explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

272: Linux User at Best Buy

2022-05-04T22:06:42Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 252994 by Ex Kay Cee Dee (talk)

{{comic
| number = 272
| date = June 4, 2007
| title = Linux User at Best Buy
| image = linux_user_at_best_buy.png
| titletext = We actually stand around the antivirus displays with the Mac users just waiting for someone to ask.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Best Buy}} is an American chain of electronics and media stores. As with many such big box shops, they only sell pre-bundled software and boxed pre-built hardware, where the computers on offer are either {{w|iMac|Macs}} or {{w|Personal computer|other PCs}}, usually pre-installed with some variant of the {{w|Mac OS X}} or {{w|Windows NT}} operating system families. Most personal computer {{w|Hacker (hobbyist)|hackers/enthusiasts}} (as opposed merely to workaday computer users) wouldn't be caught dead buying a pre-made computer, preferring instead to build their own using self-selected hardware components and install and configure their own preferred operating systems and software. As such, the subtext is that somebody buying a complete pre-packaged home computer system at Best Buy wouldn't know or care much about computers.

The salesperson is trying to sell {{w|antivirus software}} to [[Cueball]] because selling such software (e.g. {{w|Norton AntiVirus|Norton}} or {{w|Kaspersky Internet Security|Kaspersky}}) to prospective Windows PC owners is generally a good sales tactic. The vast majority of all computer {{w|malware}} is engineered specifically to exploit Windows, and Windows' inherent anti-malware protection might most charitably be described with the phrase "lacklustre, but not as bad as before." Windows users therefore ''will'' want antivirus protection, ''especially'' for use on a brand new machine that will soon be connected up to the Internet. Moreover, because the ecosystem of viruses and malware that thrive by infecting Windows PCs is constantly evolving (see [[350: Network]]) and being redesigned to take advantage of new exploits and fool last-month's antivirus software, it is quite prudent for a Windows PC owner to always keep their malware protection absolutely up-to-date, and many such security suites need to be regularly renewed with new versions.

While some viruses and malware ''can'' afflict {{w|Linux}}, in general {{w|Unix-like}} operating systems (including {{w|Linux_distribution|Linux distributions}} and {{w|Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD}}) are far more robust and secure than Windows, with fewer exploitable vulnerabilities. Perhaps even more importantly, Linux (not counting Android, which was not yet released) has a far smaller consumer market share, therefore offers less incentive to malware makers to target it. Therefore, Cueball is confident (rightfully so) that he will be fine without additional security. Moreover, Linux is {{w|free software}}, which means that anyone is able to audit the code and fix security bugs. Although malware protection ''usually'' isn't necessary, if extra protection is desired by the user, such as for tasks requiring very high security standards (such as on servers and supercomputers), there are anti-malware solutions available such as {{w|Clam_AntiVirus|ClamAV}}.

Back in 2007, when the less popular {{w|Windows Vista}} was released and with a stagnant Mac market, many in the Linux community believed that Linux would soon wipe out Windows as the operating system of choice for desktop PCs, after years of slow-but-steady growth. This explains the cheeky triumphalism of the final panels of the comic, in which Cueball hops on his quick, slick vehicle and speeds away. It's worth noting that this desktop reversal has not happened, though Linux did achieve a [http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp peak in popularity in 2011], just as Windows users were laboriously switching from {{w|Windows XP}} to {{w|Windows 7}}, with Linux peaking again in 2014 and Windows arguably in decline, and in any case, desktop PCs themselves have slowed in sales, losing ground first to {{w|laptop}}s and most recently to {{w|Embedded software|embedded device}}s, where Linux use does indeed heavily exceed the competition, e.g. {{w|Android (operating system)|Android}} (which is loosely based on the Linux kernel) handily out-competing both the previously dominant {{w|iPhone}} (which was first released mere days after this comic) and the never-popular {{w|Windows Phone}}.

The title text makes sense in light of the fact that, like Linux, the software design of OS X (both are based on Unix, OS X through Darwin - see [[676: Abstraction]]) limits the amount of harm that can be done by malicious software, and Macs thus also have fewer viruses and malware than Windows. Apparently, Mac and Linux users flock together just waiting for some salesperson to come along and mistake them for someone gullible enough to use Windows. [https://www.avast.com/c-can-macs-get-viruses There is a notion that Macs can't get infected], but Mac malware is on the rise. This is taking the piss out of the smugness sometimes to be found among Mac and Linux users, who may view their preferred systems as hip and different from the "mainstream" Microsoft systems that they feel are manifestly inferior.

==Transcript==
:Salesman: Interested in updating your antivirus software?
:Cueball: Oh, I wouldn't need any of that.

:[In a spiky speech bubble.]
:Cueball: I run Linux.

:[Cueball does a backflip onto a motorcycle.]
:''Flip''

:[Cueball performs a wheelie on the motorcycle.]

:[Cueball does a hard, donut turn on the motorcycle, kicking up dirt into the salesman's face.]

:[Cueball speeds off on the motorcycle, leaving the salesman in a cloud of black exhaust.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Linux]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1638: Backslashes

2022-05-04T22:06:21Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 252910 by Ex Kay Cee Dee (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1638
| date = February 3, 2016
| title = Backslashes
| image = backslashes.png
| titletext = I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt | grep -o "[[(].*[])][^)]]*$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.
}}

==Explanation==
Most programming languages use the concept of a {{w|String literal|string}} literal, which is just a text between some delimiters, usually quotes. For example, "Hello, world" is a string literal. The text being represented is ''Hello, world'' without the quotes. However, the quotes are also written to mark the beginning and end of the string. This is a problem when the text itself contains a quote, as in "This is a "quoted" string". The quotes around the word "quoted" are intended to be part of the text, but the {{w|Lexical analysis|language processor}} will likely confuse it for the end of the string, which would thus be two strings with ''quoted'' outside these strings (probably resulting in a syntax error).

To avoid this problem, an {{w|Escape character|escape character}} (usually a backslash) is prepended to non-string-terminating quotes. So, the previous text would be written as "This is a \"quoted\" string". The language processor will substitute every occurrence of \" with only the quote character, and the string terminates at the quote character which does not immediately follow a backslash. In this case the resulting text string would be ''This is a "quoted" string'' as intended.

However, the problem now is that the intended text might contain a backslash itself. For example, the text "C:\" will now be interpreted as an unterminated string containing a quote character. To avoid this, literal backslashes also are escaped with a second backslash, i.e. instead of "C:\" we write "C:\\", where the language processor interprets \\ as one single backslash and the quote terminates the string to give ''C:\'' as the output.

This doubling of backslashes happens in most programming and scripting languages, but also in other syntactic constructs such as {{w|Regular expression|regular expressions}}. So, when several of these languages are used in conjunction, backslashes pile up exponentially (each layer has to double the number of slashes). See example of a backslash explosion and alternatives to avoid this [[#Backslash explosion and alternatives|below]].

This kind of backslash explosion is known as {{w|Leaning toothpick syndrome}}, and can happen in [[1313: Regex Golf|many situations]]. Below is an explanation of all the [[#Entries in the list|entries in the comic]].

The backslash explosion in the title text is about a {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|bash}} command (which uses the backslash to escape arguments) invoking the {{w|grep}} utility which searches for text following a pattern specified by means of a regular expression (which also uses the backslash to escape special characters). This leads to 3 backslashes in a row in the command, which could easily become 7 backslashes in a row if the text being searched for also contains a backslash.

Even advanced users who completely understand the concept often have a hard time figuring out exactly how many backslashes are required in a given situation. It is hopelessly frustrating to carefully calculate exactly the number of backslashes and then noticing that there's a mistake so the whole thing doesn't work. At a point, it becomes easier to just keep throwing backslashes in until things work than trying to reason what the correct number is.

It's unclear whether the regular expression in the title text is valid or not. A long discussion about the validity of the expression has occurred here on this explanation's [[Talk:1638: Backslashes|talk page]]. The fact that many editors of the site, often themselves extremely technically qualified,{{Citation needed}}{{Citation needed}} can't determine whether the expression is valid or not, adds a meta layer to the joke of the comic. This is an example of [[356: Nerd Sniping|nerd sniping]] (oh, the irony\!\!\!\).

===Entries in the list===
*The first four examples have names that are (somewhat) based on what they actually produce:
**'''Backslash''': 1 backslash appropriately named
**'''Real backslash''': 2 backslashes are labeled correctly as they do indeed refer to an escaped backslash.
**'''''Real'' real backslash''': 3 backslashes would refer to an escaped backslash followed by an unescaped one. The first two backslashes would combine to make a ''real backslash'' while the third one would combine with the character following it to form an {{w|Escape sequence|escape sequence}}. The name does thus not make a lot of sense, as this is two escape sequences and not a single "very real" one.
**'''Actual backslash, for real this time''': 4 backslashes form one single backslash escaped twice (the first escaping produces two backslashes, the second escaping doubles each of the backslashes). This is so common that even the documentation for the {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}} regular expression library has a section called [https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html Regular expression operations] that mentions "\\\\" explicitly. In this case, the backslash has to be escaped once for being part of a regular expression and then ''each'' of these once more as the regular expression needs to be written inside a Python string. This is named in reference to the fact that the previous examples didn't contain enough escaping.
*The remaining five examples of backslashes have more and more occult names (explanations) and do not refer to any more real uses of backslash escapes:
**'''Elder backslash''': 5 backslashes would be a doubly-escaped backslash plus an unescaped one. The reference to {{w|Elder}} in the comic has many meanings. It has become known through fantasy media; Most prominent with the {{w|Elder Days}}, which are the first Ages of {{w|Middle-earth}} in {{w|The Silmarillion}}, the more-or-less prequel to {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}. More recently it has been used in the {{w|Harry Potter}} universe where the ''Deathly Hallow'' called the ''{{w|Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter#Deathly_Hallows|Elder wand}}'', made from {{w|Sambucus|Elder wood}}, is a very important part of the last book ''{{w|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}}''. Other examples are the {{w|Elder Gods}} of the {{w|Cthulhu Mythos}} as well as various 'Elder' magical items and beings in the {{w|Dungeons and Dragons}} mythologies.
**'''Backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain''': 6 backslashes is a play on the word "escape" as the backslash is supposed to be an "escape character" but obviously not "escaping the screen" and entering your brain. This could also be understood as the programmer is getting backslashes on his mind, when he goes beyond the ''Elder backslash'' domain...
**'''Backslash so real it transcends time and space ''': 7 backslashes goes further than escaping the screen as they now {{w|Transcendence (philosophy)|transcends}} both {{w|Spacetime|time and space}}
**'''Backslash to end all other text''': 8 backslashes would be a triply-escaped backslash (same as 4 backslashes but with an additional escaping layer). It is said to "end all other text", i.e. there should never be any more text if someone uses eight in a row. But there could be more as indicated in the last example.
**'''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater''': {{w|Infinity|∞ backslashes}} (11 are shown but followed by "..." to indicate that they continue forever). If you could write an infinite number of backslashes it would actually be ''The true name of {{w|Baal|Ba'al}}, the {{w|Soul eater (folklore)|Soul-Eater}}''. This indicates that if you continue misusing backslashes like this you will end up devoured by a demon, for instance {{w|Beelzebub}}, for being so thoughtless... Ba'al has been mentioned before in [[1419: On the Phone]] and in the title text of [[1246: Pale Blue Dot]].

===Backslash explosion and alternatives===
A reasonable example of a backslash explosion would be a {{w|PHP}} script on a web server which writes {{w|JavaScript}} code with a {{w|Regular Expression}} to be run on the client. If the JavaScript code has to test a string to see if ''it'' has a double-backslash, the Regular Expression to do so would be:
\\\\
where the first two backslashes represent a single backslash and the second two also represent a single backslash, so this searches for two consecutive back slashes.
And the JavaScript would be:
RegExp("\\\\\\\\").test(str);
where every two backslashes means just one backslashes in the string, so the 8 backslashes in JavaScript become 4 backslashes in the Regular Expression.
However, since this JavaScript code is to be written through a PHP script, the PHP code would be:
echo "RegExp(\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\").test(str);";
where:
* The word <code>echo</code> is the PHP command for writing something
* The first quote starts the string
* The <code>RegExp(</code> - including the open parenthesis - is written literally
* The <code>\"</code> following that is a literal quote to be written
* The first two slashes produce one single slash
* And so on until 8 backward slashes are written
* The next <code>\"</code> produces a literal quote character
* The <code>).test(str);</code> is written literally
* The next quote finishes the string.
* The final semicolon terminates the <code>echo</code> command
So, the presented scenario has escalated from a simple test for <code>\\</code> to no less than seventeen backslashes in a row without stepping out of the most common operations.

If we go a bit further and try to write a {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} program that outputs our PHP script, we'd have:
System.out.println("echo \"RegExp(\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\").test(str);\";");
Here, we have 35 backslashes in a row: the first 34 produce the 17 we need in our PHP script, and the last one is for escaping the quote character. (This comes closer to ''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater'').

Some programming languages provide alternative matching string literal delimiters to limit situations where escaping of delimiters is needed. Often, one can begin and end a string with either a single quote or a double quote. This allows one to write <code>'This is a "quoted" string'</code> if double quote marks are intended in the string literal or <code>"This is a 'quoted' string"</code> if single quote marks are intended. Both kinds of delimiters can't be used in the same string literal, but if one needs to construct a string containing both kinds of quote marks one can often concatenate two string literals, each of which uses a different delimiter.

Another feature that seems to be popular in modern programming languages is to provide an alternative syntax for string delimiters designed specifically to limit leaning toothpick syndrome. For example, in Python, a string literal starting with <code>r"</code> is a "raw string" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_literal#Raw_strings] in which no escape processing is done, with similar semantics for a string starting with <code>@"</code> in C#. This allows one to write <code>r"C:\Users"</code>  in Python or <code>@"C:\Users"</code> in C# without the need to escape the backslash. This does not allow one to embed the terminating delimiter in the middle of the string and prevents the use of the backslash to encode the newline character as <code>\n</code>, but comes in handy when writing a string encoding of a regular expression in which the backslash is escaping one or more other punctuation characters or a shorthand character class (e.g., <code>\s</code> for a whitespace character). For example, when looking for an anchor tag in HTML, developers may encode the regular expression as <code><[Aa]\s[^>]*></code>. If they express this regular expression as a raw string literal, the code looks like <code>r"<[Aa]\s[^>]*>"</code> instead of <code>"<[Aa]\\s[^>]*>"</code>. The point here is that "leaning toothpick syndrome" is such a real problem that it has influenced programming language implementations.

==Transcript==
:[A list of the names of different numbers of backslashes. After each "item" there is a gray line to the text describing each item. As the text is aligned above each other, the lines becomes shorter as the sequence of backslashes becomes longer until there is just a line with the length of a single hyphen for the last item. There are 1 to 8 backslashes and then 11 plus "..." in the last entry.]
:\------------ Backslash
:\\----------- Real backslash
:\\\---------- ''Real'' real backslash
:\\\\---------- Actual backslash, for real this time
:\\\\\--------- Elder backslash
:\\\\\\-------- Backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain
:\\\\\\\------- Backslash so real it transcends time and space
:\\\\\\\\------ Backslash to end all other text
:\\\\\\\\\\\...- The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater

==Note on Title Text==
The title text when first published was

I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt | grep -o "\\\[[(].*\\\[\])][^)\]]*$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.

It was changed within a few days to

I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt | grep -o "[[(].*[])][^)]]*$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.

The original title text seems to be more relevant to the comic, but the revised title text seems to make more sense as a legitimate command line due to the way backslashes are interpreted in regular expressions. See the Discussion below for much more on the topic.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Regex]]
[[Category:Programming]]

2609: Entwives

2022-05-04T17:40:28Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 241100 by Ex Kay Cee Dee (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2609
| date = April 20, 2022
| title = Entwives
| image = entwives.png
| titletext = No, we actually do have a woman who's basically part of our fellowship. She lives in Rivendell, you wouldn't know her.
}}
*The comic is a link to a YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 video].

==Explanation==
In {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}, the {{w|Ent|Ents}} are a species of tree-like humanoids, such as the one depicted in this comic. The comic shows an Ent, presumably {{w|Treebeard}}, meeting with some of the nine from the {{w|Fellowship_of_the_Ring_(characters)|Fellowship of the Ring}}. The image is inaccurate inasmuch as it shows three {{w|hobbits}}: during the Ents' interactions with the Fellowship, two of the four hobbits ({{w|Frodo Baggins|Frodo}} and {{w|Samwise Gamgee|Sam}}) were elsewhere in {{w|Middle Earth}}, so it was only {{w|Merry Brandybuck|Merry}} and {{w|Pippin Took|Pippin}} who met the ents. The other three in the image are the human {{w|Aragorn}}, the Dwarf {{w|Gimli (Middle-earth)|Gimli}} and the Elf {{w|Legolas}}. The last two of the nine, not depicted, were the wizard {{w|Gandalf}} and the human {{w|Boromir}}.

Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all the females of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) had disappeared thousands of years before during {{w|Sauron}}'s war of the {{w|History_of_Arda#Second_Age|second age}}. The Ents and the Entwives lived in separate locations, and eventually, when the Ents went to visit the Entwives, the latter were seemingly nowhere to be found. The Ents have been searching for their lost mates ever since. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture. It is several thousands years ago in the time of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Ents have all but forgotten how the Entwives even looked. They live for many thousands of years.

This comic uses that backstory to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the protagonists of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship, the Ent assumes that they must come from a race afflicted by a similar tragedy. In a broader sense, this can be read as a commentary on how few female characters there are in the trilogy overall. In reality, the general lore presents, or at least mentions, the existence of at least multiple (if not numerous) female characters of almost all races that make up the fellowship (dwarf, man, elf, hobbit), and does not suggest that what happened with the Ents and their Entwives happened to any other race.

The clickable link on the image leads to the satirical video ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 Lord of the Rings Trilogy but it's EVERY scene where two female characters interact]''. The creator claims that this shows all the scenes from the trilogy where two female characters interact. There is only one 3 second long scene, which only emphasizes how few female characters there are in the trilogy. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a baseline indicator of the representation of women in a piece of media that requires two women to have a conversation about something other than a man. Whether this three-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable. Later versions of the test suggest that the two women should be named (i.e. not just two incidental characters that have very few lines), whereas this scene is between {{w|Éowyn}} and an unnamed girl. There is debate as to if there are other scenes with women speaking with women, and if we are only talking about human women, or if other races females would also count. There are at least three important female characters, but they do not meet/speak much if at all. But they have several scenes where they talk, even a long monologue... But if they speak to someone it is male characters.

The title text most likely refers to the character of {{w|Arwen}}, an elf woman and, later, wife of Aragorn; while somewhat important to the story, she is nowhere near as significant as the males of the Fellowship, despite being used more prominently in the movies than in the books. Even if she were part of the Fellowship, a single important woman wouldn't counterbalance the heavily male-centric storytelling.

The way that the title text is phrased is a reference to the proverbial (and implicitly imaginary) "{{tvtropes|GirlfriendInCanada|Girlfriend in Canada}}," a trope in which a single American character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada" (or some other sufficient separation such as "goes to another school"), when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. {{w|Canada}} is one of only two countries with which the United States has land borders, making it a potentially plausible place for some American's long-distance girlfriend to live, and presumably the Fellowship consider the Elf kingdom of {{w|Rivendell}} to be sufficiently distant to allow the Ent to accept the plausibility of the statement without any further delving into potentially awkward details.

==Transcript==
:[A large treelike person (an Ent, maybe Treebeard) is holding one of his arms out towards six characters that are all looking at him. A man (Aragorn) with beard stubble and long hair, a dwarf (Gimli) with a helmet and a very large beard, an elf (Legolas) with long blonde hair (holding a bow down), and three short persons, hobbits, two with dark hair, and the middle one with blonde hair.]
:Ent: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.
:Aragorn: I'm so sorry.
:Ent: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?
:Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:LOTR]]

973: MTV Generation

2022-05-04T01:34:51Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 235938 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 973
| date = November 4, 2011
| title = MTV Generation
| image = mtv_generation.png
| titletext = If you identified with the kids from The Breakfast Club when it came out, you're now much closer to the age of Principal Vernon.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|MTV}} stands for "Music Television", which is the name of a US-based cable channel, founded in 1981, specifically focusing on popular music and the music industry in general. The programming largely (though not exclusively) consisted of {{w|music video}}s. The focus of the channel has since shifted to {{w|reality shows}}. In the channel's heyday in the 1980's and early 1990's, it was popular with teenagers and young adults. As is often the case with youth culture, it was roundly condemned by some adults as being destructive and pointless. One of the specific criticisms was that the format of short videos, with quick-edit, highly kinetic visual styles and no underlying narrative was destroying the attention span of the youth.

Despite MTV no longer being especially popular (and no longer focusing on music videos), people still use the term '''MTV Generation''' to refer to the young cohort, and insist that they have poor attention spans, resulting from their media exposure. [[Megan]] explains that the term really originated about 25 years ago, to describe {{w|Generation X}}, the generation born from 1965 to 1980. The actual MTV generation has long since grown up, and most young people today either don't watch MTV, or have no idea that it was originally a music channel. Teenagers today are the children of "the MTV generation" (and even their grandchildren, in some cases).

{{w|The Breakfast Club}} is an iconic movie from 1985 in which 5 teenagers spend a Saturday detention together at school. Principal Vernon was the overseer of the detention, and a symbol of authority and oppression of youth - the actor playing principal Vernon was around 45 years old at the time of filming. The irony is that many adults who grew up watching the movie still identify with the teenagers, but now have little in common with them.

There are a couple of themes in this strip that [[Randall]] has covered before. One is mocking adults for the assumptions they make about young people, youth culture and new technology. Adults have a tendency to whitewash the past, and insist that modern young people are being corrupted by new trends. And when that generation of youth grows up, they tend to make the same assumptions about the next generation. [[1601: Isolation]], [[1227: The Pace of Modern Life]], [[1414: Writing Skills]], [[1348: Before the Internet]]

Another theme is making people feel old by pointing out how long ago their common memories are, as in [[647: Scary]], [[891: Movie Ages]], [[1393: Timeghost]], [[1477: Star Wars]], and [[2165: Millennials]].

==Transcript==

:[Teenager playing with phone walks in background. White Hat and Megan are in the foreground.]
:White Hat: See, that's the problem with the MTV generation— No attention span.
:Teenager's phone: ''Bleep bloop''

:[White Hat and Megan in frameless panel without teenager from previous panel.]
:Megan: You know, that phrase referred to the 12-19 demographic that formed the core MTV audience in the mid-1980s.

:[Zoom in on Megan with White Hat off-panel to the left.]
:White Hat (off-panel): Uh huh? So?
:Megan: That generation's now in their 40s.

:[Zoom back out to White Hat and Megan, with White Hat scratching his head.]
:White Hat: That can't be right.
:Megan: Face it: Your problem with the MTV generation is their ''kids''.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]

1142: Coverage

2022-05-04T01:34:36Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 234457 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1142
| date = December 3, 2012
| title = Coverage
| image = coverage.png
| titletext = My resonant tunneling diode phone has limited range but a short enough wavelength to penetrate even the densest cages. This gives me a major combat advantage, hopefully.
}}

==Explanation==
The caption "faraday cagematch" is a portmanteau of "faraday cage" and "cagematch".

A {{w|Faraday cage}} is a cage of conducting material that interferes and blocks out {{w|electromagnetic radiation}} like cell phone signals, provided the material is of the appropriate thickness and the gaps between the "bars" are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. A {{w|cage match}} is a type of professional wrestling match in which the participants fight in a ring enclosed by a metal cage. The comic caption is a play on the two terms, putting [[Cueball]] into a cage match in the Faraday cage that is blocking his reception.

Also the fact that Cueball gets hit in the face immediately after stating that the coverage is awful might be a joke about the different meanings of the word cover, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing#Defense|in boxing for example] the word cover-up is a defensive technique, while [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_network#Mobile_phone_network|cell phone coverage] refers to the connection quality of his phone to the mobile phone network. The fact that Cueball, obviously referring to his phone signal, complains about awful coverage (caused by the faraday cage) while his head is also badly or not at all covered (caused by himself), which allows his opponent to strike him, might be described as ironically comedic.

The title text is a play on a rule in cage matches that states that a participant wins if they are first to escape the cage. {{w|Tunneling diode|Tunneling diodes}} are capable of fast operation, allowing a device to generate high frequency signals, which are more capable of penetrating the mesh openings in a Faraday cage.

Randall uses Faraday cages again in [[Faraday Tour]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is looking at a phone.]
:Cueball: Man, the coverage here is ''awfu—''

:[Another man punches Cueball.]
:[Caption below the panel:] Faraday cagematch
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Phones]]

2139: Email Settings

2022-05-04T01:34:24Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 233893 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2139
| date = April 19, 2019
| title = Email Settings
| image = email_settings.png
| titletext = What are all these less-than signs? What's an HREF? Look, we know you live in a fancy futuristic tech world, but not all of us have upgraded to the latest from Sun Microsystems.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic shows some email settings with a few less-than-helpful options.

*'''Default Reply Behavior'''
*:Normal reply behavior would be to reply to the person who sent the original email. Typically in email programs, there is an option to Reply to all (reply all) other recipients of an email in addition to the sender. Depending on the email usage pattern this is a potentially useful or a potentially annoying option. "Forward to address book" takes this one step further by sending your reply to every person who is in your address book, whether they received the original email or not. This could be a reference to "{{w|Chain_letter|chain emails}}", which are popularly forwarded to many users.
*'''Vacation Autoresponder'''
*:This is a message that is automatically sent out in reply to an email to let them know that you are away and won't be replying until you return. Rather than the settings being "on" and "off", this system consists of "while on vacation" and "always". Email systems typically have no way of knowing that you're on vacation (although some email providers, such as Gmail, could figure out if you're on vacation using information gleaned from your emails, such as hotel and flight confirmations). The "reply to all emails with vacation notice, even when I'm not on vacation" is an option used by some companies (e.g. travel agencies) to let the sender of a request know the expected reply timeline and similar information. In the second case, the notice is not a "vacation notice", but applies the same functionality of the email program.
*'''Reply to all newsletters with "Thank you for the newsletter!"'''
*:This option is completely unnecessary, in that newsletters are usually automated and shotgunned out to thousands of addresses at once, often with a do-not-reply address. Clues such as those aside, this also somewhat presumes that the system can reliably identify all (and only all) the messages that are indeed newsletters.
*'''Attachment limit'''
*:These {{w|Email attachment|attachment}} limits are all pretty small, with 300 kilobytes and 1.4 megabytes being the capacity of old 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disks, and 5 megabytes, while better, is smaller than most high-resolution cell phone camera pictures. It being in beta means that it might not be as dependable. However, setting the maximum attachment size would likely not be a user setting; it would be a setting the email system enforces on the user. In the past with slow connections and very limited mailbox sizes, this option was useful to keep the message size in check. Presently, Gmail still has the same 25MB attachment limit it had in 2004.
*'''Default email format:'''
:*Plain text is self-explanatory; plain text with no special formatting options. {{w|HTML}} means that it can have markup to allow for bold text, colors, etc. {{w|CSS}} is in reference to Cascading Style Sheets, which is a styling option often combined with HTML, but useless on its own. With emails, it is typically used as inline CSS.
*'''Reply to HTML emails with "Whoa, buddy, what's all this code?"'''
*:HTML email is a format for sending email with {{w|Formatted text|rich-text}} contents, which may include images and links. If your email client isn't configured for HTML, the content may look like text interspersed with a bunch of weird code. Since HTML email is a common format, replying this way to every HTML email you receive can be an effective way to annoy people. This may be a "throwback" option: a few years ago, email systems didn't always recognize HTML emails, so if you sent an HTML email you might very well receive this kind of reply.
*'''Character set'''
*:{{w|ASCII}} is the character group containing all of the letters in the English alphabet, as well as the digits and common symbols. The Non-ASCII set contains all of the non-English alphabets and the rest of the (lesser-used) symbols. Some of those characters, such as those from Cyrillic and Greek, resemble letters from the Latin alphabet; when spammers use these resemblances to deceive users, it is called an {{w|IDN homograph attack}}, but now that this email client is set to exclude ASCII characters, the user must use the same technique to communicate with speakers of most European languages. Older computer programs often only allowed ASCII characters or a much more limited set of characters than the full amount of recognized {{w|Unicode}} characters, and the email protocol itself requires a form of encoding (often MIME, these days) to send 8-or-more-bit characters via systems designed for the 7-bit transportation that covers the ASCII set and allowed non-printable characters. It would be unusual today for an email program to default to only allow for ASCII characters to be read or written, although someone might want to deliberately set things that way. The second option is nonsense because, while you would likely want to allow other characters, you would definitely not want to allow '''only''' those and exclude the ASCII characters (so people couldn't use regular letters or numbers or the most common punctuation, although most East Asian users can use the {{w|Fullwidth}} form of Latin letters instead).
*'''Smart autocomplete'''
*:Some email platforms, including Gmail, have the ability to use machine learning to suggest possible, usually short reply options for you to choose from. If the original email asks if you want to go to dinner, the auto-complete replies might be, "Yes", "No", "How about Friday?" and then you could choose one, or type your own reply. The third option to automatically respond to ''all'' emails with suggested replies is putting a lot of faith in the computer and is likely to backfire quickly, even more so if your recipients also have activated this option.
*'''Important emails'''
*:Showing important emails is the expected behavior, and hiding only them would be a very strange thing to want to do. If it is set to hide only certain emails, a program would definitely do the opposite, and hide emails judged to be most likely unimportant "spam" emails.
*'''Show unread email count...'''
*:Seeing your unread email count is normal behavior, and a good way to see how much you're getting spammed by useless emails from people you never asked for. A projected unread email count based on when the system expects you to die, and how well you do at reading your email on a day to day basis is probably going to be depressing or in the extreme could be so overwhelming to be the actual cause of death on the projected date. Showing the unread email count on the user's projected day of death could also be a reference to a feature in many video games where the player's score is shown when they die. In this case, the "score" would be the user's unread email count.
*'''Signature'''
*:An {{w|Signature block|email signature}} is a bit of canned text that gets added to the end of an email, often containing your name, and sometimes a bit of other information like a title and other contact information. Having the choices being None and "That's my email. Hope you liked it!" is less useful. Less useful signatures somewhat came into vogue after Apple used it for cheap iPhone advertisement ("Sent from my iPhone") and Apple as well as non-Apple users made fun by using quite creative signatures themselves ([https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/mobile-device-email-signatures-more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know/277950/ here is a breakdown with examples]). For many, the actual purpose of email signatures got lost.
*'''Title text'''
*:The title text also references HTML email, in which angle brackets (i.e, less-than and greater-than symbols) are used to show the opening and closing tags of elements. "href" is a common attribute in HTML elements denoting the location a hyperlink will take you to upon being clicked. This is likely another "throwback" reference as Sun Microsystems was a maker of Unix workstations popular in the late 1980s through 2000s (now part of Oracle Corporation). The message could also be written by someone receiving an HTML email that is not recognized as one and directly shown on the screen.

==Transcript==

:'''Email Settings'''
:[A list of controls with radio buttons and checkboxes]
:Default reply behavior
::( ) Reply
::( ) Reply All
::(*) Forward to address book

:Vacation autoresponder
::(*) While on vacation
::( ) Always

:[x] Reply to all newsletters with "Thank you for the newsletter!"

:Attachment limit
::( ) 300 KB
::(*) 1.4 MB
::( ) 5 MB (Beta)

:Default email format
::(*) Plain text
::( ) HTML
::( ) CSS

:[x] Reply to HTML emails with "Whoa, buddy, what's all this code?"

:Character set
::( ) ASCII (Unicode 0-127 only)
::(*) Non-ASCII (Unicode 128+ only)

:Smart autocomplete
::( ) Do not suggest replies
::( ) Suggest replies
::(*) Automatically respond to all emails with suggested reply

:Important emails
::(*) Show
::( ) Hide

:Show unread email count...
::(*) Now
::( ) On my projected day of death

:Signature
::(*) "That's my email. Hope you liked it!"
::( ) None

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Email]]

483: Fiction Rule of Thumb

2022-05-04T00:45:26Z

172.70.178.33: Undo revision 235598 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 483
| date = October 1, 2008
| title = Fiction Rule of Thumb
| image = fiction_rule_of_thumb.png
| titletext = Except for anything by Lewis Carroll or Tolkien, you get five made-up words per story. I'm looking at you, Anathem.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] uses a graph that purports that the more words an author makes up, the less likely their book is any good. To demonstrate this, he provides an example where a hypothetical author uses three made-up words in a single sentence: "Fra'as", "Farmlings", and "Krytoses". The author clearly does not see that having to insert explanations of all the made-up words makes the sentence extremely clumsy.

The title text declares that the average author is allowed five invented words per book before this rule is invoked against them, but mentions that {{w|J.R.R. Tolkien}} and {{w|Lewis Carroll}} are exceptions, as they are both very famous, well-respected writers {{w|Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien|who made words up}} {{w|Jabberwocky|all the time}}.

Randall also makes a dig at ''{{w|Anathem}}'', a speculative fiction novel by {{w|Neal Stephenson}} about a monastic order on another planet that studies science, mathematics, and philosophy. The book is noteworthy for having a very large number of made-up or repurposed words, enough to require its own glossary. One of the more common fake words is ''fraa'' (without an apostrophe).

==Transcript==
:[Line graph shown with an inverse curve.]
:[Y-Axis: Probability book is good.]
:[X-Axis: Number of words made up by author.]
:[The curve becomes less steep as the number of words increases.]
:"The Elders, or ''Fra'as,'' guarded the ''farmlings'' (children) with their ''krytoses,'' which are like swords but ''awesomer''..."
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:LOTR]]

1606: Five-Day Forecast

2022-05-03T23:22:35Z

172.70.178.33: rv vandalism

{{comic
| number = 1606
| date = November 20, 2015
| title = Five-Day Forecast
| image = five_day_forecast.png
| titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years.
}}
A different user-made version for the picture using Celsius instead of Fahrenheit can be found here: [[:File:five_day_forecast_Celsius.png|Five day forecast in Celsius]].

==Explanation==
{{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w|Meteorology#Meteorologists|meteorologists}} only provide us with a five-day forecast.

In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a '''Five-Day Forecast''' and then progressing to five-month, year, million, billion and finally trillion-year forecast, {{tvtropes|WeirdWeather|leading to weather patterns that we don't usually see on a regular basis.}}

Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we must assume this indicates the weather today (and not tomorrow or in a trillion years). It is first in the second panel that we have made the first jump according to the label. Consequently, the last column gives the predictions for four days, four months, ..., four trillion years from today.

When moving past the five days, the forecast is just a qualified guess based on the time of year. In a month it is Christmas as shown in the second panel of the second row. And then it is winter with January and February so snow is likely, but certainly not something that happens on all days of a winter month.

Looking at the five-year forecast, guesses are made as to what the weather will be like at the same time of year. For these first three predictions the weather symbols are all of the same three types. Sun, clouds and some kind of {{w|precipitation}}, rain or snow. And the temperature range from 21 to 44 °F (-6.1 to 6.6 °C), winter temperature.

Then we go into the far future, jumping a million years from panel to panel. But still the weather symbols stay the same. However, in 3 million years time aliens (or advanced humans) attack with energy beams from something looking like {{w|flying saucers}}. They are gone a million years later. The temperature range is still the same (except that it rises to 52 °F or 11.1 °C, a possible reference to global warming) in one panel. But then while the attack is going on the temperature rises to 275 °F (135 °C).

Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather". Because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in its {{w|Sun#Main sequence|main sequence|}}), it will still grow in diameter as it begins to exhaust its supply of fuel. The core will contract to increase the temperature, and the outer layer will then compensate by expanding slightly. This is what is indicated in panels two and three where the color of the Sun changes towards red as the surface becomes less hot as it expands away from the center of the Sun. The temperature will rise on Earth as indicated in the panels (105 °F = 40.5 °C and 371 °F = 188 °C). So in two billion years the temperature is hot enough that all the earth's oceans will have boiled away… Actually this will happen already in about [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html a billion years].

Then once there is {{w|Sun#After core hydrogen exhaustion|no longer enough hydrogen}} the Sun will truly expand into a {{w|red giant}}. This should not happen until five billion years from now,{{Citation needed}} but in the forecast it is indicated to happen already in three. Maybe this is Randall taking liberties to show what happens during this phase, which would not fit into a five-billion-years forecast. Alternatively it is just indicating how uncertain these kinds of forecasts are, or a statement that we may not know for certain that it will take five not three billion years.
Disregarding this, the fourth panel shows the temperature at Earth's position inside the red giant Sun. The color of the panel indicates that we are inside the Sun. The temperature is 71,488,106 degrees Fahrenheit (39,715,597 degrees Celsius). The current temperature of the center of the Sun is "only" 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius). And although that may rise by a factor of ten during {{w|Stellar nucleosynthesis|helium fusion}} then that will only be at the very core and not out in the solar atmosphere reaching out to Earth Here the temperature would only be of the order of thousands of Fahrenheit, since the Sun's outer temperature decreases as it increases its diameter. So this panels temperature also makes little sense. It may involve some ambiguities regarding what the forecast means; the edge of the red giant Sun is predicted to be somewhere near the current orbit of Earth, but the position of the Earth could change. The most likely prediction at the moment is for Earth to move outward, but if the planet is engulfed by the Sun, it would spiral inward, and at some point fall apart. So in some sense "here" for the forecast could become a position deep inside the Sun, where core temperatures could reach 100 million Kelvin.

The red giant phase only lasts half a million years, so a billion years after the Sun has been a red giant its outer atmosphere will for sure have disappeared leaving only a {{w|white dwarf}} to cool down. Given Randall's version of this time schedule, then it will have had about a billion years to cool down, but would still likely be the brightest object in the sky as seen from where the Earth once was. It is not indicated in the last panel, where we just see other stars of the Galaxy. The temperature is down to that of the {{w|Cosmic microwave background|background radiation}}. Today this radiation has a temperature of 2.72548 kelvin = -270.4245 °C = -454.7641 °F. So this is a few degree F colder than what is shown in the comic which states the temperature is -452 °F = 4.26 kelvin. This higher temperature may have been chosen to reflect that even the star light from other stars would increase the actual temperature.

In the last panel with trillion years, we jump right past the Sun's Red Giant phase, to a panel looking much like the one after five billion years with only other stars. Over the next three trillion years the stars become fewer and fewer and dimmer and dimmer as they run out of fuel and fewer new stars form. After four trillion years the background temperature even decreases one degree to -453 °F as the universe keeps expanding and the wavelength of the radiation does the same, thus decreasing its temperature.

The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes."

A ten days forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]]. In [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]] Randall looked at the weather over long periods of time as well.

==Transcript==
:[A grid with six rows of five columns, where each row is labeled to the left. For each of the 30 squares a temperature is given in Fahrenheit at the top left. The rest of the square represents the weather as in a weather forecast (or some other relevant items for the comic), mainly in bright colors. Below are the six labels given above each of their five weather symbols with temperature given below these symbols description.]

:'''Your 5-day forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:41°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:44°F

:'''Your 5-month forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A green Christmas tree with red presents beneath it.]
:29°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:21°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:24°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:35°F

:'''Your 5-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:25°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:37°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:41°F

:'''Your 5-million-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:52°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:40°F
:[Two red flying saucers (with bright domes) are shooting energy beams downwards. One of the beams seems to impact with something at the bottom of the panel, which then explodes. Two plumes of smoke rises up from below, drifting to the right.]
:275°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F

:'''Your 5-billion-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A larger orange sun.]
:105°F
:[A very large red sun.]
:371°F
:[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.]
:71,488,106°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F

:'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with many stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with fewer not so bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with few dim stars.]
:-453°F

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Aliens]]

2614: 2

2022-05-03T14:50:36Z

172.70.178.33: I don't understand how this wasn't already here

{{comic
| number = 2614
| date = May 2, 2022
| title = 2
| image = 2.png
| titletext = It's like sigma summation notation, except instead of summing the argument over all values of i, you 2 the argument over all values of 2.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 2 squared - Please change this comment when editing this page. The titletext needs to be worked in there, but I think I got everything else in some sort of order, pending general improvements. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This demonstrates the different ways in which the number 2 can be typeset in various scientific fields.

The dotted box represents any character (presumably a letter or bigram of letters). All the other notation consists only of the digit 2, in various fashions with occasional additional punctuation, and labelled as to what the 'purpose' might normally be of any particular element(s) as indicated, with respect to the general term, in the following fashions:
;Regular Math
:Precedes the term. "2x" indicates two times the value of ''x'' in normal {{w|algebra|algebraic}} use that should be familiar for many people. {{Citation needed}}
;Physics
:A preceding superscript. "2H" would indicate the particular {{w|isotope}} of Hydrogen with the atomic weight of two, i.e. deuterium, which is most often encountered when working with the atomic level of matter where the total number of neutrons and protons in the atom is important.
;Chemical Physics
:A preceding subscript, "2He" indicates the atomic number of an atom, which is the number of protons it contains, and thus a guide to the number of electrons its unionised form usually has and hence meaningful in its potential chemical interactions with other atoms. This should be invariant for any particular named element, but is usually given simultaneously with the presuperscripted mass number where it can be indicative of the applicable nuclear physics.
;Regular Math or Footnotes
:A trailing superscript is typical of a {{w|Exponentiation|power value}}, in this case "x²" would be ''x'' multiplied by a second copy of itself, and a fairly typical mathematical standard.
:Additionally, superscripted numbers are one common way to mark words in a line of text in a way to refer to a {{w|Note (typography)|footnote}}, typically placed at the bottom of the page, with additional information that would not be appropriate or easily comprehendable to edit into the main text itself. The ambiguity between footnotes and exponents was used in [[1184: Circumference Formula]]
;Chemistry
:A trailing subscript is used in chemistry to indicate a multiple of the element (or group of elements, in brackets) in a {{w|chemical formula}}. "H2O" indicates two hydrogen atoms bond with a single oxygen atom in a molecule of water.
;Matrices!
:Extending the trailing subscript with a comma-separated value usually indicates a multidimensional array (e.g. establishing a 2-by-2 square of numbers, or this particular position in such an array), which is in the realms of {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrix mathematics}}. This is a little bit beyond 'everyday algebra' for many people, as seemingly indicated by the exclamation of the mere mention of matrices!
;The Physicists Are At It Again
:This label encompasses a mark that turns the prior comma into a semicolon, as part of the trailing subscript. This is a common notation for the {{w|Covariant derivative}} of a tensor field, which is commonly used in the mathematics of general relativity.
;Either High School Math Function or Incomprehensible Group Theory
:The number 2 in parentheses that follow a term would normally be the argument to a {{w|Function (mathematics)|function}}, e.g. "f(2)", which means that you should take the value (in this case 2) and find the result if manipulated by the predefined function ''f''. It is generally taught as part of algebraic mathematics already described, i.e. at {{w|Secondary school|High School}}.
:In {{w|group theory}}, however, the number 2 in parentheses could indicate a cyclic subgroup or ideal generated by two or a special case of cycle notation for elements of symmetry groups used to mean an element that keeps 2 fixed. This may be somewhat beyond high-school level.{{citation needed}}
;Oh no. Whatever this is, it's cursed.
:A symbol centered underneath another symbol is normally reserved for doing summations, where the big symbol is Σ, or some other operation applied to a sequence of numbers.
:It does not make sense to have a single number there, as indicated in the alt text. As with [[2529: Unsolved Math Problems|other things]] in Randall's comic universe, the explanation for this particular anomaly is that it is 'Cursed'. The usage mentioned in the alt text is an operation (Σ, summation) over a variable usually indicated by a letter such as i, where the operation is performed over all values of the variable, i.e. you Σ the argument over all values of i. In the "2" case, the alt text says you "you 2 the argument over all values of 2", i.e. the Σ operation has been replaced by the "2" operation and the i variable has been replaced by the "2" variable. 2 is usually neither an operation, nor a variable (and definitely not both at the same time).

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

[An apparently scientific expression:]

[normal text:] 2 [superscript behind the box:] 2 [subscript behind the box:] 2 [an empty box with a dotted outline] [superscript:] 2 [subscript:] 2;2 [normal text:] (2) [smaller and beneath the last 2:] 2

;[Captions above the numbers]
:[with an arrow pointing to the first 2:] Regular Math
:[with an arrow pointing to the behind superscript 2:] Physics
:[with an arrow pointing to the regular superscript 2:] Regular math or footnotes
:[with an arrow pointing to (2):] Either high school math functions or incomprehensible group theory

;[Captions below the numbers]
:[with an arrow pointing to the behind subscript 2:] Chemical Physics
:[with an arrow pointing to the regular subscript 2:] Chemistry
:[with an arrow pointing to a grey circle around ";2":] The physicists are at it again
:[with an arrow pointing to a smaller grey circle inside the other circle that leaves out the dot of the semicolon:] Matrices!
:[with an arrow pointing to the 2 below the 2:] Oh no. Whatever this is, it's cursed.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

734: Outbreak

2022-05-03T06:09:01Z

172.70.178.33:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

1311: 2014

2022-05-03T06:08:19Z

172.70.178.33:

2614: 2

2022-05-03T06:07:54Z

172.70.178.33: Et tu, Lumpman2?

Talk:2604: Frankenstein Captcha

2022-05-02T23:29:38Z

172.70.178.33:

Don't forget it's canon the Frankenstein is the name of the Monster https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1589:_Frankenstein

The other squares contain things that might also be ambiguously named:

There is tortoise/turtle ship/boat/yacht monster Napolean/Nelson

puddle/pond/lake girl/woman magma/lava squash/pumpkin/gourd/..

Frankenstein (sandwich?) (stop sign?) monster

Rocket/spaceship(Or planet/dwarf planet?) (couple?) (traffic light?) monster.

I can't think of any other term for the sandwich, the couple, or the traffic signals. Are these a call back to the self driving car captcha https://xkcd.com/1897/

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.125|162.158.159.125]] 16:28, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

:That's neither Nelson nor Napoleon but rather Link from the Legend of Zelda series. He has the shield with a Triforce symbol on it, the hat that's pointed in the back, and a sword that's surprisingly recognizable as the Master Sword despite xkcd's low detail art style.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 16:43, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I suspect some of the other squares are common “well-actually” topics, eg. a pumpkin/squash is actually a fruit. The “puddle” is a mirage. Row 2 column 2 has a 9 drawn in their hair… a Franken-nine? — Alex

--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.23|162.158.2.23]] 16:38, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The astronomical body might be a meteoroid? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.77|172.70.114.77]] 16:56, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:Oh wait, missed the heart crater. nvm that's gotta be Pluto [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.75|172.70.230.75]] 16:57, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The sandwich is probably due to pedantry over 'is [x] a sandwich' debates. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.67|172.70.250.67]] 17:04, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:In that case, it should have been a hot dog. ;D
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:09, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:Seems likely. Also reminds me of https://xkcd.com/2301/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.237|172.70.134.237]] 17:18, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Could the lake/pond tile actually be a fata morgana - given the desert setting implied by the sun and the pyramids? [[User:Captain Nemo|Captain Nemo]] ([[User talk:Captain Nemo|talk]]) 17:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:What lake/pond? There is no water there, man. I think you're just seeing an illusion, created by heat ripples in the air. (I'm kidding; just trying to keep up the "mirage".)
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:24, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The current explanation does not mention the Title Text, nor does it explain the paraphrased quote. I believe the original quote mentions "a line in the sand"? 
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:11, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

:There's also the classic turn of phrase "There's a thin line between ConceptA and ConceptB" which is what I thought of when I read that. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 19:19, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

#a tomato is the gold standard for uncertainty in pronunciation
#the sandwich's definition is both precise and vague: nerd fight! Hotdog? Burrito? Pizza? Doughnut?
#in the 1931 the little girl does not run away but is, er, cared for by the monster. the flower is not pictured. --[[User:Misterstick|Misterstick]] ([[User talk:Misterstick|talk]]) 17:26, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

What if the planet ''contains'' Frankenstein (either the monster or the doctor) and you just can't tell at this resolution??! 19:51, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:The planet also might be ''named'' Frankenstein. Or an asteroid. There isn't one yet, but maybe in the future?
:[https://space.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_named_asteroids_(F-K)#Fr Closest match for name] is "10246 Frankenwald"

A bit disappointed Randall didn't take the opportunity to include the 1972 Edgar Winter Group album "They Only Come Out at Night", which contains the track "Frankenstein." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.176|172.70.131.176]] 18:51, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The turtle may be a reference to "turtle rifle", a series of GAN exercises resulting in producing objects that neural networks recognize as something completely else. A famous one was a turtle-shaped toy, which looked quite like a normal turtle to a human eye, but a characteristic pattern on its shell made neural networks to classify it as a rifle.

Based on the standard levels of pedantry, I am surprised that no-one yet has pointed out that we are not supposed to click on ONLY the correct images. Taking the union of both Frankenstein sets should then be accepted (unless we faced union-bashers in the Frankenstein-basher crowd).
:The instructions use standard CAPTCHA language, "only" is understood (otherwise a bot could just click all boxes and the test would be defeated). [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:26, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

But I saw no picture of a [https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wiki/Frankenstein cat]... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 22:25, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Also, in my experience, CAPTCHAs that ask for "Click all squares with <whatever>" on a non-refreshing grid of otherwise independent images - which I often-enough encounter in this very site - tend to assume exactly three squares are correct. (e.g. it asks for "all tractors", and there are two tractors and some non-tractor vehicle like a road-roller, then it doesn't matter if *I* think that's not actually a tractor, it won't let me past until I've clicked the road-roller). The rules are different for refreshing images (click an image's square, it presents a new image, until eventually every square that had previously been one-or-more picture(s) of the target-type are now all irrelevent to click) or a gridded single-scene (I haven't worked that one out fully... if it's asking for Traffic Lights, do I just need to do the squares ''entirely'' containing such light units/only those with the 'light' part of the units/every single square with even the barest edge of the frame around the lights/all squares even with just the poles/wires suspending the lights up off the ground... sometimes it seems to like what I do, sometimes it retests me, and I don't know if it's unhappy with my choice or so absolutely happy with my choice that it desperately wants me to help the Algorithm just that little bit more). '''*cough*''' Anyway. What I'm saying is, if I was seriously trying to answer this comic's example, I'd be looking for exactly three Frankenstein squares of one (dubious) kind or another. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 22:25, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:I've seen plenty of this type of CAPTCHA with fewer than 3 correct tiles. Unless I'm not human enough to recognize all the matches.... [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:29, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:I think you both just proved you are robots. Humans are too dumb to do this level of analysis. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.9|108.162.241.9]] 03:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
:My (limited) experience with CAPTCHA is it doesn't matter what tiles you click, as long as you don't take too long to finish.(which can happen if you spend a lot of time squinting at the images or pondering semantical variations)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 23:29, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
"Knowledge is Knowing Frankenstein isn’t the Monster, Wisdom is Knowing Frankenstein is the Monster" - https://commons.emich.edu/ac/vol3/iss1/4/ [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.9|108.162.241.9]] 02:56, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

*I have to mention the "lost ending" of ''Frankenstein'' which is found at https://imgur.com/gallery/bCGEw . --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.125|172.70.130.125]] 03:36, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

May be worth noting that the traffic light's three coloured circles are all shaded black. In some countries (I know I've seen someone I trust saying it's true in the USA and UK), the law specifies that you must treat a broken traffic light (or one which you reasonably believe to be broken; such as if it's not lit up) as a stop sign. Does this mean you'd click it in a CAPTCHA that asks for stop signs? [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 09:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I was today years old when I learned that "ship" and "boat" aren't literally interchangeable like "eggplant" and "aubergine". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.216|172.70.131.216]] 09:22, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
:The way I understood it is that a ship carries boats – think of a cruise liner or cargo ship with lifeboats, or a naval vessel with longboats or the captain's gig – but a boat, like a rowboat, speedboat, or personal watercraft, does not. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 16:26, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
::I learned it as being that a ship needs somewhere proper to land (like a pier or a proper dock), while a boat you can bring close enough to the shore and jump off; or run it up the beach. Guess people have different definitions. [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 17:57, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
:Ask yourself this: If the person in charge of that vessel told me to call him Captain, would I think he was a pretentious ass? If no, it's a ship.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.150|108.162.238.150]] 18:14, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if any of those vegetables would count as "Frankenstein foods". --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.211|172.70.85.211]] 13:38, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
:That was my initial assumption when I saw it (on my phone) and couldn't tell what they were [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 17:57, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Some other possible things that could be on such a Captcha: Big Ben (a bell inside Elizabeth Tower), Metroid (an alien creature that the bounty hunter Samus repeatedly encountered), and the Pink Panther (a stolen diamond pursued by Inspector Clouseau).[[Special:Contributions/172.70.135.32|172.70.135.32]] 20:38, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Hang on...a tiled-image CAPTCHA has no 'correct' answer? How am I just hearing this now? [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 21:37, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I see an octagon containing STOP, but no square containing FRANKENSTEIN. I think that makes this particular captcha unsolvable. [[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]]) 01:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I have to suggest an alternate interpretation: CAPTCHAs are used as a way to provide sample data for machine learning AI. A situation like in the comic implies that there is a reason that an AI would need to be trained to recognise Frankenstein (presumably the monster), perhaps because he's real and on the loose, hence the dread. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.84|172.69.34.84]] 06:47, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
:I am amused by this possibility. It also plays on the term CAPTCHA by suggesting that the monster is on the loose and needs to be CAPTURED.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 23:29, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Really dark take: the people are all part of Frankenstein, it's just that their pictures were taken before their deaths. --[[User:Vdizz|Vdizz]] ([[User talk:Vdizz|talk]]) 05:08, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

== GPT-3's opinion ==

I just asked OpenAI's latest GPT-3 model at https://beta.openai.com/playground with default settings thusly:

:;What does Frankenstein look like?

:Frankenstein is a large, muscular creature with green skin and long, black hair. He has large, white eyes and a flat, square head. His mouth is large and filled with sharp teeth. He has long, powerful arms and legs.

:;What does Victor Frankenstein look like?

:Victor Frankenstein is a tall, thin man with dark hair and eyes. He is very intelligent and has a strong interest in science.

So the point of this is that if you spend millions of dollars to train an English language interaction model based on the authoritative texts available to contemporary venture capitalists, "Frankenstein" is considered to be the monster, not its creator.

Note you can't really do this kind of instant inquiry with Google Trends or Google Books Ngrams. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.145|172.69.33.145]] 03:59, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Don't forget that in certain regions (well, maybe just South Africa) a stoplight is called a robot. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.202|172.69.68.202]] 15:23, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

[[1263: Reassuring]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.206|172.68.132.206]] 04:39, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I am so amazingly disappointed that one of the captcha images is not a treacherous depiction of a pipe. {{unsigned}}
:"Ceci n'est pas un canal de communication FIFO simplex"? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 20:02, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

isn't it referencing things that have been named after or called Frankenstein (a turtle, an heirloom tomato variety, a sandwich, a hairstyle, etc.)?
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.9|108.162.237.9]] 21:54, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

User:Ｗhile False

2022-05-02T22:27:00Z

172.70.178.33: They are normal; please check them

[[User:While False|While False]], me, is a different user than this user [[User:Ｗhile False|Ｗhile False with “Ｗ” instead of “W”]]. The account is one of at least two impersonating me. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T15:42:02Z

172.70.178.33:

Anyone else want to play this (and the other bad map projections) as maps in a 4X/Grand Strategy game? [[User:Mazz0|Mazz0]] ([[User talk:Mazz0|talk]]) 18:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Clicking on the original comic brings up the actual projection used, it looks like.

I'm on an old machine here (because it usually doesn't matter), and clicked on the image on the xkcd site to get the image, to be told that ''Your browser does not support WebGL :'('' by the URL https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#-4.64274,55.45253 - I will have to check from a less 'primitive' device, but it looks like it's got a special click-through, which might be worth mentioning in the Explanation. I can check myself in a few minutes, but noting here first in case I get delay. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I have added the click. It opens an website app showing a Mercator with the North Pole set to wherever you want, with this one in particular set Mahé just as Randall said. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Added a table, based upon some rapid pixel-analysis I did. No, I didn't include Indonesia, etc, and the "Africa size probably includes Madagascar" sort of thing could need sorting, but I mentioned that below so nobody is under misapprehension. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 22:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
: I think having the official size also be a percent of the world (or at least another column like that) would make it easier to see how the distortion affects the size. And/or distortion from a normal Mercator projection {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.143}}
:: That was my initial intention, or at least a percentage-of-reality column alongside (plus adding sorting to the columns), and maybe a differential between the two percentages just for fun. But I wanted to take time to make sure I was correctly counting how much area was (say) Eurasia but without Japan, etc. Maybe I'll actually get around to that shortly. There are other (formatting) tweaks I wasn't overly happy with in my original. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
::Okey dokey. New table. Sortable, extra columns and 'real world' figures improved on. (e.g. "North America" is land-areas of Canada through to Panama minus all significant islands (though some of the Canadian archipelago might have been drawn in as contiguous, etc, etc, and I ''think'' I only included Alaska in my sums just the once). Which took a lot more effort than I'd have prefered, like including Peninsula Malaysia and not the offshore bits. I wish I could say I spent as much time on the initial image-analysis (at least include NZ N+S Islands as an entry, right?) and the raw data is now archived elsewhere.
::I also augmented with footnote references, but not sure if I've done it right. Readable (defined in first instance, where used multiple times) in the source if anyone thinks there's any better ways of doing it (had my heart set on dagger/double-dagger/etc, but never mind). But there you are.
::Enjoy! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 23:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully the vandal won't bother this one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.18|172.70.211.18]] 17:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:Looks like they did, but they seem to be done because someone gave them the emoticon. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 22:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

::A mistake. We already know it's likely they'll be back at a later date with some other stunt to stroke their supremely fragile ego. (Whether or not things like this comment provokes them, I definitely consider my conscience clear in this regard.) But what happens, happens. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 22:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:::Is it any surprise they're already back? The emoticon was a cheap excuse for the infantile, childish behaviour of someone without a life that gets their shits and giggles out of being nothing more than a pest.[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 23:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

this page is kinda sussy tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 18:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I have looked at the Wikipedia pages, and there is _no_ reference to Among Us on any map-related pages (and vice versa). What is your problem? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.195|172.70.242.195]] 18:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I take it you're the vandal... [[User:Something|Something]] ([[User talk:Something|talk]]) 19:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

ID does imply they are the vandal, they were adding the lyricis earlier today...[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect they made of Danish going to the main page. I think some other pages got redirected into a redirect loop that should now be fixed. [[User:Flumnble|Flumnble]] ([[User talk:Flumnble|talk]]) 15:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

== holave ==

exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce uedope ayudareve ave esteve itiose inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 02:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:Does anyone know what language this is written in? I have no idea what this person is saying (asking?) and Google Translate wasn't much help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.178|108.162.246.178]] 03:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::eclaracionde oye one hablove ingleseve erope oye ieroque ayudareve esteve ikiwe inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.143|108.162.216.143]] 04:01, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::My first thought was esperanto (or ido or interlingua, given lack of accents), certainly a latinesque-based language or conlang, but given the edits put onto this effort, it's possibly even sabotaged, or was written by someone for whom it most definitely not was their first language. (I even thought it was "Pig-esperanto"... This is that idiot who changed entire Explanations to Pig-Latin, I'm sure.)
:::I've got no real affinity to languages but I can recognise the possible roots of a lot of that. Some use of "...speak(ing) English..." is obvious in the latter post, for example, at an educated guess.
:::But I would say this is a prelude to some "I want you to wear bunny-ears when you revert stuff" thing, which I for one won't try to solve this puzzle for. (I'll just revert and revert and revert, if I'm around, and ignore the "trying to be clever" stuff. Nearly deleted this, actually, but restrained myself.) Otherwise, I leave it to those who know their conlangs better than me. Once it strays too far beyond technical English and its classical roots, I'm not really a linguistics person as I said, so it's useless to me whether it's an international message of friendship or extortion instructions. "Holave", whoever you are, but no thanks. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 10:10, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

How will they shut down all their ports?

::::Yeah, it definitely looks like a conlang based on a Latinesque language, probably Spanish. "exclamacioneve" is probably "exclamacion" = "exclamation" (not sure why a sentence would begin with "exclamation"), holave=hola=hello, ayudareve=ayudar=help, hablove=hablo="I speak" (could actually be a different conjugation, but this is the most likely), and ingleseve=ingles=English. They seem to be saying "I speak English" (or "I don't speak English" if "one" means "no"). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.5|172.70.130.5]] 14:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::"I don't speak English" seems more likely, so it's probably a good guess that "one" does mean "no." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 14:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::It seems to be some sort of pig-Spanish, with punctuation written out. Decoded, it's “exclamacion hola fine pregunta como puedo ayudar a este sitio fine” and “declaracion yo no hablo ingles pero yo quiero ayudar este wiki fine”, meaning “exclamation hi end question how can i help on this site end” and “statement i dont speak english but i want to help this wiki end”. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 15:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
How will they shut down all their ports?
:::::::(Somehow the thread got duplicated; I merged the threads) That makes sense. It seems like if someone wanted to help, they would at least use a real language. Do you think this is the vandal? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:31, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::Definitely the vandal. These were some of the vandal edit summaries on the last comic: "Orpe avorfe one andalizarve esteve aginape" "ise eviertere estove eve incluyeve unve emojive ede a'rbolve ede avidadne enve use esumenre ede edicio'nve, one ole olvere've ave acerehve" "one incluyesteve uneve emojive ede a'rboleve ede avidadene" @Kapostamas can you understand those? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T15:31:56Z

172.70.178.33:

Talk:2612: Lightsabers

2022-04-29T03:29:23Z

172.70.178.33:

Not sure what's going on here. Are {{W|electric arcs}} what's happening between the lightsabers? --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.207|172.70.242.207]] 12:48, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Could be based on properties of plasma? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.72|172.70.211.72]] 12:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Probably something like {{W|cold welding}}. The fields keeping the light saber beam coherent would not be able to differentiate between the two plasma beams, and would join together. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 13:22, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
:That's my take. The effect that confines the laser (to make it a [[1433: Lightsaber|handy length]], at the very least) is potentially too 'self-sticky', but certainly with that of the opposing blade after a bit of awkward cross-resonance. And then the deactivation/withdrawing (typoed that as "sithdrawing"!) still drags the other blade-tip inwards too. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 13:35, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

::My reaction: And THAT's why the two dueling Jedis should have different color of the blade! -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 19:47, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Very good job on the transcript (except a few minor grammar errors). I didn't envy someone trying to describe all the imagery. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:25, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Lots of comics about lightsabers. Maybe it's time to make a category for them? Many things got categories after just 4-5 appearaces. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.249|141.101.105.249]] 17:20, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

This is potentially inspired by a scene from Spaceballs where two lightsabers "tangle", although in thta scene they don't actually connect. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.134|141.101.104.134]] 19:11, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I see your Schwartz is almost as big as mine.

In panels 10 and 11, the bodies seem to cast shadows on the ground. I don't recall seeing this previously on XKCD, is this the first time? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.249|141.101.105.249]] 19:58, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

== That’s not what’s happening ==

“In this situation one Jedi tries to shake the beam, maybe to break the bond, but instead the wave travels down the combined beam to also shake the other Jedi's hand-held hilt.”

Nuh uh. One tries to shake loose, then the other tries, also. Why do people make up complex explanations for obvious simple things?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.72|172.70.211.72]] 20:07, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Reminds me of the ''Priori Incantatem'' stuff in Harry Potter where wands with the same core source connect with each other :)
: My first thought was 'This is why you "don't cross the streams."'
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:57, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

== Reverted from vandalism ==
The most recent edits were all converting the explanation to "pig latin". (No explanation in English.) I've undone them. If it gets vandalized again, please address that? [/br]
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:57, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
:I just reverted the pig Latin twice. Can someone block our IP vandal, please? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 22:01, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
::Just did another reversal. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 22:04, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
:::What exactly is going on with the edit summaries they're sending? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.221|141.101.98.221]] 22:10, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
::::Trying to get a sort of ransom out us apparently. We’re not doing that of course. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 22:18, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
:::::Apparently we did, sort of. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.211|172.70.90.211]] 22:32, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
::::::Wouldn’t say so. We did nothing but undo edits, having no regard for any demands. Eventually the user took measures to fulfill his own demands and called that a win 💁🏻 [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 22:40, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
:::::::I've been noticing quite a bit of vandalism recently (page blanking, "disaster"/"last xkcd", and now pig Latin). Is there any way to stop this? --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 03:29, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

2610: Assigning Numbers

2022-04-23T23:00:27Z

172.70.178.33: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2610
| date = April 22, 2022
| title = Assigning Numbers
| image = assigning_numbers.png
| titletext = Gödel should do an article on which branches of math have the lowest average theorem number.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by YÖDEL'S COMPLETENESS THEOREM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

'''This explanation is by mathematical necessity either incomplete or incorrect.'''

[[Cueball]] is falling into a common trap, because a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Faced with some sort of information, of an unknown kind but seemingly not intrinsically mathematical in nature, he has decided that one possible way to proceed is to somehow translate everything into values which can be combined and compared numerically.

This is a very common thing to do, in fields as diverse as {{w|computational linguistics}} or {{w|sports analytics}}, and can be a powerful tool for understanding and learning new things about a subject as {{w|Data science}} tries to extract knowledge and insights from potentially noisy and disordered facts. But it is also used to implement bad science by using incorrect or misguided ideas about how to represent the source material. While it's possible to casually assign numeric values to random pieces of data, these numbers are generally not meaningful enough to compute with and draw any useful inferences from. It is generally possible to perform statistical analysis only on actual measurements, not on what may effectively be arbitrarily-assigned values.

Machine learning algorithms, which are commonly used by data scientists, typically require all their inputs to be numerical. However, most datasets contains categorical features (e.g. the description of a piece of furniture: chair, table, ...). Data scientists therefore use encoding techniques to convert these categorical features to a numerical form so they can be used as inputs to a machine learning model. For instance, label encoding consists of arbitrarily assigning an integer to a category (chair=0, table=1, ...) which may appear meaningless to most observers. In various cases, they may be right.

So, as well as being the mechanism that underlies one of the most profound theorems of 20th century mathematics, it can be mis-used for all kinds of bad or misguided science. From Cueball's attitude, it is far from clear that his attempt will reliably translate his project into a numerical system, nor that his attempt to "do math on it!" will be any more competent.

One of the major characters who looked at the concept is Kurt Gödel. He introduced the idea of {{w|Gödel numbering}} with his landmark {{w|incompleteness theorems}}. In it a unique natural number is assigned to each atom, statement, and proof, which might otherwise be difficult to accurately process in any other kind of approach. Instead, it is now possible to create metamathematical statements in the language of mathematics.

As the formulation in use was itself definable with numbers, in doing so, Gödel also proved the existence of a statement that essentially said "this statement has no proof." If the statement could be proven, the statement would there be false, and the mathematics being used would be inconsistent. Gödel presumed that the only other possibility was that the statement is true without a mathematical proof, and therefore the mathematics of the system is incomplete; however, since the statement is self referencing, a third possibility exists: The statement might actually be paradoxical. (This third possibility is presented here http://dstoner.net/Math_Science/godel.html.) Gödel's theorem led to a fundamental reckoning in the world of mathematics when it was published.

The title text suggests that Gödel should perform such an analysis on different branches of mathematics, by calculating the average of all the fields' theorems' Gödel numbers. This is nonsensical for a number of reasons:
:1) Gödel is long dead, and dead people can't write articles;
:2) Gödel numbers grow very large very quickly, and depend heavily on the specific values assigned to each logical operator. Therefore the results could be manipulated simply by changing the numbering order of each operator;
:3) It may be very hard to gather all theorems in a field, or even a representative sample;
:4) Different fields of science, like biology or human behaviour, may not be able to write their theorems in the mathematical language of Gödel's incompleteness theorem
If anyone were to attempt this form of analysis, it would be an example of the bad data science described in the title text.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold a hand up to his chin while he ponders the contents of what may be a whiteboard. There are five general lines of unreadable scribbling on the board, and between the two bottom lines, there is a square frame to the right with another scribble to the left. Cueball's thoughts are shown above him in a large thought bubble.]
:Cueball's thinking: If I assign numbers to each of these things, then it becomes '''''data''''', and I can do '''''math''''' on it!

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:The same basic idea underlies Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and all bad data science.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1350: Lorenz

2022-04-20T21:43:55Z

172.70.178.33: Found another first-move super effective other than faceless!

During the first few weeks there were so much talk on this page, that it became too long. The solution was to remove the page from the explanation. But now almost no one makes any comment anymore. To help with this I will try to collapse all the original talk - last entry (mine) is already a month old. It will always be possible to see all the old comments by pressing the expand button to the far right. So feel free to comment below again - then someone might notice that there has been written something new again! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

'''Click to expand:'''
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed leftAlign" style="width:100%">

I've had the story loop back to the first frame, so it wouldn't surprise me if this could go on infinitely if it had the available dialogue options.

This is going to be a hell of a thing. Good luck... [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 15:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:I think this is one of those times when the custom field might come in handy. Duplicating Randall's code seems like it might be difficult, and it might just be easier to link to the original page. Probably. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)b
::I think it should just show a screenshot of the initial image and options [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.61|173.245.50.61]] 02:49, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
There's always new story lines, even when you think you've read them all, new ones appear to replace them. I don't think it'll ever be possible to record them all. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.192|108.162.212.192]] 15:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The text changes, but there are recurring themes with the panels. The rocket, the big hole, the little hole, Dinosaurcomics, pokemon, waking up, stranded swimming.........[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:03, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

When I go to XKCD, all I see is the comic from Monday... weird. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Same here... and a lot of space below it. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: I think that happens when you have refreshed the page too many time -- kind of an anti spam for user submissions. I simply create an anonymous browser window and I got back to the real page once xkcd was not able to track me as a returning user. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Currently there appears to be a bug. Instead of the evolving, crowd-sourced comic, I just see an off-center copy of the previous comic, 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard. [http://i.imgur.com/pw2OfOL.png Screenshot here].
UPDATE: it appears to be a bug in the XSRF-blocking code. Chrome console shows me the error "XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://c1.xkcd.com/graph/1/. The 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header has a value 'http://xkcd.com' that is not equal to the supplied origin. Origin 'http://www.xkcd.com' is therefore not allowed access."
FURTHER UPDATE: you can work around this bug by going to http://xkcd.com instead of http://www.xkcd.com!
It also doesn't work if you have HTTPS Everywhere enabled.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 16:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

** I can confirm this bug in Firefox. Weirdly, the work-around functioned one time for me, but now going to "xkcd.com" rather than "www.xkcd.com" just gives me a copy of 1349 as well. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The workaround didn't work for me, I still got monday's comic on either URL. (Chromium 36.0.1919.0 (260611), Mac OS 10.9.2) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Same here. Used IE and Firefox. Removed the "www." and haven't. (Never used https:// at all.) Tried InPrivate (and FF equivalent) browsers. Gone into the code and can't even fudge it manually from ''<nowiki><div id="comic"><img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/shouldnt_be_hard.png" title="Every choice, no matter how small, begins a new story." alt="Lorenz" /> <script type="text/javascript">Bernardo.comic({el: $('#comic')})
</script></div></nowiki>'', and the rest, manually. (Indeed, that shows why I get 1349's "shouldn't be hard" image, by default.) Pity. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.224|141.101.89.224]] 02:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

** I only get a blank page with on the bottom a link to the comic 1349. Both on 2 firefoxes (different systems) and a chromium. so however wonderfull it might be, the delivery is less then stellar. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.145|173.245.53.145]] 15:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

This comic introduced(?) a font of its own of Randalls comic type. I don't know if it has been sitting there for long, but I just noticed it: http://xkcd.com/fonts/xkcd-Regular.eot -- phiarc [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.12|108.162.219.12]] 17:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Is it the same as was used in Externalities? [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Does everyone have these options in some order for the first tile?
*Refresh... No New Email... Refresh .. No New Tweets... Refresh...
*These Stupid Tiles... I'll Just Play One More Game
*Oh. Hey. There's Some Kind Of Politicial Thing Going On.
*Let's See If BSD Is Any Easier to Install Nowadays
--[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:0cd52ed0-bb15-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd There's a frame with Chinese in it! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.118|141.101.99.118]] 18:06, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
:If so, we can begin to build a map of at least the first set of options before the crowd-sourced ones. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
::Yes, though the second-tier options have changed [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:::The first level options may be constant (Im seeing the same as Jeff), but I suspect that the following options is based on some sort of ckick though statitics / machine learning -- which means that the will continue to change until Randall closes off the 'voting' -- if [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1193:_Externalities 1193: Externalities] is anything to go by that should be within the next 24-48 hours, at which point automating the collection of story lines may be possible. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 18:11, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:::: I'm going to transcript some of what I get at least through the first few levels and then we can start with a list of options for those who don't want to go through them all. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
::::: I have no idea how one would do this, but it would be cool to render the transcript as a tree of some sort; having one vertical list will be hard to follow for more than a few decisions. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 00:14, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
::::::New initial option! I just got "Hurry! We're in talks with Facebook." In place of the "refresh" option. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:2b330d48-bb01-11e3-8003-002590d77bdd --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.8|108.162.242.8]] 23:15, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Ohh, this comic is buggy and the link here at the top gives just the page from Monday, showing errors on debuggers. But removing the WWW from URL helps. Further more I can't see that the result of the choices is dynamic. So let's prove this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
: Have a look at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/2/2b/lorenz_combination1.png and http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/9/9a/lorenz_combination2.png and you can see the option orders are changing -- this is a typical artifact of A/B testing where randomization of options is needed to avoid selection bias. I have futher observed "your car is on fire" instead of the "dinosaur" option, hence not only the orders are channging but the content as well -- maybe somebody else can capture this. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

How are new dialogue suggestions approved? Are they random, by popular vote (unlikely, not very many people would suggest the same thing), or is Randall approving them one by one? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 20:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
: They may not need to be explicitly approved at all -- one of the beutiful things about click though measures is that the public '''votes''' for what is good by clicking -- this is also a factor in search ranking by your favorite search engine where statistics are driving the entire show -- in a search engine some input to the statistical process comes from the web pages, but other comes from what people are actually clicking [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:14, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

What is this a screenshot of? It's zoomed out so far. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:5b5bd04e-b9d6-11e3-8008-002590d77bdd [[User:Haithere|Haithere]] ([[User talk:Haithere|talk]]) 20:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
: you mean this : http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/a1-2014/Rl92nFEWd9huvXABNkHKHg.png ? [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: It appears to be a screen shot from a flight simulator program of some sort, however im not able to tell which, and since it is most likely an 'in-game' screen short we will never find out unless somebody else is playing this precises flight simulator program [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: I am not certain, but I strongly suspect that is Kerbal Space Program {{unsigned ip|108.162.242.111}}
::: it really is Kerbal Space Program, or KSP for short {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.65}}
:::: found this image from KSP http://i.imgur.com/UofvQ.png [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 09:07, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

A transcript is going to be futile. It appears as though the comic may go on indefinitely (I've definitely had some branches continue extending until I've seen frames that were present in other branches). I suspect what's happening here is that... options are "suggested", and those suggestions are displayed at random to people. The ones with the most clickthroughs begin to appear more often, until eventually the top 4 are "locked in" and no more suggestions can be made. Very creative! But I'm not convinced that Randall is making frames in near-real-time, nor am I even convinced he's part of the approval process at all. I suspect it's all automated. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.28|108.162.215.28]] 00:29, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

It seems it is possible to have the same option appear twice in the first panel. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:be7a3304-b685-11e3-8001-94de80a03a29 --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.48|173.245.54.48]] 10:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
: They are not the same options -- the text differes where one option has "I'll" with a captal I and the other option is 'i'll' with a lowercase I -- I guess some prankster submitted a very similar text and somehow that got included. The branching also differs for the two options. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:12, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Is it still supposed to work or was it turned off? All I see is Monday comics ... and no errors in firebug console. Oh, wait, there is javascript error:
Timestamp: 04/02/14 12:56:21
Error: TypeError: this.$lastPanel is null
Source File: http://xkcd.com/1350/bernardo.min.js
Line: 2 -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:03, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
: It still works for me -- try to clear your cookies or use an anonymous window or go to xkcd.com (no www no https) or some of the other helpful suggestions on this page to overcome some of the buggy nature of this page. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:12, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

tl;dr, but I applaud Randall's creativity. Added to the Colossal time sinks category. ''– [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 13:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)''

Has it restarted? It used to work just fine on my browser but now only the first panel is available, after clicking an option it said my suggestion has been submitted. Great when it works though, thanks Randal. Jet_proppeled_elephant[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.35|108.162.219.35]] 14:53, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

It feels like there are a bunch of "dead-end panels", that we never really get past. One example the "bright background" strip, in which we only see the shadows of the two characters. Nobody seems to care what happens after those. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.8|108.162.245.8]] 18:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I found a Dinosaur Comics reference, permalink: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:3d243960-b9b6-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd
Has this been found before?
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.73|173.245.55.73]] 20:08, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't have time to do it myself, but most of the space images from this path are not in the images page. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:6490cc4a-b9f0-11e3-8009-002590d77bdd
[[User:Zweisteine|Zweisteine]] ([[User talk:Zweisteine|talk]]) 23:33, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
:Ok, I'm gonna add those. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 23:38, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Great! And now I found another: Pikachu uses Ethylene Dichloride. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:6f59d766-ba95-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd
I'll add it to the but about pikachu in the comic, but the pictures are up to someone else.[[User:Zweisteine|Zweisteine]] ([[User talk:Zweisteine|talk]]) 23:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Slightly different space path, in which the rocket expodes: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:dd99ea0e-ba04-11e3-8017-002590d77bdd [[User:Zweisteine|Zweisteine]] ([[User talk:Zweisteine|talk]]) 23:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

:Good. I've finished adding all images that you mentioned. Also, the two last images of the slightly different space path were not in the images page, now I added them too. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 00:14, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Pikachu died! Radicality failed -> Pikachu in shock! http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:5c565bf2-ba05-11e3-8017-002590d77bdd --eternia 7:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:Pikachu uses Graph Theory. How is that not effective?! http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:52f2389c-baaf-11e3-801f-002590d77bdd --eternia 7:47, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
::Pikachu uses Ant Colony. Uwah... http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:2b707ed6-ba97-11e3-8006-002590d77bdd --eternia 8:02, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:::1 shark instead of 3. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:9ba111ee-ba96-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd --eternia 8:14, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
::::0 sharks. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:e0e4d984-baaf-11e3-8026-002590d77bdd --eternia 8:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:::::I'm gonna add those too. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:41, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Are there any panels that have two speech bubbles that are not dead ends? It seems that there are never any options for the second bubble, and sometimes the first bubble has options that would fit in the second bubble after the other options for the first bubble. Maybe submissions for the second bubble accidentally end up in the first instead? Another bug? [[User:Zweisteine|Zweisteine]] ([[User talk:Zweisteine|talk]]) 23:56, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

There's a change for us still-bugged people (well, me at least). The "show previous comic" part is gone. It shows a blank area (instead of Comic 1349 and a blank area of the same size) and the page-source shows that the ''<nowiki><img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/shouldnt_be_hard.png" title="Every choice, no matter how small, begins a new story." alt="Lorenz" /></nowiki>'' part has now been excised from the page. That's on Javascript-enabled, cookie-enabled Firefox ''and'' IE browsers, and every valid URL configuration one can think of (including shift-refreshing to force redownloading, just in case it was page-cache issues as well). I'll update the Bugs section of the explanation page with a summary of that, if you don't mind. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.211|141.101.88.211]] 01:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

We need some place to discuss certain issues. I give it a shot below [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:10, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
;Transcipt discussion
;Design
*What about four transcripts - one for each of the four first original choices?
*Should these transcripts be on a separate page? It becomes tedious to scroll to the discussion page...[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:13, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
*Could we use the hide option so you only see the options from the first panel. Then you unhide to see the next panel etc. This would be a little like the comic and would make it much easier to read and it would not be such a long page! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:35, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
*:I'm working on the hide option. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 15:14, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
*::I now implemented the hide option. It looks good! in my opinion. It should be easy to edit. It would be too much work to convert the whole thing to the collapsible version so, sorry but I just removed the whole thing and started from the very beginning. This[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1350:_Lorenz&oldid=64245] is the link to the old version, in case anyone wants to help converting it to the collapsible version. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 16:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:I did the same for trivia with a separate page for the old version that can be expanded if anyone wishes. And all the work is not lost. I have linked to it from trivia but it is here: [[1350: Lorenz/Transcript]]. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
*How will the transcript work for when two characters speak? Those cases do exist; they're not all bugged. For example, in the "OpenBSD Branch", "Why not haiku?" and "Let's go exploring!" have further responses. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.63|199.27.128.63]] 06:31, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
;Characters
*Where does the name Dave come from for the hairy guy who comes in after the first panel? I can see it once in the transcript - but it is said by White hat the sales guy. I'm not sure it is his name and the chatagory for hairy is assigned to the comic! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:16, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
** Also he is called Dave here: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:3b1a226e-b9c6-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 21:37, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
*Hat guy? Is it a hat? Is there not a better English word for the type of "hat" worn by the main character from the first panel? It is not a hat like white or black hat! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
** I named him Hat Guy originally to make things easier. Feel free to change the name, I guess :) Knit Cap Guy, maybe? If a change is warranted, a simple search-and-replace should do it. Also, I'm not sure it's a guy or a girl... But the previous text was also treating him as male to begin with, anyway. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 21:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
*Is the right politician = Cueball?
*Who is the left? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:23, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Isn't is likely that the characters only have names given to them by us readers in our suggestions? They don't necessarily have constant names. [[User:Zweisteine|Zweisteine]] ([[User talk:Zweisteine|talk]]) 23:33, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Exactly my point. I think we should stick with hairy guy and maybe Knit Cap Guy! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

:I see you already changed Hat Guy to Knit Cap Guy and Dave to Hairy. Knit Cap Guy is a nice name. Originally, I would disagree with you and insist we should stick to Dave because that's what the character is called in one storyline of the strip itself, but I see he is also called Frank in other timeline. Since he has multiple names, using just Hairy is better in my opinion, too. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:40, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Knit Cap Guy is probably a Girl. Just sayin'. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.28|173.245.52.28]] 12:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

:Probably! Originally I thought it was Megan with a knit cap on. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:40, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

:It IS a girl! http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:1e4325a2-baaf-11e3-801f-002590d77bdd [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.66|173.245.48.66]] 21:44, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

::Well I think you are correct - that it is a girl. However you can NEVER use text in the comic to decide - because it is user created - I could have written the same line with guy instead of girl! Anyway - could someone change Knit Cap Guy to Knit Cap Girl? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
:::Can see it has been done - great [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
::::I've found a story where he/she is male! Thus contradicting the story above, where he/she is female, and proving that we really can't use text to determine the sex. Here we have "Beanie Man". http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b6fcd098-ba98-11e3-8008-002590d77bdd
::::(But... She looks female-ish enough to me, so I personally feel inclined to keep Knit Cap Girl in the article. Also, for laziness if nothing else. Feel free to disagree with me on that.) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 11:07, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
:::::Also, sometimes she is called Lorenz. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:bcc77a5c-ba23-11e3-801b-002590d77bdd [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 11:40, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
:I always mentally called the guy 'Hikaru' because the guy's hat reminded me of the Nice Hat that Hikaru Azuma wore a lot in {{w|With the Light}}. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 03:55, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

;Other
*Seems like the permalink at the top of the transcript does not work for me anymore - then they will be useless! Else they are the best way to quote different lines of the comic. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:31, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Oh, now they work again. ;) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:The permalinks has stopped working for me [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 20:45, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the initial four options presented to the reader are now fixed and do not change. "These stupid tiles..." and "Gravity. Lots of it." are no longer available options. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've played the comic many times over the past couple of days and I've never received those two options). Should the transcript be edited to reflect that? [[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 21:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

;Chategories not yet included
Should they be?
*I have seen the word Raptor mentioned - so should velociraptor be a chategory? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:21, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
*Cueball? I.e. the politician on the right? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
*I understand that many categories has been deleted as all text references can be user generated. But when there is a drawing with a dinosaur then this categories should be included etc. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
*I would like to discuss the number of categories. If anything is in thks comics pictures then it should be included as a category. So dinos and Pokémon for sure as well as character's and collor. So I include some again - please do not delete. If you need to find where Pokémon has been referenced this commic should come in the list! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:03, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

;Images
I created [[1350: Lorenz/Images]] with all the images I could find in the comic. I'm not sure if I should have left them in the main page [[1350: Lorenz]], but feel free to decide what to do with them. Also, I tried using the tag <nowiki><gallery></nowiki>, but I couldn't make it work, so I used a lot of divs. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 23:23, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
:Great idea - just what I hoped someone would and could do. Thanks ;) Is it easy to add new images to the page if they show up? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:32, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
::You're welcome! :) It's pretty easy... I explained in the images page how exactly you would save a new image if they show up. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 13:52, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:Can see there keep appearing new images from the text above. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:39, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:New shark images here: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:30f53d98-bbb3-11e3-801c-002590d77bdd {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.65}}
:I have updated the page and made a talk page there to add comments like the above. Have already found d 3 new images cannot add them with this tablet [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this work, but nobody knows if this is complete. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

;Many-worlds interpretation

The title text "Every choice, no matter how small, begins a new story" might as well be a hint to Hugh Everett III 's "Many-worlds interpretation"
of quantum theory. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.74}}
:Except that the title is Lorenz a direct reference to the guy with the butterfly effect... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
::Can't it be both? The Butterfly Effect can be seen as one consequence of the Many-Worlds interpretation. A choice as simple as whether (or where) a butterfly flaps its wings can send our entire universe down a different timeline, in which a hurricane occurs. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.49|108.162.216.49]] 19:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

;Most, maybe all pictures do correspond to an existing comic here
I'm calling on you to not destroy a first simple explain, even the transcript. But nearly every picture belongs to a former comic — this has to be explained at the ''Themes'' section. We have some dinosaurs, but there is much more. Please help on this issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
::After I understood what you mean I agree. All pictures collected should be explained in the themes section and preferably with a line to a story that includes the picture. There are so many I can't find. Some may never be available again... ? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:59, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

:What are you referring to? Has anyone deleted something important? Hope it wasn't me? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

::Well I can see it was me. We obviously disagree with what could be a trivia item and with which categories should be included even obvious ones. There has before been mention of missing pieces of hats etc and when there is one in hundreds of images with an error then it could make a fun trivia item in my opinion! I will stop editing and let you decide what to do with this comic? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:30, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

:::You totally misunderstand me. I'm asking for an explain to every picture because it should belong to a former comic.
:::Further more I'm just trying to keep the explain as simple as possible; individual error experiences should not be posted at the explain. I did remove that content in order to keep it simple as possible to an ordinary reader.
:::Please improve the picture explains, but also please keep that explain simple as possible to readers are not interested on all that crap done by Randall.
:::--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:38, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
::::Great and thanks for this explain and sorry I was grumpy in my reply before. Do you mean there should be an explanation for every single picture? Maybe this should be moved to a separate page like the list of images - they take up lots of space in the explain page - or they could be hided like the new transcript? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
::::Have begun the full image explanation...[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:03, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

;Visual tree / map?
How hard would it be to come up with a tree graphing out the different choices? The nodes could be panels and the lines could represent text choices. Has anyone tried it?
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.34|108.162.221.34]] 23:40, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
:I added hide/show functionality to the transcript. It's easier to read and navigate now. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 15:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
::Great - this was also what I had in mind :-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
:::Not so great it has been deleted... Again! I have inserted a link to the last page before Dgbrt deleted all 25000 signs. Considering the enormous work done to create this transcript I think we should let it be at least awailable as a trivia link. I cannot create the page from my tablet, but would rather have a lorenz transcript page than an old version like now. Maybe on this page again? [[1350: Lorenz/Transcript]]. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:03, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
::::I restored the old version in [[1350: Lorenz/Transcript]]. (Also, I used divs this time rather than templates.) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 05:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

;I got my suggestion as part of the main story!
I noticed in the "references to video games" section that "Actually it's the final castle - grab your fire flower!" was one of the options. I suggested that! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.27|108.162.212.27]] 17:07, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

;Are we sure the title is not related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_gauge_condition ?
For example, in Italy, the Lorenz Gauge Condition is dubbed "The Lorenz's choice". {{unsigned ip|108.162.212.218}}

;Should there be an interactive comic category?
It is kind of covered by the dynamic category, but between click and drag and this, as well as possible future comics, might it need to be its own seperate new category? [[User:Athang|Athang]] ([[User talk:Athang|talk]]) 23:00, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The "stupid tiles" option has vanished from panel 1. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.222|199.27.130.222]] 00:14, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
:Is that for good or just for you? How many times did you reload and did you try different browsers? It should always be awailable via a saved permalink, like you findin the transcript. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
::This probably happens at the same time for all users, considering that I read 199.27.130.222's message immediately after he/she sent it and at that point the "stupid tiles" option had vanished for me as well, but this was clearly temporary since it's back now.
::I only tested on Firefox. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 04:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
::I still get this option?? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 22:38, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

;Records in most panels
I have started a collection of records. I just entered what I could find to give an example. I was sure that my pheble attempts soon would be helped sore by someone who had saved the good ones... And already this is happening. Please continue to improve the records and also add more themes if I left them out [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

;Gravity lots of it?
I have never seen this option. Could someone post a permalink to such a story - could be as a record. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

;Some cool stuff i found, don't know if anyone wants to add these to the main page

Pikachu: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:80858d8c-ba22-11e3-801a-002590d77bdd

Giant pit: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:ea9342a0-bc02-11e3-8034-002590d77bdd

Goodbye, BSD: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:bae4c63c-ba31-11e3-8034-002590d77bdd

Reddit and rockets: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:602c39a8-ba92-11e3-8006-002590d77bdd

More BSD Pikachu: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:f5760770-baae-11e3-801f-002590d77bdd

Bird-powered car: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:cc4467b2-baf3-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd

This happens a lot: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b69f6096-b9f0-11e3-8009-002590d77bdd

Dinos: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:679012b0-bb4f-11e3-805b-002590d77bdd

These stupid lines: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:360411c2-baa2-11e3-8012-002590d77bdd

Pretty long: http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:7d40621c-bae7-11e3-8002-002590d77bdd

[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 22:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

:Thanks for your findings. This has to be added to the explain, your titles on this are GREAT! Maybe you — or someone else — does have a nice idea how to publish all this permalinks in a proper way.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:39, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

::More (mostly dream recursion):

Lord of the rings: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:40a1ac80-ba06-11e3-8017-002590d77bdd

Another moat: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:eee0d4c6-baea-11e3-8002-002590d77bdd

Looping back: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:d7970042-bae5-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd

Looping back 2: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:3f654048-badd-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd

Never seen it loop this many times: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:20698602-bbb1-11e3-801c-002590d77bdd

Even more looping: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:75e8f03e-baaf-11e3-801f-002590d77bdd

Looping to a rocket: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:3aa7da8e-bae7-11e3-8002-002590d77bdd

Dream recursion: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:5e94d028-bb7d-11e3-8012-002590d77bdd

Where did the Pikachu come from?: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:97c42da2-bb01-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd

Ethylene dichloride: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:93312202-ba4f-11e3-8037-002590d77bdd

More rockets: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:34f7f602-ba3b-11e3-8035-002590d77bdd

Even more rockets: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:8440e346-bb16-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd

More recursion: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:20698602-bbb1-11e3-801c-002590d77bdd

Blowtorch: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:c40db5fc-baf9-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd

Another blowtorch: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:97cbd552-bb01-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd

Most different stories i've seen in one: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:60d11a70-bb16-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd

[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 21:33, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

More:

More pikachu: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:feaa5d4e-bbd2-11e3-802c-002590d77bdd

Long pikachu fight: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:d87d8344-bafb-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd

Plantains: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:22d57484-bb28-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd

Many pikachus: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:d04aabf0-b9fe-11e3-8016-002590d77bdd

Much pikachu: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:f203d1c6-ba22-11e3-801a-002590d77bdd

Such pikachu: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:a5485722-ba26-11e3-8020-002590d77bdd

Very pikachu: http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:81c9e8c8-ba1d-11e3-8018-002590d77bdd
[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 22:49, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

:I haven't seen them all - but have you checked the records at the bottom of the explain page - those you call pretty long does not seem to get close to the 77 picture record... Are there any new pictures not featured in the picture page linked to from the top of the explain? Else this does not seem so interesting to me... ;-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
::Ah so there were interesting stuff around. And I can see that at least one of them has already been added as a Pokémon record. Great - cool if you wrote how many panels - or if there where new pictures - it would be easier to look through them. The double dream I had been looking for, thanks I will add it to the record page under dreams [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
::Seen them all and added several to the record for themes trivia. Thanks - but please more info~(length, themes) if you still care to share [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:36, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

;Finishing the explanation
I have just done a huge job putting all the images from the list in under the themes sections. I hope others can take over and find permalinks that include all the images that are not yet on references in the links I have inserted. Also there are some of the first options that seeem to not exist anymore (Gravity lots of it) and also there was the error with the same line twice. I found it one day, but then there where no new images if you chose it. I did not save the permalink and now it seems like it is all gone.
Good work guys and girls - I have a holiday comming up with no much computer time... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 02:51, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

;Greasemonkey Script
I've just mad a script to visit random stories, and record the corresponding transcripts. It's available here: https://github.com/edfel/Lorenz/ . I hope someone can find it useful! Edfel. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.163|108.162.254.163]] 14:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

;Dump
One idea: Maybe someone could create a script to automatically navigate Lorenz and create a dump of all the results, to fill [[1350: Lorenz/Transcript]].
I know more-or-less how that would work in "pseudocode" so I could help but I'm not going to do it (writing actual code, testing, debugging, accounting for each individual frame, etc) any time soon. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 07:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

;Go home, Saturn, you're drunk.

Quintuple Saturn POWER!
http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:9adca534-b9b0-11e3-8004-002590d77bdd [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.10|173.245.54.10]] 01:44, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

;What-If XKCD

http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b1210692-bae5-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd
Recognize this one? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.10|173.245.54.10]] 02:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

;Why are the punctuation marks clipping?

I don't know what's going on, but a comma looks just like a period in the comic. The letters E, F, and I also display strangely. What's going on?[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.96|199.27.128.96]] 01:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

; Lorenz down time
Today there was no access to Lorenz. Tried both Firefox, Chrome and internet explorer. Just mentioning it here, if this is a permanent problem - so people can see how long it has been down. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
:Well it was already up again now. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:42, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
</div>
 
After inserting the collapsing talk page - the old can be seen just by clicking the expand button. But if you wish to write anything new, then do it here below at the very bottom of the talk page so it may be seen. I have this comment - after a few weeks I believe nothing new happened in this comic. I think it is now fixed. Of course this is very hard to prove. But I have completed some branches of the interactive transcript. So let me know if you can find any new options I have missed (I could have missed if there were more than four options in a panel - but not at the dead-ends! I have also just made major revisions of the explanation and it's layout - based on my observations. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:48, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I just found a panel where it gets past the person on the comet, only one panel though... http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:25743f70-baee-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.69|108.162.254.69]] 19:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
:Great. Have added the image to the list of images and to the theme above. Keep any new images coming here.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's interesting the chess player in 1112 ("Think logically") resembles the knit cap girl. It's weird that Megan (or Randall's wife) after chemotherapy also wears a cap (1141, "Two years"). Is there any possible connections between them (or simply a coincidence)?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.108|108.162.215.108]] 04:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
:I have added links to three other comics using knit caps, including the two you mentioned. Thanks. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I noticed that the image url noted on xkcd.com is the same as the one for #1349 - Shouldn't Be Hard. Not sure if it is caused by the interactivity disallowing an image upload, or an error on Randall's part (I'd imagine working through this comic's issues was pretty distracting). 15:37, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:I believe this was fixed. At least it seems to look correct now. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

God damn I hate boomerangs now.
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.240|172.68.65.240]] 03:49, 22 November 2017 (UTC)Bob

Hey guys, are we still missing the ocean comics? because I found one that links there. https://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:3df213b4-ba4f-11e3-8037-002590d77bdd . not far after though. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.129|173.245.48.129]] 02:41, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I found a (possibly) bug where the comic doesn't load and there's just a comic-sized blank space. 19:48, 3 January 2019 (UTC) {{unsigned|Cheese12}}

As of this week I found out that {{xkcd|1350|Lorenz}} seems to have stopped working on xkcd... This makes all the permalink invalid. ;-( --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:03, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
:I also found that people have been writing new entries from the top which meant I did not see Cheese12 comment that this was so all the way back in January 2019. I have rearranged the three comments on top to the right post order here at the bottom and added a signature for Cheese12 and a day for the edit for reference to how long it has been broken. Also removed a (now broken) permalink that was left over when a user posted something and then deleted it again. It was stick beneath my previous comment. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:12, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
::Looked on the webarchive and the latest version of the comic there is from July 2019. [https://web.archive.org/web/20190719205955/https://xkcd.com/1350/ 2019-07-19]. It seems correct there with the first picture with options... Of course it is no use trying to move on, either because it is a web archive or because Lorentz doesn't work anymore on xkcd. But it seems like it should not have displayed that image if it had been a recent version of the comic, as there are no image on the page now. If this is true, then it should not have been down all the time since January as Cheese12 wrote above... But I have no idea how the web archive works for such a complicated comic page? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
:I suspect this is related to the XKCD forums being taken down. Umwelt, Externalities, Landing, and xkcloud are also down. [[User:Tbodt|Tbodt]] ([[User talk:Tbodt|talk]]) 19:19, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it's working again. [[User:Crazymachinefan|Crazymachinefan]] ([[User talk:Crazymachinefan|talk]]) 04:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I just found a bunch of new things that can occur including a new image. Here are the permalinks: https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b0bcef14-baf3-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd --Knit Cap Girl rather than Hairy wakes up after the KSP rocket launch image; https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:8e2a0d7a-baf2-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd --permalink for Hairy silhouette image; https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:8a36f73e-baaf-11e3-801f-002590d77bdd --permalink for Hairy getting to a sale without lying in bed; https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:d4cd36d8-ba95-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd NEW IMAGE-- Hairy in silhouette not talking. EDIT: Here's something *fascinating*... this panel can have either one or two responses depending on what's chosen for the first. Here's the permalink - https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b2dde69c-b9c0-11e3-8007-002590d77bdd [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.29|162.158.107.29]] 20:23, 22 October 2020 (UTC)Anonymous Waste of Time

I found a weird thing. https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:73113e0c-b9f6-11e3-8011-002590d77bdd If you select 15615 the comic freezes. The text doesn't appear, no new panels appear. [[User:PkmnQ|PkmnQ]] ([[User talk:PkmnQ|talk]]) 05:27, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
:I tried it on another device, and again it froze when I selected 15615. Can someone else try to recreate it? [[User:PkmnQ|PkmnQ]] ([[User talk:PkmnQ|talk]]) 05:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

: yeah it's the same for me too --Anonymous Waste of Time

: I looked at the console, and an error pops up, so there's at least a tiny clue to why it happens. [[User:PkmnQ|PkmnQ]] ([[User talk:PkmnQ|talk]]) 08:00, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Uncaught TypeError: e.replace is not a function
at Odlaw._comicText (bernardo.min.js:2)
at Odlaw._makeText (bernardo.min.js:2)
at Odlaw.chooseOption (bernardo.min.js:2)
at n (bernardo.min.js:2)
at HTMLLIElement.<anonymous> (bernardo.min.js:2)
at HTMLUListElement.dispatch (VM44 b66ed7.js:3)
at HTMLUListElement.r.handle (VM44 b66ed7.js:3)

:: My best guess is that 15615 is being interpreted as a number instead of a string. However, when I type in 5 as a new option it works correctly. It might be from some old input bug that was changed later on. [[User:PkmnQ|PkmnQ]] ([[User talk:PkmnQ|talk]]) 08:05, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

'''Cleaning up'''

Why was the (general) grammar of this comic so bad? I am putting in hours into this comic to fix this (and what I was originally doing, which was changing all instances of 'Knit Cap Girl' to 'Knit Cap' and changing 'she/her/hers' to 'he/him/his'). I'm about 2/3 done. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 14:14, 1st July 2021 (UTC)
:Finished :D [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 22:42, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
::Took a while because I changed schools and I can't get onto explainxkcd on the new website (and also I'm lazy). [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 22:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if this is known, but there's a path where Theft is super effective and the first move. Not sure how to hyperlink on phone, though. It's tiles, 4096, pastel color, middle class ennui, wonder why it's socially acceptable.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 21:43, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T19:20:53Z

172.70.178.33:

This seems like one of the earliest-released comics in recent history [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 14:00, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

There seemed to be two versions of the title text; on mobile, there is a youtube link visible, but this is not present on my chrome desktop view [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 14:05, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

The mouseover text in android devices is this youtube link - [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4]] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 [[User:DefectedWBC|DefectedWBC]] ([[User talk:DefectedWBC|talk]]) 14:18, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Is LotR the lowest scoring major motion picture on the {{w|Bechdel test}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.95|172.70.206.95]] 14:37, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Unlikely, depending on how you define major motion picture.

As pointed out in YouTube’s comment section, the video seems to be a joke, not ''actually'' the only female interaction in the films. [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 14:49, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Gender imbalance among readers and viewers of lotr as well. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.53|172.70.230.53]] 14:51, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

In response to Chortos-2 comment, I would think a slight edit for accuracy along the following lines -- instead of "a video showing" change to "a video that purports to show". As they discuss, the point still stands, but the added accuracy would hurt, would it? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.251|172.70.114.251]] 15:39, 20 April 2022 (UTC)newbie

I feel like it's weird that nobody's brought up that this is an Ent comic on 4/20. For context, reddit.com/r/trees (the weed subreddit) has an in joke where they call themselves ents, basically. [[User:Bazzherb|Bazzherb]] ([[User talk:Bazzherb|talk]]) 15:44, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

So who is the third hobbit supposed to be? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.38|162.158.203.38]] 15:56, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
:With the caveat that (by movie standard reference) the hair colours are inverted — there is one dark-haired hobbit and three light(er)-haired ones — I'd say Pippin - if he's the taller one of the sidekick pair like I think he is, rather than Merry. But I can't guarantee the first two are Frodo and Sam (or which is which is which) because fairer-haired Sam is taller than dark- (and spiky-)haired Frodo in the reference cast photos I've just checked. (The necessary on-film rescaling/standing-in-a-hole of non-midget actors to play hobbits/dwarves might complicate these group tableaus!) Perhaps they are all Hobbits Of Another Story, coincidentally in a fellowship with another generic Human, Dwarf and Elf. Or else drawn more faithfully to the book (which I have yet to check) than the film adaptation? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.177|172.70.85.177]] 16:30, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Considering Arwens and Ents age, I would actually suspect that yes he totally knows her. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 18:19, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
:My first thought was that, especially with both races having an interest in trees... But then I decided that their opposing views of trees (habitat vs livestock) might have encouraged a natural racial separation, or at least less likely to socially mix over the millenia. (Not that I wrote the text in support of it being a good excuse, I just post-hoc rationalised what I read. ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.211|172.70.85.211]] 19:10, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

*Some major films do even '''worse''' on the Bechdel scale than the ''Lord of the Rings'' films, which at least had three memorable, prominently credited female roles. ''Lawrence of Arabia'' had no actresses credited in the cast list. ''Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World'' had no actresses credited in the cast list, nor does IMDb list any uncredited actresses for it. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 19:20, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2603: Childhood Toys

2022-04-09T23:40:06Z

172.70.178.33:

Tarzan would thrive commuting by tire swing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.69.68.170 ([[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.170|contribs]]• [[User_talk:172.69.68.170|talk]]) 22:11, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

How are a bicycle, scooter or wagon toys, or childlike. They're actually designed for commute and children aren't even allowed on scooters. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 22:45, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
:Wagon doesn't mean station wagon. Google "toy wagon" to see what he's referring to. And electric scooter is a motorized version of a common child's toy. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:56, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
::I didn't actually assume a station wagon, was thinking of the thing usually pulled by horses. And doesn't the fact that a 'toy wagon' exists suggest that a regular wagon is not a toy? And I thought a scooter was more like a motorized bicycle rather than a toy, like a motorcycle, but slower. And at least here, you'd need to be at least 16 years old and get a permit to drive one. Funny how the same word borrowed in a closely related language can suddenly carry such different meanings. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 23:17, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
:::Since the heading says "childhood toys", I think we're supposed to understand that he means a toy wagon. And the comic shows the kind of scooter he's talking about, not a motorized bike. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:27, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
::::Here in the UK, there are:
::::*Push-along-scooters (childs toys, steel-tubing, often red and blue painted/trimmed, maybe pink for girls) that you one-leg along. Around the turn of the millenium, the craze arrived for 'adult' versions (I got one!), mostly in bare and sturdier aluminium.
::::*The motorised vehicle that might also be called a 'moped' (such terms might be considered defamatory, by the proud owner of a Lambretta, etc, depending upon era and exactly which type of motored two-wheeler you're describing)
::::*Mobility scooters, i.e. four-wheel (sometimes three) electrical vehicles sometimes barely a seat/handlebars on a moving platform, others almost like a quad-bike (esp. off-road capable ones)
::::*Now (well, since the last few years) the illustrated kind that is electrically-powered version of the sturdier push-alongs.
::::...though (as I appended in a link), except for some very limited and controlled trial-schemes, it is actually ''illegal'' to use electric 'executive' scooters (the last category). Both on roads and pavements (i.e. sidewalks). They are not considered roadworthy, for the former, and riding on the pavement is illegal for various vehicles (including bicycles, though few know/care this). There's no special provision for the use of cycle-lanes (on-road) or cycle-paths (shared/split pavements, or bridlepath-level trails). The only place an otherwise unregulated electric-scooter can be ridden is 'private land'. Which means you'd have very little chance of commuting upon your own scooter, legally, only the sanctioned for-hire ones.
:::::I was in Austin, TX a few months ago, and companies like Lime Bike had pods of electric scooters (like the one in the comic) for rent on the streets. So the legality is very location-dependent. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:03, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
::::::This is a description of the situation in the UK (see link I put in main explanation), although the sanctioned rental schemes mentioned are the explicitly legal exception for the UK, in explicitly served areas... as long as you have a driver's licence and follow other rules. Looking at the US legality, it's probably as patchwork as you'd expect with federal/state/local laws doing their usual uncoordinated things... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 14:34, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
::::(There's no such restrection on e-bikes, except for a theoretical maximum speed/power before they should be considersd motorbikes rather than electrified-mopeds. They are as welcome on the roads as bicycles (which largely depends upon the motorists and their prejudices/impatience), and similarly as illegal to ride on pavements (though of course people do that!)...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 12:30, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
:Is this possibly a cultural difference? At least in the USA, I have definitely seen kids (maybe not much younger than 10, but still) using electric scooters. Wagons and bikes are definitely associated more with kids in the USA as well, because, unfortunately, cars are seen as the only "real," most viable, and most independent form of transport. (As I have heard others say, bikes are just what you use until you get a car.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.251|172.70.114.251]] 01:31, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
::Presumably. This puzzled me a lot too. Bicycles aren't remotely 'toys', nor are scooters really -- and I'm assuming here this don't mean scooters in the sense of a small motorbike. EDIT: as is obvious from the actual cartoon. [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 08:49, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
:::In some areas of the US, bicycles are used solely for pleasure and exercise, not for actually getting anywhere. Partially because there isn't anything worth going to within an easy biking distance, and partially because the entire road system and the people who use it are often openly hostile to bicyclists.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.13|172.70.174.13]] 09:25, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
:It's surprising to see bikes listed as toys and not automobiles. Makes it seem like some new conservative meme has snuck into Randal. Weird comic for sure. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.251|172.70.114.251]] 21:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
::Not all the things listed are really toys, it's more that there are versions made for children, and you might well have had them as a child. You do not get automobiles aimed at children (with a few expensive exceptions), so that's why they are not in the list. The closest would be pedal cars and go-karts - I think they are the more notable exception. I would totally commute to work on an electic go-kart if I could. [[User:Sandor|Sandor]] ([[User talk:Sandor|talk]]) 09:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
:::Toy automobiles ''are'' on the list, of course. The {{w|Hot Wheels}}... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 13:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Slip N Slide doesn't need to be downhill. It's common to use a running start and then leap onto it, then slide to the end. But this method only works for a few yards at most, so for commuting you'd need to keep getting up to run to the next one. We'd need a network of them on every street. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
:I feel a ski-lift-like system would be helpful for sliding uphill. Or perhaps some sort of high-flow fan.
:I like bicycling everywhere, & I despise unnecessary commuting by ''any'' means, but I'd strongly consider just about any job that made it easy for everyone to commute there by Slip'N'Slide... Can we get home by zip-line?
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 00:21, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

A road made of trampolines could actually be extremely useful for short-distance commutes since you go a lot faster. [[User:N-eh|N-eh]] ([[User talk:N-eh|talk]]) 00:19, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

This is not exactly new. With special praise to the Pogo Stick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQBu_cqzn8

Given a choice between a big wheel (tricycle), unicycle, or a toy wagon (https://www.classicredwagons.com/radio_flyer_classic_red_wagon_18_c_p10.htm) as the only allowed ways to commute, I think the vast majority would toss their stuff in, use it as a scooter uphill and level, then sit in it and gleefully zoom downhill. I’d even take stilts or a pogo stick over a unicycle. In fact, I don’t see how a unicycle qualifies as a childhood toy at all. I’ve seen children using everything else mentioned, but I’ve never seen a unicycle for sale anywhere, and I’ve never seen anyone successfully ride one who wasn’t a professional acrobat.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.7|172.69.33.7]] 17:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

:I've seen plenty of non-acrobats riding unicycles. I used to ride in a 2 day 150 mile bicycle ride for charity every year, and each year there were several people on unicycles. [[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 13:26, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

::”Several” on unicycles out of how many, and how many of them did you ask their occupation? If you mean, say, five unicycles out of two thousand bicycles, it wouldn’t surprise me if all five were professional acrobats using the unicycles as a stunt to market their skills. I tried to find the charity ride you mentioned, by searching for SONAGURHAI (some other newspaper’s annual great unicycle ride halfway across Iowa) but every search engine I tried fell flat on its face. Almost as if.... they were trying to ride unicycles. :) I stand by my assertion but if you have a link with pictures and/or interviews with non-acrobats about it, I’ll concede the possibility.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 23:40, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

This strip reminds me of the Ripping Yarns episode: "Across the Andes By Frog". Although the characters in the episode didn't actually ride frogs, their progress across the mountain range was limited to the speed at which the poor amphibians could hop. Needless to say, the high altitude and low temperatures were another limiting factor. I can't remember whether they were eventually successful. [[User:Beechmere|Beechmere]] ([[User talk:Beechmere|talk]]) 02:07, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Beechmere

On the issue of "these things are not really considered toys" (I just did a bit of editing to that), the complication is that the (orignal) scooter ''was'' more or less a kids' thing (with occasional forays into adult transportation), even when given BMX-wheels, but then got transformed into more of a geek-thing around the year 2000 with a folding light-weight white-metal design that could be ridden by an adult. And of course people, being people, put power to them with small-ICE units. Only fairly recently did battery-electric become a viable thing to integrate, making them a 'serious'{{Citation needed}} transport option to produce. And then they re-toyed the 'adult models' to a smaller scale, to push them back to children to <s>bleed parents' wallets dry</s> give the kid the same opportunities in play as those hoopy-froods who whiz around the Google Campus/etc... ((Taking some liberties with the known history, but I know I'll never get it completely right, so never mind.)) So it all really depends upon how old you are/where you first encountered scooters (electric or otherwise) as to whether you consider them actually pretty much entirely toys or strange to be so, or somewhere fuzzily in-between. Just sayin'. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.177|172.70.85.177]] 21:58, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I remember playing with each of these growing up, except the unicycle. Always had fun traveling by them all over town for the practical and less-practical, and across the yard or to the neighbors' with the rest (except hotwheels). As for the title text, our tetherball poles were sometimes fixed in the ground, sometimes centered in an old tire full of concrete. I imagine it's referring to the non-fixed type. Those things were so heavy at the bottom that, even with a long heavy metal pole for leverage, they were very hard to pull over, and almost balanced at 90 degrees. I imagine if someone sat on the tire of a fallen-down one, they would be able to balance it and roll. Even if not, you could probably use the tether to re-angle yourself every few feet, without touching the ground. If I can find one of those old poles in this town I moved to recently, I'll submit video evidence of me traveling across a field on one so that you can remove the [citation needed] and the word "remotely." I'm pretty sure this will still include the scrapes and bruises mentioned.
[[User:Quarteresque|Quarteresque]] ([[User talk:Quarteresque|talk]]) 06:32, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

2595: Advanced Techniques

2022-04-06T06:01:24Z

172.70.178.33: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2595
| date = March 18, 2022
| title = Advanced Techniques
| image = advanced_techniques.png
| titletext = A blow from Emmy's Cutlass of Variations will transport the dragon to a corresponding symmetric position in the Noetherworld.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AN EULISH CLAUSS- Please slay the CORRECT dragon when editing this page. Do NOT travel to the Noetherworld. Do NOT pass Go. Please collect the correct sedenion.}}
In typical [[Miss Lenhart]] fashion, she is teaching a mathematics class where she outlines a process by which a mathematical result is achieved through steps which sound suspiciously like magical {{w|Role-playing game|RPG}} logic. She includes both a dragon and arrows to slay it.

One of her students asks if this is a metaphor for the technique, but her rather tetchy reply "Does this look like English class?!" seems to imply that she literally means that dragons and arrows will be employed in the resolution of the problem. It is also clear from the slide she is pointing at that she has drawn a dragon and a man with a bow that is aiming an arrow at the dragon. Whilst metaphor is an important part of many languages, and so is definitely taught in language classes, it is not usually used in math classes.

The caption beneath the comic states that this approach describes "All advanced math techniques." This could be a reference to the now-common approach in higher mathematics in which a problem is transformed into another domain where it is easier to solve, then transformed back. For instance, in {{w|Fourier analysis}}, commonly used for analyzing the behavior of signals or dynamical systems, a problem can be transformed from the time domain to the frequency domain, solved, and then transformed back again. A (much) more complex example is Andrew {{w|Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem}}, which uses {{w|modularity theorem|modularity lifting}} to transform the problem. Here Miss Lenhart says she will transform a math problem into an actual dragon, slay it, and transform the corpse back into mathematics.

An alternative view is that Randall is referring to {{w|Arthur C. Clarke}}'s {{W|Clarke's three laws|third law}} that ''Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'', as re-framed for mathematics. What [[Randall]] would be implying is that all advanced math techniques look like magic to non-mathematicians. (Another advanced and somewhat magical math technique is deployed by Miss Lenhart in [[1724: Proofs]].)

Invocations are a common classification for spoken or vocalized types of spell. In the logic Miss Lenhart used, 'invoking' Gauss's operator may refer to casting a magical spell with verbal components (such as [https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/True%20Polymorph True Polymorph]). The operator is presumably named after the famous German mathematician {{w|Carl Friedrich Gauss}}. There is nothing on Wikipedia called Gauss's operator, but there is both {{w|Gauss's law}} and the {{w|Gauss–Kuzmin–Wirsing operator}}. As neither can transform an equation into a dragon,{{Citation needed}} it's clear Randall is making a joke.

Slaying the dragon with Hilbert's arrow indicates that the arrow has some magical properties. The arrow is presumably named after {{w|David Hilbert}}, known for many mathematical developments including {{w|Hilbert's problems}} and {{w|Hilbert spaces}}. A Hilbert space converts subsets of an infinite vector space into a complete metric space, allowing the use of linear algebra and calculus methods which might otherwise be applicable only to finite Euclidean spaces. Vectors could be compared with an arrow. Magical arrows are frequently used to slay dragons in myth and role-playing games. Magical items in RPGs such as {{w|Dungeons & Dragons}} are often named after a creator or famous user; hence, a magical "Arrow of Hilbert" might traverse infinite spaces or affect targets for which one or more stats are effectively infinite.

There is in fact a class of {{w|Dragon curve}}s, which do have the sort of S-shape shown on the whiteboard, but they have no connection to Gauss's operator, and are not actual dragons that need slaying.

The title text contains two puns and a reference. The phrase "{{w|Cutlass}} of Variations" is a pun on the mathematical technique called "{{w|Calculus of variations}}". The word "Noetherworld" is a pun on "{{w|underworld|netherworld}}". The reference is to the mathematician {{w|Emmy Noether}}, a giant in the field of abstract algebra which, through more of Ms. Lenhart’s questionable transformations, may become an actual giant in a field of abstract algae bras. Furthermore, {{w|Noether's Theorem}} is used in the Calculus of Variations. She was previously referenced as one of many important women in science back in [[896: Marie Curie]].

==Transcript==
:[Miss Lenhart is using a stick to point at a whiteboard behind her while facing, presumably, a crowd of off-panel students. The white board has a drawing of a snake-shaped dragon with wings, flying with it's body in an S-shape. An archer is pointing an arrow up at the dragon above him. Above the drawings there are three and below two rows of unreadable text and equations.]
:Miss Lenhart: To solve this equation, we invoke Gauss's operator to transform it into a dragon.
:Miss Lenhart: Then we slay the dragon with Hilbert's Arrow, and transform its corpse back into the solution.
:Off-panel voice: Just to be clear, this is a metaphor, right?
:Miss Lenhart: Does this '''''look''''' like English class?!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:All advanced math techniques

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Math]]

2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio

2022-03-29T17:32:53Z

172.70.178.33: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2599
| date = March 28, 2022
| title = Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
| image = spacecraft_debris_odds_ratio.png
| titletext = You say this daily walk will reduce my risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30%, but also increase my risk of death by bear attack by 300%? That's a 280% increased! I'm not a sucker; I'm staying inside.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EVENS RATIO - Explain how the 280% from the title text comes about. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a misunderstanding of statistics very similar to that of [[1252: Increased Risk]]. It explains that going outside for more than 5 hours significantly increases your risk of head injury from falling spacecraft, and advises to limit outside activity to avoid this risk.

However, since the odds of being hit in the head by (any part of) a falling spacecraft are astronomically low to begin with, quadrupling it or more still results in a negligible probability. The horizontal error bars for times greater than 4 hours are marked with asterisks to indicate they are significantly different from the reference value at 0 hours, as indeed those error bars don't overlap the vertical line for the 0-hours reference value. The graph originally referred to "hours spent outdoors" but later was edited to specify "hours spent outdoors per day" (as opposed to, for example, hours spent outdoors in one's lifetime).

{{w|Error bar}}s are graphical representations of the variability of data and used on graphs to indicate the error or uncertainty in a reported measurement.

Presenting the data by hour brackets hides the data distribution inside each bracket. If the data were presented hour by hour, and not by groups of hours, they may show a different threshold of increased risk or no threshold (odds ratio could be linear).

The graph and error bars are based on a {{w|Monte Carlo Method|Monte Carlo simulation}}, a type of computational algorithm that uses repeated random sampling to obtain the likelihood of a range of results of occurring; see, for instance, this article about [https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/monte-carlo-simulation Monte Carlo simulations].

The specific reference to falling spacecraft is likely inspired by events happening around the time of this comics release (March 2022). Around a month before this was posted, the head of the Russian space agency, {{w|Roscosmos}}, warned that sanctions against Russia (mostly those over the {{w|2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine}}) could result in the {{w|International Space Station}} crashing. Since the Russian section of the space station is the one that provides propulsion (although it is built to rely on the power generated by the other sections), this was taken seriously and as of when this was posted, {{w|NASA}} was trying to come up with alternative stabilization strategies in case the situation worsened. There was also a recent [https://www-uol-com-br.translate.goog/tilt/noticias/redacao/2022/03/17/parte-do-foguete-spacex-e-encontrada-por-morador-do-pr.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp report] of some 600 kg space rocket debris found in Brazil.

The title text makes a similar joke. While the increase in chances of death by a bear attack are greater when going outside than the decrease in chances of death by cardiovascular disease, by getting out to exercise, it is incorrect to combine them in this way, since cardiovascular disease has a much higher starting chance of death, and reducing it by 30% has a much more significant effect on overall life expectancy than quadrupling the very very small chance of death by bear attack.

The "280% increase" of the title text is also an error, though perhaps not for reasons that are obvious at first (for instance, the correct calculation is not "300% − 30% = 270%"). To "increase by 300%" means multiplying the probability by (1 + 3.0) = 4.0, while to "decrease by 30%" means multiplying by (1 − 0.3) = 0.7. Combining these means multiplying by both, for an overall change of 4.0 × 0.7 = 2.8, or 280%. However, this result means the risk has increased ''to'' 280% of its old value, not ''by'' 280%. And in any case, it is ''still'' not valid to simply combine two changes in wildly different risks like this.

==Transcript==
:[A chart is shown. Above the chart there is a heading, with a subheading below it:]
:Odds ratio for head injuries from falling spacecraft debris
:(Monte Carlo Simulation)

:[The chart is rectangular with the X-axis labels above the chart with numbers from 1 to 5. These are places over vertical lines. The first at 1 is black, the other four are light gray. There are three smaller light gray ticks between each set of lines, and one on either side of the first and last. The distance between lines gets smaller and smaller towards the right, probably logarithmic.]
:X-axis: 1 2 3 4 5

:[The Y-axis is not scaled; there are no ticks or lines. Instead it just gives five labels from top to bottom. Above those labels there is an arrow pointing to the top one with a label above explaning the axis.]
:Hours spent outdoors
:Y-axis:
::0 (ref)
::1
::2-4
::5-10
::11+

:[Aligned with each of these five divisions of the Y-axis there is a dot. The top one is placed on the solid line under 1 as a reference point. The other four dots all have long error bars, with the dots at the center of these. The second dot is a bit to the left of the solid line, with the error bar going almost to the left edge of the graph and halfway to the first light gray line to the right. The third dot is located halfway between the solid and the first light gray line with the error bar just crossing the solid line, and almost reaching the gray line. The fourth dot is about a third way between the first and second of the gray lines, with the error bar crossing both these lines. The fifth and last dot is just past the second gray line, with the error bar crossing both that, going more than half toward the first gray line, and also just past the third gray line. On the same height as the two bottom dots, there are asterisks just right of the edge of the graph.]
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>

:[Below the panel there is a caption:]
:Our new study suggests that spending more than 5 hours outside significantly increases your risk of head injury from spacecraft debris, so try to limit outdoor activities to 4 hours or less.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio

2022-03-29T17:32:16Z

172.70.178.33: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2599
| date = March 28, 2022
| title = Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
| image = spacecraft_debris_odds_ratio.png
| titletext = You say this daily walk will reduce my risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30%, but also increase my risk of death by bear attack by 300%? That's a 280% increased! I'm not a sucker; I'm staying inside.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EVENS RATIO - Explain how the 280% from the title text comes about. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a misunderstanding of statistics very similar to that of [[1252: Increased Risk]]. It explains that going outside for more than 5 hours significantly increases your risk of head injury from falling spacecraft, and advises to limit outside activity to avoid this risk.

However, since the odds of being hit in the head by (any part of) a falling spacecraft are astronomically low to begin with, quadrupling it or more still results in a negligible probability. The horizontal error bars for times greater than 4 hours are marked with asterisks to indicate they are significantly different from the reference value at 0 hours, as indeed those error bars don't overlap the vertical line for the 0-hours reference value. The graph originally referred to "hours spent outdoors" but later was edited to indicate that this meant "hours spent outdoors per day" (as opposed to, for example, hours spent outdoors in one's lifetime).

{{w|Error bar}}s are graphical representations of the variability of data and used on graphs to indicate the error or uncertainty in a reported measurement.

Presenting the data by hour brackets hides the data distribution inside each bracket. If the data were presented hour by hour, and not by groups of hours, they may show a different threshold of increased risk or no threshold (odds ratio could be linear).

The graph and error bars are based on a {{w|Monte Carlo Method|Monte Carlo simulation}}, a type of computational algorithm that uses repeated random sampling to obtain the likelihood of a range of results of occurring; see, for instance, this article about [https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/monte-carlo-simulation Monte Carlo simulations].

The specific reference to falling spacecraft is likely inspired by events happening around the time of this comics release (March 2022). Around a month before this was posted, the head of the Russian space agency, {{w|Roscosmos}}, warned that sanctions against Russia (mostly those over the {{w|2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine}}) could result in the {{w|International Space Station}} crashing. Since the Russian section of the space station is the one that provides propulsion (although it is built to rely on the power generated by the other sections), this was taken seriously and as of when this was posted, {{w|NASA}} was trying to come up with alternative stabilization strategies in case the situation worsened. There was also a recent [https://www-uol-com-br.translate.goog/tilt/noticias/redacao/2022/03/17/parte-do-foguete-spacex-e-encontrada-por-morador-do-pr.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp report] of some 600 kg space rocket debris found in Brazil.

The title text makes a similar joke. While the increase in chances of death by a bear attack are greater when going outside than the decrease in chances of death by cardiovascular disease, by getting out to exercise, it is incorrect to combine them in this way, since cardiovascular disease has a much higher starting chance of death, and reducing it by 30% has a much more significant effect on overall life expectancy than quadrupling the very very small chance of death by bear attack.

The "280% increase" of the title text is also an error, though perhaps not for reasons that are obvious at first (for instance, the correct calculation is not "300% − 30% = 270%"). To "increase by 300%" means multiplying the probability by (1 + 3.0) = 4.0, while to "decrease by 30%" means multiplying by (1 − 0.3) = 0.7. Combining these means multiplying by both, for an overall change of 4.0 × 0.7 = 2.8, or 280%. However, this result means the risk has increased ''to'' 280% of its old value, not ''by'' 280%. And in any case, it is ''still'' not valid to simply combine two changes in wildly different risks like this.

==Transcript==
:[A chart is shown. Above the chart there is a heading, with a subheading below it:]
:Odds ratio for head injuries from falling spacecraft debris
:(Monte Carlo Simulation)

:[The chart is rectangular with the X-axis labels above the chart with numbers from 1 to 5. These are places over vertical lines. The first at 1 is black, the other four are light gray. There are three smaller light gray ticks between each set of lines, and one on either side of the first and last. The distance between lines gets smaller and smaller towards the right, probably logarithmic.]
:X-axis: 1 2 3 4 5

:[The Y-axis is not scaled; there are no ticks or lines. Instead it just gives five labels from top to bottom. Above those labels there is an arrow pointing to the top one with a label above explaning the axis.]
:Hours spent outdoors
:Y-axis:
::0 (ref)
::1
::2-4
::5-10
::11+

:[Aligned with each of these five divisions of the Y-axis there is a dot. The top one is placed on the solid line under 1 as a reference point. The other four dots all have long error bars, with the dots at the center of these. The second dot is a bit to the left of the solid line, with the error bar going almost to the left edge of the graph and halfway to the first light gray line to the right. The third dot is located halfway between the solid and the first light gray line with the error bar just crossing the solid line, and almost reaching the gray line. The fourth dot is about a third way between the first and second of the gray lines, with the error bar crossing both these lines. The fifth and last dot is just past the second gray line, with the error bar crossing both that, going more than half toward the first gray line, and also just past the third gray line. On the same height as the two bottom dots, there are asterisks just right of the edge of the graph.]
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>

:[Below the panel there is a caption:]
:Our new study suggests that spending more than 5 hours outside significantly increases your risk of head injury from spacecraft debris, so try to limit outdoor activities to 4 hours or less.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:2598: Graphic Designers

2022-03-29T00:58:38Z

172.70.178.33:

I think a better analogy would be with garlic. The threshold barrier is a magical force that blocks them, while vampires just find garlic really off-putting. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:12, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
: Depends on the lore. In some settings garlic is entirely ineffective (example: World of Darkness) and in other it's outright poisonous/harmful (example: Dresdenverse Black Court). [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:16, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Anyone think we should add the hex color codes of all the walls to the explanation? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:23, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:I suspect Randall didn't ACTUALLY use different colours in this comic. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:42, 26 March 2022 (UTC):
::I've just gone over the comic with a colour picker... I have bad and/or good news: You are incorrect. [[User:Tantusar|Tantusar]] ([[User talk:Tantusar|talk]]) 04:52, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:::Yup, should have known, LOL! I see as suggested (which in such case I totally agree) someone added the different colours, and wonderful touch with the saturation picture. I had figured he'd make a slightly bigger difference so someone with a good eye (like myself) could spot SOMETHING. But I forgot how Randall gets into "You need graphic software" territory, LMAO! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 22:58, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:I can't see any difference but I bow to your greater geekery [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 16:57, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey! As of tonight I'm caught up on XKCD for the first time in 2 years! I read them at the bar, at karaoke, and my last time out before staying in for the pandemic was mid-March 2020. I needed to share. :) First comic reading it ON the release day in that long. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:42, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey, Randall! You made the floor FFFFFF, but that isn't a shade of off-white. It's just white. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 09:12, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:Who paints the floor, anyway? Varnish, maybe, in a suitably wooden-floored residential situation, but not paint. But I'd say it's (however, whether carpet or laminate or whatever) that is the white from which all the other whites are suitably 'off-'...
:(Also, the 'innocuous things that repel' vibe reminds me of the end-game for the vampire family in {{w|Carpe Jugulum}}, after being inadvertently highly trained to appreciate religious symbology.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 09:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
::This DOES specify "walls", :) As it is, it's nuts he included the rug. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 22:58, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:::No it says ''every surface''. So actually the floor should have been off-white as well since it is a surface. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:24, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

My dentist will not allow off-white colours in the front room of his house because the colour is too much like work related thoughts. He has told his wife that she can choose any colour style as long as it does not include off-white. (My hobby is to ask people how their job changes aspects of their non-job life.) [[User:Punchcard|Punchcard]] ([[User talk:Punchcard|talk]]) 12:54, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:Could have been one of Randall's hobbies...--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:24, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

It would be helpful to add a version of the comic with the color saturation cranked up, like this: https://i.imgur.com/gMpmJlp.png .
However, I cannot upload images. Also note that the window ledges have their own colors, too. [[User:Hknl|Hknl]] ([[User talk:Hknl|talk]]) 14:48, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:Got there before me. I was going to do a version of my own (fullest saturation, probably) as soon as I was on something sensible like my desktop with good old GIMP.
:PS... That's surprisingly close to a (muted) accumulation of my house colour-scheme, minus a few others I also used. Though not in the same room. Frexample, the walls of my hallway and stairs are Etruscan Orange (no, I don't know what makes it {{w|Etruscan}}, but that was the paint name!) while those in the adjoining living room are Lime Green. The ceilings and smirting-boards tend to be standard white, but the covings are matching-but-darker hues of the walls. I'm planning the repainting/redecorating of another property and I'm using the 20-odd years living within the above pallette (with no complaints, but maybe additional or alternative ideas) to perhaps be a bit more adventurous in some places. Like trying graduated countershading/hue-shifting in some corners... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 16:15, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
::Hi, got here first with paint.net :) [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 17:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
:Interesting colour distribution, if I didn't somehow mess up the conversion in a scratch script I made. Here's the number of pixels (that are not black/white/grey; i.e. 260,817 out of the entire 517,470 present in the _2x image) that inhabit each hue-position.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
!Colour Sextant !! 0+60n !! 10+60n !! 20+60n !! 30+60n !! ... !! 40+60n !! ... !! 50+60n
|-
|Red->Yellow || 0° x 544|| n/a || 20° x69|| 30° x29955|| n/a || 40° x31|| n/a || n/a
|-
|Yellow->Green || 60° x 766|| n/a || 80° x 4|| 90° x13962|| 96° x1514||100° x91||105° x48|| n/a
|-
|Green->Cyan ||120° x23188|| n/a || n/a ||150° x 6790|| n/a ||160° x 2|| n/a || n/a
|-
|Cyan->Blue ||180° x91337|| n/a || n/a ||210° x72433|| n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a
|-
|Blue->Magenta || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a
|-
|Meganta->Red ||300° x 1093|| n/a ||320° x93||330° x18801|| n/a ||340° x96|| n/a || n/a
|}
:It looks like Randall used ''mostly'' 10-degree spots (two were not), in fact actually even more restricted to the combination of 20-degree spots ''plus'' the 30-degree ones, and nothing at all in the whole 'Blue>Red'-dominant segment. I rounded some to the nearest degree, but my initial figures were all no more than 4x10-13 away from whole numbers, which is probably just the level of precision achievable with my ad-hoc calculations. I really ought to check that I've not reflected or rotated or otherwise messed up the hue calculation but I feel sure that the basic idea is correct. It shouldn't change the 'interesting coincidences', but could revise ''where'' the pattern actually lies.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 22:03, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
::He missed the ancient geek joke though. He should have just filled all shapes with #FFFFF2-#FFFFFF, in one bit increments, so that ALL surfaces would appear white to the human eye, but still be different.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 16:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey! Now that the saturated version is in, I note that the windows aren't included in the list of colours! I suspect each window frame matches each window ledge (which ARE mentioned for their angle). Looks to me like the left window is about the same pink as the front of the window seat, and the right window is the same tan as the left wall. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 23:15, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

It might not be needed, but my hypernormalised version (all valid hues fully saturated) can be found [https://imgur.com/a/Csc7r2H here]... it's the _2x version that I altered, if you'd prefer to know that before checking it. You can compare it to the currently off-linked 'increased saturation' image, and see that it 'rounded up' some areas of near- and nearer-white to basically the same values via my hue-only preservation while removing the whole shade subtlety. Like I said above, my house features much of a similar conglomoration of colours. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 05:49, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Anyone who has made one of those pictures, that can allow us to download it and upload it to explain xkcd, so it is a permanent addition to this page, and not depending on the linked pages keeping the image? I can upload it if so. In case you do have a version that is yours to share, answer both here, but also in my talk page, or I might forget --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:42, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
:As the creator of the [https://imgur.com/a/Csc7r2H 'hypernormalised version'] (not the best words, but my internal thinking about the process of going fully saturated), do whatever you want with it. I could flood you with loads of other versions (the ones that isolated just the saturation level, for example, so that I could then produce some reworked animated gifs of the scene I thought might be a good idea) but that'd be overkill. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.153|172.69.79.153]] 22:13, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
::Thanks, could you make one we may use, that are closer to the one [https://i.imgur.com/gMpmJlp.png linked at present]. I think your over saturated version is a bit too much. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:47, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
::::In reply to the above point, and a couple below:
::::* When I'm back home on Friday, where the computer is that has the conversions (and scripts I fine-tuned to create them) I'll do a 50% saturation (or something) version.
::::* The ceiling and adjacent wall are (practically) the same hue but different SV/SL combos (by HSV or HSL calculations). In both #F3F7F8 and #F2F3F4, the B-channel is valued one higher than the G. As they are both almost maximal, the degree of (smallest value) R doesn't significantly affect the final direction of the vector obtained by combining only the primary and secondary values, and is almost exactly the opposing direction (but not enough to invert the hue by ±180°, obviously) and so it's practically identical within rounding limits. Or so it seems to me.
::::* In the (say) half-saturated version, or whatever proportion looks best to me (I'm no artist, hence I went for the absolute as one less thing to decide myself) I could put the relatively whiter #F2F3F4 (less red, but slightly more red in proportion to green/blue!) at quarter saturation, or whatever does it justice. (75% and 50%? 90% and 80%?)
::::* For a batch of my personal 'for fun' transforms, I found out that the median Saturation of all validly-hued pixels was at roughly 0.015 (1.5%), or at least it was in my version - this of course includes darker anti-aliased pixels associated with the edges of the black lines, though does not count the strictly black/white/grey pixels themselves, wherever they appear.
::::* (NB, I used HSV's version of S, not HSL's, because I emperically found that the L-controlled colourspace complicates things in ways that the V-controlled one does not, in this situation at least. See also chroma-radial biconic and conic 3d plots, respectively. I can't remember the threshold I found under HSL analysis, just that it was less useful/consistent when I tried to use it.)
::::* From memory, the maximum Saturation was 11.1%, give or take, but only a handful of pixels, I forgot where they were. But by rewriting the target output hue as 240*9*saturation was an interesting transform to show where weird pixel-saturations happened, totally changing the scene, of course... ;)
::::* If I used that 0.015 value as a threshold, I could 'separate' the ceiling and far wall in hue-bending ways (e.g. hue=hue+180° where Sat<0.015, or else hue=hue-offset° instead of +offset°; I used both, to good effect)... I think the box-seat-top was the only other major component this twisted, so I just had to stop that becoming too like the hue of ''its'' immediate neighbours and not encounter a different violation of the four-colour problem.
::::* I made a number of animated gifs, mostly pyschedelic in nature. I won't subject you to them, but I'll perhaps recode the automation I used for that to ramp up and down from 'raw' to top-note maximised (keeping lightness in proportion for those that started less sarurated?) and back.
:::: ...or, given these few clues, any idiot with GIMP (or Photoshop?) can probably do a good enough job quickly enough with a few use of sliders, before I even get back to my homegrown scratch Perl code. I might even just do it in GIMP myself, but I think better in raw data and my own idea of the necessary transforms than with some pre-coded visual tools.
:::: So, yeah, if any of that info is useful/comprehendable, you're welcome to it. I'll be back home on Friday, but until then I leave it up to people with actual artistic bones in their bodies, unlike myself. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 19:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
::: Interesting that both hypernormalized and increased saturation show the ceiling as being the same color as the far wall, which they clearly aren't, either to the naked eye, or by their listed hex codes. Would be nice to create a version that showed all the colors as distinct, perhaps by reducing to about 50% brightness while increasing contrast, to essentially equalize the histogram. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.55|172.69.70.55]] 16:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there a category of strips which use color? --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.55|172.69.70.55]] 16:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
:Yes [[:Category:Comics_with_color]], to which this comic has already been linked. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 19:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

What I'd love to see is a Animated GIF where we step the saturation up slowly, so folks can see when the notice the color shift. I could tell they were different, but I'd not have been able to tell you HOW until I saw full saturation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.18|172.70.211.18]] 16:52, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Ultimately, the way this is stated makes it an inherently flawed analogy for a reason I'm surprised no one else has pointed out yet. Yes, you could compare being repelled by something aesthetically unpleasing to vampires avoiding things like crosses and garlic, but this is specifically about entering a house, and normally the primary thing preventing vampires from entering houses is needing to be invited, and in this instance they are unwilling to enter despite being explicitly invited in the shown dialogue. This would only be comparable if you compared it to making your whole house made out of or stuffed with garlic or something. Things that keep vampires at bay in a similar manner like crosses and garlic are usually either kept carried on you (like a cross normally), or kept near your bed, such as hanging off some strings around it, to protect you while sleeping (with garlic), and is different from the normal criteria of if they can simply walk through your front doors, which is contingent on an invitation from someone in the house, which a vampire would most likely overcome by either pretending to not be a vampire to be invited in for some false innocent seeming purpose, or using some sort of hypnosis ability like they sometimes are portrayed as having.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 00:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

2598: Graphic Designers

2022-03-26T05:18:34Z

172.70.178.33: add caps

{{comic
| number = 2598
| date = March 25, 2022
| title = Graphic Designers
| image = graphic_designers.png
| titletext = They might make it past that first line of defense. For the second, you'll need some picture frames, a level, and a protractor that can do increments of less than a degree.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by HEX CODE #D3D3D3 AND FRIENDS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Cueball is inviting a friend into his freshly repainted residence. The friend is presumably a graphic designer (per the caption) and doesn't want to enter. The caption analogizes this with a specific bit of vampire lore: Vampires can only enter a house if welcomed in by the owner. The joke is that if you paint each wall a slightly different shade of off-white, a graphic designer will be so repulsed that he's physically unable to enter the room.

In the title text he supposes that the designer manages to overcome this disgust. In this case, Cueball sets up a second way to troll his graphic designer friend using some picture frames, a {{w|Level (instrument)|level}}, and a fine-grained {{w|protractor}}. The exact nature of this second trap is ambiguous. Perhaps Cueball will simply leave the tools around his living room, and the designer friend will be obsessed with ensuring that the pictures are hung perfectly level, so he won't have time to bother you with boring conversation — analogous to some folk tales where vampires exhibit {{w|Arithmomania|symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder}} and can be distracted by triggering their tics. Alternatively Cueball may be skewing his picture frames by an extremely small amount, noticeable only to the designer friend, to disgust him even further — analogous to hanging {{w|Christian cross|crosses}} on the wall, which vampires are repulsed by.

True to the comic's joke, Randall has colored each segment of the comic differently to each other. The hexadecimal color codes are:
* Floor: FF FF FF
* Ceiling: F3 F7 F8
* Walls (left-to-right)
** F2 F0 EE
** F3 F4 F2
** F2 F3 F4
** F3 F2 F4
* Door: F1 F3 F1
* Box seat top: EE F1 EC
* Box seat front: F2 EE F0
* Rug outer ring: F0 F2 F1
* Rug inner panel: F0 EF F1

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands in a lightly adorned room of a house, facing an open doorway. Knit Cap stands in the open doorway, as if about to enter the house. Cueball is reaching towards the doorway, inviting Knit Cap to enter.]
:Cueball: Come on in! We just repainted.
:Knit Cap: I... can't.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:If you want to set up a vampire-style barrier to keep graphic designers from entering your house, just paint every surface a slightly different shade of off-white.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]