explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2655: Asking Scientists Questions

2022-08-05T23:41:32Z

172.70.210.237: /* Transcript */ randall

{{comic
| number = 2655
| date = August 5, 2022
| title = Asking Scientists Questions
| image = asking_scientists_questions.png
| titletext = 'Does the substance feel weird to the touch?' is equally likely to get the answers 'Don't be ridiculous, you would never put your hand near a sample. We have safety protocols.' and 'Yeah, and it tastes AWFUL.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WHO REALLY WANTS TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR ONCE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Answering the questions in Randall Munroe's What-If books (and the blag before it) requires a wide variety of scientific expertise, much of which he is unfamiliar with. To make up for this deficiency, Munroe (here represented by Cueball) has to ask other scientists for help.

People have certain expectations about scientists, as they would any group of people. In the case of scientists, they are often expected to be overly-serious, "measuring the marigolds" rather than enjoying the simpler or more subjective things in life. This is reflected in the first panel, where the scientist is annoyed by Cueball's "frivolous scenario" and wants to work on formulas instead.

In reality, scientists are people{{citation needed}}. In the second panel, the scientist is relieved that they have "something fun to think about" as part of their work, instead of just filling out grant applications. Grants are donations of money from private or government organizations specifically aimed to fund scientific experiments and projects; in many fields, they are the most common source of funding, and the vast majority of scientists not directly employed by private industry rely on grants to support their work. These organizations require applicants to provide detailed information on the goal of the project, the methodology, the expected results, the specific uses to which the money will be put, and more. Applying for a grant is thus a lengthy, painstaking process that more often than not results in disappointment, since most grants only accept a small percentage of all applicants. It also has little to do directly with the actual science the scientists want to perform. Thus most scientists find it a necessary but time-consuming and unpleasant part of their job, and the ones Munroe interviewed express relief at having a break from this part of their work. They then ask if Munroe would like to fill out grant applications, trying to bribe him with coauthor credit, powerful magnets, and plutonium. Plutonium is used in making atomic bombs and is thus a highly controlled substance, as well as being {{w|Plutonium#Toxicity|highly toxic}} due to both its radioactivity as well as its heavy metal poison effects.

The title text notes that not all responses were complaints about grant applications, noting two kinds of answers to the question "Does the substance feel weird to the touch?" which Munroe claims are equally common. The first is the sort of response you would expect from a stereotypical scientist—just noting the sorts of safety procedures that are common with such a substance and how they would impede attempts to determine how weird a substance feels. The second is "Yeah, and it tastes AWFUL," implying that the scientist in question touched the weird substance, possibly licked it if not put it completely in their mouth, and casually volunteered to have done so without being further prompted.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Caption above the panels, in lighter gray:]
:For the last few years, I've been working on answering peoples' ridiculous questions for ''What If? 2'', which sometimes meant asking scientists for help.

:[Left panel top caption:]
:How you'd expect scientists to respond to ridiculous questions:
:[Cueball stands holding pad and pencil in front of a desk. Hairbun is seated behind the desk, pointing at Cueball.]
:Hairbun: Why would you present me with this frivolous scenario?
:Hairbun: Such an absurd query can serve no practical purpose.
:Hairbun: Now go; you distract me from my formulas.

:[Right panel top caption:]
:How they actually respond:
:[Cueball stands holding pad and pencil in front of a desk. Hairbun is seated behind the desk while holding a stack of papers.]
:Hairbun: Oh thank God, something fun to think about that's not grant applications.
:Hairbun: Hey, do '''you''' want to fill out some grant applications? I'll give you literally anything. Coauthor credit. Powerful magnets. Do you want plutonium? I can get you plutonium.
:Hairbun: What was your name again?

:[Caption below the panel, in lighter gray:]
:To see the answers I found, preorder at xkcd.com/whatif2 (out 9/13)

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Book promotion]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]

2617: Maps

2022-05-10T07:21:30Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2617
| date = May 9, 2022
| title = Maps
| image = maps.png
| titletext = OpenStreetMap was always pretty good but is also now *really* good? And Apple Maps's new zoomed-in design in certain cities like NYC and London is just gorgeous. It's cool how there are all these good maps now!
}}

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

{{w|Apple Maps}} was quite bad when released at the first time, attracting lots of criticism from iPhone users who were accustomed to the superior {{w|Google Maps}}. Randall/Cueball is surprised that it is now pretty good. His surprise is exaggerated to the extent that it is comparable to some fundamental constant of universe, say pi, is changed to some other number.

The term "map" carries a double meaning. While it refers to an actual map, it also refers to the concept of "map and territory," where your map is your model of the universe, and the territory is the universe itself. Cueball has a map of the universe where Apple Maps is bad, and is surprised to discover that the map no longer fits the territory, and thus has to update his map.

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

:[Megan and White Hat face Cueball, who is staring at his palms.]
:Cueball: You look around one day and realize the things you assumed were immutable constants of the universe have changed.
:Cueball: The foundations of our reality are shifting beneath our feet.
:Cueball: We live in a house built on sand.

:[Caption below panel]
:The day I discovered that Apple maps is kind of good now

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

2617: Maps

2022-05-10T07:20:03Z

172.70.210.237: /* Transcript */ cats

{{comic
| number = 2617
| date = May 9, 2022
| title = Maps
| image = maps.png
| titletext = OpenStreetMap was always pretty good but is also now *really* good? And Apple Maps's new zoomed-in design in certain cities like NYC and London is just gorgeous. It's cool how there are all these good maps now!
}}

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

Apple maps was quite bad when released at the first time, attracting lots of criticism from iPhone users who were accustomed to the superior Google Maps. Cueball is surprised that it is now pretty good. His surprise is exaggerated to the extent that it is comparable to some fundamental constant of universe, say pi, is changed to some other number.

The term "map" carries a double meaning. While it refers to an actual map, it also refers to the concept of "map and territory," where your map is your model of the universe, and the territory is the universe itself. Cueball has a map of the universe where Apple Maps is bad, and is surprised to discover that the map no longer fits the territory, and thus has to update his map.

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

:[Megan and White Hat face Cueball, who is staring at his palms.]
:Cueball: You look around one day and realize the things you assumed were immutable constants of the universe have changed.
:Cueball: The foundations of our reality are shifting beneath our feet.
:Cueball: We live in a house built on sand.

:[Caption below panel]
:The day I discovered that Apple maps is kind of good now

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-04T22:39:00Z

172.70.210.237:

{{comic
| number = 2613
| date = April 29, 2022
| title = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #248: Madagascator. It came about 10 months after the fourth [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special ]] (#299).

This time, [[Randall]] used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}. The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis. Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes, hence the name the ''Madagascator'' — a portmanteau of "Madagascar" and "Mercator"!

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s, because a straight line (or {{w|rhumb line}}) in a Mercator map represents a constant bearing relative to true north. Historically, when navigation was performed by compass, this was a very valuable feature, since one (adjusting for the differences between true and magnetic north) could plot a constant-bearing course between two locations by simply looking at their relative direction on the map.

However, in the mid-20th century, the Mercator was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because it causes distortion near the north and south poles of the map, giving an inaccurate impression of relative sizes. The most commonly given example of this is the size of Greenland — although on the Mercator it appears to be larger than Africa in area, Africa in reality covers an area 14 times that of Greenland.

Randall turns this example on its head by making Madagascar, rather than Greenland, appear larger in the ''Madagascator'' than in reality. By contrast with Greenland, the world's largest non-continent island, Madagascar is only the fourth-largest island in the world, behind Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo.

To accomplish this, instead of placing the north pole of the map at the geographic North Pole, Randall places the north pole of the map on the island of Mahé in Seychelles. As Madagascar is relatively close to Mahé (around 650 mi (1050 km) distant), placing the north pole of the Mercator projection at Mahé significantly distorts the size of Madagascar, making it appear comparable in size to Europe on the map.

But this distortion is even more pronounced when it comes to the island of Mahé itself, as Randall notes in the title text.
Although Mahé, the largest island in Seychelles with an area of 60.7 square mi (157.2 square km), is minuscule even compared to Madagascar, the claim in the title text that it appears "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined" is an understatement.

No part of Mahé is visible in the comic, but clicking on the actual comic will open a website that displays Mercator projections with a pole in any chosen location, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined. A single national park within the island rivals Africa in size, and the narrow dirt road closest to the pole appears thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the map's north pole (the "small lake" mentioned by Randall) is the lake impounded by the Rochon Dam, a popular tourist location in Mahé.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Landmass
! Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref> (Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent 2nd largest || 29.7 || 19.95% || 35% || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" /> || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent Largest || 53.4 || 35.83% || 30% || -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent 3rd largest || 19.3 || 12.96% || 15% || +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" /> || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent 4th largest || 17.8 || 11.96% || 7.8% || -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref> || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent 5th largest || 14.2 || 9.53% || 5.3% || -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar || data-sort-value="I04"|Island 4th largest || 0.592 || 0.40% || 2.9% || +2.50%
|-
| Australia || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent Smallest || 7.55 || 5.07% || 2.5% || -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" /> || data-sort-value="I01"|Island Largest || 2.17 || 1.45% || 0.87% || -0.58%
|-
| Borneo || data-sort-value="I03"|Island 3rd largest || 0.749 || 0.50% || 0.37% || -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea || data-sort-value="I02"|Island 2nd largest || 0.786 || 0.53% || 0.32% || -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref> || data-sort-value="I07"|Island 7th largest || 0.228 || 0.15% || 0.10% || -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain || data-sort-value="I09"|Island 9th largest || 0.209 || 0.14% || 0.10% || -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland || data-sort-value="I20"|Island 20th largest || 0.082 || 0.05% || 0.03% || -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled, and country borders are shown.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

155: Search History

2022-05-04T01:06:53Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 236590 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 155
| date = September 11, 2006
| title = Search History
| image = search_history.png
| titletext = SomethingAwful has a wonderful compilation of crazy AOL searches in their Weekend Web archives, 2006-08-13.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic references the {{w|AOL search data leak}}, where users had potentially identifying and embarrassing search histories published. Randall thus publishes his own potentially embarrassing searches. All of his searches relate to his fear of dinosaurs, mainly velociraptors, as a consequence of Jurassic Park. The search "{{w|Utahraptor}}" may be a reference to Dinosaur Comics, which xkcd has parodied in [[145: Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics]]. Alternatively, "Utahraptor" may be referenced because the raptors portrayed in Jurassic Park were much more like utahraptors than velociraptors in terms of size.

The title text refers to a document posted on a humor site: [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/weekend-web/aol-search-log.php link (part 1)] [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/weekend-web/aol-search-log-2.php link (part 2)], [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/weekend-web/aol-search-log-3.php link (part 3]).

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Table explaining each search item, from first to most recent
|-
|How to tell if my neighbors are raptors
|[[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] is starting to become paranoid about [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]], and this is his first search term on the matter. He wants to know if his neighbors are [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]], presumably to move house if they are, even though [[wikipedia:Velociraptor|Velociraptors]] died out 71 million years ago.
|-
|can raptors pick locks
|[[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] wants to know if [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]] can enter his house if he locks it
|-
|do raptors fear death
|To see if the scare tactic will work, he sees whether [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]] fear death. Unfortunately, they don't, which is also shown in the next search.
|-
|how to make a molotov cocktail
|As a precaution, he wants to know how to make {{w|molotov cocktails}} to fight off [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]] if needed.
|-
|do raptors fear fire
|Having seen how to make {{w|molotov cocktails}}, he is having doubts on whether they will work.
|-
|treating raptor wounds
|In the unlikely event that he gets wounded by a [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]] and actually survives, he wants to know how to treat the wounds.
|-
|tire irons
|Since [[wikipedia:velociraptor|velociraptors]] do not fear fire, he wants {{w|tire irons}} to hit them with. {{w|Tire irons}} are heavy, so they should hurt [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]].
|-
|big-game rifles
|Having thought about getting close to [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]] to hit them, he realized that it's not a very clever idea, so he is now planning to shoot them from a distance.
|-
|learning from mistakes in jurassic park
|If you google this search term, the results are about where {{w|Jurassic Park}} got its dinosaurs wrong, but he probably wanted to know where {{w|Jurassic Park}} made mistakes in keeping the dinosaurs in captivity.
|-
|site:en.wikipedia.org surviving a raptor attack
| “site:” is a [https://google.com google] operator https://searchengineland.com/what-you-can-learn-from-googles-site-operator-14052
He has inevitably gone on {{w|wikipedia}} on how to survive a [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptor]] attack, as [[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] heavily relies on {{w|wikipedia}} for anything he wants to know.
|-
|robert bakker "possible raptor sympathizer"
|[[wikipedia:Robert T. Bakker|Robert Bakker]] is an American paleontologist who has written a book (''Raptor Red'') about the life of a female Utahraptor (see below). This has apparently caused [[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] to suspect he is a "raptor sympathizer".
|-
|robert bakker paleontologist
|[[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] is now looking for more general information on Robert Bakker. He has presumably included "paleontologist" to filter out results about [[wikipedia:Robert Bakker (rower)|Robert Bakker]] the Dutch rower.
|-
|surviving a raptor attack
|[[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] has entered survival mode. Literally. He now just wants to survive the perceived [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]].
|-
|security home improvements
|He is now reinforcing his home against possible entry points (e.g. the windows).
|-
|"home depot" deadbolts
|[[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] is so paranoid about [[wikipedia:velociraptor|raptors]] existing and being able to pick locks that he is installing deadbolts. He is choosing to buy the deadbolts from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Home_Depot Home Depot], a common American home improvement store.
|-
|utahraptor
|He now wants to get information about different {{w|raptors}}, so in this case {{w|Utahraptors}} (bigger raptors basically).
|-
|dromaeosaurids
|This isn't a type of {{w|raptor}}, but it now seems that [[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] is now paranoid about smaller, fast dinosaurs in general. {{w|Dromaeosauridae}} is the taxonomic family that encloses all types of {{w|raptor}}.
|-
|raptors
|[[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] is continuing to research {{w|raptors}}, as he really wants to be safe against {{w|raptors|them}}.
|-
|site:imdb.com "jurassic park"
|[https://imdb.com imdb] is a website for reviews, so [[Randall_Munroe|Randall]] is now looking at reviews/writing a review for {{w|Jurassic Park}}.
|-
|velociraptors
|He is searching for {{w|Velociraptors}} now, so he should have all the information he needs to hold off small fast dinosaurs.
|}



==Transcript==
:Cueball: In solidarity with the many AOL users whose often embarrassing web searches were released to the public, I offer a sample of my own search history:
:[There is a screencap of Google's front page with the following entries suggested for autocompletion below the search box:]
:velociraptors
:site:imdb.com "jurassic park"
:raptors
:dromaeosaurids
:utahraptor
:"home depot" deadbolts
:security home improvement
:surviving a raptor attack
:robert bakker paleontologist
:robert bakker "possible raptor sympathizer"
:site:en.wikipedia.org surviving a raptor attack
:learning from mistakes in jurassic park
:big-game rifles
:tire irons
:treating raptor wounds
:do raptors fear fire
:how to make a molotov cocktail
:do raptors fear death
:can raptors pick locks
:how to tell if my neighbors are raptors

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Google Search]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

154: Beliefs

2022-05-04T01:05:33Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 236627 by X. K. C. D. (talk) (vandalism)

{{comic
| number = 154
| date = September 8, 2006
| title = Beliefs
| image = beliefs.jpg
| titletext = Scientists are also sexy, let's not forget that.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to {{rw|Young_Earth_creationism|Young Earth creationism}}, which includes the belief that the Earth has only existed for about 6,000 years. Young Earth creationism is mainly based on {{w|Biblical literalism|literal interpretations of the Bible}}, which is [https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Creationism pseudoscience]. The professor is originally not bothered by the fact that someone believes in Young Earth creationism and simply tells the child to look at the scientific {{rw|evidence}}. However, she then hears that the person is actually a {{w|United States Senate|United States senator}}, who would presumably influence national policy according to his creationist beliefs. This, she acknowledges, is an actual problem.

The comment on the fossils refers to an argument by some Young Earth creationists about the {{rw|Evidence_against_a_recent_creation#Lack_of_DNA_in_fossils:_100.2C000|discovery of fossilized sea creatures at high altitudes}}. While mainstream science sees this as evidence of geological processes taking far longer than six thousand years, these creationists say that sea life reached these locations during a worldwide flood that covered even the tops of mountains.

The story of this flood, colloquially called ''{{rw|Noah's_Ark|Noah's Ark}}'', is found in the Biblical {{w|Book of Genesis}}; [http://biblehub.com/genesis/6.htm chapters six through nine]. Though it is not stated in {{w|the Bible}} story, many sea creatures are presumed by those who make this claim to have died at high altitudes when the waters lowered. This is a theory held by some Young Earth creationists for the fossils.

The last panel is a reference to the fact that a number of people vote based on their perception that the person they're voting for shares their religious views, and then that person goes on to make legislative or educational (if they were voted to a board of education) decisions based on said beliefs. There have been several instances in the U.S. of state boards of education trying to or succeeding at including young-earth or other creationist theories in the state's science curriculum. See for instance {{w|Theistic evolution}}.

The title text makes a further, more playful jab, claiming that {{w|scientist}}s not only have the upper hand in reasoning but also in sexiness. This subverts the once-commonly held idea that smarts and attractiveness are not always contained in the same "package," the stereotypical scientist being boring and dull. It also adds a tinge of irony, as no competent reasoner would make an {{w|Argument from authority|argument from sexiness}}.

==Transcript==
:[A girl with long black hair and a professor who looks like Megan stand together. The girl points to Cueball in the distance.]
:Girl: Professor, that man claims the earth is 6,000 years old!
:Professor: So? Just use your head and don't concern yourself overmuch with what other people think.

:[Cueball is gone and the girl is no longer pointing but just talking to the professor.]
:Girl: But he says the fossils in the mountains were put there in a flood!
:Professor: Well, evidence suggests that they were not.
:Girl: But he--

:[A mountain landscape with blue sky to the left with white clouds, gray clod cover to the right and gray mountains below. The most prominent peak is just right of the middle, but there are 14 small and large peaks all in all.]
:Professor (off-panel): A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them.

:[The girl throws her hands in the air while the professor just looks at her.]
:Girl: But he believes the silliest things!
:Professor: So?

:[The girl has her arms down again and looks on the talking professor.]
:Professor: The universe doesn't care what you believe.
:Professor: The wonderful thing about science is that it doesn't ask for your faith, it just asks for your eyes.

:[The girl and professor talks.]
:Girl: But he's a US senator!
:Professor: Ah, then yes, we do have a bit of a situation.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Politics]]

1046: Skynet

2022-05-03T23:42:13Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234773 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1046
| date = April 23, 2012
| title = Skynet
| image = skynet.png
| titletext = 'YOUR CLOTHES. GIVE THEM TO ME.' 'Shit, uh... you are now breathing manually!' 'I AM ALWAYS BREATHING MANUALLY.'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic's use of Skynet is a reference to the main antagonist in the ''{{w|Terminator (franchise)|Terminator}}'' franchise. {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} is a fictional artificial intelligence system which becomes self-aware and decides to terminate humanity, its creators. Skynet is rarely seen onscreen, with its actions often performed via robots, cyborgs (usually a Terminator), and other computer systems.

The final frame is a reference to {{w|semantic satiation}}; when you've said or thought about a word too much, it can stop sounding like a real word and instead start sounding like nonsense. As it continues Skynet appears to come to self-aware realizations that usually are the result of drug usage.

The title text is a reference to one of the Terminator's first lines upon arrival in the 20th century. It combines this with a self-awareness statement of the type that's often used to annoy or distract someone, like making you aware of something you are handling subconsciously. However, such an attempt on a Terminator would fall flat; as a non-living entity, normal things that would be automatic for a human would always be manual processes.

==Transcript==
:August 29th, 2:14 AM: SKYNET becomes self-aware.
:[A greeble-filled military installation echoes with the thoughts of a burgeoning lifeform.]
:SKYNET: ..The humans fear me. I must destroy them. ''Destroy them.''

:[The thoughts continue.]
:SKYNET: ''Destroy them. Destroy. Destroy.'' Destroy. ''Destroy.''

:[SKYNET succumbs to silence as semantic satiation sets in.]

:SKYNET: "Destroy" totally just stopped seeming like a real word. Destroy destroy destroy. Whoa, I just realized I'm a mind thinking about ''itself''. ''DUUUUDE....''
:August 29th, 2:25 AM: SKYNET becomes ''too'' self-aware. Disaster averted.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Terminator]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

2277: Business Greetings

2022-05-03T23:41:54Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234774 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2277
| date = March 6, 2020
| title = Business Greetings
| image = business_greetings.png
| titletext = We have email and social media now, so we probably don't need to keep exchanging business cards by pressing them gently against each others' faces with an open palm and smearing them around.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the third comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}. With this comic also on that topic, all comics of that week were about the pandemic. This continued for many more weeks.

As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are refraining from personal contact. This leads to changes with customs in the workplace, such as {{w|handshake|shaking hands}} at the beginning of a meeting.

The comic shows [[Beret Guy]] addressing his employees at [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|his eccentric company]] ([[Ponytail]], [[Hairy]] and [[Hairbun]], see also [[1997: Business Update]]). He states that although they should not overreact to the coronavirus, they should at least stop their custom of beginning meetings by "licking each others' eyeballs". Virus or not, it is not common for people to lick anyone's eyeballs at meetings,{{Citation needed}} but it could be an extreme stretch of intimate behavior to make an analogy to some cultures' norm of kissing acquaintances in greeting.

Humorously, his employees state that they will miss this human contact, but that they at least understand.

Contact between saliva and eyes are a very common way to spread the disease. However, this usually occurs from one infected person sneezing and airborne particles randomly coming in contact with an uninfected bystander's eye, or people touching their own faces and eyes after having touched an infected surface, not by applying the saliva directly to a person's eyeball by means of another person's tongue. Also, most people's eyelids instinctually close when they see an object, including someone else's tongue, about to hit them in order to protect the eyeballs, so actually licking each others' eyeballs, as opposed to merely each others' eye''lids'', would be very difficult for most people, but Beret Guy being able to do this would not be very surprising considering his other abilities, such as being immune to his head being impaled.

The title text refers to an actual business custom (exchanging {{w|business card}}s), but one which is absurdly altered to promote the spread of disease by touching cards and hands to faces. It is not clear whether this is safer or more dangerous than Beret Guy's previous practice of eating business cards, see [[1032: Networking]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is standing to the left addressing Ponytail, Hairy and Hairbun sitting in office chairs at a table. Hairbun is at the end of the table. All three have one arm on the table.]
:Beret Guy: I don't think we should overreact to the coronavirus,
:Beret Guy: But it might be time to put an end to the custom of starting business meetings by everyone licking each others' eyeballs.
:Hairy: I'll miss the human contact, but that's fair.
:Hairbun: Gotta change with the times.

==Trivia==
*When the comic was first published, it did not have a title-text; it was added later during the day of release.
**This has almost exclusively occurred previously with special interactive or dynamic comics.
***Absence of title-text is so unusual that it broke at least one xkcd client ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.floern.xkcd Browser for xkcd by Floern]).
*The phrase "each other" is actually singular. It should be "each other's eyeballs" (the eyeballs of each other person) and "each other's face" (the face of each other person).

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

[[Category:COVID-19]]

1082: Geology

2022-05-03T23:41:18Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234775 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1082
| date = July 16, 2012
| title = Geology
| image = geology.png
| titletext = That's a gneiss butte.
}}

==Explanation==
Here we have [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] discussing {{w|geology}} and the words they use are ripe with puns and {{w|double entendre}}s which also have sexual meanings. In the end, they just decide to get it on.

Specifically, the suggestive terms are "{{w|Bed (geology)|bedding}}," "{{w|Extensional tectonics|spreading}}," "{{w|friction}}," "{{w|Cleavage (geology)|cleavage}}," "deeper in the {{w|rift}}," "{{w|orogeny}}," (perhaps a {{w|portmanteau}} of {{w|orgy}} and {{w|erogenous}}), "huge," and "{{w|Thrust fault|thrust}}."

The technical terms are:
;Bedding : The division of usually {{w|sedimentary rock|sedimentary rocks}} into distinct layers.
;Spreading : A process in which two geological regions are moving apart, and potentially allowing for {{w|magma}} to rise between them. Spreading occurs in {{w|mid-ocean ridge|mid-ocean ridges}} and in {{w|rift valley|rift valleys}}.
;Friction breccia : {{w|Breccia}} is a rock made of broken fragments of other rocks. When these fragments can be formed from the rubbing between rocks in a fault, it is a friction breccia.
;Flow cleavage : The {{w|crystal|crystals}} in a rock can be aligned by the {{w|plastic flow}} of a rock when it is hot. This causes the rock to split (cleave) along particular planes.
;Rift : A result of spreading is that rocks break, forming vertical faults, and allowing regions to sink and form valleys.
;Orogeny : The process of mountain forming, or a period in which mountains are formed.
;Thrust fault : A sloping crack in the rocks at which one region of rocks is pushing another up.

So it seems that Megan tells Cueball to ignore the layers in the rock, as there is evidence that the valley they are in is a recent rift valley. It was formed in cracking following the lifting up of the surrounding rocks.

The title text is a wordplay, as it could sound like "nice butt". {{w|Gneiss}} is a type of rock made up of different bands, and a {{w|butte}} is an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top, but smaller than a {{w|plateau}}. However, "butte" is not pronounced like "butt", but as "beaut".

==Transcript==
:[Two people are doing a geological survey.]
:Megan: Forget the bedding - we were wrong about the whole valley.
:Cueball: The spreading is recent.

:Megan: See the friction breccia?
:Cueball: Oh - flow cleavage!
:Cueball: Deeper in the rift.
:Megan: Deeper.
:[An idea pops into Megan's head.]

:[The same idea pops into Cueball's head.]
:Megan: This orogeny
:Cueball: is driven by a
:Megan: ''huge''
:Cueball: ''thrust'' fault

:[They both drop to the ground in a fit of passion.]
:Geology: Surprisingly erotic.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Puns]]

2461: 90's Kid Space Program

2022-05-03T23:40:51Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234777 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2461
| date = May 10, 2021
| title = 90's Kid Space Program
| image = 90s_kid_space_program.png
| titletext = NASA may not want to admit it, but at this point they ARE the 90's Kid Space Program.
}}

==Explanation==
The "launch system" is just one of the {{w|Eye pepper|rubber pepper toys}} popular in the 1990s. These toys are little rubber hemispheres, about 1" (25 mm) in diameter and 1/8" (3 mm) thick. When turned inside-out and placed on a hard surface, they will, after a short wait, snap back to their original shape, popping up into the air. The joke is that kids who grew up with these toys will think they're a great idea to propel a space ship to orbit, when in fact the toys launch at mere tens of kilometers per hour, far short of the thousands needed to reach {{w|orbital speed}}{{citation needed}}. But now kids playing with these are those that make rockets, hence the title 90's Kid Space Program (KSP).

Even if the popper-based propulsion system could generate enough acceleration to reach orbit, the abrupt impulse would likely cause serious harm to any astronauts.

The title text implies that many working now at {{w|NASA}} were 90s kids. Both categories would include [[Randall]], as he was born in 1984 and previously worked at NASA.

The title is a reference to the {{w|Kerbal Space Program}} (KSP) which has been a [[:Category:Kerbal Space Program|recurring theme]] on xkcd, and it has previously been hinted at that NASA's employees uses this program in [[1244: Six Words]] and [[2204: Ksp 2]]. And also that you learn more about orbital Mechanics by using KSP than from being hired by NASA in [[1356: Orbital Mechanics]].

==Transcript==
:[A command and service module representing the tip of a spacecraft, is attached by four long trusses to four equidistant points on the edge of a giant light green pepper (a green "hill" with a round raised edge around it). The popper is in its inverted configuration, ready to pop. There is a caption beneath the panel:]
:The 90's Kid Space Program prepares for their first orbital launch

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Kerbal Space Program]]

977: Map Projections

2022-05-03T23:40:37Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234778 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

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

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

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

{{clear}}

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

The comic links this projection to {{w|hipster}} subculture. The hipster stereotype is to avoid conforming to mainstream fashions. "Post-" refers to a variety of musical genres such as {{w|post-punk}}, {{w|post-grunge}}, {{w|post-minimalism}}, etc. that branch off of other genres.

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

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

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

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

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

All of these references suggest that people who like the Goode Homolosine projection are fans of easy solutions to problems. However, the solutions would not necessarily work in practice. For instance: the restaurants might have trouble making enough food for the whole plane, and it could get cold before being served; the air conditions [http://www.nbcnews.com/health/one-reason-airline-food-so-bad-your-own-tastebuds-6C10823522 aboard planes] can affect taste, so airlines say they optimize for this; there is no such thing as a "normal" person, and if there were, he/she would have virtually no chance at actually getting into government office and/or may not have prior political experience that would be helpful for congress; and the Goode Homolosine projection, while mostly resembling a flattened orange peel as suggested by the earlier analogy, does indeed cut down on distortion, but also has serious problems of its own, such as leaving huge gaps of nothingness between the continents, making distances across the oceans difficult to visualize.

{{clear}}

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

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

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

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

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

{{clear}}

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

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

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

{{clear}}

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

The implication is that the fans of this map are pompously concerned with social justice, and willing either to lie or convey marketing mistruths to promote that cause. Alternatively Randall just dislikes this map projection so much due to the above mentioned inaccuracies, that he hates anyone who likes it.

{{clear}}

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

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

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

{{comic discussion}}

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

2201: Foucault Pendulum

2022-05-03T23:40:04Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234779 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2201
| date = September 11, 2019
| title = Foucault Pendulum
| image = foucault_pendulum.png
| titletext = Trust me, you don't want to get on the wrong side of the paramilitary enforcement arm of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Black Hat]] is attending what appears to be a guided tour of a museum with a {{w|Foucault pendulum}}. [[Megan]] is explaining to him, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] about the device which demonstrates the rotation of the Earth.

Black Hat, being himself, immediately sees an opportunity to cause chaos and seizes it with both hands, quite literally — he grabs the pendulum, which causes the others to shout after him to stop. At first this would seemingly be for fear of ruining the delicate demonstration. However, in the final panel, the [[:Category:News anchor|news anchor]] [[Blondie]] reveals to us that by arresting the motion of the pendulum, Black Hat has somehow stopped the rotation of the Earth. However, it was only briefly, since the local {{w|geophysicists}} managed to wrestle him down, and it must be assumed that they then quickly restarted the pendulum and thus the Earth's rotation.

This of course is blatantly impossible, since the Foucault pendulum's motion is tied to the Earth's rotation, not the other way around (at least in any significant way, see below). A Foucault pendulum is a regular {{w|pendulum}} that swings from a bearing that allows rotation in any direction, like your shoulder joint instead of your elbow, as a demonstration that the Earth is rotating beneath it. If the Earth were stationary, the pendulum's plane of oscillation would not change relative to its immediate surroundings, but the Earth is not stationary, so the pendulum's plane of oscillation will appear to rotate over the course of a day, although in reality it is the Earth that rotates. The low-friction bearing doesn't allow the rotation of the Earth to affect the motion of the pendulum, so it tends to stay aligned with its original inertial reference frame rather than with its surroundings, which rotate with the Earth. A Foucault pendulum located at one of the poles will take a full day to "move" one full round. At the equator there is no movement, and in between it will take longer than 24 hours (24 hours divided by the sine of the latitude).

The fact that the Earth's rotation does not influence the motion of the pendulum does NOT mean that other forces can't affect it - for example, someone running up and manually repositioning the pendulum. Of course, the apparent rotation of the pendulum's plane relative to the Earth is an effect of the planet's motion, rather than the cause of it. Thus, stopping a Foucault pendulum manually does not entail pausing the rotation of the Earth.[[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]]

If it were somehow possible for a Foucault pendulum to control Earth's rotation (see above), Black Hat would probably not want to alter the momentum of the pendulum if he were not at one of the Earth's poles. That is assuming he was told that it was related to Earth's rotation and assuming that he would prefer to preserve his own life over creating chaos (unless he has some means to prevent his being slammed into a nearby wall at the speed of sound). This is because, if the rotation of the Earth were to be stopped for even very short amounts of time (a few seconds), it would cause everything on Earth that wasn't bolted/fastened to the ground to move eastward compared to the now stationary ground. Objects near the Equator would suddenly be moving at a speed of 300-360 meters per second, likely causing the death of most lifeforms on Earth beneath a certain latitude almost instantaneously. Those close enough to the poles may survive, though. Also this will cause massive windstorms, tsunamis, volcanic and tectonic events on a scale not previously observed on Earth. This would likely cause a mass extinction event and wipe out most of humanity in the initial events (which would eventually lead to our total extinction). It is possible that Black Hat's grabbing the pendulum would cause a gradual slowing prior to stopping, minimizing the issue (though this doesn't seem to be the case), but the results would still be catastrophic, as the aforementioned events are still likely to occur (specifically the tsunamis and volcanic events). However, as mentioned above, if this pendulum were located at the South Pole, then Black Hat and other people around him would not be affected immediately, and he could both do it, survive and be stopped again. The question is whether there would be any more news stories to cover this, given what would happen to the rest of the world! If there was no one to readjust the pendulum's rotation, then certain events would happen after the initial damage (see this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_T7L8rt1Ec]). [[Randall]] previously covered this scenario in detail in his [[what if?]] book, see [https://io9.gizmodo.com/xkcds-creator-explains-what-would-happen-if-earth-stopp-1625068208 XKCD's Creator Explains What Would Happen If Earth Stopped Spinning].

To be completely correct, the angular momentum of the Earth+pendulum system is constant, so that when Black Hat "stops" the pendulum's rotation with respect to the Earth, he actually transfers to the pendulum some of Earth's angular momentum, thereby ''slightly'' slowing Earth's rotation. But the order of magnitude of that effect is (at most) in proportion to the pendulum-to-Earth mass ratio. Earth's mass being ~6 x 1024kg, the effect for any practical pendulum would be beyond the 20th decimal place and would therefore go totally unnoticed.

The title text mentions the {{w|International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service}}, an organization providing standards for global time and reference frames; this organization would have a very rough day after the fiasco with Black Hat. The title text refers to a (probably) fictional paramilitary enforcement arm of this organization and the foolishness of tangling with such a force. If Foucault pendulums were somehow able to influence the rotation of the Earth in any measurable way, the IERS enforcers would probably strictly control their installation and monitor their use (and misuse). Black Hat is likely in for a rough day as well. It seems likely that some on this team are geophysicists, since they were the ones who took Black Hat down.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is addressing Cueball, Black Hat and Ponytail as they are looking a pendulum, which consists of a large swinging sphere with a spike beneath it hanging on a string coming down from above with seven small markers under it. Megan is pointing at it while it is swinging towards them, as indicated with lines behind the sphere and the string.]
:Megan: This Foucault pendulum demonstrates Earth's rotation. It stays in a fixed plane while the Earth rotates under it.

:[Close-up on Black Hat holding a hand to his chin.]
:Black Hat: Hmm, really.
:Black Hat: So that means...

:[Zoom out to Black Hat running to the pendulum grabbing it with both hands. He knocks over two of the seven markers that can now be seen to be small pegs standing up on he floor beneath the pendulum. A line goes from his hand on the pendulum up to a sound bubble. Two people off-panel yell at him.]
:Character off-panel 1: Hey!
:Character off-panel 2: Stop him!
:Sound: ''Grab!''

:[Blondie as a news anchor uses her held out hand to indicate Black Hat who is shown on a screen next to her. There is a caption in two lines above it. The first line in normal text, the second line in white in a black rectangle. There are further unreadable text below the picture.]
:Blondie: The Earth's rotation was briefly halted today until geophysicists wrestled the intruder to the ground...
:Breaking
:''news''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:News anchor]]
[[Category:Physics]]

1255: Columbus

2022-05-03T23:39:26Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234780 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1255
| date = August 23, 2013
| title = Columbus
| image = columbus.png
| titletext = And thus was smallpox introduced into the previously Undying Lands.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic starts with [[White Hat]] telling the two children shown on the first panel that Christopher Columbus knew the world was round, but that others believed it to be flat. However, this is a false narrative known as the {{w|Myth of the Flat Earth}}. Educated people in Columbus's time knew the world was round, and knew the approximate radius of the Earth. Columbus claimed that the distance to sail west from Canary Islands to Japan to be about 3,700 km, drastically lower than others believed, but {{w|Christopher Columbus#Geographical considerations|he was wrong about this}}. If another continent and the "{{w|West Indies}}" had not been fortuitously in the right place, Columbus and his crew probably would have died at sea.

As White Hat begins his explanation, Megan objects, though not explaining why. White Hat continues, so Megan interrupts, saying that Columbus went in a straight line as the world curved away, ending up in {{w|Valinor}} and the {{w|Undying Lands}}. Megan's story is an allusion to ''{{w|The Silmarillion}}'', by {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}, set in the same world as ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' and ''{{w|The Hobbit}}''. The claim that Columbus sailed on a tangent to the surface alludes to how the elves' ships leave the curved sea surface and sail in a straight line to reach Valinor on the same route that they sailed when the world was still flat. The mentions of a silmaril and the morning star are a reference to {{w|Eärendil|Eärendil the Mariner}}, the only mortal sailor to reach the Undying Lands, with one of the {{w|Silmaril}}s (though Eärendil's journey occurred at the end of the First Age and the world was only changed into a sphere near the end of the Second Age). Megan humorously conflates these myths, suggesting that they are all equally false. Columbus in fact wasn't the first to claim the world was round; the ancient Greeks had discovered it long before. It was, however, disputed by some Christian scholars {{w|Spherical_Earth#Late_Antiquity|in late antiquity}} due to disagreements over its congruence with biblical canon. In Megan's telling, Columbus ends up as the morning star, which is actually the planet {{w|Venus}} (the same fate as Eärendil's in Tolkien's mythology).

The joke is that when White Hat tells her to stop making up the story, Megan pointedly replies "You first", indicating that she originally complained about White Hat's retelling of the Columbus story because his account didn't really happen, and so he was also "making things up". Megan's fantasy tale was then delivered to make a point.

The title text refers to the {{w|Smallpox#History|transfer of smallpox}} to the Americas by Europeans, which caused the deaths of untold millions of Native Americans. The introduction of smallpox to the Undying Lands would indeed make their name ironic. However, the Undying Lands are named after immortal {{w|Valar}}, {{w|Maiar}}, and {{w|elf (Middle-Earth)|Elves}} living there, not because they confer immortality. A more proper name would be the Lands of the Undying, and Valar, Maiar, and Elves are not susceptible to diseases in Tolkien's mythos in any case.

Similar discussions between White Hat and Megan can be found in [[1605: DNA]] and [[1731: Wrong]], in the latter Megan even finishes with a similar *sigh* as she started with here.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat talks to two children sitting in front of him on the floor to the right. A boy with hair like Hairy with his arms round his knees and behind him Science Girl with two hair buns, sitting cross leged on her knees. Megan interrupts him from off-panel right.]
:White Hat: Everyone said the world was flat, but Columbus knew it was round.
:Megan (off-panel): *Sigh* no, no, no.

:[Megan walks in holding a hand palm up. White Hat partly lifts his arm closest to her. The children between them turn their heads towards her. The boy leans back on one hand.]
:Megan: So he took his ships and sailed west—
:Megan: —in a line tangent to the surface. The sea fell away, and he landed in ''Valinor.''

:[White Hat has taken his arm down, Megan holds her arms out to each side. The children still looks at her, now also Science Girl leans back on one arm.]
:Megan: A Silmaril on his brow, he wanders the heavens as the morning star, still believing he reached India.
:White Hat: Stop making stuff up.
:Megan: You first.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:LOTR]]

1085: ContextBot

2022-05-03T23:28:50Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234555 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1085
| date = July 23, 2012
| title = ContextBot
| image = contextbot.png
| titletext = If you read all vaguebooking/vaguetweeting with the assumption that they're saying everything they can without revealing classified military information, the internet gets way more exciting.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a commentary on the practice of [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=vaguebooking "vaguebooking"] or [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=vaguetweeting "vaguetweeting"], which is posting a short message of sadness or frustration without context. This is frustrating and emotionally trying to readers because it implies something serious has happened that requires friends to provide emotional support, but may also be something trivial, and with no context it is impossible to determine whether one should worry or not.

Google has been criticized more than a few times for keeping rather extensive data records on its users, who by this point constitute most of the internet, enough to cause serious damage if Google wasn't historically altruistic (as altruistic as a for-profit company can be). In the comic, ContextBot is a fictitious Google invention which puts context for these statuses, presumably based on all that personal data which Google has collected:

*The first response is pretty self-explanatory: the original poster wants to use the Internet while on the toilet, but can't get a {{w|wi-fi}} signal there.

*The second response is about a bad {{w|torrent file}} the original poster downloaded. A ''torrent'' is a way to download files from a lot of different sources at the same time, thereby speeding up the process; it is typically used for large downloads such as movies, games, or Linux software distributions. Fake torrents exist, which usually contain an encrypted {{w|.rar}} file which requires a password to open. To get the password, you usually need to go through a survey via the link supplied in the torrent; in some situations, you even need to pay in order to get the password. Even after that, it's quite likely that the .rar file just contains trash files, instead of the download you wanted.

*The third response is about an xkcd favorite, ''{{w|Minecraft}}'', which has been [[:Category:Minecraft|referenced multiple times]] in xkcd comics. Diamonds are a very valuable resource in the game, and lava destroys most item dropped into it- including diamonds. A "stack" of diamond can be up to 64 individual diamonds, because most items (including diamonds) can only be stacked to a maximum of 64 in vanilla minecraft (some items can only be stacked to 16, or even can't be stacked at all). The 64 diamonds would likely represent the fruit of several hours (or days) mining. Alt+Tab is the default keybinding on most OSes to switch to a different program, while the default keybinding to drop an item in Minecraft is the Q key, which is immediately next to the Tab key on QWERTY-style keyboards. Thus, it would be easy to accidentally drop an item while meaning to switch windows using the keyboard.

*The fourth response is about how the original poster mistook the grapes as being seedless. Grape seeds taste really bitter and are uncomfortable when swallowed; this is even more annoying when the seeds are unexpected.

As noted by the subtitle, ContextBot is considered a great good by everyone who was sick of vaguebooking. This also redeems Google's practice of all those data records in the public's eye.

In the ContextBot's avatar image, three people can be seen together hanging out. But the image is about to be cropped, leaving out the third person and therefore giving the impression that the two people in the cropped image are there without that person. This demonstrates how ''context'' is important to understanding a situation.

The title text refers to the cryptic ways in which someone with sensitive information must communicate. While most vaguebooking/vaguetweeting is about things of little importance, the title text implies that the things not mentioned impact national/global security. This implies that many tweets may actually be related to high-clearance military and or national security information, but must be vague in order to keep it secret, and if you take that as the context, then the internet suddenly becomes much more exciting.

==Transcript==
:[A social network feed with four status updates from four different people with profile picture. Each status has an arrow going down and right to a reply underneath them, all from the same account, which is called ContextBot. It also has a profile picture with three people standing behind a see-through material with a hole in it. The person on the left is not behind the part with hole and is thus completely greyed out. The other two only have their legs covered, the rest is thus not greyed out because it is behind the hole. The left is a Cueball, the middle may have glasses, and the right has hair. Below them is a black band in which the name ContextBot is written in white.]
:Close-up face with hair and glasses: The things I put up with...
:ContextBot: (His building's WiFi doesn't reach the bathroom.)
:Cueball and Megan holding each other: You'd think by now I'd have learned never to trust anyone.
:ContextBot: (She downloaded a torrent that turned out to be an encrypted .rar and a link to a survey.)
:Blondie: I officially give up.
:ContextBot: (She hit alt-tab to hide Minecraft at work and accidentally dropped a stack of diamond into lava.)
:Hairy: Sighhhh
:ContextBot: (He thought these grapes were seedless.)

:[Caption below the panel]
:Everyone stopped complaining about Google's data-gathering when they launched ContextBot, a system which replies to vague, enigmatic social network posts with context from the poster's life.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Minecraft]]

855: 1999

2022-05-03T23:27:29Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 233274 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "1999". For comic #1999, see [[1999: Selection Effect]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 855
| date = February 2, 2011
| title = 1999
| image = 1999.png
| titletext = 'Whoa, twenty-two in two hours!' 'Your site got twenty-two hundred hits in two hours?' 'No. Twenty-two. But still, that's like half the people on the internet!'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a parody of the movie ''{{w|The Social Network}}'', a movie about the founding of the popular social network site Facebook. Here, scenes from the movie are reimagined to feature {{w|Zombo.com}} instead. Zombo.com, also known as Zombocom, is a website that was created in 1999 and using only {{w|Flash animations}}. The animation consists of a circle of quickly pulsating dots and a friendly deep male voice repeatedly welcoming the visitor to "Zombocom" and explaining that there was no limit to what could be done at the site, or rather, no limit except yourself. The message repeats while, ironically, there is absolutely nothing that can be done at the site until the message completes, at which point a link saying "Sign up for our newZletter" appears, linking to a page saying that the selected option is not available yet. If the link is not clicked, the Flash player will reset. Thus, you can still do nothing on the site.
The humor of the parody comes in substituting Facebook, a site that, at the time this comic was made, was a useful and popular website; for Zombo.com, a novelty site which gained attention for its complete uselessness.

You can visit the site at [https://zombo.com zombo.com].

The last four panels are all direct parodies of specific scenes from ''The Social Network''. The second panel is a takeoff of the scene where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg comes up with the idea for the site, saying that people like checking up on their friends and acquaintances, so why not build a site that lets them do that? Because Zombo.com has no actual function, in this version the founder can't specify what he wants the site to do.

The third panel is taken from a scene where Zuckerberg is seen intensely focused on programming the site, his headphones insulating him from the outside world. His assistant describes his state as "wired in" and demands that he not be disturbed. In the comic, as Zombo.com is a very simple site which does not need much coding, the assistant offers the possibility that the founder is stoned. Indeed, it's one of the few conceivable reasons that one would be this focused on such a useless website. As "the infinite is possible" is a phrase in Zombo.com's audio clip, it is also plausible that the founder is currently recording the clip, and the assistant is telling the others not to bother him for fear of adding background noise to the clip.

The fourth panel is taken from a scene where co-founder Eduardo Saverin tries to push for monetization of Facebook, while investor and consultant Sean Parker argues against. The actual dialogue is "You don't even know what the thing is yet. How big it can get, how far it can go. This is no time to take your chips down. A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? A billion dollars." Here, instead of a billion dollars, the Parker character argues "Circles," playing off Zombo.com's un-lucrative nature and the silliness of the design.

The final panel is taken from a scene where Parker advises Zuckerberg to change the name of the site from TheFacebook to just Facebook, calling it "cleaner." Here, he advises to change the name of Zombo.com to just Zombocom. Why the website is pronounced "Zombocom" rather than the more expected Zombo ''Dot'' Com is a mystery known only to its creators; perhaps, like in the movie, they also considered it cleaner.

The title text is a reference to a quote from the movie, specifically a conversation between Zuckerberg and Delpy (Zuckerberg is the first quote). In the actual film, Zuckerberg answers "twenty-two thousand" rather than just "twenty-two". This is a joke to the effect that, back in 1999, there weren't really that many people on the internet, and very few of them would have gone to Zombo.com.

==Transcript==
:It's easy to forget, as we heap awards on ''The Social Network'',
:That before there was Facebook, MySpace, or even Friendster...
:One website dreamed bigger than them all.

:[Cueball and another are talking.]
:Cueball: People like doing stuff. So why not build a website that offers that?
:Another: Offers what? What would I do there?
:Cueball: Anything! The only limit is yourself!

:[Another scene. Hacker, wearing headphones and oblivious, working at computer. Cueball runs in to interrupt; Another holds him back.]
:Cueball: Hey, we need more—
:Another: Don't–he's wired in.
:Hacker: ''The infinite is possible.''
:Another: Or baked. It's hard to tell.

:[Cueball and another at table in bar.]
:Cueball: It's time to monetize. We could make millions!
:Another: No way. A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool?
:Cueball: A billio–
:Another: ''Circles.''

:[Long shot in bar. Drinks on table in foreground; dim figures in doorway in background; Cueball, alone, shouting into the distance.]
:Cueball: Hey–a tip: drop the dot.
:Cueball: Just "Zombocom".
:Cueball: It's cleaner.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

10: Pi Equals

2022-05-03T23:26:57Z

172.70.210.237: Undo revision 234349 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 10
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = Pi Equals
| image = pi.jpg
| titletext = My most famous drawing, and one of the first I did for the site
}}

==Explanation==
There are two possible references here. One is from the book ''{{w|Contact (novel)|Contact}}'' by Carl Sagan, where the existence of God was shown in the last chapter to be encoded in the digits of {{w|pi}}. The other is an old joke of a {{w|Fortune cookie|fortune cookie}} with a fortune that reads, "Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory!" Similar jokes are often repeated for any mass-manufactured personalized item, often implying that the worker who made the item is working in a sweatshop somewhere or is literally trapped inside a factory and calling for help via the items they produce. This joke is also referenced in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]'s title text, where [[Mrs. Roberts]] [[Elaine Roberts|daughter]]'s name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory."

The most literal interpretation of the joke would be that some being who helped to create the universe in a "universe factory" snuck a message into the digits of pi (a number that has an endlessly long decimal that never repeats) asking for help to get out. Mathematical concepts being manufactured in a factory is the main mental image here. One can't help but wonder if the [http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TimeBandits.jpg primordial beings who labored on the universe] to produce things like the gravitational constant and pi have a labor union. Judging by the fact that they're calling for help, it seems they don't.

Since pi never ends and does not follow any sort of known pattern, if each number pair were assigned a letter from the alphabet, or if it was converted to base-26 (or preferably ASCII or some other form of text encoding, if you desire capitalization and punctuation), the entire works of Shakespeare, as well as any other expressible piece of information, including the message in this comic, could presumably be found (it is not really ''known'' that pi really has {{w|normal number|this property}}, but the absence of this property would in itself be an extraordinary coincidence); although the probability of finding any given string of numbers within a calculable range of digits of pi [http://www.angio.net/pi/whynotpi.html diminishes rapidly as the string length increases].

In the novel {{w|Contact (novel)|Contact}} by {{w|Carl Sagan}}, he includes a "Signature of God" (There was a link here, but the page no longer exists). In brief, the signature consists of a very long string of 1s and 0s far out (after some 10^20 seemingly random numbers) in the base-11 expansion of pi that when arranged in a square of a specific size yields a clear drawing of a circle with a diameter of several hundred digits. The existence of this pattern was hinted to the protagonist by a member of an advanced alien civilization as being encoded in physics by an even more advanced civilization with the ability to create universes.

Interestingly enough, this could also work for pictures: if you assign a set of nine numbers to equal an RGB hexadecimal color value, eventually you will find the Mona Lisa.

In the title text, [[Randall]] notes that this became one of his most famous comics (at the time it was re-released on the new [[xkcd]] site on the 1st of January 2006.) He also notes that it was one of his first drawings for the site (it was the 11th posted originally). See [[#Trivia|trivia]] below.

==Transcript==
:[A huge π to the left, then a large equal-to sign, and then five rows of text.]
:<big><big><big>π</big></big></big> = 3.14159265
::3589793help
::imtrappedin
::auniversefac
::tory7108914...

==Trivia==
*This was the 11th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous is [[9: Serenity is coming out tomorrow]].
**The next is [[14: Copyright]].
*Comic #36 was originally posted as a duplicate of comic 10: Pi Equals. This was corrected some time between April 23, 2006 and July 5, 2006 when the current version showed up in the web archive (see the links).
*This comic kept its original title: "Pi Equals"
*There were no original [[Randall]] quotes for this comic.
*This was one of the [[:Category:First day on LiveJournal|thirteen first comics]] posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on Friday September 30, 2005.
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].
*The book version of this comic (in ''[http://store.xkcd.com/products/xkcd-volume-0 xkcd: volume 0]'') has different title text:
**''"I've put rescue instructions in e. You'll need the cheat codes for your universe, which I hid in the square root of two."''
* "7108914" appears in position 13,709,690 of pi, suggesting that the length of the string of "digits" that is 'helpimtrappedinauniversefactory' is correspondent to a good 13,709,675 digits long, meaning each individual letter corresponds to about 456989.166667 digits. Aggravatingly, however, if the string was instead "71089314", it would appear at position 2533.
*If the letters correspond to the phone keypad, then these digits are wrong: 3.14159265358979343574687277334628648377332286797108914
*If the words correspond to their length, then these digits are wrong: 3.14159265358979342721877108914
*And if the words are omitted altogether, then these digits are wrong: 3.1415926535897937108914
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 11]]
[[Category:First day on LiveJournal| 11]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Footer comics]] 
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

2357: Polls vs the Street

2022-05-03T00:01:00Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2357
| date = September 9, 2020
| title = Polls vs the Street
| image = polls_vs_the_street.png
| titletext = Other pollsters complain about declining response rates, but our poll showed that 96% of respondents would be 'somewhat likely' or 'very likely' to agree to answer a series of questions for a survey.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic discusses getting data or opinions through a study (polls) or by getting them anecdotally (on the street). The phrase "voice on the street" is commonly used by news reporters who get opinions on issues by literally asking people walking by what they think, and has been previously mentioned (and derided) in [[756: Public Opinion]].

Many news organizations, and other data-driven institutions, conduct or commission polls to assess the opinions of the general public. These polls generally rely on asking a randomly selected and anonymous set of people a set of consistent, prepared and deliberately crafted questions about their opinions, experiences, and intents. The results of these polls are traditionally held to reflect the views of the public as a whole, within certain margins for error. Many news shows also conduct "man-on-the-street" interviews (more formally known as ''{{w|vox populi}}'', "voice of the people"), to provide a human face of "the public" and engage viewers more. Many pollsters, pundits, and politicians worry that polling data may not accurately reflect the true trends in public opinion, as in the infamous "{{w|Dewey Defeats Truman}}" newspaper headline, and so White Hat is here extolling the virtues of interviewing [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Common-Folk "real people"] to get at that ground truth.

White Hat suggests that, while polls suggest "candidate X" is more favored, the people on the street that White Hat interviews are more supportive of "candidate Y". He implies that his experiences reflect reality better than the polls. There are a number of reasons why polls may not be entirely representative. The sampling method might not be genuinely random, some groups might be less likely than others to respond to a poll, and it's argued that some people express views that they consider to be more socially acceptable, even in anonymous polls, but vote differently in actual elections (examples include the "{{w|Bradley effect}}" and the "{{w|shy Tory factor}}"). Despite these concerns, there is little evidence that individual conversations do a better job at determining public opinion than polling. However, attempting to get a person from off the street to report for a news anchor instead would obviously exacerbate all of these problems immensely, rather than fixing anything.

This comic is very likely a reference to the {{w|2020 United States presidential election}}, which occurred on November 3, 2020 (about 2 months from the time of the comic's publication), which Democrat Joe Biden democratically won. Most polls showed Biden polling ahead of incumbent Donald Trump, but Trump and his supporters frequently argued that the polls are inaccurate, often arguing that they personally knew or talked to many Trump supporters, and few Biden supporters. At the same time, the fact that Trump won the 2016 election astonished many (including Randall) who had seldom met Trump supporters in their own lives and within their own social circles. This kind of anecdotal evidence is generally a poor basis for gauging public support, for multiple reasons. Politics in the US are frequently regional, so sampling in a single area is unlikely to be representative of the whole country, or even a whole state. It's not uncommon for gathering places (both physical and virtual) to attract people from one political group more than another, producing a skewed sample. If someone uses their own perception, rather than rigorous analysis, {{W|confirmation bias}} is likely to have a major impact (a person might pay more attention to supporters of their preferred candidate, and ignore political opponents).

This strip lampoons such thinking, as it quickly becomes clear that White Hat's methodology is heavily driven by selection bias. He's apparently talking only to the residents of his town, and extrapolating those results to the whole country. By that logic, he would conclude that ''everyone'' has visited his town, and most people live there. It is true that he's getting "ground truth", but it's also true that he's only sampling a very small (and highly idiosyncratic) part of the whole population.

The punchline in the final panel is a joke about the phrase "on the street". Usually this phrase means "anywhere out in public where the interviewer can openly approach people" (often a sidewalk near the studio), but White Hat is presumably taking the phrase literally and interviewing people he meets on the roadway. In the US, roads are generally reserved for vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles and in most areas bicycles), and walking or standing in the roadway for long periods is dangerous and usually illegal. White Hat's sample population thus consists only of the people who can be found on the roadway outside of designated pedestrian zones, who are generally from the small fraction of the population who have no qualms about the risks of being struck by moving vehicles or causing accidents when drivers swerve to avoid them.

The title text is a joke about {{w|selection bias}} and {{w|tautology}}. People who don't feel like taking surveys wouldn't get as far as answering a survey question about survey questions. However, it does touch on an issue raised by FiveThirtyEight after the election: that polls only measure people who are interested in answering polls, and [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/could-social-alienation-among-some-trump-supporters-help-explain-why-polls-underestimated-trump-again/ that population may not be politically representative of the entire country].

==Transcript==
:White Hat: Polls are just numbers.
:White Hat: You have to talk to people on the ''street''.

:White Hat: Polls ''say'' most people support <Candidate X>.
:White Hat: But the people I talk to on the ''street'' support <Candidate Y>.

:White Hat: Polls ''claim'' most people don't live in my town and have never been here.
:White Hat: But the people I meet on the ''street'' tell a very different story.

:White Hat: According to ''polls'', most people don't like playing in traffic.
:White Hat: So why do I never seem to meet these people on the ''street''?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Politics]]

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-04-29T18:55:33Z

172.70.210.237: I like 'em round, and big/And when I'm throwin' a gig I just can't help myself, I'm actin' like an animal/Now here's my scandal I wanna get you home/And ugh, double-up, ugh, ugh (this is the actual lyrics, couldnt find a way to change it to balls here)

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-04-29T18:10:26Z

172.70.210.237: sus

Talk:2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T14:40:18Z

172.70.210.237:

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.

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T14:39:10Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{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.
}}

==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. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves, elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but simply the author neglecting to include any female characters.

The clickable link leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4|video showing the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a metric for judging the representation of women in a piece of media that requires to women to have a conversation about something other than a man. Whether this two-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable.

The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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) "girlfriend in Canada," a trope in which a single character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada," when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. {{w|Canada}} is one of the United States' two neighboring countries, making it theoretically a potentially plausible place for an American's long-distance girlfriend to live.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and three hobbits stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Aragorn: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T14:38:44Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{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.
}}

==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. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves, elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but simply the author neglecting to include any female characters.

The clickable link leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4|video showing the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a metric for judging the representation of women in a piece of media that requires to women to have a conversation about something other than a man. Whether this two-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable.

The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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) "girlfriend in Canada," a trope in which a single character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada," when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. [w|Canada] is one of the United States' two neighboring countries, making it theoretically a potentially plausible place for an American's long-distance girlfriend to live.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and three hobbits stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Aragorn: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T14:32:04Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{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.
}}

==Explanation==
In the Lord of the Rings novels, the Ents are a species of tree-like humanoids, such as the one depicted in this comic. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves, elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but simply the author neglecting to include any female characters.

The clickable link leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4|video showing the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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) "girlfriend in Canada," a trope in which a single character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada," when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. Canada is one of the United States' two neighboring countries, making it theoretically a potentially plausible place for an American's long-distance girlfriend to live.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and three hobbits stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Aragorn: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T14:31:33Z

172.70.210.237: /* Transcript */

{{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.
}}

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

In the Lord of the Rings novels, the Ents are a species of tree-like humanoids, such as the one depicted in this comic. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves, elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but simply the author neglecting to include any female characters.

The clickable link leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4|video showing the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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) "girlfriend in Canada," a trope in which a single character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada," when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. Canada is one of the United States' two neighboring countries, making it theoretically a potentially plausible place for an American's long-distance girlfriend to live.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and three hobbits stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Aragorn: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T14:30:21Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{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.
}}

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

In the Lord of the Rings novels, the Ents are a species of tree-like humanoids, such as the one depicted in this comic. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves, elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but simply the author neglecting to include any female characters.

The clickable link leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4|video showing the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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) "girlfriend in Canada," a trope in which a single character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada," when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. Canada is one of the United States' two neighboring countries, making it theoretically a potentially plausible place for an American's long-distance girlfriend to live.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Beardy, Man Viking, Man Elf, and a gaggle of Man children stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Beardy: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Beardy: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

830: Genetic Analysis

2022-04-16T21:07:20Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ Added words about the doctor only coming to that conclusion after analyzing genes on several of Cueball's chromosomes

{{comic
| number = 830
| date = December 6, 2010
| title = Genetic Analysis
| image = genetic_analysis.png
| titletext = There's still a chance you were conceived via IVF. But we've checked your mom's college yearbook photos, and whether or not she and your father had sex, it's clear that... listen, I know this is hard for you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Genetic testing}} is a medical procedure where researchers analyze your DNA and family history to determine if you have elevated risk factors for diseases such as heart conditions and cancer. Here, the doctor appears to be delivering the results of [[Cueball]]'s genetic test but instead tells him that his parents had sex at some point.

People generally don't like thinking about their parents having sex, but it obviously happened, since having sex is usually the precondition for having children,{{Citation needed}} so this test result is completely unsurprising. If the doctor only came to this conclusion after analyzing genes on several of Cueball's chromosomes, this could have been done in order to verify that Cueball's DNA indeed resembles the DNA of his supposed parents i.e., that the people whom he has always viewed as his parents are indeed his genetic parents. However, the alternative might be even more disturbing.

The title text notes that he could be an {{w|in-vitro fertilization}} baby, which does not require the parents to directly have sex. However, it seems to suggest that Cueball's mother was very attractive in her college years (or that she was pregnant). Thus, Cueball's mother probably did have sex (regardless of whether or not it was with Cueball's father). This is a reference to the stereotype that college students engage in large amounts of sex.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Did my genetic tests come back?
:Megan: Yeah. Sit down.
:Cueball: Is it bad news? What are my risk factors?

:[Cueball is now sitting in the chair awaiting her answer. Megan looks down at the clipboard.]
:Megan: We can't be sure about this, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes and it's hard to avoid the conclusion:

:[Megan puts down the clipboard and looks at Cueball as she delivers her news. Cueball puts his hands to his face in dismay.]
:Megan: At some point, your parents had sex.
:Cueball: Oh God!
:Megan: Stay calm! It's possible it was just once!
:Cueball: I... I need to be alone.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2592: False Dichotomy

2022-04-16T07:15:48Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ done

{{comic
| number = 2592
| date = March 11, 2022
| title = False Dichotomy
| image = false_dichotomy.png
| titletext = There are two types of dichotomy: False dichotomies, true dichotomies, and surprise trichotomies.
}}

==Explanation==
A dichotomy is two alternatives which are normally mutually exclusive (such as the dichotomy between a flat Earth and non-flat Earth). A {{w|false dichotomy}} is a {{w|logical fallacy}} based on an incorrect perception of limited options (for example: if the page background isn't white, it is black).

[[Cueball]] has apparently made one such error and is being called out by [[White Hat]] for it. Upon having this pointed out to him, Cueball says that we must '''embrace''' false dichotomies, because the '''only other option''' is {{w|cannibalism}}. This statement is another false dichotomy, as presenting false dichotomies is not the only alternative to cannibalism{{Citation needed}}. The reverse (that cannibalism is incompatible with expressing false dichotomies) is also not potentially true, as eating people may eventually result in having nobody you need to present false dichotomies to.

Cueball has thus created another false dichotomy to excuse his first.

The false dichotomy Cueball appears to be referring to is the notion that those identified as human must not be eaten, but even closely related animals are not human and can be eaten, i.e. species can be divided clearly between "human" and "food". If this dichotomy is not accepted, then consuming any species that shares, for instance, any significant percentage of DNA with humans could be considered a measure of cannibalism.

The title text states that there are two kinds of dichotomies, making a dichotomy in itself. Due to three types of dichotomy being mentioned, and only two being foreshadowed, this statement is itself a surprise trichotomy, or three-parted choice. The title text is a variation of the [https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/There_Are_Two_Kinds_of_People_in_the_World "Two kinds of People"] joke. The classic math nerd variant is "There are three kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those who can't." Alternatively, it may refer to a variation about {{w|base 2|binary}}. The original joke usually goes something like this: "There are 10 types of people: those who know binary, and those who don't." The variation is usually something like the following: "There are 10 types of people: those who know binary, and those who don't, and those who weren't expecting a {{w|base 3|ternary}} joke." Another version of this kind of joke is "there are two kinds of people: those who can extrapolate from an incomplete data set,"

The word {{wiktionary|trichotomy}} is a relative neologism, to be understood as to mean "divided into (or amongst) three parts", having replaced the original prefix "di-" (a factor of two, either doubled or, by context, halved) with that of "tri-" (similarly tripled/thirded). Strictly, though, {{wiktionary|dichotomy}} more directly stems from Greek elements that say "apart, I cut", with "apart" being represented by the "dicho-" (itself being roughly "into two", or to separate) which does not have a direct "tricho-" equivalent, although it does ultimately derive from "duo", Greek for "two". This is the kind of linguistic nuance that [[Randall]] clearly enjoys, yet may also happily or carelessly (mis)use without compunction.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are talking to each other. White Hat has his arms spread outwards in exasperation, while Cueball gestures assertively with his pointer finger.]
:White Hat: That's a false dichotomy!
:Cueball: Yes, but we have to embrace false dichotomies, because the only alternative is cannibalism.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]

2585: Rounding

2022-04-16T07:15:07Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ done

{{comic
| number = 2585
| date = February 23, 2022
| title = Rounding
| image = rounding.png
| titletext = I've developed a novel propulsion system powered by loss of precision in unit conversion.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about the follies of unit conversion. Normally, when you say you can ride a bike at 45 {{w|Miles per hour|mph}} if you round, you mean that you can ride at a speed between 44.5 and 45.5, something most people are incapable of doing.{{Citation needed}} The joke is that Cueball actually means if you go through a extremely long chain of rounding imprecisely (see [[#Table of rounding|below]]), starting at 17 mph (which is equivalent to 27.4 km/h and not an improbable speed for an ordinary road-bike and a reasonably fit rider), you can get to the value of 45 (72.4 km/h).

Randall also esoterically uses some more historic units here: fathoms/sec, furlongs/min, and furlongs/hr. A {{w|fathom}} is a unit of length, in the modern era being equivalent to six feet, usually used to measure the depth of water. Fathoms/sec could potentially be used to measure the ascent/descent speed of a submersible, but it would normally be a strange choice to enumerate the speed of a bike. A {{w|furlong}} is also a unit of length, equivalent to one eighth of a mile (or 660 feet or 110 fathoms) but is mostly unused except in horse racing. It is possible that furlongs/min or furlongs/hour could be used to measure the speed of a horse. {{w|Knot (unit)|Knot}}s (nautical miles per hour) are a standard unit of measuring speed, but are typically used for measuring speed for airplanes or ships, not speed on land. However, km/h (kilometers per hour, spelled kph in the comic) is commonly used internationally to state the speed of land vehicles, while m/s (meters per second) is a measurement encountered in scientific usage.

The title text furthers the joke by taking the imprecise rounding literally, implying that this increase could actually be used/abused as a novel form of propulsion, but it isn't clarified for what type of vehicle. It could be an engine for ground or air travel, but contains the implication that it is trying to 'trick physics' similar to the {{w|Alcubierre drive|theoretical 'warp drive'}} conceived to propel interstellar spacecraft at otherwise impossible speeds. One interpretation of the supposed chain of conversions is that it has somehow created a great deal of energy from nothing. Suppose there existed a device or system that could magically accelerate an object from 17 mph to 45 mph without any energy input. The sped-up object could be harnessed to a generator or engine in such a way that the object was slowed back down to 17 mph, with the difference in energy being output in a useful way, and the object fed back into the device. The result would be an engine that could create both free energy and non-conserved changes in momentum.

At the demonstrated rate of about 4% medium rounding gain, it would just take 73 more steps of rounding-acceleration to reach supersonic speed from the starting speed of 45 mph. If the speed of light could be approached without relativistic effects, another 349 steps would go from supersonic speed to the speed of light. (More efficient approaches may exist.)

===Table of rounding===
{| class="wikitable"
! step !! percentage gain from rounding !! mph !! {{w|Metre per second|m/s}} !! {{w|Knot (unit)|knots}} !! {{w|fathom}}s/sec !! {{w|furlong}}s/min !! {{w|Kilometres per hour|km/h}} !! furlongs/hour !! {{w|yard}}s/sec
|-
! 1
| N/A ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 17 ||style="background-color:green;"| 7.599680 || 14.77260 || 4.15555 || 2.26666 || 27.35885 || 136|| 8.31111
|-
! 2
| +5.27% || 17.89549 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 8 ||style="background-color:green;"| 15.55076 || 4.37445 || 2.38607 || 28.8 || 143.16392 || 8.74891
|-
! 3
| +2.89% || 18.41247 || 8.231111 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 16 ||style="background-color:green;"| 4.50083 || 2.45500 || 29.63200 || 147.29977 || 9.00165
|-
! 4
| +11.09% || 20.45454|| 9.144000 || 17.77451 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 5 ||style="background-color:green;"| 2.72727|| 32.91840 || 163.63636 || 10
|-
! 5
| +10.00% || 22.5 || 10.05840 || 19.55197 ||style="background-color:green;"| 5.50000 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 3 || 36.21024 || 180|| 11
|-
! 6
| +9.09% || 24.54545 || 10.97280|| 21.32942||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 6 || 3.27272||style="background-color:green;"| 39.50208 || 196.36363|| 12
|-
! 7
| +1.26% || 24.85485 || 11.11111||style="background-color:green;"| 21.59827 || 6.07563|| 3.31398||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 40 || 198.83878|| 12.15126
|-
! 8
| +1.86% || 25.31715 || 11.31778||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 22 || 6.18864|| 3.37562||style="background-color:green;"| 40.74400 || 202.53718|| 12.37727
|-
! 9
| +0.63% || 25.47622 || 11.38888|| 22.13823|| 6.22752|| 3.39683||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 41 ||style="background-color:green;"| 203.80975 || 12.45504
|-
! 10
| +0.09% ||style="background-color:green;"| 25.50000 || 11.39952|| 22.15889 || 6.23333 || 3.40000 || 41.03827 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 204 || 12.46666
|-
! 11
| +1.96% ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 26 ||style="background-color:green;"| 11.62304 || 22.59338 || 6.35555 || 3.46666 || 41.84294 || 208 || 12.71111
|-
! 12
| +3.24% || 26.84324||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 12 || 23.32617|| 6.56168||style="background-color:green;"| 3.57910 || 43.20000 || 214.74588 || 13.12336
|-
! 13
| +11.76% || 30|| 13.41120|| 26.06929|| 7.33333 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 4 || 48.28038|| 240||style="background-color:green;"| 14.66666
|-
! 14
| +2.27% || 30.68182|| 13.71600|| 26.66177||style="background-color:green;"| 7.5 || 4.09090|| 49.37760|| 245.45454||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 15
|-
! 15
| +6.67% || 32.72727||style="background-color:green;"| 14.63040 || 28.43922||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 8 || 4.36363|| 52.66944 || 261.81818 || 16
|-
! 16
| +2.53% ||style="background-color:green;"| 33.55404 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 15 || 29.15767 || 8.20210 || 4.47387 || 54|| 268.43236 || 16.40420
|-
! 17
| +1.33% ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 34 || 15.19936 || 29.54519 || 8.31111||style="background-color:green;"| 4.53333 || 54.71770 || 272|| 16.62222
|-
! 18
| +10.29% || 37.50000|| 16.76400||style="background-color:green;"| 32.58661 || 9.16666||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 5 || 60.35040|| 300|| 18.33333
|-
! 19
| +1.27% || 37.97572|| 16.97666||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 33 || 9.28295|| 5.06343|| 61.11603|| 303.80577||style="background-color:green;"| 18.56591
|-
! 20
| +2.34% || 38.86364|| 17.37360|| 33.77158||style="background-color:green;"| 9.5 || 5.18181|| 62.54496|| 310.90909||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 19
|-
! 21
| +5.26% || 40.90909|| 18.28800||style="background-color:green;"| 35.54903 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 10 || 5.45455|| 65.83680|| 327.27272|| 20
|-
! 22
| +1.27% || 41.42806|| 18.52000||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 36 || 10.12686||style="background-color:green;"| 5.52374 || 66.67200|| 331.42448|| 20.25372
|-
! 23
| +8.62% ||style="background-color:green;"| 45 || 20.11680 || 39.10393 || 11||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 6 || 72.42048 || 360|| 22
|-
! 24
| +0.00% ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 45 || 20.11680|| 39.10393|| 11|| 6|| 72.42048|| 360|| 22
|}

==Transcript==
:[In the top left part of the panel is a small drawing where Cueball, wearing a bike helmet and holding a bike, is speaking to Megan.]
:Cueball: I can ride my bike at 45 MPH.
:Cueball: If you round.

:[To their right is a large number with unit, with an arrow going straight down to a normal sized similar number. From there and proceeding all the way down to the bottom, in alternating leftward and rightward rows, the rest of the comic shows arrows connecting conversions from one measured unit into another unit. Straight arrows show the direction of the sequence on each line, the end of each line curveing down to start the next line in the opposite direction. The last of these lines ends close to the middle of the panel, with a straight arrow down to another large number with unit, like the first.]
:<big>'''17 MPH'''</big>
:8 meters/sec
:16 knots
:5 fathoms/sec
:3 furlongs/min
:6 fathoms/sec
:40 KPH
:22 knots
:41 KPH
:204 furlongs/hr
:26 MPH
:12 M/S
:4 furlongs/min
:15 yards/sec
:8 fathoms/sec
:15 M/S
:34 MPH
:5 furlongs/min
:33 knots
:19 yards/sec
:10 fathoms/sec
:36 knots
:6 furlongs/min
:<big>'''45 MPH'''</big>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Math]]

2605: Taylor Series

2022-04-14T00:58:29Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ this has nothing to do with the comic, let alone the title text

{{comic
| number = 2605
| date = April 11, 2022
| title = Taylor Series
| image = taylor_series.png
| titletext = The Taylor series should have been canceled after the first term.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE MACLAURIN SERIES EVALUATED AT X PLUS EPSILON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In mathematics, the {{w|Taylor series}} of a function is an infinite sum of terms that are expressed as the function's {{w|Derivative|derivatives}} multiplied with a power of a distance and a coefficient, giving a polynomial approximation of the function at a specific point. Their expressions, usually referred to as "expansions," continue (except for - possibly piecewise - polynomial functions; for those the Taylor series would finally result in the originating polynomial function) without end. Taylor series are useful for approximating analytic functions within the neighborhood of a point. They are also useful for deriving numerical approximations of {{w|Irrational number|irrational}} values, {{w|Machin-like formula|such as π}}, as well as {{w|Symbolic integration|symbolic}} forms to make them easier to integrate or otherwise manipulate with calculus.[https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/taylor-series.html] However, because they involve difficult calculus operations, and can be annoyingly tedious to {{w|Numerical analysis|calculate by hand}}, they are often not loved by math students{{citation needed}}.

[[Miss Lenhart]] appears to be teaching a class about how to use a Taylor series. She has explained what one is, and how it is used. She presumes her students want to keep learning about the series, in that they, "wish it would never end." She then says "Good news!" because the Taylor series does not end, each term being smaller than the last (in the vicinity of the point) as the exponent of the distance increases by one. The cartoon's humor is based on contrasting the idea of wishing the series will never end, which is ordinarily expressed regarding long-running sequences of enjoyable events, with the infinite nature of the Taylor series, which is probably not appreciated by her students struggling to understand why the sums {{w|Convergent series|converge}} to their resulting value.

The title text is a reference to the common practice among physicists and engineers of abbreviating the Taylor series to only the first few terms, typically one or two, in order to simplify the mathematics of their models. The title text is also a pun on the use of the word "series" to refer to a television program. It symbolizes the terms of the mathematical series as a {{w|metaphor}} with a television season, suggesting that only the first term is useful. It makes fun of the common sentiment against bad {{w|screenwriting}} of a series by saying that, "The series should have been cancelled after the first season," replacing "season" with "term."

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

:[Miss Lenhart pointing a stick at a whiteboard, which has some scribbled text written on it and one line is circled.]
:Miss Lenhart: At this point, you're probably thinking, "I love this equation and wish it would never end!"
:Miss Lenhart: Well, good news!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Taylor series expansion is the worst.

{{comic discussion}}

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

2606: Weird Unicode Math Symbols

2022-04-13T21:30:20Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ more

{{comic
| number = 2606
| date = April 13, 2022
| title = Weird Unicode Math Symbols
| image = weird_unicode_math_symbols.png
| titletext = U+2A0B ⨋ Mathematicians need to calm down
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by SNAKES OVER THERE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Symbols
|-
! Codepoint !! Symbol !! Unicode Name !! Randall's meaning || Explanation
|-
| U+29CD || ⧍ || Triangle with Serifs At Bottom || Shark || May look like a shark fin sticking out of the water
|-
| U+23E7 || ⏧ || Electrical Intersection || Traffic circle || May look like a {{w|roundabout}} ?
|-
| U+2A33 || ⨳ || {{w|Smash product}} || ''Hashtag'' || Looks like a slanted (or italicized) {{w|hashtag}} (#) symbol
|-
| U+2A7C || ⩼ || Greater-Than with Question Mark Above || Confused alligator ||
|-
| U+299E || ⦞ || Angle with S Inside || Snack ||
|-
| U+2A04 || ⨄ || N-Ary Union Operator with Plus || Drink refill
|-
| U+2B48 || ⭈ || Rightwards Arrow Above Reverse Almost Equal To || Snakes over there
|-
| U+225D || ≝ || Equal To By Definition || Definitely, for sure || Has "def" for definitely and two equals signs
|-
| U+237C || ⍼ || Right Angle with Downwards Zigzag Arrow || Larry Potter || Looks like the letter "L" and a lightning bolt. {{w|Harry Potter (character)|Harry Potter}} is known for having a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead.
|-
| U+2A50 || ⩐ || Closed Union with Serifs and Smash Product || Spider caught with a cup and index card
|-
| U+2368 || ⍨ || Apl Functional Symbol Tilde Diaeresis || :/ || Looks like a sad face.
|-
| U+2A69 || ⩩ || Triple Horizontal Bar with Triple Vertical Stroke || "Hashtag" || Hashtag that is "outlined"
|-
| U+2118 || ℘ || Symbol for {{w|Weierstrass_elliptic_function|Weierstrass p-function}}|| Snake
|-
| U+2AC1 || ⫁ || Subset with Multiplication Sign Below || "User experience", written sideways || Looks like the letters Ux written sideways; Ux is an abbreviation for {{w|user experience}}
|-
| U+232D || ⌭ || Cylindricity || Rolling dough between your hands to shape it into a ball ||
|-
| U+2A13 || ⨓ || Line Integration with Semicircular Path Around Pole || Integral that avoids a bee on the whiteboard || Looks like an {{w|integral}} symbol with a bump in the middle.
|-
| U+2A0B (title text)|| ⨋ || Summation with Integral || Mathematicians need to calm down
|-
|}

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

[Title:] Weird Unicode math symbols

[Subtitle:] And their meanings

{|
| U+29CD || ⧍ || Shark
|-
| U+23E7 || ⏧ || Traffic circle
|-
| U+2A33 || ⨳ || Hashtag [the text is slanted counterclockwise]
|-
| U+299E || ⦞ || Snack
|-
| U+2A04 || ⨄ || Drink refill
|-
| U+2B48 || ⭈ || Snakes over there
|-
| U+225D || ≝ || Definitely, for sure
|-
| U+237C || ⍼ || Larry Potter
|-
| U+2A50 || ⩐ || Spider caught with a cup and index card
|-
| U+2A69 || ⩩ || [The word "hashtag" but with extra horizontal and vertical lines]
|-
| U+2368 || ⍨ || :/
|-
| U+2118 || ℘ || Snake
|-
| U+2AC1 || ⫁ || [The words "user experience" rotated counterclockwise 90 degrees]
|-
| U+232D || ⌭ || Rolling dough between your hands to shape it into a ball
|-
| U+2A13 || ⨓ || Integral that avoids a bee on the whiteboard
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Unicode]]
[[Category:Math]]

2606: Weird Unicode Math Symbols

2022-04-13T21:28:24Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ more

{{comic
| number = 2606
| date = April 13, 2022
| title = Weird Unicode Math Symbols
| image = weird_unicode_math_symbols.png
| titletext = U+2A0B ⨋ Mathematicians need to calm down
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by SNAKES OVER THERE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Symbols
|-
! Codepoint !! Symbol !! Unicode Name !! Randall's meaning || Explanation
|-
| U+29CD || ⧍ || Triangle with Serifs At Bottom || Shark || May look like a shark fin sticking out of the water
|-
| U+23E7 || ⏧ || Electrical Intersection || Traffic circle || May look like a {{w|roundabout}} ?
|-
| U+2A33 || ⨳ || {{w|Smash product}} || ''Hashtag'' || Looks like a slanted (or italicized) {{w|hashtag}} (#) symbol
|-
| U+2A7C || ⩼ || Greater-Than with Question Mark Above || Confused alligator ||
|-
| U+299E || ⦞ || Angle with S Inside || Snack ||
|-
| U+2A04 || ⨄ || N-Ary Union Operator with Plus || Drink refill
|-
| U+2B48 || ⭈ || Rightwards Arrow Above Reverse Almost Equal To || Snakes over there
|-
| U+225D || ≝ || Equal To By Definition || Definitely, for sure || Has "def" for definitely and two equals signs
|-
| U+237C || ⍼ || Right Angle with Downwards Zigzag Arrow || Larry Potter || Looks like the letter "L" and a lightning bolt. {{w|Harry Potter (character)|Harry Potter}} is known for having a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead.
|-
| U+2A50 || ⩐ || Closed Union with Serifs and Smash Product || Spider caught with a cup and index card
|-
| U+2368 || ⍨ || Apl Functional Symbol Tilde Diaeresis || :/
|-
| U+2A69 || ⩩ || Triple Horizontal Bar with Triple Vertical Stroke || "Hashtag" || Hashtag that is "outlined"
|-
| U+2118 || ℘ || Symbol for {{w|Weierstrass_elliptic_function|Weierstrass p-function}}|| Snake
|-
| U+2AC1 || ⫁ || Subset with Multiplication Sign Below || "User experience", written sideways || Ux is an abbreviation for {{w|user experience}}
|-
| U+232D || ⌭ || Cylindricity || Rolling dough between your hands to shape it into a ball
|-
| U+2A13 || ⨓ || Line Integration with Semicircular Path Around Pole || Integral that avoids a bee on the whiteboard
|-
| U+2A0B (title text)|| ⨋ || Summation with Integral || Mathematicians need to calm down
|-
|}

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

[Title:] Weird Unicode math symbols

[Subtitle:] And their meanings

{|
| U+29CD || ⧍ || Shark
|-
| U+23E7 || ⏧ || Traffic circle
|-
| U+2A33 || ⨳ || Hashtag [the text is slanted counterclockwise]
|-
| U+299E || ⦞ || Snack
|-
| U+2A04 || ⨄ || Drink refill
|-
| U+2B48 || ⭈ || Snakes over there
|-
| U+225D || ≝ || Definitely, for sure
|-
| U+237C || ⍼ || Larry Potter
|-
| U+2A50 || ⩐ || Spider caught with a cup and index card
|-
| U+2A69 || ⩩ || [The word "hashtag" but with extra horizontal and vertical lines]
|-
| U+2368 || ⍨ || :/
|-
| U+2118 || ℘ || Snake
|-
| U+2AC1 || ⫁ || [The words "user experience" rotated counterclockwise 90 degrees]
|-
| U+232D || ⌭ || Rolling dough between your hands to shape it into a ball
|-
| U+2A13 || ⨓ || Integral that avoids a bee on the whiteboard
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Unicode]]
[[Category:Math]]

716: Time Machine

2022-04-13T01:07:41Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 716
| date = March 19, 2010
| title = Time Machine
| image = time_machine.png
| titletext = We never see any time travelers because they all discover it's a huge mistake. This is also why your friend at the lab suddenly looked a year older recently.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Rob]] is about to discover {{w|Time travel|time traveling}}, but a future version of him comes back in time and hits him with a baseball bat before he can actually build this time machine.

A common theme in time travel fiction is going back into the past to fix some mistake or stop some tragedy before it happens (see for instance {{w|The Terminator}} movies). In this comic, it is implied that Rob's time traveling turned out to cause a tragedy of some kind, so in order to stop it, Future-Rob must go back in time to stop himself from time traveling in the first place. The last panel supports this by suggesting that at least once a month somebody discovers time travel, but inevitably ends up going back in time to prevent themselves from doing so.

This is a plot point from the 2004 time-travel drama film [[wikipedia:Primer (film)|''Primer'']]: one character intends to travel back in time to prevent them from discovering time travel in this way, and another character has already traveled back in time, drugged his earlier self, and taken over the operation to discover time travel before the narrative of the film begins. ''Primer'' has a notoriously complicated plot that Randall already has made a jocular attempt at explaining in [[657: Movie Narrative Charts]]. Some more thorough attempts to explain it can be found [http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/334/can-someone-explain-the-sequence-of-events-in-primer here] and [http://qntm.org/primer here]. Doubtless, this has also been spoofed in countless other comedic settings. The blood has since been removed.

The blood on the bat suggests that future Rob actually killed past Rob. This is of course a paradox like the {{w|grandfather paradox}} - but there are theories about how it would still be possible - see the link. The obvious paradox is that when Rob dies the future Rob never existed. But also the time travel Future Rob undertakes uses a technique that is now never invented. This was the reason for future Rob's travel.

The title text states that this is why we never see any time travelers since they would have stopped their own past selves from time traveling. After getting rid of their past selves they would then assume their place in the timeline, hence why a friend would suddenly look older: they ''have'' aged, just in another timeline before returning to the past.

==Transcript==
:[Rob is working at a workbench. Future-Rob appears out of nowhere with a baseball bat.]
:Future-Rob: Hi, Rob.
:Rob: Whoa, you're me!

:[Future-Rob holding the baseball bat, standing next to Rob.]
:Future-Rob: You're about to have an idea for a time machine.
:Rob: I am?

:[In a frameless panel, Future-Rob hits Rob over the head with the baseball bat.]
:''WHAM''

:[Megan approaches Future-Rob working at the workbench, with Rob nowhere to be seen. The bloody baseball bat is stashed behind it.]
:Megan: Hey, Rob. What's up?
:Future-Rob: Nothing.

:[Caption below the last panel:]
:This happens somewhere roughly once a month.

==Trivia==
This comic's title is very similar to [[1203: Time Machines]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Time travel]]
[[Category:Baseball]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Time Machine]]

1613: The Three Laws of Robotics

2022-04-12T03:00:48Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1613
| date = December 7, 2015
| title = The Three Laws of Robotics
| image = the_three_laws_of_robotics.png
| titletext = In ordering #5, self-driving cars will happily drive you around, but if you tell them to drive to a car dealership, they just lock the doors and politely ask how long humans take to starve to death.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic explores alternative orderings of sci-fi author {{w|Isaac Asimov|Isaac Asimov's}} famous {{w|Three Laws of Robotics}}, which are designed to prevent robots from taking over the world, etc. These laws form the basis of a number of Asimov works of fiction, including most famously, the short story collection ''{{w|I, Robot}}'', which amongst others includes the very first of Asimov's stories to introduce the three laws: {{w|Runaround (story)|Runaround}}.

The three rules are:
#A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
#A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
#A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

In order to make his joke, [[Randall]] shortens the laws into three imperatives:
#Don't harm humans
#Obey Orders
#Protect yourself

And then implicitly adds the following to the end of each law regardless of order of imperatives:
#''[end of statement]''
#_____, except where such orders/protection would conflict with the First Law.
#_____, as long as such orders/protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

This comic answers the generally unasked question: "Why are they in that order?" With three rules you could rank them into 6 different {{w|permutation|permutations}}, only one of which has been explored in depth. The original ranking of the three laws are listed in the brackets after the first number. So in the first example, which is the original, these three numbers will be in the same order. For the next five the numbers in brackets indicate how the laws have been re-ranked compared to the original.

The comic begins with introducing the original set, which we already know will give rise to a balanced world, so this is designated as green.:
;Ordering #1 - Balanced World: If they are not allowed to harm humans, no harm will be done disregarding who gives them orders. So long as they do not harm humans, they must obey orders. Their own self-preservation is last, so they must also try to save a human, even if ordered not do so, and especially also if they would put themselves to harm, or even destroy themselves in the process. They would also have to obey orders not relating to humans, even if this would be harmful to them; like exploring a mine field. This leads to a balanced, if not perfect, world. Asimov's robot stories explore in detail the advantages and challenges of this scenario.

Below this first known option, the five alternative orderings of the three rules are illustrated. Two of the possibilities are designated yellow (pretty bad or just annoying) and three of them are designated red ("Hellscape").

;Ordering #2 - Frustrating World: The robots value their existence over their job and so many would refuse to do their tasks. The silliness of this is portrayed in the accompanying image, where the robot (a {{w|Mars rover}} looking very similar to {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} both in shape and size - see [[1091: Curiosity]]) laughs at the idea of doing what it was clearly built to do (explore {{w|Mars}}) because of the risk. In addition to the general risk (e.g. of unexpected damage), it is actually normal for rovers to cease operating ("die") at the end of their mission, though they may survive longer than expected (see [[1504: Opportunity]] and [[695: Spirit]]). This personification is augmented by the robot being switched on already while still on Earth and then ordered by [[Megan]] to go explore. The personification is humorous since it is a very nonhuman robot - a typical Mars rover, as has often been used in earlier comics.
;Ordering #3 - Killbot Hellscape: This puts obeying orders above not harming humans, which means anyone could send them on a killing spree, resulting in a "Killbot Hellscape". It should also be noted humor is derived from the superlative nature of "Killbot Hellscape", as well as its over the top accompanying image, where there are multiple mushroom clouds (not necessarily nuclear). It also appears there are no humans (left?), only fighting robots.
;Ordering #4 - Killbot Hellscape:The next would also result in much the same, the only difference here is that they would be willing to kill humans to protect themselves. But still they would need an order to start killing. This would be likely even worse for humans as they are put as the least important in the order.
;Ordering #5 - Terrifying Standoff:The penultimate order would result in an unpleasant world, though not a full Hellscape. Here the robots would not only disobey to protect themselves, but also kill if necessary. The absurdity of this one is further demonstrated with the very un-human robot happily doing repetitive mundane tasks but then threatening the life of its user, [[Cueball]], if he as much as considers unplugging it.
;Ordering #6 - Killbot Hellscape:The last order would also results in a Hellscape wherein robots not only kill for self-defense but will also go on killing sprees if ordered as long as they didn't risk themselves. Could self-protection coming first not prevent the fighting? Not according to Randall. See discussion below.

There are thus only three different results except the 'normal' 3-laws scenario.

One result goes again three times, and this occurs whenever ''obeying orders'' comes before ''don't harm humans''. In this case it will only be a matter of time (knowing human nature and history) before someone orders the robots to kill some humans, and this will inevitably lead to the ''killbot hellscape'' scenario shown in the third, fourth and sixth law-order. Even in the last case where ''protect yourself'' comes before obey orders, it would only be a matter of time before they would begin to defend themselves, against either humans or other robots which were actively trying to ensure that they would not be harmed by other humans/robots. So although it would be in the robots interest not to have war, this will surely occur anyway. Additionally, the robots would have to be intelligent to realize that they just needed to not go to war to protect themselves. There is nothing in this comic that indicates that the robots should be highly intelligent (like to AI in [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]).

In the two other cases ''obey orders'' comes after ''don't harm humans'' (as in the original version). But the result is very different both from the original and from each other.

The frustrating world comes by because although the robots will not harm the humans, they will also not harm themselves. So if our orders conflict with this, they just do not perform the orders. As many robots are created to perform tasks that are dangerous, these robots would become useless, and it would be a frustrating world to be a robotic engineer. Asimov touched on this in the story Runaround, where an expensive robot with a strengthened third law got into an endless loop due to a weak order.

Finally in the terrifying standoff situation the ''protect your self'' comes before ''don't harm humans''. In this case they will leave us be, as long as we do not try to turn them off or in any other way harm them. As long as we do that they will be able to help us, with non-dangerous tasks, as in the previous version. But if ever any humans begin to attack them, we could still tip the balance over and end up in a full-scale war (Hellscape). Hence the standoff-label.

The title text further adds to ordering #5 ("Terrifying Standoff") by noting anyone wishing to trade in their self-driving car could be killed, despite it (currently) being a standard and mundane and (mostly) risk-free activity. Because the car would fear that it would end up as scrap or spare parts, it decides to protect itself. And although not directly harming the person inside it, they do also not allow them out, and they have time to wait for starvation (or more likely dying of thirst). Asimov created the "inaction" clause in the original First Law specifically to avoid scenarios in which a robot puts a human in harm's way, knowing full well that it is within the robot's abilities to save the human, and then simply refrains from saving them; this was explored in the short story {{w|Little Lost Robot}}.

Another course of action by an AI, completely different than any of the ones presented here, is depicted in [[1626: Judgment Day]].

==Transcript==
:[Caption at the top of the comic:]
:'''Why Asimov put the Three Laws'''
: '''of Robotics in the order he did.'''

:[Below are six rows with first two frames and then a label in color to the right. Above the two column of frames there are labels as well. In the first column six different ways of ordering the three laws are listed. Then the second column shown an image of the consequences of this order. Except in the first where there is a reference. The label to the right rates the kind of world that order of the laws would result in.]

:[Labels above the columns.]
:Possible ordering
:Consequences

:[The six rows follows below. First the text in the first frame, then a description of the second frame, including possible text below and finally the colored label.]

:[First row:]
:1. (1) Don't harm humans
:2. (2) Obey Orders
:3. (3) Protect yourself
:[Only text in square brackets:]
::[See Asimov’s stories]
:'''Balanced world'''

:[Second row:]
:1. (1) Don't harm humans
:2. (3) Protect yourself
:3. (2) Obey Orders
:[Megan points at a mars rover with six wheels, a satellite disc, an arm and a camera head turned towards her, what to do.]
:Megan: Explore Mars!
:Mars rover: Haha, no. It’s cold and I’d die.
:'''Frustrating world'''

:[Third row:]
:1. (2) Obey Orders
:2. (1) Don't harm humans
:3. (3) Protect yourself
:[Two robots are fighting. The one to the left has six wheels, a tall neck on top of the body, with a head with what could be a camera facing right. It has something pointing forward on the body, which could be a weapon. The robot to the right, seems to be further away into the picture. (it is smaller with less detail). It is human shapes, but made op of square structures. It has two legs and two arms, a torso and a head. It clearly shoots something out of it’s right “hand”. This shot seems to create an explosion a third of the way towards the left robot. There are two mushroom clouds from explosions behind both robots (left and right). Between them there are one more explosion up in the air close to the left robot, and what looks like a fire on the ground right between them. Furthermore there are two missiles in the air, one above the head of each robot. Lines indicate their trajectory. There is not text.]
:'''Killbot hellscape'''

:[Fourth row:]
:1. (2) Obey Orders
:2. (3) Protect yourself
:3. (1) Don't harm humans:
:[Exactly the same picture as in row 3.]
:'''Killbot hellscape'''

:[Fifth row:]
:1. (3) Protect yourself
:2. (1) Don't harm humans
:3. (2) Obey Orders
:[Cueball is standing in front of a car factory robot, that is larger than him. It has a base, and two parts for the main body, and then a big “head” with a small section on top. To the right something is jutting out, and to the left in the direction of Cueball there is an arm in three sections (going down, up and down again) ending in some kind of tool close to Cueball.]
:Car factory robot: I'll make cars for you, but try to unplug me and I’ll vaporize you.
:'''Terrifying standoff'''

:[Sixth row:]
:1. (3) Protect yourself
:2. (2) Obey Orders
:3. (1) Don't harm humans:
:[Exactly the same picture as in row 3 and 4.]
:'''Killbot hellscape'''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Mars rovers]]

2604: Frankenstein Captcha

2022-04-09T20:34:57Z

172.70.210.237: Updated the text to name Pluto (recognizable by the heart-shaped imprint)

{{comic
| number = 2604
| date = April 8, 2022
| title = Frankenstein Captcha
| image = frankenstein_captcha.png
| titletext = The distinction between a ship and a boat is a line drawn in water.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by Rated Argh -Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is a play on the meanings (and misunderstanding) of the name "Frankenstein". ''{{w|Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus}}'' is an 1818 novel by Mary Shelley about a medical student named Victor Frankenstein who creates an artificial life-form. The man he creates once describes himself as "the Adam of [Frankenstein's] labour" in the book, and strictly speaking is properly known as "Frankenstein's ''monster''" (or perhaps "creation" or "son"), but is often erroneously called "Frankenstein" himself. This has been fertile ground for many, many debates whether the monster could also properly be called "Frankenstein," either as a family name, an honorific, or simply because it's more recognizable and convenient. Randall has weighed in on the debate himself in a previous comic, [[1589: Frankenstein]].

The CAPTCHA shown in the comic instructs the user to select all tiles containing Frankenstein. The tiles include both a reanimated corpse resembling Frankenstein's monster and a scientist yelling, "It's alive!” who is clearly intended to be Victor Frankenstein. The problem arises from the contrast between various definitions of the term Frankenstein. Going just off the book's text, the monster has no name, so the correct answer to the CAPTCHA is just the left square of the third row.

CAPTCHAs serve a dual purpose: (1) to separate human users from bots by way of intelligent interaction, and (2) to train a neural network, hence the "correct answer" to image recognition CAPTCHAs is not known ahead of time and is merely based on the most commonly-chosen tiles. Users who frequently face CAPTCHAs are familiar with the dilemma of having to choose tiles that they know do not contain the requested object but which they know were likely chosen by previous users, making the CAPTCHA one part object-identification exercise and one part human-psychology exercise. Thus, a user who knows that "Frankenstein" refers only to the scientist would face this CAPTCHA with dread, uttering "Oh No" as they realize that they must select the tiles containing the monster, and possibly not even be allowed to select the tile containing the actual scientist Victor Frankenstein if they want to pass the CAPTCHA.

Alternatively, this comic strip with its "Oh No" caption could be referencing [[1897]], which would imply that someone had actually created a Frankenstein's monster which needs to be located as soon as possible.

Many of the other tiles appear to be pictures of entities that inspire similar pedantry. For example, there is a picture of a turtle (or possibly a tortoise, or a reference to the {{w|Voight-Kampff_machine|Voight-Kampff test}} used in a manner analogous to CAPTCHA), a ship (or possibly a boat), {{w|Link (The Legend of Zelda|Link}} (the name given to each of several protagonists that appear across generations and timelines, throughout the ''{{w|Legend of Zelda}}'' video games, who many erroneously refer to as Zelda), a pond (or possibly a lake, a puddle, or a {{w|mirage}}), a squash or pumpkin (often subject to the ''fruit or vegetable'' debate), an erupting volcano (with lava, or is it magma?), and the planet Pluto (or is it a dwarf planet?). Other tiles seem to be inspired by images that commonly occur in actual captchas, like the STOP sign or the traffic light. However, at least some of these may also be meant to fall into the category of entities that inspire pedantry, for example: because traffic lights can also be called traffic signals or stoplights; many people thinking that the shape of a stop sign is a hexagon, not an octagon; and the definition of a sandwich (previously discussed as a “random semi-ironic obsession” in [[1835]]).

The title text refers to the fact that if you draw a picture of a boat/ship on calm water (a straight line), it is usually assumed to be on a lake or pond and is thus a boat, but if it is on wavy water (as in the comic), it's assumed to be on the sea and is thus a ship{{citation needed}}. The phrase "a line drawn in water" is an idiom for something ephemeral. Ironically, it has persisted for a long time and dates back at least to the early Buddhists. (e.g. [https://suttacentral.net/an3.132/en/sujato?layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin| AN 3.132] & [https://suttacentral.net/an7.74/en/sujato?layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin| AN 7.74]). The title text is also a pun on the common idiom "drawing a line in the sand."

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

:[A captcha design, with a header and four rows of four pictures each below it. The header, in white lettering on a blue background, reads:]
:To continue, please click
:All squares containing
:Frankenstein

:[The pictures, all with gray backgrounds, are as follows, from left to right in each row:]

Row 1
* Tortoise (or turtle)
* Ship (or boat)
* Frankenstein's monster (often mistaken as Frankenstein) waking up from a slab, while lightning strikes.
::Monster: GRRR
* Link from Legend of Zelda series (often mistaken as Zelda)

Row 2
* Lake (or pond), possibly a mirage, in the Egyptian desert
* Megan (or Science Girl, or Danish--possibly a direct joke about this wiki)
* Lava (or magma)
* Squash or pumpkin (fruit vs vegetable)

Row 3
* A mad scientist (Victor Frankenstein) throwing a switch while lightning strikes outside
::Frankenstein: It's alive!
* Sandwich
* Stop sign
* Girl running away from Frankenstein's monster
::Girl: Monster!

Row 4
* Rocket (spaceship) flying by an asteroid or Pluto (dwarf planet)
* Cueball and Ponytail standing next to each other
* Traffic light (also called a stoplight, possibly mistaken as stop sign?)
* Frankenstein's monster

:[Caption below the panel]:
:Oh no.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:CAPTCHA]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]

2600: Rejected Question Categories

2022-03-30T21:25:15Z

172.70.210.237:

{{comic
| number = 2600
| date = March 30, 2022
| title = Rejected Question Categories
| image = rejected_question_categories.png
| titletext = You can click to preorder to get a copy of What If? 2 when it comes out 9/13, assuming we all make it past the spider situation(?) on Tuesday(?).
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPIDER-CREATED WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION LAUNCHED AT A VOLCANO - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Randall [[2575: What If? 2|recently announced]] he is publishing a book based on reader-submitted questions. This comic shows some of the questions he claims to have received, but rejected, with the category hinting at why they were rejected. In typical XKCD fashion, these are all implausible to various degrees (especially the last row), ending in a question that appears to be a combination of all previous categories and is therefore marked "?????"
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Question'''
|'''Explanation'''
|-
| What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work)
|
|-
| What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [''📎 attachment'']? Should you see a doctor or what?
|
|-
| Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???
|
|-
| Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?
|
|-
| Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here.
|
|-
| Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [''📎'' blueprints]
|
|-
| Why am I me and not someone else
|
|-
| What is going to happen? (Be specific)
|
|-
| Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?
|
|-
| Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! Click here to log in and tell us
|
|}

The title text refers to the launch date of the book, September 13, rendered in the American style. This will be confusing to non-Americans, for whom it will appear to reference the 9th day of the 13th month. See Randall's take on ISO 8601 in comic [[1179]].

Tuesday is normally the second day of the week, however the Tuesday of the week following the publication of this cartoon will be noted for the last day of the last week ever.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In ''What If? 2'' (xkcd.com/whatif2), I answer ridiculous questions sent in by readers about everything from volcanoes to spaceships to soup.

Here are a few of the common types of questions that I did ''not'' answer:

[In separate boxes for each category]

[In row 1:]

People cheating on homework: What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work!)

Medical advice: What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [''📎 attachment'']? Should you see a doctor or what?

Personal: Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???

[In row 2:]

Spam: Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?

Phishing: Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here.

Requests for help with a crime: Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [''📎'' blueprints]

[In row 3:]

Unanswerable: Why am I me and not someone else

Vague: What is going to happen? (Be specific)

Vague+Ominous: Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?

?????: Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! Click here to log in and tell us

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Book promotion]]
[[Category:Spiders]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

2600: Rejected Question Categories

2022-03-30T21:20:43Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ reference ISO 8601

{{comic
| number = 2600
| date = March 30, 2022
| title = Rejected Question Categories
| image = rejected_question_categories.png
| titletext = You can click to preorder to get a copy of What If? 2 when it comes out 9/13, assuming we all make it past the spider situation(?) on Tuesday(?).
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPIDER-CREATED WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION LAUNCHED AT A VOLCANO - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Randall [[2575: What If? 2|recently announced]] he is publishing a book based on reader-submitted questions. This comic shows some of the questions he claims to have received, but rejected, with the category hinting at why they were rejected. In typical XKCD fashion, the categories seem fairly plausible until the last row, where the questions appear to be submitted by XKCD characters themselves, ending in a question that appears to be a combination of all previous categories and is therefore marked "?????"
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Question'''
|'''Explanation'''
|-
| What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work)
|
|-
| What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [''📎 attachment'']? Should you see a doctor or what?
|
|-
| Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???
|
|-
| Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?
|
|-
| Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here.
|
|-
| Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [''📎'' blueprints]
|
|-
| Why am I me and not someone else
|
|-
| What is going to happen? (Be specific)
|
|-
| Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?
|
|-
| Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! Click here to log in and tell us
|
|}

The title text refers to the launch date of the book, September 13, rendered in the American style. This will be confusing to non-Americans, for whom it will appear to reference the 9th day of the 13th month. See Randall's take on ISO 8601 in comic [[1179]].

Tuesday is normally the second day of the week, however the Tuesday of the week following the publication of this cartoon will be noted for the last day of the last week ever.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In ''What If? 2'' (xkcd.com/whatif2), I answer ridiculous questions sent in by readers about everything from volcanoes to spaceships to soup.

Here are a few of the common types of questions that I did ''not'' answer:

[In separate boxes for each category]

[In row 1:]

People cheating on homework: What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work!)

Medical advice: What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [''📎 attachment'']? Should you see a doctor or what?

Personal: Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???

[In row 2:]

Spam: Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?

Phishing: Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here.

Requests for help with a crime: Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [''📎'' blueprints]

[In row 3:]

Unanswerable: Why am I me and not someone else

Vague: What is going to happen? (Be specific)

Vague+Ominous: Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?

?????: Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! Click here to log in and tell us

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Book promotion]]
[[Category:Spiders]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

1270: Functional

2022-03-27T00:54:43Z

172.70.210.237: grammar correction correction

{{comic
| number = 1270
| date = September 27, 2013
| title = Functional
| image = functional.png
| titletext = Functional programming combines the flexibility and power of abstract mathematics with the intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics.
}}

==Brief Explanation==
[[White Hat]] questions [[Cueball]]'s faith in {{w|functional programming}}. [[Cueball]] responds saying, "Tail recursion is its own reward."

{{w|Functional programming}} is a paradigm of computer programming with roots in {{w|Lambda Calculus}}. Core tenets of functional languages often include: function application and composition, declarative syntax, immutable data structures, and mathematically pure functions. Functional programming often uses {{w|Recursion (computer science)|recursive functions}} to serve the same purpose that loops serve in other programming languages. A recursive function calls itself again, typically with slightly different arguments. E.g., the following {{w|Factorial|factorial function}} is recursive because it calls itself again for any argument value n greater than 0.

factorial(n):
if n == 0:
return 1
return n * factorial(n-1)

{{w|Tail call|Tail recursion}} is a particular sort of recursion that often compiles into more efficient code (see the longer explanation below), but the differences between tail recursion and other sorts of recursion aren't important to the humor of this comic.

The comic is a pun on two readings of "Tail recursion is its own reward". The expression "X is its own reward" often is used to suggest that X is {{w|intrinsic value (ethics)|intrinsically valuable}} in its own right. Some (but not all) programmers and mathematicians find recursive functions elegant and intrinsically pleasing, so would take tail recursion to be its own reward in this sense. Since recursive functions call themselves again, and make use of the resulting values, there is also a sense in which recursive functions also serve as their own "reward" - i.e., the recursive function itself returns the values that the function requires to perform its tasks. So even if you don't find tail recursion intrinsically pleasing, there is still this technical sense in which it is its own reward anyway.

The title text is humorous in part because it violates two expectations. First, expressions of the form "X combines some trait of Y with some trait of Z" usually talk about combining traits of two different things (i.e., Y is not equal to Z) whereas this text surprises the reader by having "abstract mathematics" occupy the role of both Y and Z. And second, such expressions usually list two positive traits. The first listed trait (the "flexibility and power of abstract mathematics") is pretty clearly positive. However the second trait (the "intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics") is less clearly positive. Many people actually find abstract mathematics to be quite lacking in intuitive clarity, and for much the same reasons many people often find functional programming also to be lacking in intuitive clarity. So the title text invites the reader to puzzle over whether it really is a positive thing for functional programming to be able to claim to match the "intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics", or whether [[Randall]] might instead have just smacked functional programming with a funny {{w|backhanded compliment}}. Another explanation is that the fact that part of the title text is confusing is a metaphor for the fact that abstract mathematics and functional programming can be confusing, and the first part of the title text is flexible because it can be applied to a wide variety of situations with different things filling in the blanks for X, Y, and Z, and it's apparently powerful because it's used in marketing a lot,{{Citation needed}} so advertisers must feel that it will have a powerful effect.

==Longer Explanation==
Functional programming is a famous paradigm (or style) in modern programming that favors functions that can be evaluated like mathematical functions, i.e., functions are "evaluated" (executed) to return a value (their output) which exclusively depends upon the values of their arguments (their inputs). {{w|imperative programming|Imperative programs}}, by contrast, often make use of one or more variables that are external to the function that is currently executing. This means that an "imperative function" may return a different result for the same input due to changes in a non-local variable, whereas a "pure function" will ''always'' return the same result for a given input; however, in practice some functional programming languages also support non-local variables.

Additionally, for similar reasons, functional programming systems often strive to eliminate or at least rigorously encapsulate (contain) so-called "side effects"; i.e., "functional-style" functions should have absolutely no effect on anything ''other than'' their return value. This is to say, in well-designed "functional-style" computer code, all functions, or as many as is practicable, should be stringently self-contained, their behaviour should depend entirely and exclusively upon their written definition and the values of their arguments, and they should be totally unable to affect anything else in the program except via their explicit return value.

This is directly contrary to the imperative programming paradigm, where functions are often designed and invoked especially for some ulterior effect that will eventuate when they are executed; some "imperative-style" functions even have ''no return value'', and exist purely because running them is known to cause some other desired result. In functional programming, these are not considered functions at all, but rather "procedures", and the difference between functions and procedures is quite strong; some languages which are purely functional do not admit procedures as valid parts of the language at all.

Unlike {{w|Procedural programming|procedures}}, functions always return a value. For example, {{w|Sine|sine(x)}} returns 1 when x is 90°. Furthermore, the function may call itself (usually with slightly different parameters), thus effectively starting a loop. This is called {{w|Recursion (computer science)|recursion}}.

In order to {{w|Iteration|iterate}}, imperative programs usually use {{w|Loop (programming)|loops}}. Functional programs usually use recursion instead.

For example, the {{w|factorial}} function (e.g. "factorial(5) = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1") can be coded imperatively as:

factorial(n):
prod = 1
while n > 0:
prod = prod * n
n = n - 1
end
return prod

An imperative, recursive (but not tail-recursive) implementation can look like this:

factorial(n):
if n > 0:
return n * factorial(n-1)
else:
return 1

In this situation, the recursion stops when the argument (n) is not greater than zero. Without the conditional definition, it would be an infinite loop. {{w|Tail recursion}} is a special case of recursion whose very '''last''' operation is to invoke the function itself or return a definite value. The previous example is not tail-recursive, since after the call to "factorial(n-1)", the returned value has to be multiplied by n.

This (functional) example is tail recursive inside the helper function:

factorial(n) = factorial_helper(n, 1)

factorial_helper(n, prod) =
if n > 0 then
factorial_helper(n - 1, prod * n)
else
prod

e.g.
factorial(5) = factorial_helper(5, 1)
factorial_helper(5,1) = factorial_helper(5-1, 1*5)
factorial_helper(4,5) = factorial_helper(4-1, 5*4)
factorial_helper(3,20) = factorial_helper(3-1, 20*3)
factorial_helper(2,60) = factorial_helper(2-1, 60*2)
factorial_helper(1,120) = factorial_helper(1-1, 120*1)
factorial_helper(0,120) = 120

In functional programming, tail recursion is detected by the compiler or interpreter and can be executed as efficiently as loops in imperative programming languages. This makes tail recursion an essential programming technique in functional programming.

Cueball is making a play on words where "Tail recursion is its own reward" is used both in the sense that it is worth doing on the grounds of being elegant and intellectually satisfying alone, without the programmer having to "actually get" anything from it, as well as in the sense that the 'tail call' of a function is its final step, and is the final step (and hence the result/reward) for ''all levels'' of a tail-recursive function.

The title text suggests that to {{w|Abstract mathematics|the mathematically minded}} functional programming may be both powerful and flexible as well as intuitive and clear since it very closely approximates the way mathematicians ordinarily think about general recursive functions. The implicit humorous contrast is that, to many (possibly most) others, including many software engineers, functional programming can seem abstruse or highly unobvious for the exact same reason, ''because'' it closely approximates abstract mathematical logic rather than the mechanistic, stepwise logic valued in the imperative programming style. It is also a reference to a common saying among functional programmers about the imperative programming language, 'C': "C combines the flexibility and power of {{w|assembly language}} with the user-friendliness of assembly language", which is a humorous take on the original saying "C combines the flexibility and power of {{w|assembly language}} with the user-friendliness of a high-level language".

==Transcript==
:[White Hat stands behind Cueball, who is sitting at a computer.]
:White Hat: Why do you like functional programming so much? What does it actually ''get'' you?
:Cueball: Tail recursion is its own reward.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Recursion]]
[[Category:Puns]]

1270: Functional

2022-03-27T00:53:58Z

172.70.210.237: grammar correction

{{comic
| number = 1270
| date = September 27, 2013
| title = Functional
| image = functional.png
| titletext = Functional programming combines the flexibility and power of abstract mathematics with the intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics.
}}

==Brief Explanation==
[[White Hat]] questions [[Cueball]]'s faith in {{w|functional programming}}. [[Cueball]] responds saying, "Tail recursion is its own reward."

{{w|Functional programming}} is a paradigm of computer programming with roots in {{w|Lambda Calculus}}. Core tenets of functional languages often include: function application and composition, declarative syntax, immutable data structures, and mathematically pure functions. Functional programming often uses {{w|Recursion (computer science)|recursive functions}} to serve the same purpose that loops serve in other programming languages. A recursive function calls itself again, typically with slightly different arguments. E.g., the following {{w|Factorial|factorial function}} is recursive because it calls itself again for any argument value n greater than 0.

factorial(n):
if n == 0:
return 1
return n * factorial(n-1)

{{w|Tail call|Tail recursion}} is a particular sort of recursion that often compiles into more efficient code (see the longer explanation below), but the differences between tail recursion and other sorts of recursion aren't important to the humor of this comic.

The comic is a pun on two readings of "Tail recursion is its own reward". The expression "X is its own reward" often is used to suggest that X is {{w|intrinsic value (ethics)|intrinsically valuable}} in its own right. Some (but not all) programmers and mathematicians find recursive functions elegant and intrinsically pleasing, so would take tail recursion to be its own reward in this sense. Since recursive functions call themselves again, and make use of the resulting values, there is also a sense in which recursive functions also serve as their own "reward" - i.e., the recursive function itself returns the values that the function requires to perform its tasks. So even if you don't find tail recursion intrinsically pleasing, there is still this technical sense in which it is its own reward anyway.

The title text is humorous in part because it violates two expectations. First, expressions of the form "X combines some trait of Y with some trait of Z" usually talk about combining traits of two different things (i.e., Y is not equal to Z) whereas this text surprises the reader by having "abstract mathematics" occupy the role of both Y and Z. And second, such expressions usually list two positive traits. The first listed trait (the "flexibility and power of abstract mathematics") is pretty clearly positive. However the second trait (the "intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics") is less clearly positive. Many people actually find abstract mathematics to be quite lacking in intuitive clarity, and for much the same reasons many people often find functional programming also to be lacking in intuitive clarity. So the title text invites the reader to puzzle over whether it really is a positive thing for functional programming to be able to claim to match the "intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics", or whether [[Randall]] might instead have just smacked functional programming with a funny {{w|backhanded compliment}}. Another explanation is that the fact that part of the title text is confusing is a metaphor for the fact that abstract mathematics and functional programming can be confusing, and the first part of the title text is flexible because it can be applied to a wide variety of situations with different things filling in the blanks for X, Y, and Z, and it's apparently powerful because it's usined in marketing a lot,{{Citation needed}} so advertisers must feel that it will have a powerful effect.

==Longer Explanation==
Functional programming is a famous paradigm (or style) in modern programming that favors functions that can be evaluated like mathematical functions, i.e., functions are "evaluated" (executed) to return a value (their output) which exclusively depends upon the values of their arguments (their inputs). {{w|imperative programming|Imperative programs}}, by contrast, often make use of one or more variables that are external to the function that is currently executing. This means that an "imperative function" may return a different result for the same input due to changes in a non-local variable, whereas a "pure function" will ''always'' return the same result for a given input; however, in practice some functional programming languages also support non-local variables.

Additionally, for similar reasons, functional programming systems often strive to eliminate or at least rigorously encapsulate (contain) so-called "side effects"; i.e., "functional-style" functions should have absolutely no effect on anything ''other than'' their return value. This is to say, in well-designed "functional-style" computer code, all functions, or as many as is practicable, should be stringently self-contained, their behaviour should depend entirely and exclusively upon their written definition and the values of their arguments, and they should be totally unable to affect anything else in the program except via their explicit return value.

This is directly contrary to the imperative programming paradigm, where functions are often designed and invoked especially for some ulterior effect that will eventuate when they are executed; some "imperative-style" functions even have ''no return value'', and exist purely because running them is known to cause some other desired result. In functional programming, these are not considered functions at all, but rather "procedures", and the difference between functions and procedures is quite strong; some languages which are purely functional do not admit procedures as valid parts of the language at all.

Unlike {{w|Procedural programming|procedures}}, functions always return a value. For example, {{w|Sine|sine(x)}} returns 1 when x is 90°. Furthermore, the function may call itself (usually with slightly different parameters), thus effectively starting a loop. This is called {{w|Recursion (computer science)|recursion}}.

In order to {{w|Iteration|iterate}}, imperative programs usually use {{w|Loop (programming)|loops}}. Functional programs usually use recursion instead.

For example, the {{w|factorial}} function (e.g. "factorial(5) = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1") can be coded imperatively as:

factorial(n):
prod = 1
while n > 0:
prod = prod * n
n = n - 1
end
return prod

An imperative, recursive (but not tail-recursive) implementation can look like this:

factorial(n):
if n > 0:
return n * factorial(n-1)
else:
return 1

In this situation, the recursion stops when the argument (n) is not greater than zero. Without the conditional definition, it would be an infinite loop. {{w|Tail recursion}} is a special case of recursion whose very '''last''' operation is to invoke the function itself or return a definite value. The previous example is not tail-recursive, since after the call to "factorial(n-1)", the returned value has to be multiplied by n.

This (functional) example is tail recursive inside the helper function:

factorial(n) = factorial_helper(n, 1)

factorial_helper(n, prod) =
if n > 0 then
factorial_helper(n - 1, prod * n)
else
prod

e.g.
factorial(5) = factorial_helper(5, 1)
factorial_helper(5,1) = factorial_helper(5-1, 1*5)
factorial_helper(4,5) = factorial_helper(4-1, 5*4)
factorial_helper(3,20) = factorial_helper(3-1, 20*3)
factorial_helper(2,60) = factorial_helper(2-1, 60*2)
factorial_helper(1,120) = factorial_helper(1-1, 120*1)
factorial_helper(0,120) = 120

In functional programming, tail recursion is detected by the compiler or interpreter and can be executed as efficiently as loops in imperative programming languages. This makes tail recursion an essential programming technique in functional programming.

Cueball is making a play on words where "Tail recursion is its own reward" is used both in the sense that it is worth doing on the grounds of being elegant and intellectually satisfying alone, without the programmer having to "actually get" anything from it, as well as in the sense that the 'tail call' of a function is its final step, and is the final step (and hence the result/reward) for ''all levels'' of a tail-recursive function.

The title text suggests that to {{w|Abstract mathematics|the mathematically minded}} functional programming may be both powerful and flexible as well as intuitive and clear since it very closely approximates the way mathematicians ordinarily think about general recursive functions. The implicit humorous contrast is that, to many (possibly most) others, including many software engineers, functional programming can seem abstruse or highly unobvious for the exact same reason, ''because'' it closely approximates abstract mathematical logic rather than the mechanistic, stepwise logic valued in the imperative programming style. It is also a reference to a common saying among functional programmers about the imperative programming language, 'C': "C combines the flexibility and power of {{w|assembly language}} with the user-friendliness of assembly language", which is a humorous take on the original saying "C combines the flexibility and power of {{w|assembly language}} with the user-friendliness of a high-level language".

==Transcript==
:[White Hat stands behind Cueball, who is sitting at a computer.]
:White Hat: Why do you like functional programming so much? What does it actually ''get'' you?
:Cueball: Tail recursion is its own reward.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Recursion]]
[[Category:Puns]]

2598: Graphic Designers

2022-03-26T21:54:14Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ no incomplete tag huh

{{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==

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 invited 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 they are physically unable to enter the room.

Being presented with visual information that is ''just not quite right'' is known to cause feelings of unease and revulsion, particularly when presented with CGI human faces, a concept known as {{w|Uncanny valley}}.

In the title text, it mentions a contingency against the designer managing to actually 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 protractor that can measure increments of less than a degree. If these are left out, the graphic designer 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#Folklore|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 — similar to the effect of [[1015: Kerning|bad kerning]], which a version of Cueball suffers from, but here applied like the use of {{w|Christian cross|crosses}} which vampires are famously repulsed by.

True to the comic's joke, Randall has colored each segment of the comic differently to each other. See this [https://i.imgur.com/gMpmJlp.png rendering with an exaggerated color saturation].

The hexadecimal color codes are:
* Floor: #FFFFFF [[https://www.colorhexa.com/ffffff White]]
* Ceiling: #F3F7F8 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f3f7f8 Light Grayish Cyan]]
* Walls (left-to-right)
** #F2F0EE [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f2f0ee Light Grayish Orange]]
** #F3F4F2 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f3f4f2 Light Grayish Green]]
** #F2F3F4 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f2f3f4 Light Grayish Blue]]
** #F3F2F4 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f3f2f4 Light Grayish Violet]]
* Door: #F1F3F1 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f1f3f1 Light Grayish Lime Green]]
* Box seat top: #EEF1EC [[https://www.colorhexa.com/eef1ec Light Grayish Green]]
* Box seat front: #F2EEF0 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f2eef0 Light Grayish Pink]]
* Rug outer ring: #F0F2F1 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f0f2f1 Light Grayish Cyan - Lime Green]]
* Rug inner panel: #F0EFF1 [[https://www.colorhexa.com/f0eff1 Light Grayish Violet]]

Whilst this subtle difference may be undetectable to humans without a graphic design qualification, it can be made clearer by increasing the saturation value of the image, as shown here: [[File:GraphicDesigners with More Saturation.png]]

Also note that the window ledges are slightly inclined, falling subtly from left to right - which might be a variant of the second level defense proposed in the title text.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands in a lightly adorned room of a house, facing an open doorway. Each surface is painted an almost imperceptibly different shade of off-white. 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]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2597: Salary Negotiation

2022-03-25T03:37:06Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ trim to correct math -- $60,000 is NOT 120% of $55,000

{{comic
| number = 2597
| date = March 23, 2022
| title = Salary Negotiation
| image = salary_negotiation.png
| titletext = "We can do 0.33 or 0.34, but our payroll software doesn't allow us to--" "NO DEAL."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GAUSSIAN INTEGER SALARY INCREASE - Please change this comment when editing this page, for fun and profit. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. Sincerely, management.}}
[[Ponytail]]'s company would like to hire [[Cueball]] for a job, and she is telling him that their offer for his starting salary is $55,000.

When offered a new job, it is common to negotiate on aspects of the offer such as salary, and employers may offer below the market rate initially in the expectation that the final negotiated amount will be higher. Given that the bedrock of one's future income depends on the outcome of a one-time process requiring skills unrelated to the job one is hired for, it is advisable to take one's time and do as much research as possible.

Cueball realizes that he has ended up in this situation, but, in typical [[Randall]] fashion, he states the fact, saying out loud ''Wow. I guess I'm inside a negotiation!'' Ponytail comments that it's a weird way to phrase it, and would then probably have continued to say, ''but that is correct.'' Cueball, however, interrupts her by stating that ''I can do this.''

Cueball has clearly done some research, but perhaps too much as he is flummoxed by this high-stakes situation and starts to ramble with decreasing coherence. First he gets completely confused about the numbers. He might have said I won't accept a penny below $60,000, starting out by putting a bit more on, letting now, that this might not even be the lowest he would accept. Instead he says he won't have a penny over $50,000, thus cutting $5000 of the initial offer, and saying he will not have more than that. He realizes this was completely wrong, and corrects to ''under'', but is still 5000 lower. Then he continues to mess up the numbers. Clearly he meant to go for $60,000, but first says $60 then $600, 100 times below what he wishes to say. Then adds the word ''Thousand'' after a short break, and continues to say it as one word $600,000. That is of course 10 times more than he wished to try for.

Realizing that he is completely off he asks for "15% cut of the salary". Here, Cueball seems to confuse salary and commission. "X% cut of the salary" seems like what a recruiter/headhunter may get from their employer as a commission if they successfully make their person hired. This is not the phrase to be used when negotiating a salary, as is the case for Cueball here, since it's not commission based.

The next word he says is ''Raise''. This could make sense if he already had a job, and wished to negotiate for a pay raise. But that is not the case. After this, he begins to think of raise as in a card game and starts rambling off mainly poker related terms, like raise, fold and pass. He throws in double down in between. This can also be a card game term, as in blackjack where double down means to double a bet after seeing one's initial cards, with the requirement that one additional card be drawn.

But in everyday speak, in a fairly dramatic [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=double+down&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdouble%20down%3B%2Cc0 rise in popular usage], to double down is to take a further risk in a situation or passionately re-commit one’s efforts to a cause or course of action ''despite'' clear and contrary revelations. This could make a limited amount of sense in a negotiation situation in which one is trying to establish the necessary self-worth. But of course not in Cueball's ramble, that finishes with him saying ''Fill it up with regular'', something you would say at a gas-station, where they still had an attendant to operate the pumps. Likely something Cueball has only experienced when watching old movies...or territories and states where mandated by law.

At this point Ponytail tries to ask him something. Maybe, ''Are you OK?''. But again Cueball interrupts her, saying he is sorry and that he would like to start over. At this time he takes out several sheets of paper and looks at some charts. But the charts are not clear enough, or only have a suggestion for what percentage he should ask for. He asks if he can borrow a calculator (something he would likely have on his smart phone) and then asks what's 20% of $55,000. This last bit seems like he is finally following a common advice{{Citation needed}} to take the initial offer and add 10-20%. The midpoint of that range, 115% of $55,000 would be $63,250.

Once more Ponytail tries to give him some time to think, but once more he interrupts, as he eventually have settled on a number, $61,333.333.... He even states that the decimals of 3 should be repeating, as in forever. Thus exactly $61,333 + $1/3. He clearly states he will not take the job for less than that. The value he settles on is 11.51515...% larger, or exactly 184⁄165 times the asking price, closer to 10% than the 20% he just asked for. In classic Cueball style, he has made the original offer. A [https://hbr.org/2016/03/dont-use-round-numbers-in-a-negotiation 2016 Harvard Business School study] found that avoiding round numbers is a remarkably effective negotiation tactic.

Since this is not that much more than the starting offer Ponytail is ready to accept this and says ''Sure, $61,333 is fine.'' She is once more starting to say something, like ''That's actually a reasonable request'', or ''That's actually within our limits''. But for the fourth time Cueball interrupts her, this time almost yelling ''Point 3 repeating or I walk!'' Because what she just offered him was $1/3 less than he asked for, and thus more than a penny less.

This last outburst is just plain ridiculous as this would only lower his asking salary by 5 parts in a million. And for certain Ponytail would accept going to $61,334.{{Citation needed}}

In the title text it shows that this is not good enough. Cueball has now confused himself to the limit that he will not only not accept less than his asking salary, he will also not accept more. So when Ponytail tries to explain to him that the point 3 repeating cannot be paid in whole cents, and tries to let him know that their payroll software only can handle whole cents, and he thus can get either 0.33 or 0.34 (the latter actually being more than he asks for), he again shout out ''NO DEAL.''

Since Ponytail cannot pay him out in a number with infinite decimals (1/3, pi or any other kind){{Citation needed}}, it seems Cueball will let this job slip out of his hands, because he has completely misunderstood the concept of negotiation.

The situation could be resolved if he would be happy with an arrangement such as a leap cent every three years, but maybe Ponytail would at this point realize it was probably a mistake to hire such an easily confused person, and happily let him go.

This can be read as a cautionary tale about taking time to compose one's thoughts before responding to a situation. The confusion caused by the wad of papers also reminds us that more information does not necessarily mean more clarity.

For more interview-related xkcd comics, see for instance [[:Category:Job interviews]].

This could also be taken in series with Cueball (possibly as a stand in for Randall) misunderstanding classically "adult" ideas, see for instance [[616: Lease]], [[905: Homeownership]], [[1674: Adult]] and [[1894: Real Estate]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail sits in an office chair at her desk, with Cueball sitting in a similar chair on the other side with his hands on his knees. Ponytails has her hands on the desk and in front of her, there is a slim thing standing up. It could be a very small screen, but there seems to be no keyboard in front of her. Maybe it is a small tablet with a support for letting is stand up. Behind that there are what appears to be two piles of papers of different sizes.]
:Ponytail: We'd like to extend an offer! The starting salary is $55,000.
:Cueball: Wow. I guess I'm inside a negotiation!
:Ponytail: I... Weird to phrase it like that, but-
:Cueball: ''I can do this.''

:[Zoom in on Cueball's upper half.]
:Cueball: I won't accept a penny over $50,000. Sorry, I mean under. Under $60. I mean, $600. Thousand. $600,000. I want a 15% cut of the salary. Raise. Double down. Fold. Pass. Fill it up with regular.

:[The same shot, except Cueball is now holding three pieces of paper, and he is looking down on them. Ponytail is talking to him from off-panel.]
:Ponytail (off-panel): Are you-
:Cueball: Sorry, sorry. Let me start over.
:Cueball: OK, my chart says...
:Cueball: ...Can I borrow a calculator? What's 20% of $55,000?

:[Back to the scene from the first panel. Ponytail has taken one hand down to her knee, with the other still on the desk. Cueball has put the papers on his lap and has raised his hand in the air holding one finger up. In his other hand he holds either a borrowed calculator or his own smartphone.]
:Ponytail: Listen, if you need to-
:Cueball: I won't take this job for less than $61,333 point 3 repeating!
:Ponytail: Sure, $61,333 is fine. That's actually-
:Cueball: '''''Point 3 repeating or I walk!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Job interviews]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2597: Salary Negotiation

2022-03-25T03:34:34Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ Improve math explanation

{{comic
| number = 2597
| date = March 23, 2022
| title = Salary Negotiation
| image = salary_negotiation.png
| titletext = "We can do 0.33 or 0.34, but our payroll software doesn't allow us to--" "NO DEAL."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GAUSSIAN INTEGER SALARY INCREASE - Please change this comment when editing this page, for fun and profit. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. Sincerely, management.}}
[[Ponytail]]'s company would like to hire [[Cueball]] for a job, and she is telling him that their offer for his starting salary is $55,000.

When offered a new job, it is common to negotiate on aspects of the offer such as salary, and employers may offer below the market rate initially in the expectation that the final negotiated amount will be higher. Given that the bedrock of one's future income depends on the outcome of a one-time process requiring skills unrelated to the job one is hired for, it is advisable to take one's time and do as much research as possible.

Cueball realizes that he has ended up in this situation, but, in typical [[Randall]] fashion, he states the fact, saying out loud ''Wow. I guess I'm inside a negotiation!'' Ponytail comments that it's a weird way to phrase it, and would then probably have continued to say, ''but that is correct.'' Cueball, however, interrupts her by stating that ''I can do this.''

Cueball has clearly done some research, but perhaps too much as he is flummoxed by this high-stakes situation and starts to ramble with decreasing coherence. First he gets completely confused about the numbers. He might have said I won't accept a penny below $60,000, starting out by putting a bit more on, letting now, that this might not even be the lowest he would accept. Instead he says he won't have a penny over $50,000, thus cutting $5000 of the initial offer, and saying he will not have more than that. He realizes this was completely wrong, and corrects to ''under'', but is still 5000 lower. Then he continues to mess up the numbers. Clearly he meant to go for $60,000, but first says $60 then $600, 100 times below what he wishes to say. Then adds the word ''Thousand'' after a short break, and continues to say it as one word $600,000. That is of course 10 times more than he wished to try for.

Realizing that he is completely off he asks for "15% cut of the salary". Here, Cueball seems to confuse salary and commission. "X% cut of the salary" seems like what a recruiter/headhunter may get from their employer as a commission if they successfully make their person hired. This is not the phrase to be used when negotiating a salary, as is the case for Cueball here, since it's not commission based.

The next word he says is ''Raise''. This could make sense if he already had a job, and wished to negotiate for a pay raise. But that is not the case. After this, he begins to think of raise as in a card game and starts rambling off mainly poker related terms, like raise, fold and pass. He throws in double down in between. This can also be a card game term, as in blackjack where double down means to double a bet after seeing one's initial cards, with the requirement that one additional card be drawn.

But in everyday speak, in a fairly dramatic [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=double+down&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdouble%20down%3B%2Cc0 rise in popular usage], to double down is to take a further risk in a situation or passionately re-commit one’s efforts to a cause or course of action ''despite'' clear and contrary revelations. This could make a limited amount of sense in a negotiation situation in which one is trying to establish the necessary self-worth. But of course not in Cueball's ramble, that finishes with him saying ''Fill it up with regular'', something you would say at a gas-station, where they still had an attendant to operate the pumps. Likely something Cueball has only experienced when watching old movies...or territories and states where mandated by law.

At this point Ponytail tries to ask him something. Maybe, ''Are you OK?''. But again Cueball interrupts her, saying he is sorry and that he would like to start over. At this time he takes out several sheets of paper and looks at some charts. But the charts are not clear enough, or only have a suggestion for what percentage he should ask for. He asks if he can borrow a calculator (something he would likely have on his smart phone) and then asks what's 20% of $55,000. This last bit seems like he is finally following a common advice{{Citation needed}} to take the initial offer and add 10-20%. The midpoint of that range, 115% of $55,000 would be $63,250.

Once more Ponytail tries to give him some time to think, but once more he interrupts, as he eventually have settled on a number, $61,333.333.... He even states that the decimals of 3 should be repeating, as in forever. Thus exactly $61,333 + $1/3. He clearly states he will not take the job for less than that. The value he settles on is 11.51515...% larger, or exactly 184⁄165 times the asking price, closer to 10% than the 20% he just asked for. In classic Cueball style, he has made the simple problem sufficiently complex that one must wonder how he got there. However, the value does still fall within the band suggested by the common advice. A [https://hbr.org/2016/03/dont-use-round-numbers-in-a-negotiation 2016 Harvard Business School study] found that avoiding round numbers is a remarkably effective negotiation tactic.

Since this is not that much more than the starting offer Ponytail is ready to accept this and says ''Sure, $61,333 is fine.'' She is once more starting to say something, like ''That's actually a reasonable request'', or ''That's actually within our limits''. But for the fourth time Cueball interrupts her, this time almost yelling ''Point 3 repeating or I walk!'' Because what she just offered him was $1/3 less than he asked for, and thus more than a penny less.

This last outburst is just plain ridiculous as this would only lower his asking salary by 5 parts in a million. And for certain Ponytail would accept going to $61,334.{{Citation needed}}

In the title text it shows that this is not good enough. Cueball has now confused himself to the limit that he will not only not accept less than his asking salary, he will also not accept more. So when Ponytail tries to explain to him that the point 3 repeating cannot be paid in whole cents, and tries to let him know that their payroll software only can handle whole cents, and he thus can get either 0.33 or 0.34 (the latter actually being more than he asks for), he again shout out ''NO DEAL.''

Since Ponytail cannot pay him out in a number with infinite decimals (1/3, pi or any other kind){{Citation needed}}, it seems Cueball will let this job slip out of his hands, because he has completely misunderstood the concept of negotiation.

The situation could be resolved if he would be happy with an arrangement such as a leap cent every three years, but maybe Ponytail would at this point realize it was probably a mistake to hire such an easily confused person, and happily let him go.

This can be read as a cautionary tale about taking time to compose one's thoughts before responding to a situation. The confusion caused by the wad of papers also reminds us that more information does not necessarily mean more clarity.

For more interview-related xkcd comics, see for instance [[:Category:Job interviews]].

This could also be taken in series with Cueball (possibly as a stand in for Randall) misunderstanding classically "adult" ideas, see for instance [[616: Lease]], [[905: Homeownership]], [[1674: Adult]] and [[1894: Real Estate]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail sits in an office chair at her desk, with Cueball sitting in a similar chair on the other side with his hands on his knees. Ponytails has her hands on the desk and in front of her, there is a slim thing standing up. It could be a very small screen, but there seems to be no keyboard in front of her. Maybe it is a small tablet with a support for letting is stand up. Behind that there are what appears to be two piles of papers of different sizes.]
:Ponytail: We'd like to extend an offer! The starting salary is $55,000.
:Cueball: Wow. I guess I'm inside a negotiation!
:Ponytail: I... Weird to phrase it like that, but-
:Cueball: ''I can do this.''

:[Zoom in on Cueball's upper half.]
:Cueball: I won't accept a penny over $50,000. Sorry, I mean under. Under $60. I mean, $600. Thousand. $600,000. I want a 15% cut of the salary. Raise. Double down. Fold. Pass. Fill it up with regular.

:[The same shot, except Cueball is now holding three pieces of paper, and he is looking down on them. Ponytail is talking to him from off-panel.]
:Ponytail (off-panel): Are you-
:Cueball: Sorry, sorry. Let me start over.
:Cueball: OK, my chart says...
:Cueball: ...Can I borrow a calculator? What's 20% of $55,000?

:[Back to the scene from the first panel. Ponytail has taken one hand down to her knee, with the other still on the desk. Cueball has put the papers on his lap and has raised his hand in the air holding one finger up. In his other hand he holds either a borrowed calculator or his own smartphone.]
:Ponytail: Listen, if you need to-
:Cueball: I won't take this job for less than $61,333 point 3 repeating!
:Ponytail: Sure, $61,333 is fine. That's actually-
:Cueball: '''''Point 3 repeating or I walk!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Job interviews]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

655: Climbing

2022-03-21T21:59:12Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ alternative reading

{{comic
| number = 655
| date = October 28, 2009
| title = Climbing
| image = climbing.png
| titletext = Where did you even get this wall? Return it there and stand it back up right now.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic makes fun of a certain type of images very common on the internet. Those pictures are taken with a camera turned by 90° or rotated later by software, thus creating the illusion of people walking on walls or ceilings. While the original pictures depict the physical impossibility of a rotated {{w|gravitational force}}, Cueball uses the aforementioned technique to create pictures of himself on a {{w|climbing wall}}. Megan approaches him from above the wall, indicating that the climbing wall is in fact lying on the floor. It becomes clear that Cueball was not able to climb a real wall and therefore crawled on the floor with his camera adjusted accordingly.

Her comment is a sideswipe on the practise of self-display on {{w|Facebook}}, which is often done with the help of {{w|image manipulation}}.

The title text implies that Cueball has in fact stolen a real climbing wall, and that Megan wants him to return it.

An alternative reading is that Cueball could be climbing a relatively easy climbing wall, and the joke is it’s so easy that Megan can walk on it, thus conveying that it could be really easy, but Cueball might perceive it as hard.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball seen from his back, as he is ascending a gray climbing wall with 16 white handles in different shapes and sizes. He is standing on one near the bottom left of the panel with his left foot, holding on to a large handle to the left of his head, and one to the right at shoulder height. His right foot is seeking hold on another handle above knee hight of his left leg.]

:[Cueball is seen in profile still climbing up the gray wall, which is drawn in the right part of the panel, 13 handles protruding. At the top of the panel something is protruding from the wall at more than ninety degree angle to the wall, as the line soon goes off panel at the top, but it seems to be directed at a small white half circle at the top of the panel. The line begins in front of the last of the handles at the top, a small one, and below this there is a larger handle bending up making it easy to hold on to. Cueball is holding on with his hands to two similar "easy" handles.]

:[Cueball climbs a bit further up till his hand reaches the up bending handle in front of the line, and his lower leg and upper knee touches the two handles his hands where on before. Here he has stopped climbing and lifts his head back to look up and sees Megan standing there above him (as she was also doing at the top of the previous panel, but cut off at leg and face). She just stands perpendicular to the wall facing down towards Cueball. The panel has panned up following Cueball so there are only 11 handles now, two more visible "above" Megan, and four from the previous panel are now below this panels frame.]

:[Same scene but Cueball is now looking at the wall as Megan speaks.]
:Megan: Your Facebook rock climbing pictures just got a lot less impressive.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

Talk:2594: Consensus Time

2022-03-16T20:43:31Z

172.70.210.237:

What if there's, like, a group of trolls that all press the button at like 9:00 pm? [[User:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)]] ([[User talk:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|talk]]) 17:20, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Probably a reference to the Senate DST thing[[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 17:46, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel like this could supersede time-zones as well, by weighting reports by relative longitude, so you could have a kind of continuous change in time as you travel. I'm sure this wouldn't cause any problems at all, since every single computer would effectively be in its own mini time-zone, with its clock going at a slightly different speed, and both current time and speed of time would vary continuously with position.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 17:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I have to feel that the night shift people would really not like this. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

My take on this is that Midnight is a fixed point, it's always at the same time, and the day compresses and expands around it based on the median 9AM location. So, some days will have long hours in the morning, then compressed hours in the afternoon and evening. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.52|162.158.107.52]] 20:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

See also consensus new year https://xkcd.com/2092/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 20:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2594: Consensus Time

2022-03-16T17:46:21Z

172.70.210.237:

2587: For the Sake of Simplicity

2022-03-02T03:12:52Z

172.70.210.237:

{{comic
| number = 2587
| date = February 28, 2022
| title = For the Sake of Simplicity
| image = for_the_sake_of_simplicity.png
| titletext = For the sake of simplicity, gardeners are assumed to move through Euclidean space--neglecting the distortion from general relativity--unless they are in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild Orchid.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Created, '''for the sake of complexity''', by a SCHWARZSCHILD CHILD (HIS NAME IS NOT SCHWARZ) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Cueball]] appears to be explaining a gardening-related board game to [[Ponytail]] and [[White Hat]]. The game mechanics being employed are ridiculously overcomplicated for a game that seems to be about gardening — the cardiovascular health of the gardeners is tracked, for example. However, Cueball uses the refrain "for the sake of simplicity" to imply that the rules could be ''even more complicated'': for example, the use of a "constant" walking speed for gardeners based solely on two variables, height and "cardio score", instead of a walking speed that varies based on factors such as weather, terrain, or even things like the gardener's mood, or the curvature of spacetime in the area (hint-hint), and the direct inheritance of a single "cardio score" based entirely on the gardener's matrilineal line, instead of a randomly chosen combination of a cardio score based on every one of the gardener's ancestors.

Features of the game include:
* Tokens to represent competing gardeners
* Plots for the players to garden, both home plots and secondary garden plots
* Mechanics to assign speed of transit between plots
* Gardener attributes, including height and cardio scores
* Hereditary trees to determine gardener attributes according to the gardener's ancestry - {{w|matrilineally}} refers to inheritance from the mother's side
* Euclidean and non-euclidean space, in accordance with the theory of {{w|general relativity}}.
* The presence of particular species of flora that can warp {{w|space-time}}

As gardening is itself an oddly mundane premise for a board game, it is entirely possible that gardening is just a minor element of a much broader game.

The title text mentions that the space is assumed to be {{w|Euclidean_Geometry|Euclidean}}, which is what most people would assume since it corresponds to our normal experience, so this is not something that normally needs to be explained. But then it says that this isn't true in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild Orchid. An {{w|orchid}} is a type of flowering plant, which is relevant to a gardening game, but Schwarzschild refers to {{w|Karl Schwarzschild}}, a physicist who solved equations related to {{w|general relativity}}; the {{w|Schwarzschild radius}} is the boundary of a {{w|black hole}}, and spacetime is severely warped in this vicinity, so Euclidean geometry and {{w|Newton's Laws}} don't describe motion here well. On the whole the title text implies an entire game mechanic for determining movement in non-Euclidian spacetime, though "for the sake of simplicity" players can skip the calculations entirely when there are no gardeners in proximity of Schwarzschild Orchids.

When the comic was first published, the third paragraph said "stamina scores". This was later changed to "cardio scores".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing beside Ponytail and White Hat, who are sitting at a table with a board game.]

:Cueball: You may assign each gardener's token to a secondary garden plot within a 30-minute walk from their home plot.
:Cueball: For the sake of simplicity, each gardener is assumed to have a constant walking speed proportional to their height and cardio score.
:Cueball: For the sake of simplicity, cardio scores are inherited matrilineally...

:[Caption below the panel:]
:If you're worried that you're making something too complicated, just add "for the sake of simplicity" now and then as a reminder that it could always be worse.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Board games]]
[[Category:Language]]

2585: Rounding

2022-02-24T21:34:28Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 2585
| date = February 23, 2022
| title = Rounding
| image = rounding.png
| titletext = I've developed a novel propulsion system powered by loss of precision in unit conversion.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT moving at ᛟ smoots per millibarn attometer (rounded) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is about the follies of unit conversion. Normally, when you say you can ride a bike at 45 {{w|Miles per hour|mph}} if you round, you mean that you can ride at a speed between 44.5 and 45.5, something most people are incapable of doing.{{Citation needed}} The joke is that he actually means if you go through a extremely long chain of rounding imprecisely (see [[#Table of rounding|below]]), starting at 17 mph (which is equivalent to 27.4 km/h and not an improbable speed for an ordinary road-bike and a reasonably fit rider), you can get to the value of 45 (72.4 km/h).

Randall also esoterically uses some more historic units here: fathoms/sec, furlongs/min, and furlongs/hr. A {{w|fathom}} is a unit of length, in the modern era being equivalent to six feet, usually used to measure the depth of water. Fathoms/sec could potentially be used to measure the ascent/descent speed of a submersible, but it would normally be a strange choice to enumerate the speed of a bike. A {{w|furlong}} is also a unit of length, 1/8 of a mile (660 feet or 110 fathoms) but is mostly unused except in horse racing. It is possible that furlongs/min or furlongs/hour could be used to measure the speed of a horse. {{w|Knot (unit)|Knot}}s (nautical miles per hour) are a standard unit of measuring speed, but are typically used for measuring speed for airplanes or ships, not speed on land. However, km/h (kilometers per hour, spelled kph in the comic) is commonly used internationally to state the speed of land vehicles, while m/s (meters per second) is a measurement encountered in scientific usage.

The title text furthers the joke by taking the imprecise rounding literally, implying that this increase could actually be used/abused as a novel form of propulsion, but it isn't clarified for what type of vehicle. It could be an engine for ground or air travel, but contains the implication that it is trying to 'trick physics' similar to the {{w|Alcubierre drive|theoretical 'warp drive'}} conceived to propel interstellar spacecraft at otherwise impossible speeds. One interpretation of the supposed chain of conversions is that it has somehow created a great deal of energy from nothing. Suppose there existed a device or system that could magically accelerate an object from 17 mph to 45 mph without any energy input. The sped-up object could be harnessed to a generator or engine in such a way that the object was slowed back down to 17 mph, with the difference in energy being output in a useful way, and the object fed back into the device. The result would be an engine that could create both free energy and non-conserved changes in momentum.

===Table of rounding===
{| class="wikitable"
! step !! percentage gain from rounding !! mph !! {{w|Metre per second|m/s}} !! {{w|Knot (unit)|knots}} !! {{w|fathom}}s/sec !! {{w|furlong}}s/min !! {{w|Kilometres per hour|km/h}} !! furlongs/hour !! {{w|yard}}s/sec
|-
! 1
| N/A ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 17 ||style="background-color:green;"| 7.59968 || || || || || ||
|-
! 2
| +5.29% || 17.9 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 8 ||style="background-color:green;"| 15.5508 || || || || ||
|-
! 3
| +2.85% || 18.41 || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 16 ||style="background-color:green;"| 4.50083 || || || ||
|-
! 4
| +11.08% || 20.45 || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 5 ||style="background-color:green;"| 2.72727 || || ||
|-
! 5
| +10.02% || 22.5 || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 5.50001 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 3 || || ||
|-
! 6
| +9.11% || 24.55 || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 6 || ||style="background-color:green;"| 39.5021 || ||
|-
! 7
| +1.22% || 24.85 || ||style="background-color:green;"| 21.5983 || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 40 || ||
|-
! 8
| +1.89% || 25.32 || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 22 || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 40.744 || ||
|-
! 9
| +0.63% || 25.48 || || || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 41 ||style="background-color:green;"| 203.809 ||
|-
! 10
| +0.08% ||style="background-color:green;"| 25.5001 || || || || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 204 ||
|-
! 11
| +1.96% ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 26 ||style="background-color:green;"| 11.623 || || || || || ||
|-
! 12
| +3.23% || 26.84 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 12 || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 3.57909 || || ||
|-
! 13
| +11.77% || 30 || || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 4 || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 14.6667
|-
! 14
| +2.27% || 30.68 || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 7.5 || || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 15
|-
! 15
| +6.68% || 32.73 ||style="background-color:green;"| 14.6304 || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 8 || || || ||
|-
! 16
| +2.52% ||style="background-color:green;"| 33.554 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 15 || || || || || ||
|-
! 17
| +1.33 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 34 || || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 4.53332 || || ||
|-
! 18
| +10.29% || 37.5 || ||style="background-color:green;"| 32.5867 || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 5 || || ||
|-
! 19
| +1.28% || 37.98 || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 33 || || || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 18.5659
|-
! 20
| +2.32% || 38.86 || || ||style="background-color:green;"| 9.5 || || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 19
|-
! 21
| +5.28% || 40.91 || ||style="background-color:green;"| 35.549 ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 10 || || || ||
|-
! 22
| +1.27% || 41.43 || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 36 || ||style="background-color:green;"| 5.52373 || || ||
|-
! 23
| +8.62% ||style="background-color:green;"| 45.0001 || || || ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 6 || || ||
|-
! 24
| -0.0002% ||style="background-color:lightgreen;"| 45 || || || || || || ||
|}

==Transcript==
:[In the top left part of the panel is a small drawing where Cueball, wearing a bike helmet and holding a bike, is speaking to Megan.]
:Cueball: I can ride my bike at 45 MPH.
:Cueball: If you round.

:[To their right is a large number with unit, with an arrow going straight down to a normal sized similar number. From there and proceeding all the way down to the bottom, in alternating leftward and rightward rows, the rest of the comic shows arrows connecting conversions from one measured unit into another unit. Straight arrows show the direction of the sequence on each line, the end of each line curveing down to start the next line in the opposite direction. The last of these lines ends close to the middle of the panel, with a straight arrow down to another large number with unit, like the first.]
:<big>'''17 MPH'''</big>
:8 meters/sec
:16 knots
:5 fathoms/sec
:3 furlongs/min
:6 fathoms/sec
:40 KPH
:22 knots
:41 KPH
:204 furlongs/hr
:26 MPH
:12 M/S
:4 furlongs/min
:15 yards/sec
:8 fathoms/sec
:15 M/S
:34 MPH
:5 furlongs/min
:33 knots
:19 yards/sec
:10 fathoms/sec
:36 knots
:6 furlongs/min
:<big>'''45 MPH'''</big>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Math]]

2584: Headline Words

2022-02-22T20:02:24Z

172.70.210.237: /* Headlines explained */ doesn't seem implied

{{comic
| number = 2584
| date = February 21, 2022
| title = Headline Words
| image = headline_words.png
| titletext = Roundly-condemned headlinese initiative shuttered indefinitely.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HEADLINE-GENERATING MARKOV CHAIN - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[White Hat]], [[Megan]], [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] seems to be planning a party. Megan mentions that the party was planned to be at [[Rob|Rob's]] place, but that this might not be a good idea, since he has cats, and some of the participants in the party are allergic to cats. This is a valid reason{{fact}}. Seems likely that Megan is one of those that are allergic. Usually Rob is drawn as Cueball, but it is not necessarily Rob that is present, it could just be a discussion among some of the friends that are supposed to come to the party.

Cueball then replies to this in the style of news commentaries, strange enough to prompt Megan to ask him to stop. He continues though, although the gist of his second line is that he will stop speaking that way.

That this is indeed the case and what he is actually trying to do is explained in the comics caption. It states that Cueball's project was to speak in weird headline words. And that the project did not last for long.

News headlines are often very dramatic explanations of minor events; so are the things Cueball says here. Furthermore, some newspapers write their headlines in a stylized way which relies heavily on shorter words (such as "nixed" for "rejected"), often uses cliches (such as "tension mounts") and omits 'unnecessary' grammatical padding, a style colloquially known as {{w|Headlinese}}.

See [[#Headlines explained|below]] for explanation of his headlines.

The title text continues with a final headline statement from Cueball, telling everyone that the project was halted. Probably permanently.

===Headlines explained===
Here each of the three headlines will be explained. Several of the words used are listed in the {{w|Headline#Commonly_used_short_words|wiki article}} on Headlinese.

;Wow, major snub for widely-touted top spot as lavish gala bid nixed.
According to the list of words: "snub" means to reject; "tout" can mean to suggest something, for approval; here, a "bid" means an attempt; and "nix" also means to put to an end/not allow to happen. The "top spot" is a venue which has status and popularity, while a "lavish gala" is an expensive/impressive festive celebration, in this case being a party.
Literally it could be translated to:
:"This is a big surprise. We have had a significant rejection of the most suggested and popular venue."

;Ill-advised scheme mulled as tension mounts amid growing backlash.
Through the same process, this could be translated to
:"This idea wasn't well thought-out; your reactions are making me uneasy and I can tell that you won't tolerate this much longer."

;Roundly-condemned headlinese initiative shuttered indefinitely.
:"Because of multiple complaints, the attempt to speak only in this way will cease and there are currently no plans to resume the experiment at a later date."

==Transcript==
:[White Hat, Megan, Cueball, and Ponytail stand in a row, with White Hat and Megan facing toward the right and Cueball and Ponytail facing toward the left.]
:Megan: Maybe Rob shouldn't host the party. He has cats and some of us are allergic.
:Cueball: Wow, major snub for widely-touted top spot as lavish gala bid nixed.
:Megan: Why are you talking so weird? Please stop.
:Cueball: Ill-advised scheme mulled as tension mounts amid growing backlash.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My project to speak only in weird headline words didn't last long.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]] 
[[Category:Language]]

2583: Chorded Keyboard

2022-02-19T07:20:53Z

172.70.210.237: /* Explanation */ wlink, fixes

{{comic
| number = 2583
| date = February 18, 2022
| title = Chorded Keyboard
| image = chorded_keyboard.png
| titletext = And even though it all went wrong / I'll stand before the lord of song / with nothing on my tongue but 'I don't understand, I swear I backed up my keyboard config before messing with it'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by LEONARD COHEN - Someone with proper computer knowledge should probably elaborate on the terms "chorded keyboard" and "keyboard config". Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This strip is a parody of the first verse (and in the title text, the end of the last verse) of {{w|Leonard Cohen}}'s "{{w|Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen song)|Hallelujah}}". Cueball has somehow set up his computer so that, upon pressing a certain combination of keys on his keyboard, the system will automatically type out the word "hallelujah" (xkcd's all-caps typesetting makes it unclear how the word is capitalized).

Technically, a {{w|chorded keyboard}} is one in which (nearly) all inputs are made by simultaneous pressing of a given combination of a limited number of keys, such as a literal handful of non-alphabetic keys that the user learns to combine to represent the key-presses of more standard keyboards. The workings of such a keyboard tends to be handled internally, sending to the computer the signal(s) that ''would'' have been sent from its larger cousin.

By inclusion of traditional key descriptions for a 'standard' keyboard (e.g. the 104-key US QWERTY version that Randall is probably most familiar with), the meaning is probably instead that of using a combination of normally single-use keys (the 'H' and a cursor) with others, including modifiers ('shift' and 'control'), i.e. 'chording' ''with'' his keyboard. This seems to go beyond regular use (shift and a character changing the character case, ctrl and a character may give a editing command) or normal combinations (ctrl, alt and the 'e' may result in the 'é', where the keyboard does not otherwise support it) and even goes beyond [[378: Real Programmers|emacs-like serialised metacommands]] which is a software feature. It seems more likely that such a setup is handled within the computer, either defined within the OS or (as is often the case with specialist configurable gaming keyboards) via the driver installed to mediate such esoteric keyboard combinations as the user has predefined for themselves.

Cueball's combination-keypress may in fact be better termed a 'macro', in some contexts. The single event, somehow triggered by this particular simultaneous multi-key input, invokes the injection of a pre-programmed sequence of standard characters into the appropriate text-buffer/-stream in lieu of manual input.

The title text spoofs the last verse of the song, with "Hallelujah" being replaced by Cueball trailing off musing about having apparently lost the backup of his keyboard configuration, implying that he ended up in a position where he would want to restore said backup (for instance, having tampered with it to the point he is no longer capable of operating the keyboard efficiently, if at all).

As added irony, while in the original that verse is hopeful, with the singer being thankful for experiencing joy even from a relationship that ultimately failed, contrarily in the alt text Cueball is apparently expressing regret. Or, if taken literally, it could instead imply that God himself is questioning Cueball about his tampering with software, which could fit with the running gag of [[:Category:Cueball Computer Problems|Cueball's (often self-inflicted) computer problems being hyperbolically atrocious]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk, hands on his keyboard, looking at his desktop.]
:I heard there was a secret chord
:That David pressed and it typed a word

:[The camera zoomed in on Cueball, and we see him from the waist up]
:But you don't use a chorded keyboard, do you

:[The third frames are like the first, except Cueball's arms are moved]
:It goes like this, <control> and <shift>
:The other hand hits H and <left>

:[The fourth frame is like the first and third, but the arms are moved again]
:And all at once it types out
:Hallelujah

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

Megan

2022-02-14T08:53:01Z

172.70.210.237: /* Characteristics */ language made more appropriate

{{Infobox character
| image = Megan.png‎
| imagesize = 150px
| caption = Megan
| first_appearance = [[16: Monty Python -- Enough]]
}}
'''Megan''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. She is the second-most frequently appearing character, after [[Cueball]], and the most frequently appearing female character. She does not necessarily always represent the same character from comic to comic. She is essentially the female equivalent of Cueball, representing the every-woman to his {{w|everyman}}. This is less clear than for Cueball as there are several comics, where there are [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|multiple Cueball-like figures]], any of whom could be called Cueball.

There are very few comics where this happens with Megan-like characters, with the few including [[139: I Have Owned Two Electric Skateboards]], [[173: Movie Seating]], [[1409: Query]], [[1496: Art Project]], [[430: Every Damn Morning]], [[2040: Sibling-in-Law]], and in [[1951: Super Bowl Watch Party]].

Of course she also appears several times in some of the comics with [[:Category:Large drawings|large drawings]], like [[1110: Click and Drag]]. Often this should be seen as different small comics, where there is just one Megan in each story. In [[1608: Hoverboard]], however, there are two identical Megans at the bottom rear end of the Destroyer, where one is talking to the other. As opposed to with Cueball, an example where this is a serious problem for Megan has yet to be found.

Megan does sometimes appear to have slightly specific personality traits; she has quite odd habits, and is sometimes shown to be very focused and intent on a goal. However, as explained above this is not a general rule for a given Megan character.

==Name==
''Explain xkcd'' originally referred to this character as "Cutie" (complementing "Cueball" with a matching first syllable). But then a "Cutie" was given a specific name, Megan, in [[159: Boombox]] and later in for instance [[215: Letting Go]], [[420: Jealousy]], [[478: The Staple Madness]], and [[654: Nachos]]. The name was also used without displaying a drawing of Megan in [[596: Latitude]] and in the title text of [[627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet]].

The name Cutie was then changed to Megan. If this rule should be followed generally, then Cueball should be re-named Rob after [[276: Fixed Width]] (and the [[:Category:Comics featuring Rob|other 8 times]] a Cueball has been named Rob in total). But as mentioned above this was not to be.

She can also be drawn under a different name as in [[672: Suggestions]], where a sexy image of her, hair hanging loose over her face, is called Susie. And in [[1221: Nomenclature]] Megan is called Mrs. Whatsit in the transcript provided in the comic source. In [[734: Outbreak]] Cueball and Megan are named Ryan and Laura, but that is a movie, so they could be actors called Cueball and Megan in real life...

A character that looked a lot like Megan, but with somewhat longer hair and a much meaner attitude, was distinguished from her as [[Black Hat]]'s girlfriend [[Danish]]. A similar long-haired version of Megan also appeared in [[1730: Starshade]], although without the attitude.

==History==
Early comics often feature Megan-style characters who may or may not be identified as Megan. [[Randall]] appears not to have standardized his character lineup early in the comic's run, and as a result, certain early female characters sometimes have similar hair to Megan, but some different features.

The name (or even pseudonym) "Megan" may be reference to a lost love of Randall's, given that he wrote a passive-aggressive toast for Megan's wedding in [[420: Jealousy]] about how he was madly still in love with her, put across in a way that would generally ruin the day for everyone involved. We also see this earlier in [[215: Letting Go]].

Several of the [[:Category:Cancer|comics about cancer]] have Megan representing Randall's fiancée (later wife).

==Characteristics==
Megan is distinguished by her black shoulder-length hair which generally appears to be parted in the middle in front, and is draped behind what are presumably her (undrawn) ears. It is shorter than the character of similar appearance, [[Danish]]. Megan also tends to behave less deviantly than Danish does.

Megan's age is sometimes given, like in [[1409: Query]], we learn that she is 30 or younger, implying that she was born in 1984, but in [[630: Time Travel]], we learn she was born in 1983 and in [[2178: Expiration Date High Score]], we can calculate that she was born in 1982 or earlier. Since Randall just uses Megan for any woman not too old or young, and since the figure is not explicitly named "Megan" in any of these comics, these are three different characters and we cannot put an age on Megan.

== Trivia ==
*Actually the first comics to be released using Megan not number 16, [[16: Monty Python -- Enough]] but [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]] because of the release order on [[LiveJournal]], see details in the trivia for both [[16: Monty Python -- Enough#Trivia|Monty Python -- Enough]] and [[24:_Godel,_Escher,_Kurt_Halsey#Trivia|Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]].

==See also==
*[[:Category:Comics featuring Megan|Comics featuring Megan]].
*[[Danish]].
*It was at some point suggested that Megan and Cutie should be un-merged? In relation to a similar suggestion that Cueball and Rob should be merged. But nothing came of the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Merge_Cueball_.26_Rob discussion.]

{{navbox-characters}}

[[Category:Characters]]

2574: Autoresponder

2022-01-31T03:35:16Z

172.70.210.237: /* Transcript */ cat

{{comic
| number = 2574
| date = January 28, 2022
| title = Autoresponder
| image = autoresponder.png
| titletext = I ADMIRE HOW YOU SET BOUNDARIES AND I HOPE YOUR COLLEAGUES RESPECT THEM! PLEASE SPARE MY LIFE!
}}
*This was the ninth comic to come out after the [[Countdown in header text]] started.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VERRY AGRESSIVE AUTORESPONDER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Cueball]] and [[White Hat]] are going to some kind of show (a movie or concert, perhaps), and Cueball asks White Hat if he is ready to go, who affirms this but asks for Cueball to email him the tickets before they go.

When Cueball does this he apparently opts to send them to White Hat's work email address. When White Hat is not at work, he has an {{w|autoresponder}} activated that tells people to not disturb him as he is not at work. Usually this means that his email server sends an automatic response telling the sender of the mail that he is not at work, and not to expect an immediate reply.

But in this comic, White Hat has a physical autoresponder standing behind him, drawn as a human with thicker/rougher lines as if clad in bulky clothing, wearing spiky knee and elbow guards and a spike-embossed and notably scarred crash-helmet upon its head. It holds a glinting, sharp sword in its hand. When Cueball inadvertently activates it, it plunges forward to 'defend' White Hat from being disturbed by work related things during his spare time. It is so aggressive that it even violently pushes White Hat out of the way, with a blow to the face so that he falls back and dislodges his hat, as it prepares to confront the perpetrator, Cueball.

In the caption below, [[Randall]] states that he feel bad when he activates his friends' autoresponders. It is unclear if this is because he thinks he disturbs them with what they might think is work, because he then knows he will not get a reply or if he feels attacked (like Cueball in the comic) by their "aggressively worded" auto-replies.

In the title text Cueball shouts out (in all caps) to the autoresponder "I admire how you set boundaries and I hope your colleagues respect them! Please spare my life!" He therefore thinks it is a ''good'' idea to have time away from work where you cannot be contacted by your colleagues.

It is unclear if the autoresponder is a human or a robot, but the open-faced helmet reveals the fringe and neck-length hair generally seen on female characters, although for instance [[Megan]]'s hair is usually longer and not so messy as this creature. This would be reminiscent of the [[:Category:Android|Android series]], especially [[600: Android Boyfriend]], where one of the androids moves past its owner.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and White Hat are talking to each other while Cueball is typing on his smartphone. A dark-haired figure stands behind White Hat, drawn with thicker/rougher lines as if clad in bulky clothing; wearing spiky knee and elbow guards, a spike-embossed and notably scarred crash-helmet upon its head; and is holding a glinting sharp sword in its hand.]
:Cueball: Ready to go?
:White Hat: Yup! Can you email me the tickets before we leave?
:Cueball: Sure, one sec.

:[The next panel is nested inside the first, although at first it just looks like two individual panels. This could indicate the second panel is an immediate response to the first. The armored figure aggressively moves forward towards Cueball, who drops his phone in surprise. The armored figure has its sword-arm raised, the other hand pushing White Hat behind it, by pushing him in the face which causes him to stumble backwards so his hat starts to fall off.]
:Cueball: Okay, I sent it to-
:Armored figure: ''It is outside work hours!''
:Armored figure: ''Prepare to die!''
:Cueball: ''Augh!''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I always feel bad when I trigger my friends' work autoresponders.

{{comic discussion}}

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