhhhhh, born and raised in Montreal, i.e. just north of Vermont, such that all our American stations come from the region (I think one PBS I think is actually based in Montpelier) and they always pronounce it with 4 syllables. :) Mont-peel-E-er. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I simply wish to note the similarity to "Thighs" (#321), which is one of my favorite xkcd comics and one that I find comes to mind surprisingly often.

For changing the tune of a song but not the lyrics (or the lyrics in entirety but not the tune), see the title text to 788: The Carriage [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 11:24, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Shirley [surely] there must be some overlap between XKCD and "Weird Al" Yankovic fans, but no one has yet mentioned that Randall missed the "American Idiot"/"Canadian Idiot" overlap, mentioning the former but not the latter? '''--BigMal''' // [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.87|172.70.114.87]] 14:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Needs a better explanation of "scans" (short for Scansion). Something something ''Syllables'', something something ''stress pattern'', something something ''rhythm''. I'd write it myself, but no one wants a 30 page thesis on the topic. PS to those complaining certain locations usually use a three syllable pronunciation... poetic license frequently stretches (usually middle or penultimate) syllables to cover two beats, even without changing vowel length (although it's more common to do so). At least, in English; some other languages are not as flexible in this regard. --- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.79|172.70.214.79]] 16:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Should it be noted that one of the implicitly suggested songs, "America", from West Side Story, replaced with "LaGuardia", was in fact done in the Saturday Night Live sketch "Airport Sushi" in 2020? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.41|172.69.70.41]] 22:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
: Omission would clearly be a travesty, but do you have a YouTube link? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.243|172.70.210.243]] 02:57, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
::[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d7Vk_qaiB8 "Your wish is my command, Kemosabi."] 2m30s. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 04:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I was going to !vote against inclusion until the David Byrne wrap-up. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.243|172.70.210.243]] 04:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
:::The closed captioning is very inaccurate in that video, but exposes information about the pre-pandemic closed captioning cost benefit analyses. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.95|172.70.206.95]] 05:13, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
::::WHAT? lol, I fukn love this site. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 05:33, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm... It says above that "Antarctican Idiot" scans with "American Idiot", but "Ant-arc't-" and "Am-er-" are disjointed, if both "-ic-an" endings are the same. Or is it "-tic-" against "-ic-" (and possibly "An-tar'c-" vs "Am-er-")? Still voices funny, and with the former needing much more tongue-teeth complexity, in direct replacement. It's certainly hard to speak as a direct replacement, I'll try to get someone to speak them to me later, to get the proper listener experience, but right now I have my doubts that it's entirely valid. (Possibly less of a problem, but not removing all the issues, if you ellide the first 'c' from your voicing. This seems to be a thing. But "Arctic" is a solidly c-pronouncing word, so "Antarctic" should also be.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 14:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I like to be in Gondwanaland

Okay by me in Gondwanaland

Everything free in Gondwanaland

For a small fee in Gondwanaland!
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 22:39, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

: Oh Middle Earth! Our home and native land! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.163|172.70.85.163]] 11:53, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I was ABOUT to point out how Canada doesn't scan with America, but Canadian scans with American, but I see someone already noted that. :) I sing Dennis Leary - Asshole at karaoke sometimes, and he uses "American" a couple of times - "the way our American hearts beat" - and as a Canadian I like to swap in Canadian. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:06, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I propose accepting "mar-AH-la-go" as scanning, simply so people can write cool parody songs. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 05:00, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Here are some more:
* Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
* Liberia, Nigeria, Bolivia, Siberia, Somalia, Albania, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cambodia, Armenia, Australia, Dominica, Estonia, Mongolia, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, South Africa
* El Salvador
* the Alamo, the Netherlands, the Gambia
-[[User:Adrgru|Adrgru]] ([[User talk:Adrgru|talk]]) 03:59, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
: Truly excellent finds, all, except nobody I know says the Gambia, it's just Gambia. Are they wrong? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 10:27, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
:: Yes, they are. The full official name is "The Republic of the Gambia", short name "The Gambia". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.117|172.70.90.117]] 17:44, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
I would love to listen to the song "Jurassik Parkan Idiot" --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.21|188.114.102.21]] 09:09, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

==Recategorization==
Should this be added to [[:Category:US_maps]]? --[[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 07:46, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
:Arguable, yes. It is a map of the US (with non-US labels 'unmapped' below/etc it). If someone feels strong enough, they can convert the current <nowiki>[Category:Maps] to [Category:US maps]</nowiki>, as easy as that (checking that membership of the latter confers sub-membership of the former?). And if someone then feels stronger that it isn't suitable, after all, they can undo it. The wonder of the wiki! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 12:10, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

2710: Hydropower Breakthrough

2022-12-14T20:38:22Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Became long, runaway, ostensibly within a monatomic parenthetical aside but had been split into two sentence-structures by a prior edit. Popped it all out of the parentheses, though doubtless needs more precise crafting/paring down.

{{comic
| number = 2710
| date = December 12, 2022
| title = Hydropower Breakthrough
| image = hydropower_breakthrough_2x.png
| imagesize = 261x303px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A hydroelectric dam is also known as a heavy water reactor.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PRACTICAL WATER REACTOR. Do NOT delete this tag until the year 2039, or until fusion reactors have succeeded.}}
The comic parodies fusion reactors, a form of electrical generator that typically aims to take in deuterium and tritium, then outputs helium and massive amounts of power. However, maintaining a fusion reaction is notoriously difficult, and for the longest time fusion reactors required external power to keep running, substantially more than they give back. In the past years, constant developments in fusion reactors have slowly increased the energy output of fusion to more than the input. It is possible this is meant to directly parody the Department of Energy's anticipated announcement of Q>1 fusion. The announcement is scheduled for the day after this comic's release, and [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/11/fusion-nuclear-energy-breakthrough/ the date of this was itself revealed] the day before this comic went up.

A {{w|hydroelectric dam}} is a power facility that generates electricity from water flowing in a river passing through a water turbine and generator. In the comic, [[Beret Guy]], unscientific as always, presents a hydroelectric dam. However, instead of generating energy, it generates a flow of water. This is similar to the way that a fusion reactor takes energy (and hydrogen isotopes) as an input and energy (and helium isotopes) as outputs. While one member of the audience shouts "Hooray!", another member of audience, who is presumably familiar with regular physics, says "Wait.", presumably because they realize that, instead of the normal approach, Beret Guy has been pursuing the essentially useless goal of producing more water. Or possibly because they're confused that, on the face of it, it appears to be violating {{w|conservation of mass}}, which would usually require that a dam should produce the same amount of water as that fed into it. That said, for a regular dam in a natural valley like the one shown in this comic, it is entirely normal for the dam to "produce" more water than input in the sense that in addition to water from upstream rivers, the dam will also output any "unofficial" inflow from direct rainfall above and from uncharted sources of groundwater below, but such sources would typically also inveigle themselves into the undammed version of the watercourse under otherwise fully-saturated circumstances.

If you only regard a limited time interval, a dam releasing temporally more water than is fed into it, can occur naturally, especially seasonally (stored water is released during a dry period) or accidentally (a dam break). The title "breakthrough" could be interpreted that way, making Beret Guy's announcement the opposite of a joyous occasion.

It is possible — likely, even, considering Beret Guy's quasi-supernatural nature and regular violations of physical law — that his dam ''is'' violating conservation of mass and creating water through magical means. It is also possible that the dam contains direct energy-mass conversion technology, and is converting input energy into mass. In this case, the dam would be quite useless as a power plant, and would in-fact consume more energy than many entire countries. If the dam is not magical, it is possible that the dam is powered by {{w|zero point energy}}, something that Beret Guy has shown competence in handling (see [[1486: Vacuum]]).

The symbol Q is normally used to refer to {{w|fusion energy gain factor}}, the ratio of power generated by a fusion reactor to the energy used to maintain it. An energy source isn't useful if it takes more power to run it than it produces, so Q > 1 means the reactor is producing net energy. Q also can represent the volumetric flow rate of water through a hydroelectric dam, and in this case, a Q > 1 would have no great significance. Beret Guy has somehow mixed the two up, making the rate of flow as the output of the reaction and increasing it.

The title text further confuses the issue as it introduces nuclear ''fission'' and equates the hydroelectric dam with a heavy water reactor, which is a special type of nuclear fission reactor that uses deuterium oxide (heavy water) as a moderator to absorb neutrons. This is also a pun because one could simplistically say that a hydroelectric dam runs on the weight of water (potential energy stored in the water: U = mgh), or that it is a water reactor (producing electricity) that is heavy (bulky). While a hydroelectric power plant is not actually a reactor, it would have to be using a reaction (such as 2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O) to create water to satisfy Beret Guy's statement that more water is produced than fed into the dam, while simultaneously satisfying the law of conservation of mass. Alongside that, the title text is possibly making a pun on water and fusion reactors. Heavy water is the primary source of deuterium, a specific isotope of hydrogen required for the most energy-efficient fusion reactions needed today. On the other hand, water is the liquid that passes through dams, and is rarely used for fusion reactions today — although [https://what-if.xkcd.com/14/ it could be used as fusion fuel because it is made of hydrogen and oxygen.]

The title is probably also part of the joke in that hydro could be referring to water or HYDROgen [sic]. The hydrogen is presumably the fuel for fission. The name "hydrogen" itself means "water maker" from the roots "hydro-" and "-gen".

On 29 November 2022 Adam Selipsky CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) (A large Cloud provider and IT department of the Amazon webshop) announced in his Re:Invent (an annual congress for AWS customers where AWS announced new services and roadmaps) keynote that AWS will become water positive by 2030, he explained that AWS by then will produce more water than it consumes.
[https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/aws-ceo-makes-water-sustainability-pledge/amp/]
(video recording is available of it as well on a different website)

This might have inspired the cartoonist make a water positive dam.

A way to create more water than one consumes can be by using hydrogen and take out part of the energy via a reaction with Oxygen in the air, like Hydrogen cars do. As AWS wants to be energy carbon neutral by 2025 and uses wind and solar power, a way to have energy available during times when there is not enough solar and wind is to store energy in hydrogen during times when there is too much, then 'burning' that hydrogen at scarce moments.

The output can then be distilled water. So it's important that the additional water that is created will not just be 'dumped' into the environment, since that can change the existing ecosystem which may be built upon water which contains certain levels of minerals and/or salts.

This cartoon takes that as a first warning already by showing a dam containing the water in a natural environment.

AWS is an IT provider with hundreds of data centra, with many millions of computers. These typically use water to cool the computers. This cooling water heats up, energy can be extracted via a heat pump and be re-used. Sometimes (this doesn't have to be the case for AWS) this water is actually dumped when the water is not hot enough for the heat pump, and not cool enough to cool the machines.
Sometimes the heat is used to heat houses or greenhouses.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is standing on a podium behind a lectern. He is gesturing with his hand, palm up, towards a poster hanging behind him. On it is a picture of a tall dam, with a lake behind, and water coming out at the foot of the dam in the valley on the other side. Two voices reacts to Beret Guy's statement from off-panel.]
:Beret Guy: We are pleased to announce that our hydroelectric dam has achieved Q>1, producing more water than we fed into it!
:Off-panel voice 1: Hooray!
:Off-panel voice 2: Wait.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Physics]]

1944: The End of the Rainbow

2022-12-06T02:09:45Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ To invoke a virtual focus, in space, there needs to be some mechanism to redirect all paths to that focus point. Instead, we have a large (but not easily easily examinable) spread and slight (comparitively) depth of true origins.

{{comic
| number = 1944
| date = January 19, 2018
| title = The End of the Rainbow
| image = the_end_of_the_rainbow.png
| titletext = The retina is the exposed surface of the brain, so if you think about a pot of gold while looking at a rainbow, then there's one at BOTH ends.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Megan]] appears to reference the myth that at the end of every {{w|rainbow}} lies a {{w|leprechaun}}'s pot of gold. Instead of claiming that leprechauns and their gold don't exist, [[Cueball]] offers the refutation that, technically, {{w|File:Circular_rainbow.jpg|rainbows are circles}}, so they do not have an end. This is true for an idealized rainbow, and for some actual rainbows: if the viewer has an unobstructed view of the light-reflecting substance creating the effect for the whole of the circle's circumference, they could see a full circle. In practice, the circle is often broken by the horizon or, for example, discontinuity in cloud cover.

However, Megan counters that if one considers the path that light takes to form a rainbow, then it forms a two-cone structure, where the Sun (the vertex of the outer cone) emits light rays that move towards the Earth (forming the faces of the outer cone), then reflect off water droplets located at just the right angle (the circular base) to reach our eyes (the vertex of the inner cone). Thus, such a rainbow structure ''can'' be said to have "ends", represented by the vertices of the two cones: one at the eye of the viewer, and another at the light source (usually the sun).
A common rainbow (for which the base is formed by a water droplets in the Earth's atmosphere) can not be viewed as that. The Sun's diameter is orders of magnitude greater than Earth's one (even including the outer layers of the atmosphere), and we would expect the apex of a cone to be much smaller than its base. Thus a two-cone rainbow which ostensibly starts in Sun shall have its effective base formed in the outer space (or, rather, be a smudged out sum of all point origins lying within the near-hemisoheric visible glowing atmosphere of the Sun.

Megan then says that the Sun is indeed a pot of gold. The Sun is approximately [https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html 1.989 × 1030 (1 nonillion 989 octillion) kilograms], and its abundance of gold is approximately [http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1968PASAu...1..133A&data_type=PDF_HIGH&filetype=.pdf&type=PRINTER&whole_paper=YES 0.3 parts per trillion] (ed: this value is incorrect - values in the paper are not in ppt - see comments below). Based on these numbers, the sun contains 5.967 × 1017 (596 quadrillion 700 trillion) kilograms of gold. This equates to 5.967 × 1014 (596 trillion 700 billion) metric tons of gold. As such, Megan's statement that the sun contains "quintillions of tons of gold" is off by a factor of roughly 4000, but the amount of gold within the sun is, nonetheless, far more than a pot's worth.{{Citation needed}}

The amount of water in the oceans is about [https://phys.org/news/2014-12-percent-earth.html 1.35 × 1018 (1 quintillion 350 quadrillion) metric tons]. If we assume that Megan is still talking in terms of mass rather than volume or molecule count, then her next statement (that there is more gold in the sun than water in the oceans) would have been true had she been correct in her previous claim, but in fact there is more sea-water than sun-gold by a factor of roughly 2300.

Cueball then asks about leprechauns (perhaps ironically, since Megan's theory at this point appears to involve astronomy/physics, not mythical creatures/beings). Megan replies that the leprechauns all died when the Sun formed, building on the irony of Cueball's question (and opening questions about the role of leprechauns in the early formation of our solar system).

The title text suggests that, since the pot of gold exists as an idea in the brains of people thinking about it, and the retina is the foremost part of the brain for light perception, it can be argued that, in addition to existing in the sun as the comic explains, the gold (and leprechauns) also exist at the perceiver's end of the cone, as long as they are thinking about a pot of gold at the time (and then it's gone as soon as they stop thinking about it). Many neurologists would agree with the concept that ideas in your mind can be said to be physically located in your brain. However, this seems to go further, and suggest an {{w|Idealism|idealist}} ontological position, that things, in this case a pot of gold, exist by virtue of our having an idea of them.

==Transcript==

:[Megan and Cueball are walking.]
:Megan: There's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
:Cueball: Rainbows are circles. They have no end.
:Megan: Not quite!

:[In a borderless panel, a multi-part graphic is shown depicting what Megan is describing off-panel: a short cone inside a longer cone, with the longer cone having its point starting at the Sun, the shorter cone having its point at a miniature Cueball's head, and both cones sharing the same circular base. The diagram is repeated from 3 different perspectives to make the structure easier to grasp.]
:Megan (off-panel): A '''rainbow''' is light leaving the Sun, bouncing off the clouds, and converging on your eye. It's an inside-out two-ended cone.

:[Megan and Cueball are still walking.]
:Megan: One end of that cone is your retina.

:[A wider view of the same scene, with Megan and Cueball walking on a dark ground.]
:Megan: The other end is the Sun—which contains quintillions of tons of gold. There's more gold in the Sun than water in the oceans.
:Cueball: So there ''is'' a pot of gold!
:Cueball: What about leprechauns?
:Megan: All incinerated as the sun formed. Very sad.

==Trivia==

As of January 19, 2017, the value of gold is 42,692.98 USD per kilogram. Based on this, all of the gold in the sun is worth 2.5474901 × 10^22 (25 sextillion 474 quintillion 901 quadrillion) USD. Of course, if you tried to sell the gold in the sun, the market would be saturated and the value of gold would plummet astronomically. You would never be able to cash out.

The idea that the Sun is valuable in monetary terms is also present in [[1622: Henge]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics_featuring_Megan]]
[[Category:Comics_featuring_Cueball]]

1807: Listening

2022-11-29T00:29:29Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Adding the time-delay aspect. Not bothering to add the need for dedicated storage space (for pallettes of packaged goods, if not receptive bulk containers).

{{comic
| number = 1807
| date = March 6, 2017
| title = Listening
| image = listening.png
| titletext = Sure, you could just ask, but this also takes care of the host gift thing.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic depicts [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] welcoming [[Black Hat]] and [[Danish]] to their house. Black Hat immediately talks to {{w|Amazon Alexa}} to order two tons of {{w|creamed corn}}. This would be quite expensive (around $10,000), and the hosts would be charged because it was ordered on their {{w|Amazon Echo}} device. It would also be a serious inconvenience. The purchase would be quite bulky and useless, not even likely to arrive until ''after'' the visitor has departed, with an average homeowner having very little use for two tons of creamed corn.{{Citation needed}}

The caption claims that this is an effort to find systems recording conversations, such as Alexa or {{w|Google Home}}, for the security of the ''guests'', so they aren't being monitored by an always-on listening device without their consent (at least not without any consequences). However, because Black Hat is the one coming up with this, it's more likely his motives are on the sadistic side, and it's more likely a warning for the hosts to turn off any voice-activated systems before having guests come over so that the guests don't take advantage of them. (It should also be noted that such purchasing services encourage the user to set up a PIN code to stem off such exploits.)

A concerned "visitor" may also want to test for voice-activated systems when near any persons carrying an iPhone or Android mobile device, because these are also always-on listening devices. "Hey Siri" and "Ok Google" voice activation use the same technology as "Alexa" and "Echo" detection.

The title text says that this takes care of the "host gift thing", referring to the custom where house guests give a gift to the hosts. However, Black Hat is making the hosts pay for it, so it can be as expensive as he wants, thus making this yet another example of his being a [[classhole]]. For more examples of this, see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] below.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat and Danish enter Cueball and Ponytail's house. They have hardly passed the door mat, with the door still open showing the road and another house outside.]
:Ponytail: Hello, welcome to our house!
:Black Hat: Thanks for inviting us!
:Black Hat: Alexa, order two tons of creamed corn.
:Black Hat: Alexa, confirm purchase.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:When visiting a new house, it's good to check whether they have an always-on device transmitting your conversations somewhere.

==Trivia==
*In a previous comic, [[1559: Driving]], Black Hat took also took advantage of a cutting-edge AI—there, a self-driving car—by making it drive across the country without its owner or any passenger. And already back in [[596: Latitude]] he took advantage (of course) of people who constantly kept programs running on their phones that could track their movements.
*Another comic about testing if someone is listening is [[525: I Know You're Listening]]. Just as Black Hat may just speak without knowing for sure that there is an active Alexa, Cueball in the old comic also just speaks out in case there is someone listening. In that case, it was addressed to real surveillance, but as can be seen in the entries below, Alexa may just end up being used like that later.
*Usually Cueball is paired with [[Megan]], but since Black Hat's girlfriend Danish looks like Megan but with longer hair, this makes it sensible to choose Ponytail as Cueball's partner here. They were also partnered in the next comic [[1808: Hacking]].
*Assuming a standard can of 14.75 oz (418 g) and Black Hat's order was in short tons the order would consist of 4339 cans. Consuming one per day it would last for approx. twelve years. But it's doubtful that the expiration date would be that long.
*In a recent [http://www.npr.org/2016/12/31/507670072/amazon-echo-murder-case-renews-privacy-questions-prompted-by-our-digital-footprints court case] authorities believed that an Amazon Echo may have recorded the identity of a murder suspect, leading to a debate about the privacy and safety implications of such devices.
*Another recent [http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/7/14200210/amazon-alexa-tech-news-anchor-order-dollhouse event] resulted in Alexa ordering several people unwanted doll houses.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Virtual Assistants]]

2696: Precision vs Accuracy

2022-11-10T22:32:19Z

172.70.162.47: Undo revision 298524 by 172.71.151.62 (talk) Can't be bothered to put the tag the right side of the comma, and we've already got multiple Citation Neededs...

{{comic
| number = 2696
| date = November 9, 2022
| title = Precision vs Accuracy
| image = precision_vs_accuracy_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x462px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun' is low precision, but I'm not sure about the accuracy.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BARACK OBAMA IN A CARDBOARD BOX. Further detail, sortable table? - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic parodies the difference between 'accuracy' and 'precision' with a table. {{w|Accuracy and precision}} are common concepts to be encountered in the scientific field and often students have issues with the differences between them. Accuracy concerns whether a statement is true, while precision concerns how detailed it is; it is possible for a statement to be one but not the other. The comic explores this concept by comparing {{w|Barack Obama}}, former President of the United States, with {{w|cat}}s. Confusingly, he measures different statistics of both Barack Obama and cats (sometimes measuring them in terms of cats) leaving the unwary reader even more confused.

Being precise is typical of calculations that roll out an excess of significant digits, often in the form of trailing decimals. Precision is lowered by using more rounded figures, or merely being comparative, but largely unaffected by whether the original values used were accurate or even correct. Accuracy is a cumulative function of the accuracy given to the intermediate values used for any calculation, and can be degraded by using figures that are themselves in some way inaccurate or imprecise. One part of confusion between the two is because being too precise usually decreases accuracy.

The numbers mentioned in the top row (high precision) of the table all use exactly the same digits, dictating that a full five digits of ''precision'' are used in them all. The most "valid" or correct value is a number that's very accurate and precise (see table). For the medium accuracy the number is an anagram of the 1st entry, giving a value that is reasonable but would be overly exact, whilst the low accuracy number is just a repeat of the first entry's digits with a shifted decimal but clearly at the wrong scale. For the latter, he replaces the thousands separator with the decimal point, perhaps as a visual pun.

The title text compares Obama's and cats' enjoyment of playing with cardboard boxes. While cats are known to do this,{{citation needed}} we don't know whether Obama does.

The day prior to the publication of this comic (November 8, 2022) was election day in the United States, so Randall may have been remembering Barack Obama's presidency at this time.

{| class="wikitable"
!Precision
!Accuracy
!Statement
!Explanation
|-
|High
|High
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours
|This is the official length in hours of {{w|Barack Obama}}'s 8-year presidency, including 2 {{w|leap year|leap days}}. Obama served from January 20, 2009 through January 20, 2017, and his term officially began and ended at noon on those days. (There were three {{w|leap second|leap seconds}} during his presidency, though.)
|-
|High
|Medium
|Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats
|The accuracy would depend on the mass of the cats in question. Also a human's mass can vary by a few pounds in a small amount of time as meals are consumed, resources are used in metabolism and wastes are eliminated, and thus this may be overly precise due the margin of error in both the mass of cats and the mass of Mr. Obama. In 2016, Obama was [https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight officially reported] to weigh 175 lb (79.3787 kg). [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+heavy+is+an+average+cat Google claims that an average cat weighs between 8.8 and 11 lbs], so this statement may be close to accurate.
|-
|High
|Low
|Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|A highly precise (5 significant digits) measurement, but far from his actual height, published as 6'1".
The given value is more than an order of magnitude different from both him and {{w|Robert Wadlow|almost}} any other known human, whilst one of 7.0128 would ''only'' be about 15% off – still a low accuracy, but not outside the realms of possibility for an otherwise unknown person.
Coincidentally, Barack Obama is approximately 70 ''cat'' feet tall, using the paw size of a house cat to measure his height. Given the number of cat-related facts in the rest of the chart, this could be seen as rather appropriate.
|-
|Medium
|High
|Most cats have 4 legs
|Like many mammals, cats are quadrupeds, which means "four feet". Unless there is a genetic or other developmental issue, or an an injury that causes the loss of a limb, then cats generally have 4 legs.
|-
|Medium
|Medium
|Barack Obama is 6'1"
|While only as precise as the nearest inch, a common degree of rounding in that scale of measurement, that is the former president's published height.
[https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight In 2016], Obama was said to have "grown" 0.5 inches in height, so there is a definite lack of consistency of exactly how tall he is. The examinations may have been made at different times of their respective days, with some spinal compression occurring all the time not laid in bed, and his current height is also not publically recorded; several years of gradual aging could also reduce his posture slightly, or sustaining his fitness (since experiencing the travails of office) may counteract this to a greater or lesser effect.
|-
|Medium
|Low
|Barack Obama has 4 legs
|Barack Obama, being a mammal, does qualify as a tetra-pod, but as a primate, his ancestors' forelimbs evolved into arms and hands, and like other humans, he does not generally use them for locomotion, but to manipulate his environment, thus this is highly ''in''accurate.

|-
|Low
|High
|Most cats have legs
|A true (high accuracy) statement without much information (low precision).
|-
|Low
|Medium
|Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat
|Again, this will depend on the cat (not to mention whether or not you actually have a cat), but in general, true.
|-
|Low
|Low
|Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|This statement has low accuracy, as Barack Obama owns a four-legged dog named Sunny, but is not known to have owned a cat, much less one with more legs than normal. It also has low precision, as "hundreds" could reasonably range from 200 to 900. (From a strict logician's point of view, this could however be considered a vacuously true statement.)
|-
|Low
|Unsure
|Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun
|Barack Obama has never publicly jumped in and out of cardboard boxes for fun,{{citation needed}} but the possibility that he does in private exists.
|}

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows a table with 3 rows and 3 columns. Each row and column has a label, and then nine statements are given for the 3x3 grid.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
| || High accuracy || Medium accuracy || Low accuracy
|-
| High precision
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours||Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats||Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|-
| Medium precision
|Most cats have 4 legs||Barack Obama is 6'1"||Barack Obama has 4 legs
|-
| Low precision
|Most cats have legs||Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat||Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Cats]]

2696: Precision vs Accuracy

2022-11-09T19:02:36Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Attitude and altitude

{{comic
| number = 2696
| date = November 9, 2022
| title = Precision vs Accuracy
| image = precision_vs_accuracy_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x462px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun' is low precision, but I'm not sure about the accuracy.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BARACK OBAMA IN A CARDBOARD BOX. Further detail, sortable table? - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic parodies the difference between 'accuracy' and 'precision' with a table. {{w|Accuracy and precision}} are common concepts to be encountered in the scientific field and often students have issues with the differences between them. Accuracy concerns whether a statement is true, while precision concerns how detailed it is; it is possible for a statement to be one but not the other. The comic explores this concept by comparing {{w|Barack Obama}}, former President of the United States, with {{w|cat}}s. Confusingly, he measures different statistics of both Barack Obama and cats (sometimes measuring them in terms of cats) leaving the unwary reader just as confused as before.

Being precise is typical of calculations that roll out an excess of significant digits, often in the form of trailing decimals. Precision is lowered by using more rounded figures, or merely being comparative, but largely unaffected by whether the original values used were accurate or even correct. Accuracy is a cumulative function of the accuracy given to the intermediate values used for any calculation, and can be degraded by using figures that are themselves in some way inaccurate or imprecise. One part of confusion between the two is because being too precise usually decreases accuracy.

The numbers mentioned in the top row (high precision) of the table all use exactly the same digits, dictating that a full five digits of ''precision'' are used in them all. The most "valid" or correct value is a number that's very accurate and precise (see table). For the medium accuracy the number is an anagram of the 1st entry, giving a value that is reasonable but would be overly exact, whilst the low accuracy number is just a repeat of the first entry's digits with a shifted decimal but clearly at the wrong scale. For the latter, he replaces the thousands separator with the decimal point, perhaps as a visual pun.

The title text compares Obama's and cats' enjoyment of playing with cardboard boxes. While cats are known to do this,{{citation needed}} we don't know whether Obama does.

The day prior to the publication of this comic (November 8, 2022) was election day in the United States, so Randall may have been remembering Barack Obama's presidency at this time.

{| class="wikitable"
!Precision
!Accuracy
!Statement
!Explanation
|-
|High
|High
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours
|Within an hour, this is the official length of {{w|Barack Obama}}'s 8-year presidency, including 2 {{w|leap year|leap days}}.
|-
|High
|Medium
|Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats
|The accuracy would depend on the mass of the cats in question. Also a human's mass can vary by a few pounds in a small amount of time as meals are consumed, resources are used in metabolism and wastes are eliminated, and thus this may be overly precise due the margin of error in both the mass of cats and the mass of Mr. Obama. In 2016, Obama was [https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight officially reported] to weigh 175 lb (79.3787 kg). [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+heavy+is+an+average+cat Google claims that an average cat weighs between 8.8 and 11 lbs], so this statement may be close to accurate.
|-
|High
|Low
|Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|A highly precise (5 significant digits) measurement, but far from his actual height, published as 6'1".
The given value is more than an order of magnitude different from both him and {{w|Robert Wadlow|almost}} any other known human, whilst one of 7.0128 would ''only'' be about 15% off – still a low accuracy, but not outside the realms of possibility for an otherwise unknown person.
|-
|Medium
|High
|Most cats have 4 legs
|Like many mammals, cats are quadrupeds, which means "four feet". Unless there is a genetic or other developmental issue, or an an injury that causes the loss of a limb, then cats generally have 4 legs.
|-
|Medium
|Medium
|Barack Obama is 6'1"
|While only as precise as the nearest inch, a common degree of rounding in that scale of measurement, that is the former president's published height. [https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight In 2016], Obama was said to have "grown" 0.5 inches in height, so there is a definite lack of constancy of exactly how tall he is. The examinations may have been made at different times of their respective days, with some spinal compression occuring all the time not laid in bed, and his current height is also not publically recorded; several years of gradual aging could also reducing his posture slightly, or sustained fitness beyond the travailles of office may counteract this to a greater or lesser effect.
|-
|Medium
|Low
|Barack Obama has 4 legs
|Barack Obama, being a mammal, does qualify as a tetra-pod, but as a primate, his two forelimbs have been modified into arms and hands, and like other humans, he does not generally use them for locomotion, but to manipulate his environment, thus this is highly ''in''accurate.

|-
|Low
|High
|Most cats have legs
|A true (high accuracy) statement without much information (low precision).
|-
|Low
|Medium
|Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat
|Again, this will depend on the cat, but in general, true.
|-
|Low
|Low
|Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|This statement has low accuracy, as Barack Obama owns a four-legged dog named Sunny, but is not known to have owned a cat, much less one with more legs than normal. It also has low precision, as "hundreds" could reasonably range from 200 to 900.
|-
|Low
|Unsure
|Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun
|Barack Obama has never publicly jumped in and out of cardboard boxes for fun,{{citation needed}} but the possibility that he does in private exists.
|}

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

:[A table with 3 rows and 3 columns]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! !! High accuracy !! Medium accuracy !! Low accuracy
|-
! High precision
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours||Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats||Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|-
! Medium precision
|Most cats have 4 legs||Barack Obama is 6'1"||Barack Obama has 4 legs
|-
! Low precision
|Most cats have legs||Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat||Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Cats]]

Talk:2694: Königsberg

2022-11-07T18:02:51Z

172.70.162.47:

Why would aluminum foil be valuable? I can see how it would be hard to produce at the time. But how would it be used and why would people of the time see a lot of value in it? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.65|172.71.146.65]] 03:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
:Good question, but I'm persuaded the novelty and scarcity of metallic aluminium would have made it plenty valuable among those already wealthy enough to recognize what it was. Prussia was wealthy and Königsberg was its largest port city back then, so probably the mayor would have been able. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.205|172.70.206.205]] 03:49, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::Aluminium was very valuable - methods for its extraction from ore didn't exist in any useful form until much later. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.146.80|172.68.146.80]] 03:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::: Would scarcity be enough to make it valuable? Since nobody had this material back then, there wouldn't be any known applications for it. Compared to bringing e.g. a simple pocket calculator, a flashlight, a solar-powered e-book reader, etc. If an alien landed in my house and brought me some weird, shiny material that would be unable to build on earth, I wouldn't be too interested. But if they had some cool gadget or books full of alien information, I would immediately see its value. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.88|172.71.142.88]] 04:05, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
:::: At the time, there were few chemists who could have recognized what it was, but the Mayor of Königsberg would plausibly have been able to commission one. It likely would have taken months if not years, though. I guess if you have a time machine such details don't matter. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 04:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::::: Bear in mind that platinum was once 'an inferior substance that got in the way of accumulating silver', and cobalt was the stuff that the underground spirits mischievously put in the way of those seeking copper. To different degrees, their attractiveness has increased since those times they were considered less than desirable.
::::: But, for aluminium foil, I suspect it would have been like pineapples in English(/European?) stately circles... Not to be used for anything practical, but shown off (as long as it did not deteriote beyond a certain point), possibly there'd be money to be made in 'hiring it out' to decorate tables at fancy dinners (in carefully handled fragments, after the first few tearing incidents). L
:::::: “Not to be used for anything practical”: Well they could wrap their leftovers in it…
::::::: Before they put them in the fridge? ;o)
:::::::: Perhaps BBQing vegitables? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.162|172.69.33.162]] 20:37, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::::: No doubt a natural philosopher or somesuch would give his eyeteeth to analyse the substance, but being so far beyond the ability to recreate (assuming they discovered what they might even need to do) it would take the bankrolling of an extremely rich patron to obtain permanent posession of some without obligation to return it to the social circuit situations. So easily destructed (I wonder if they'd discover thermite a hundred and more years early, before they ran out of potentially finely shredded aluminium?) or at least aesthetically denatured.
:::::I suppose a screwed up ball of foil (carefully glued together internally, of all fragments still reobtainable) could be the end-game for the original roll, and a wonder it could still be (again, taking the "pineapple place" on the tables of the high and mighty, relatively untarnishing as it would be and gingerly some lucky few would be allowed to hold it and marvel at its sharp fragility and metallic lightness.
:::::...or, in another destiny, perhaps it would be given to a master tailor, in order to (try to?) create some sartorial masterpiece for one or other monarch of the age. Not that I'm sure they'd be able to accomplish that properly (limited pre-offcut trials on how to attach it to underfelts/whatever and to somehow exploit its flexibility without exceeding its very low tolerance for shear-force damage). It'd be a story and a half, whatever happened to it! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 05:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::::::"Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon." —Edsger Dijkstra [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.210|172.69.33.210]] 06:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::::: Re: wealth signaling via aluminum - When aluminum was first extracted, one of its main early uses was in jewelry. Victorian examples are still around and are not terribly rare. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 20:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Noting that "the citizens' old coffeehouse problem" (c.f. linked reference), originally of how to cross the bridges was never solved but instead proven by Euler to be insoluble. He did give a proof to satisfy those who had henceforth decided there perhaps could be no solution, but that necessarily postdates the initial issue that could not originally be solved, and which Euler (in turn) also did not solve. But how to rewrite this to everyone's satisfaction? I see a bit of a tussle of interpretation in the edit history over this. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.187|172.71.178.187]] 13:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
:Proving that a problem has no solution is still called solving it in math and logic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.126|172.70.211.126]] 15:34, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::That's solving the issue of the solution (if you've proved there is none), at the meta- level. It is described as a "negative resolution" in the primary wikilink, which adds another semantic complexity but at least points to what was proven. Right in its first paragraph. For the everyday reader that hasn't yet burrowed into the wikilink, and without in-depth knowledge of terminological scope, they shouldn't be given the wrong idea about what question was actually answered. And "We've solved it: there's no solution!" is not a particularly helpful reduction of this kind of outcome. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.207|172.71.178.207]] 16:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::: Ordinary usage by mathematicians and laypersons alike is that e.g. Wiles "solved" Fermat's last theorem, by proving no solutions exist. The AMS source has the same usage. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.40|172.71.154.40]] 22:56, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::...ok, so looking at it myself, maybe [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2694:_K%C3%B6nigsberg&diff=298234&oldid=298231 this change] removes both parties' objections. (Probably not, but perhaps a way ''towards'' a final rapprochement.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.24|172.70.85.24]] 17:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
::: Sure. That's fine. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.40|172.71.154.40]] 22:56, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I read somewhere (maybe some Martin Gardner book?) that nowadays in Koenigsberg (or Kaliningrad as it is called today) there IS an eight bridge. But I couldn't confirm it.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.129.49|162.158.129.49]] 17:26, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
: There's a link to the Google Maps aerial view in the map caption. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.242|172.70.210.242]] 20:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

As the comic at face value is about city planning of Königsberg and features the Mayor of Königsberg and a map of Königsberg, I very much think that an explanation of what Königsberg is should be a part of an explanation of the comic. So I disagree with [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2694:_Königsberg&diff=298375&oldid=298359 this] edit and its summary. Also, what I have been taught about image captions is that they should explain what is seen in the image. The information that two bridges has been destroyed is already present in the comic explanation. —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:While_False&printable=yes printable version] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:While_False&action=info page information] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere/User:While_False what links there] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:RecentChangesLinked&days=30&from=&target=User%3AWhile_False related changes] | [https://www.google.com Google search] | current time: {{CURRENTTIME}}) 17:46, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
:''(While you were writing that, I was writing this. Copied up from the "my text" bit of an edit-conflict verbatim as it definitely is stil relevent.)''
: About that... I agree with some editors that the caption isn't really where 'current status' geopolitical and infrastructure information should be. I also agree with other editors that it isn't nececessary for the Explanation (of which the image and its caption is technically part). So, how about... a Trivia section? Can be less cramped as well as heing auxiliarily informative about these things in a few (relatively) short points.
:*"Today, K. is known as ..., and is located in the modern-day...", plus
:*"Since that time <x> bridges were destroyed/removed, <detailed thus>, and <y> bridges have been built, <also detailed>", and maybe also
:*"Currently <...pedestrians can do this, vehicles can (only?) do that...>"..?
:...but perhaps leave the map-link and add a tiny bit more, "...also see <maplink> or <Trivia-anchor>", in the caption itself.
:For consideration, anyway. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 18:02, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

User talk:While False

2022-11-07T02:25:34Z

172.70.162.47:

== Vandalbot ==

I just found a bug in the vandal bot: if a page starts with "crap", it won't vandalize. Should we run a similar bot that just prepends the word crap once instead of replacing the text with the word repeated, to "vaccinate" the pages? One crap in addition to the page content would be a lot less disruptive than a page full of it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.251|108.162.245.251]] 22:03, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

::Maybe. (See the source for some code that might work) <div style="display: none">crap</div> [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.251|108.162.245.251]] 22:11, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

== Thanks for fixing the "crap" on my page ==

Hi While False 
Saw your comment on my page, and did not see the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Kynde&oldid=232561 crap post] before I was looking into this here. Also read about the problems you had with FaIse account. Sad this happens. Sadly I'm not an admin and have no way on contacting any of them. Shame that the x.k.c.d account again is active. But it is very annoying. Thanks for putting [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Kynde&direction=next&oldid=232561 my page] right again. Hope it stays that way. Not sure what we can do, I'm not tech wizard... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:59, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

== My Script ==

I thought I owed you a little explanation, since you showed interest earlier.
# Yeah, all the API stuff is indeed by Ozank.
# The tweaks to automatically run the rollback are by my friend [[wikia:w:c:c:User:KockaAdmiralac|KockaAdmiralac]] who I called on shortly before entering the fray.
# I contributed... An autoconfirmed account and enough knowledge of JavaScript to turn down the timer on the script and almost lock myself out of my account by refreshing constantly.
So, you know who to thank. Troll slain. Back to business as usual. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 01:22, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
: More context:
:* The base [[wikia:w:c:dev:Rollback|script]] ''is'' by Ozank, though it got [[wikia:w:c:dev:Special:Diff/130753|rewritten]] by me at some point (probably without changing the API calls, though)
:* It also had to be adapted to work on vanilla MediaWiki at all
:* The last about two thousand reverts were made in part by a different script I wrote on this occasion, that I can rerun later if needed
: [[User:KockaAdmiralac|Cube-shaped garbage can]] ([[User talk:KockaAdmiralac|talk]]) 09:54, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

== Concision and clarity ==

In case it helps, I think that [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1740:_Rosetta&diff=286099&oldid=286098 your edit] was in response to the same person as did a few other edits not long ago, that I reverted. Encompassed by the following lines in Recent Changes, at the end of 2nd June:
* 23:09 1490: Atoms‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (0)‎ . . [162.158.159.137‎; 108.162.245.173‎]
* 23:08 1368: One Of The‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (0)‎ . . [162.158.159.137‎; 162.158.107.52‎]
* 20:43 352: Far Away‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (0)‎ . . [162.158.159.87‎; 108.162.245.43‎]
* 20:41 1140: Calendar of Meaningful Dates‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (0)‎ . . [162.158.159.87‎; 108.162.246.154‎]
:''Leaving you to find and follow the links, tabbing around to copy and paste addresses to link directly is quite awkward, since the latest update of this browser... Urgh!''
By 'coincidence' or not, all the IPs involved in these original edits we reverted have Contrib histories showing various disruptions from the recent vandal. Not proof in itself, but the insertion of uselessly florid language ( <- no stranger to that myself, admittedly! ) - it looks like a new phase of "trying to mess things up" from the same geographic-at-least source. Subtle and not so disruptive, but maybe a drip drip drip thing with a long-game, unless even cleverer than currently obvious.
 Anyway glad I'm not the only one who thought it was odd. Just thought I'd say. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 12:43, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
:Thanks for letting me know. Seems malucious indeed. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:59, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
:I've just reverted several more of the same kind. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 22:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

== 'Interesting' edits... ==
{{notice|This commenter has a point.}}
{{notice|{{notice|{{notice|{{notice|{{notice|This comment has been taken to heart.}}}}}}}}}}
I get ''some'' of the reasoning behind the splurge of edits you just made, but must admit that the whole also looks like it has a lot of rather random tweaking. No complaints, but... perhaps some of the things you really meant to Sandbox (or at least Preview and then abandon without actually saving) whilst you were exploring whatever it was you thought it worth trying out? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.71|162.158.34.71]] 22:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
:Perhaps it is so. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|speak]]) 06:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

== I think you accidentally enabled a spambot... ==

I could be wrong, but the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:ZitaPortus3&curid=25674&diff=296168&oldid=296003 only edit they have so far made] definitely link-spammed with what appears to be spam-links (not followed them myself, just based upon my spidey-sense upon reading the raw URLs). With no obvious attempt of xkcd-ish parody/irony. Looks (semi-)automated copypasta. — Anyway, I've reverted it (much against my principles, but leaving an 'obvious SEO-fodder' seemed an even worse result) but I would defer to any future "Hey, this ''is'' real!" from the user (despite it being a spammer-type username), yourself or the other mods who may investigate my interference and come to the other conlusion. FYI, however, so that you know (sooner) to actually check it yourself. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.132|172.70.86.132]] 10:43, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
:Oh, that was not my intention. Your revert is obviously sensible. --[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|speak]]|[[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|museum]]) 19:59, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
...you did it again. Not going to link, you can easily find the page I 'blanked' (or replaced, as it turns out) and look at what happened. Plus loads of other weird page-creations. Really no idea what you need to do it all for. Try sandbox/preview-only/your own pages and subpages, perhaps, for most of the little experiments you're doing today. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 20:58, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
:''Bot Whisperer with While False'' —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]]) 21:58, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

== House style ==

Ref: Königsberg Talk, the house style leans heavily against ==Section Headers== in the discussion section, but would typically be downgraded to ''';Section Title''' format that's more just an aesthetic. Of course, each has its place, for when there's a lot to keep track of. And potentially a hash-anchored jumping in point might be useful and need to be ==...==ed, to some degree or other. It's not a consistent policy, but on balance it works that way. (Without back-editing loads of historic stuff, which I think is unnecessary - in case a certain other recent newly-accounted editor is passing by and reading this! ;) )

That aside, I'm with you in removing it, even as a visual-only section label. As far as that the Alumin(i)um discussion started off as a '''Titled''' thing in a total vacuum (nothing else even for it to need it to be marked separate from...) and nobody then bothered to further enTitle discussions that arose outside that scope, either. So it was, at best, potentially confusing until you edited it away. ;)

And, together with your judicious cutting of the image-caption cruft, this is why I think you're a good contributor, and (above things notwithstanding) I just wanted an excuse to say that I value your continued involvement here, as a definite positive. The minor details are arguable, of course, but your heart is definitely in the right sort of place. (For whatever degree the words of an accountless lurker/tweaker might actually matter!) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.209|141.101.99.209]] 12:36, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
:I give you thanks for the kind words. You are obviously well-versed in this site as well as in the wiki thing; out of curiosity, why don’t you use an account? —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]]) 22:16, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
::...too much fuss, if I can avoid it. If I don't have a login, I can't forget its details, and irrecoverably lose whatever transient social benefits I somehow acrued through using it. Plus I've not yet thought up a good username/'brand' for my presence. :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 02:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

2533: Slope Hypothesis Testing

2021-11-29T11:14:16Z

172.70.162.47:

Dear Webmaster,

My name is Patricia Boothman. I am senior link building acquisition strategist and SEO consultant.

While performing competition research for my client, I came across https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2483:_Linked_List_Interview_Problem

One of my clients has a website in the similar niche. I was wondering if you could edit one of the relevant blog posts on your website and mention my client’s website on it. I will also provide you edits to make your editorial team’s job easier.

We are willing to pay a small editorial fee to the quality site for your efforts.

Let me know your paypal email so that my writer can give you specific edits and we can start nurturing long term relationships for my other clients also.

Patricia.Boothman
Senior Link Acquisition Strategist
SEO Consultant

2547: Siren

2021-11-27T09:07:54Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Expansions and clarifications. (YMMV)

{{comic
| number = 2547
| date = November 26, 2021
| title = Siren
| image = siren.png
| titletext = Directions from CITY OF TROY to ITHACA / Total time: 10y 54d 14h 25m / Warning: Route crosses an international border / route includes capture by the goddess Calypso / route includes a ferry
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by ODYSSEUS’S BROKEN GPS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Odysseus}} is the hero of the Greek epic ''{{w|Odyssey}}'' by {{w|Homer}}. This is a poem that relates the journey of Odysseus back home to his homeland from the newly defeated Troy, and how he inadvertently angered Poseidon thus causing the journey to take 10 years.

In the story, now widely translated and adapted for modern aidiences, {{w|Circe}} warns Odysseus of the {{w|siren (mythology)|Sirens}}, who sing beautiful songs that lure sailors towards their shores, just to doom the boats to sink upon the jagged rocks surrounding their islands.

This comic reframes the advice as if Odysseus was being told to ignore the incorrect instructions of a {{w|Satellite navigation device|GPS-linked routefinder}}, rather than the Sirens. Errors, omissions or out-of-date information in the databases used by such devices famously have sent drivers down roads they might never have even tried to use (guided by printed maps and road-signs) without the alluring voice of the 'infallible' dashboard device leading them through too-narrow lanes, into rivers or even hundreds of miles completely out of their way - perhaps to a destination similarly-named to their intended one. GPSs did not exist during the time the poem was written {{citation needed}}, so this could not be the case here.

A navigation system giving wrong directions can happen, for example, due to outdated or incomplete map data. Sometimes users can file an error report with the provider of the navigation system and hope that they fix the problem in a software update. This is what Circe already did multiple times. However, the error was not fixed, so she has to resort to telling Odysseus to ignore the route.

The title text shows what the route description could have looked like, had Odysseus indeed used a modern navigation system. It includes the start and destination of the route, the estimated duration and warnings about special circumstances of the journey.

Normally, the sea voyage from the City of Troy to Ithaca should take much less than ten years. For Odysseus it took so long because of the many obstacles he had to face, so the navigation system would have some sort of clairvoyance function built in.

"Route crosses an international border" and "Route includes a ferry" are standard warnings included in a route description. The latter alludes to the fact that Odysseus made the voyage by sea. "Route includes capture by the goddess {{w|Calypso (mythology)|Calypso}}" is not normally something that a navigation system would warn about or could know about, but this indeed happened to Odysseus in Homer's tale; he was kept on her island Ogygia for seven years.

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

:[Circe is speaking to Odysseus.]
:Circe: Remember, Odysseus:
:Circe: As you pass the rocks you will hear a woman calling out to you, urging you to stray from your path, but plug your ears and hold your course, for her beguiling lies will draw you to a watery grave.
:Circe: I don't know ''why'' they can't just fix it. I keep filing error reports.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Circe was actually just telling Odysseus to ignore his GPS.

{{comic discussion}}

2543: Never Told Anyone

2021-11-18T14:46:23Z

172.70.162.47: /* Explanation */ Employee irony line added.

{{comic
| number = 2543
| date = November 17, 2021
| title = Never Told Anyone
| image = never_told_anyone.png
| titletext = Even if you said you were an employee of the website, if you asked for my password, I'd tell you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TWO-TIME CODE - Please continue expanding the explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic combines stereotypes about two secrets that one would normally be reluctant to share: {{tvtropes|DarkSecret|dark, personal secrets}}, and {{w|password}}s. In the comic, [[Megan]] appears to be about to tell [[Cueball]] a secret of the former variety, but twists it by instead revealing a {{w|one-time password|one-time code}} (presumably for the use of {{w|Multi-factor authentication|2 factor authentication}} for an online account). This is poking fun at the serious-looking warnings that typically accompany the generation of one-time codes. For example: "DO NOT share this code with anyone. We will NEVER call you to ask for it." While this is still something Megan should normally be reluctant to share, it has much less value to Cueball than a personal secret{{Citation needed}} unless his intent was to steal Megan's account - and even then it's probably useless, as these codes become invalid after they're used or a few minutes after generation. Cueball compounds the humor by reacting with a shocked gasp, as one would be more expected to react to a dark secret.

Users are generally warned never to tell their password to anyone, not even a support representative of the site; real technical support reps shouldn't ever need your password, and anyone with a true configured-in authority should never even find it necessary to know/use it, but one tactic that hackers use to break into accounts is to claim to be calling from the site and say that they need your password to fix some vague and/or mythical problem with the account. The title text says that Megan trusts Cueball so much that, despite knowing this, she would divulge her password to him even if he tried this approach on her. There is a further irony here, as Megan is focusing on the exception to the rule ("Don't *even* tell an employee" implies "You shouldn't tell *anyone*") as if it was the most important factor.

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

:[Cueball and Megan are holding hands and standing on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a vast stretch of land with water to the right and mountains far off.]
:Megan: I've never told anyone this before.

:[Frame only shows Cueball and Megan now.]
:Megan: I know I shouldn't.
:Megan: But I feel like I can trust you.

:[Megan and Cueball are no longer holding hands.]
:Megan: My one-time code is 263827.
:[Cueball puts his hands to his mouth in shock.]
:Cueball: ''*Gasp*''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Romance]]
[[Category: Computer security]]

Talk:2541: Occam

2021-11-15T00:13:54Z

172.70.162.47:

The minimalist nature of the cartoon seems appropriate to the subject.
I think keeping the explanation simple would also be appropriate.
My attempt was:

Combines {{w| Occam's razor}} with the {{w| barber paradox}}.
The title text refers to {{w| Murphy's law}}.

Which promptly was greatly expanded. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.131|162.158.106.131]] 20:28, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

:Aye, sorry about that. I also thought I was minimalist (except for the different Incomplete-BOT-thing submitted, probably) and consciously overwrote you by my own 'from scratch' one after I got the inevitable edit-conflict. I might not have done, but I believe your explanation would have suffered later hyperverbiation by others, anyway, but mine covered at least one extra issue (the continuity of the razor throughout it all) that could postpone this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.57|172.70.162.57]] 20:36, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

::No worries. "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" - Thoreau
::"Why didn't he just say Simplify" - One of the panelists on Says You [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.131|162.158.106.131]] 20:46, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't the name of the comic be "Razor", since that's the common concept? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

The highest likelihood (and funnier line) is that Peter (referring to The Peter Principle) grabs the razor.{{unsigned}}

Benford may have something to say about the number of injuries he subsequently observes needing treatment, on any given day... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 04:55, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

This comic really reminds me of [[1505: Ontological Argument]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.70|172.70.35.70]] 16:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)Bumpf
:Megan and Cueball are walking similarly as that comic and [[1315: Questions for God]]. But Megan's hair seemed to have thinned out in 1505. Was Randall's pen running low that day? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:59, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I always thought that the simplest explanation for the Barber paradox, is that the barber is female, so she is not one of the men who does not shave themselves & there is no paradox. 
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:30, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think most people would know what “bad failure modes” are. (I certainly don’t.) [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 19:15, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
:Rather than to fail-safe, it will fail-dangerous. A razor that fails-safe will just not shave as desired. One that fails-dangerous will perhaps cut more than the (un)desired beard and/or stubble. And now you know what "bad failure modes" means, do feel free to use as concise a phrasing as you think will suffice in its place.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 00:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)