explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1682: Bun

2023-03-25T16:58:32Z

172.70.38.77: fixed a grammatical confusion: includes the pikas-> includes pikas to match earlier mention of rabbits and hares

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Ponytail]] is teaching a class about an animal referred to as a "bun". The word "bun" is short for {{w|bunny}}, which is in turn an informal term used for a {{w|rabbit}}. The comic depicts a childish response to seeing a cute animal, but coming from an adult. The humor in the comic comes from a tone of absurdity in a classroom situation where lectures are expected to be serious.

The lecture opens with the statement that smaller buns are superior in rank, which is plainly false.{{Citation needed}} Instead, the teacher clearly thinks that smaller bunnies are just cuter. She mentions that "king buns" may be seen around this time of year, which refers to rabbit kittens being born in the spring. Kittens would be smaller and cuter than any other rabbits because of their age. There is no mention of a "queen bun", but the gender of the kitten can be difficult to determine without a close examination. A prime example of a king bun can be seen [https://imgur.com/gallery/HicMr/ here].

[[Megan]], who attends this biology class, expected to learn about rabbits and hares which are both {{w|Lagomorpha|lagomorphs}}, a mammalian {{w|Order (biology)|order}} that also includes {{w|pika}}s. Megan thus clearly has the correct understanding of what a "bun" is. Ponytail then claims that the word ''bun'' is the scientific term, and states that rabbit, hare, and lagomorph are informal ways to describe these animals, again being completely wrong as in reality ''bun'' is the most contracted and informal name for a rabbit.

Two students are then legitimately doubting that they're in the correct class and decide to check online (either the crude theories that Ponytail expressed, or their course schedule). A third student however appears to believe the lecturer uncritically, reminding the fellow students that they're looking upon the image of a king (i.e. a small bunny).

The title text refers to photographing a rabbit and, for example, posting it on social media - something which would typically be done today if someone sees a cute rabbit in the wild. If the poster had failed to photograph the rabbit before it ran away, they may typically post a message saying something like "I saw a really cute bunny today!" with an {{w|emoji}} depiction of a rabbit (probably 🐇 or 🐰). This is especially common in the area where [[Randall]] lives, as the urban rabbit population in the Cambridge/Somerville area has exploded, putting a large human population with relatively little previous experience with rabbit-sightings suddenly in the position of encountering them very frequently.{{Citation needed}} Emoji have become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent theme]] on xkcd.

Ponytail tells that buns have a hierarchy in which the smaller the bun, the higher its ranking is - a rank-size distribution. A "king bun" can be seen as an instance of the king effect, the phenomenon where the top one or two members of a ranked set show up as outliers. An interesting linguistic note is that in several languages (including Czech and Polish), the word for rabbit literally means "little king".

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is a teacher and she holds a pointer to a picture of a rabbit on a board behind her.]
:Ponytail: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

:[Two rabbits are shown, one slightly smaller, and a greater than symbol indicates that the smaller one is "greater than" the larger one. Ponytail is talking off panel to the left.]
:Ponytail (off panel): Buns have a hierarchy.
:Ponytail (off panel): A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

:[Two normal sized rabbits are sitting left and right of a very small rabbit. The smaller rabbit appears to give off a radiant light indicated with gray and white alternating rays going through the image. It is indicated that it shines on the larger rabbits as they are gray on the side turned away from the smaller rabbit and white on the front turned towards it. Ponytail narrates above the frame of this half sized panel:]
:Ponytail (narrating): Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.
:Ponytail (narrating): But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

:[A student represented by Megan is sitting at a desk with a few books on it, pencil in hand.]
:Megan: OK, hang on.
:Megan: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

:[Ponytail is holding her finger up on her left hand, and is holding her pointer at her side with the other. Students reply to her off panel to the right.]
:Ponytail: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".
:Student #1 (off-panel): Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''
:Student #2 (off-panel): I'll check online.
:Student #3 (off-panel): ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

==Trivia==
*In the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/2/2c/20160518175345!bun.png original version] the word "hierarchy" in the 2nd panel was misspelled as "h'''ei'''rarchy". This led to speculation regarding the near-homonyms "heir" and "hare", but the spelling was later corrected.
*In [[1663: Garden]], a rabbit image had the file name ''important-bun'' and looked like this: [[File:Garden Important bun.png]]
*[[231: Cat Proximity]] also shows an adult human reacting childishly to cute animals, though in a casual setting.
*A teacher teaching complete nonsense is depicted in [[1519: Venus]], though intentionally false.
*Another educator who is excited about their field is in [[1644: Stargazing]], but there the facts are true while being presented absurdly.
*Additionally, the concept of a ''Bun Alert'' was later used in [[1871: Bun Alert]] and in [[1903: Bun Trend]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Buns]]

2231: The Time Before and After Land

2023-03-18T02:45:32Z

172.70.38.77:

{{comic
| number = 2231
| date = November 20, 2019
| title = The Time Before And After Land
| image = the_time_before_and_after_land.png
| titletext = According to Google, "the time for Beeland" is apparently whenever you're looking for delicious honey in Spillimacheen, British Columbia or a hexagonal chalet in the Savinja valley in Slovenia.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic indulges in some wordplay on the title of the 1988 animated movie ''{{w|The Land Before Time (franchise)|The Land Before Time}}'', which takes place millions of years ago in the time of dinosaurs.

The comic shows a timeline of the history of the universe from the {{w|Big Bang}} to the present day, with ''The Land Before Time'' placed at the point in the timeline where the movie is set, as well as other seemingly arbitrary events such as the formation of rocky planets and the evolution of ground-nesting bees. The joke is that Randall has contrived several periods of universal history that sound like funny permutations of "The Land Before Time" due to certain words being {{w|homophone}}s, such as "time" and "thyme", or homonyms, such as the noun "land" (ground) and the verb "land" (to alight). He also split the word "before" into "bee" and "for".

The title text is for the phrase "the time for Beeland" and lists 2 places (that Randall found on Google) with the name "Beeland": [http://beeland.ca/ a market in Spillimacheen, British Columbia] or [http://www.apartmajimozirje.si/en/beeland/ a chalet in Slovenia].

Bees are a [[:Category:Bees|recurring topic]] on xkcd.

===Explanation of time ranges on the chart===

{| class="wikitable"
! Range !! From !! To !! Explanation
|-
|width=15%|'''The time before land'''
|width=10%|Big Bang
|width=10%|Rocky planets form
|width=65%|The {{w|Big Bang}} is a scientific theory that attempts to describe the very earliest conditions in our universe, but is also used informally as a synonym for the beginning of the universe. The early universe contained only simple elements such as hydrogen, but over time, star formation led to the creation of new, heavier elements, which eventually gave rise to planets with a rocky surface, which we call "land". It would have taken billions of years for the first such land-bearing planet to appear in the universe, so this time period could be considered "the time before land".
|-
|'''The time before bees'''
|Big Bang
|Ground-nesting bees evolve
|This time range also includes the formation of the Earth, a necessary precondition for bees to evolve.{{Citation needed}} Any time before the evolution of bees could be considered "The time before bees". While the chart does not account for the possibility that non-ground-nesting bees may have existed prior to ground-nesting ones, evidence strongly suggests that the common ancestor to all bees nested in the ground rather than forming hives.
|-
|'''The land before thyme'''
|Rocky planets form
|''Thymus'' genus diverges
|''Thymus'' is the genus of plant that is called "{{w|thyme}}" in English, and it is pronounced exactly the same way as "time". By "diverges", it is meant that this is the point in time at which the ''Thymus'' genus of plants split off from their ancestral line - ie. when thyme first evolved. This time range is after land first appears in the universe, but before {{w|thyme}} evolved - therefore, any land that existed within this time range can be considered "the land before thyme". When said, this sounds exactly the same as "''The Land Before Time''".
|-
|'''Time for land bees!'''
|Ground-nesting bees evolve
|Now
|When conditions change to allow an event to occur, people sometimes say "time for (event)!". In this case, the event is the emergence of ground-nesting bees, which could be considered "land bees".
|-
|'''Bees land on thyme'''
|''Thymus'' genus diverges
|Now
|Bees are flying insects, and therefore must land in order to rest before taking off again. Now that thyme has evolved, bees are able to land on thyme plants. This is a play on two different meanings of the word "land"; as a noun, it means solid ground, but here, it is a verb which means to alight or stop flying.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption at top of panel:]
:(Timeline not to scale)

:[A timeline is shown with two endpoints and five other points. The points are labeled:]
:Big Bang
:Rocky planets form
:Earth forms
:Ground-nesting bees evolve
:''The Land Before Time''
:''Thymus'' genus diverges
:Now

:[Below the timeline are five overlapping time periods in three rows. The text is between two thick black bars. The time periods all start and end at two different points.]

:[Big Bang to Rocky Planets Form:]
:The Time Before Land

:[Big Bang to Ground-Nesting Bees Evolve:]
:The Time Before bees

:[Rocky Planets Form to ''Thymus'' Genus Diverges:]
:The Land Before Thyme

:[Ground-Nesting Bees evolve to Now:]
:Time for Land Bees!

:[Thymus Genus Diverges to Now:]
:Bees Land on Thyme

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Bees]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Puns]]

Talk:2744: Fanservice

2023-03-01T18:46:58Z

172.70.38.77:

I don’t want to be that guy but “I got to the explanation so early that its only 1 sentence!” [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.43|172.70.174.43]]
:I also don't want to be that other guy, but while I was composing my "there wasn't anything yet, let's put something there" text, something actually appeared. (Though it just appended my bit, didn't give me Edit Conflict warning.) I'll let someone else mish-mash the useful bits of both fresh-starts together, though. Might be that none of my contribution is worthwhile.
:(I took quite a while trying to decide whether to make a joke that if he was a ''specialist'' in air-movement devices, without necessarily branching out into any air-conditioning elements, then ''<something something, insert some useful words here>'' OnlyFans! So then I obviously eventually decided it wasn't worth it. ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.100|172.70.90.100]] 16:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

== New recurring subject? ==
First we had [[2036: Edgelord]]. Then we had [[2654: Chemtrails]]. Now we have this comic. They all start with "So, I hear" and end with "How to annoy". So I think that
a new recurring subject has been established. I'm thinking it should be called something like "How To Annoy Comics". [[User:SilverTheTerribleMathematician|Silver]] ([[User talk:SilverTheTerribleMathematician|talk]]) 16:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
:Might be best wait for a third one, or more. A category of two is a bit of a stretch. Someone pointed out the prior one, so should be easier to pick up all three+ examples when it becomes a more definite 'thing'.
:And if we were to call it "How to annoy" (say) and then the actual third is very similar but actually ends "How to confuse" then the category is already non-descriptive. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.46|172.70.162.46]] 16:55, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
::There are 3 aren’t there? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.150|172.70.38.150]] 17:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
:::There were two originally (I'd forgotten the chemtrails one, myself, when first thinking of this) and, yes, there's now three identified "So I hear/How to annoy"s. Might have crossed the threshold. But leaving that decision to someone who can do something about it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.253|172.70.90.253]] 18:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
:Agreed. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.77|172.70.38.77]] 18:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

2740: Square Packing

2023-02-21T19:43:00Z

172.70.38.77: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2740
| date = February 20, 2023
| title = Square Packing
| image = square_packing_2x.png
| imagesize = 326x295px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I also managed to improve the solution for n=1 to s<0.97, and with some upgrades I think I can hit 0.96.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HYDRAULIC PRESSED SQUARE - This appears to be referring to a specific puzzle that merits explanation before going into description of the comic. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The {{w|Square packing in a square|square packing problem}} is a type of geometry problem. The goal is to find the smallest possible "outer square" that will fit N "inner squares" that are each 1 unit wide and 1 unit tall. In the comic N=11, leading to its name of "The N=11 Square Packing Problem," and s is the length of the outer square's sides.

A few days before this comic's post, a web page [https://erich-friedman.github.io/packing/squinsqu/ ''Squares in squares''] gained interest on social media platforms such as [https://twitter.com/KangarooPhysics/status/1625436240412540928 Twitter] and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34809023 Hacker News]. For many values of N, that page depicts the best known solutions, some of them known to be optimum. The one for N=11 (best known but not proven to be optimum) is shown on the left here; its general arrangement was found by Walter Trump in 1979 and slightly improved by Gensane et al. in 2004.<ref>Gensane, T., Ryckelynck, P. – ''Improved dense packings of congruent squares in a square''. Discrete Comput Geom 34, pages 97–109 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-004-1129-z</ref>

Munroe claims to have found a more efficient solution for this N=11 case, by physically deforming the squares involved in the best-known solution with a {{w|hydraulic press}}. The size of the resulting bounding square is indeed smaller, but the "solution" isn't actually one because the inner shapes have countless wrinkles and are no longer squares. Geometrical shapes in packing problems are not conventionally assumed to be deformable in this manner.{{citation needed}}

The title text mentions the same approach "improved" the solution for 1 unit square, whose optimum solution is obviously that unit square itself with s=1. Munroe remarks that if he had "some upgrades", presumably a more powerful hydraulic press, he could get the resulting square to be even smaller.

This is perhaps a related joke to [[2706: Bendy]], but now with squares and compressed areas instead of triangles and extended lengths.

‎<references />

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[11 squares optimally packed inside a square arrangement]
:Previous best
:s<3.877084
:(Gensane, 2004)

:[11 deformed squares crushed together to pack them into a smaller square arrangement]
:New record
:s<3.40

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I've significantly improved on the solution to the n=11 square packing problem by using a hydraulic press.

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

Talk:2731: K-Means Clustering

2023-02-02T13:48:59Z

172.70.38.77:

{{w|K-means_clustering|The wikipedia article}} does not clear anything up [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.228|162.158.78.228]] 13:53, 30 January 2023 (UTC)Bumpf
:Yeah. A while back I read a wikipedia article and was determined, for once, to completely understand it. Four years later, I had a PhD in an obscure (and totally useless) element of esoteric math. BTW, it turns out the article was completely wrong! /S [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.7|172.70.114.7]] 12:54, 2 February 2023 (UTC)Bumpf aussi

The "Convergence of ''k''-means" animation is reasonably distinctive for a two-dimensional case, showing at least the motivation for the problem . Could it be attached here? [[User:Mia yun Ruse|Mia yun Ruse]] ([[User talk:Mia yun Ruse|talk]]) 14:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this is probably the least explanatory Explain xkcd I've read in the past 3 years. Still a lot of heavy math. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.95|162.158.186.95]] 16:50, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

This feels very similar to the joke "There are 10 types of people: those who know binary and those who don't." Except that the real joke here is that Ponytail doesn't have anything meaningful to justify her version. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.150|172.70.206.150]] 17:45, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Current explanation claims that since every human is unique, clusters can only be formed by ignoring some traits. This seems false; a cluster could depend on multiple traits, so there's no obvious limit to the number of traits that could be used when forming clusters. Perhaps they mean that clusters can only be formed by combining non-identical points into the same cluster, but that's literally the entire purpose of clustering and applies to all clustering ever, so it seems like both a trivial observation and a non-sequitur. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.90|172.70.211.90]] 19:54, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
:Yes, the joke about why there are 8 billion clusters mentioned in the title text. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.220|162.158.78.220]] 20:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
::No, I did not miss that. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.136|172.70.211.136]] 22:53, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
:While it's true that clusters can depend on multiple traits, a cluster that depends on ALL human traits at once (or a very large number of them) is useless in practice. A useful cluster depends on a relatively limited number of traits. I think that's where the "ignoring" comes in. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.208|162.158.146.208]] 22:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
::Supposing that's true, that would apply to any sample of humans. The "since all humans are unique" part would still be false, and the comment still wouldn't make sense in context as a response to the specific scenario of 8 billion humans. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.136|172.70.211.136]] 22:53, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
:::Most people would object to the idea that they are fully defined by their DNA. Yet even taking just DNA, the probability of two humans having same is practically zero. Even identical twins have differences in DNA due to radiation and toxins! Sure, 99% of DNA is identical between all humans (is what makes them human), but DNA is over 6 Gigabase pairs. And how many do you think criminalists needs in DNA identification to ensure match probabilities of 1 in a quintillion? Just hundreds. Yes, every human is unique. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:50, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
::::Obviously humans are unique, and I never suggested otherwise. The thing that's false is the complete statement "it's necessary to ignore some traits BECAUSE all humans are unique". I actually think "it's necessary to ignore some traits" is not well-supported even if you stop there, but even if that part is true, it's definitely not a RESULT of all humans being unique. The current explanation reads like someone is twisting the topic to squeeze in a comment about their hobby horse even though it's not actually relevant. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.38|162.158.90.38]] 00:37, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
::::: It's just wrong to say you have to ignore some traits. I'm a data scientist and I've actually used k-means clustering at my job... everyone *is* unique so, you do lose information when you bucket them, but it isn't because you're throwing out some traits. You're just defining groups based on those traits. If I've got 20 people of all different heights, grouping them into "tall" and "short" is not throwing out height as a trait. The explanation is simply wrong. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.77|172.70.38.77]] 13:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
Many people object to being defined by some group they belong to. E.g. people objecct to blanket statements about members of political parties ("I'm a Republican, but I'm pro-choice"), religions, age groups (the adage "If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"), etc. I think this is the idea that the title text is going for. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:43, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

There are two types of ''people'' in the world: those ''who'' use the word “who” to refer to people and the word “that” to refer to things, and those ''who'' don’t. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.77|172.71.151.77]] 02:58, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
:...and those whom use "whom"..? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.57|172.70.162.57]] 09:00, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
::Sure, there are plenty who misuse “whom” also. “Who / he / she / they VERB” vs “PREPOSITION whom / him / her / them” - who did, who has, who owns, he did, she has, they own - for whom, by whom, about whom, for him, by her, about them. A person who, a thing that. It’s really not that complicated. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.21|172.71.147.21]] 10:48, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

== editorial ==

This sentence clause appears to contain a typo: ", and indicate on a graph '''of''' the data has two distinct populations".
It might be clearer as ", and indicate on a graph '''if''' the data has two distinct populations". (Fixed)