explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1106: ADD

2024-10-29T09:52:50Z

172.70.85.138: Title left unused. Should have something usefulnbelow it, not just be left as an unexplained 'invitatiin'.

{{comic
| number = 1106
| date = September 10, 2012
| title = ADD
| image = add.png
| titletext = 20 balloons float away while I'm busy permanently tying one to a tree to deal with it for good. Unfortunately, that one balloon was 'land a rocket on the moon in Kerbal Space Program.'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic appears to be a visual representation of the thought process of someone with {{w|Attention Deficit Disorder}} or ADD (Which has been renamed to ADHD, for "Attention Deficit and Hyper-activity Disorder"). Various of Cueball's thoughts or tasks that he must do are represented by balloons which are rising out of his reach. He holds the "math problem" balloon and grabs the "call mom" balloon, but notices "check oven" is rising out of his reach. He abandons the two balloons he holds to dive and grab the "check oven" balloon. Of course, this allows the other two to rise, presumably out of Cueball's reach, as the pullout reveals a plethora of other balloons already rising too high, some of which describe actions required to live, like balloons marked "breathe" or "drink water". This visualizes how ADHD makes it incredibly difficult to multi-task, prioritize, and continually work on one task.

Cueball quickly drops one task to take on another, only to jump to yet another task before that one is done; showing how the person with ADHD feels; that while they are focusing on one task, 20 others are getting away from them. The title text further reinforces this, noting that while committing to actually complete one task (represented by tying a balloon to a tree), 20 others floated away. The task he chose to complete is (as stereotypical for someone with ADHD), a task that results in no necessary accomplishment — the task is to land a rocket on the moon (Mun) in ''{{w|Kerbal Space Program}}'', a PC-based spaceflight simulator and video game. Additional humor comes from the fact that landing a rocket on the moon in Kerbal Space Program would require a lot of repetition through trial-and-error, making a long and involved task during which many other important tasks might be ignored normally.

In addition, the title "add" may also have a secondary meaning that Cueball feels that balloons/tasks are always being added, which does indeed feel like the case as his field of vision expands, resulting in an overwhelming experience.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is holding a balloon with "Math Problem" written on it. He is running to grab a balloon labeled "Call Mom" that is floating away.]

:[Cueball is now holding both balloons, but looks over his shoulder and sees a balloon that reads "Check Oven".]
:Cueball: ''!!''

:[Cueball releases the balloons he had been holding and runs for the third.]

:[Cueball jumps for the "Check Oven" balloon and snatches it just before it is out of reach.]
:''LEAP''
:Cueball: Hah!

:[Full width panel showing 16 balloons floating away and one Cueball is holding. The balloons are different sizes and colors, and are floating at different heights. They are labeled as follows from left to right. Listed as * Label - color - height order (1 is the lowest balloon). Listed as * Label - size - size order (A is smallest)]
:*Parking Meter - blue - 11M
:*Taxes - green - 3K
:*Buy Soap - red - 12I
:*Phone Call - green - 7H
:*Relax - yellow - 6C
:*Inbox - blue - 9G
:*Clean - red - 13O
:*Beat Game - green - 4D
:*Feed Cat - yellow - 8L
:*Drink Water - blue - 15Q
:*Call Mom - red - 2A
:*Math Problem - green - 3B
:*Send Card - red - 14J
:*Check Oven (Cueball is holding this one still) - yellow - 1E
:*Engine Light - yellow - 10F
:*Read - blue - 16N
:*Breathe - blue - 5P

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Psychology]]
[[Category:Kerbal Space Program]]

2996: CIDABM

2024-10-09T21:31:16Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2996
| date = October 9, 2024
| title = CIDABM
| image = cidabm_2x.png
| imagesize = 423x480px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = There's a heated debate over whether the big island of Tierra del Fuego should qualify for membership.
}}

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

The comic refers to four islands:

{{w|Sicily}} is an autonomous region of {{w|Italy}}, which is on the southern edge of the {{w|Eurasia|Eurasian}} mainland.

{{w|Sri Lanka}} is a nation south of {{w|India}}, which is also on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.

{{w|Hainan}} is a province of {{w|China}}, which is also on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.

{{w|Tasmania}} is a state of the {{w|Australia|nation of Australia}} south of the mainland of the {{w|Australia (continent)|continent of Australia}}.

These four islands 'dangle below' their mainlands only because of the convention of having north at the top of maps. If the convention had instead been to have south at the top, the islands might have been described as floating above their continents.

The big island of Tierra del Fuego ({{w|Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego}}), mentioned in the title text, is off the southern tip of the {{w|Chile}}an mainland (as well as a small bit of {{w|Argentina}}). But, unlike the others in the comic, it doesn't prominently 'dangle' south of a mainland: It has narrow channels separating its northern and northwestern sides from the mainland, and other parts of the {{w|Tierra del Fuego}} archipelago surround its southwestern side and make it appear well-connected to the mainland. In addition, it isn't a single political entity: the island is split between Chile to the west and Argentina to the east. Both of these factors might have contributed to the heated debate referred to in the title text.

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

:[A banner hangs at the top of the frame, labelled C.I.D.A.B.M., with several map segments on it. Four portions of land are shown in grey with a smaller island south of each in black.]
:[Hairbun, Cueball, Megan, and Hairy stand on a podium. The first two are shaking hands and Hairy is waving.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Geopolitical news: Sicily, Sri Lanka, Hainan, and Tasmania have joined together to form the Coalition of Islands that Dangle Awkwardly From the Bottom of a Mainland.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Geography]]

Talk:10: Pi Equals

2024-10-07T22:50:51Z

172.70.85.138:

Interestingly, 7108914 does not occur in the [http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.html first 100,000 digits of pi]. However, 71089 does occur at roughly around the 2,500 digit mark. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 18:17, 6 August 2012‎ (UTC)
:7108914 position [http://www.angio.net/pi/bigpi.cgi 13,709,690] counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not included. --[[User:whitecat|whitecat]] ([[User talk:whitecat|talk]]) 10:43, 7 August 2012‎ (UTC)

There is a children's book called "Help, I'm a prisoner in a toothpaste factory". {{unsigned ip|86.30.117.77|17:13, 7 January 2013‎ (UTC)}}

or it's reference of the Mac OS 6 and 7 [http://www.mackido.com/EasterEggs/BlueMeanies.html "BlueMeanies" easter egg] "Help! Help! We're being held prisoner in a system software factory!". {{unsigned ip|46.126.181.133| 08:59, 7 January 2013‎ (UTC)}}

In my profession - simplifications of π is equal perfection, I can throw a recurring function at it, but it will just give me more pages of numbers. Remember that pi will ultimately equal 22/7, and you'll be alright. - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 09:17, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

We still have to find "helpimtrappedinauniversefactory" @pi, even when Randall also does not know.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

You know, we could convert "helpimtrappedinauniversefactory" to the ASCII numbers and then use one of those algorithms that searches pi for a particular string of numbers... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.36|108.162.219.36]] 22:40, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
:While the string 72697680 (HELP) appears multiple times throughout the first 200,000,000 digits of pi (not counting the 3.), none of the resulting ASCII strings makes sense. The closest (7269768022774869990317421141) is at position 31,961,494 with the resulting string as "HELP�M0E". Note that it is the number "0" and not the letter "O". The string "104101108112" ("help") does not occur in the first 200,000,000 digits. -[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.114|108.162.250.114]] 08:15, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Umm... "Of course, because pi never ends and never repeats, if you assign each number pair a letter from the alphabet and look through the digits of pi, somewhere within it is the entire work of Shakespeare, or any other piece of information that could be expressed with human language. So, ironically, somewhere in pi, there actually is the phrase stated in the comic, in a sense." This isn't guaranteed. Just because it's infinite and non-repeating doesn't mean that every possible pattern exists within it. 0.1010010001000010000010000001... is infinite and non-repeating, but it most certainly doesn't contain Shakespeare. It would only be guaranteed if the series was perfectly random over an infinite amount of time. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.64|108.162.237.64]] 23:47, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
:Ah, but in 0.1010010001... there is a pattern, isn't there? 1, then n number of zeroes, where n is incremented by 1 each time it is used. I don't see such patterns in 3.14159... myself. :P[[User:NSDCars5|NSDCars5]] ([[User talk:NSDCars5|talk]]) 12:56, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
:: That you don't see a pattern doesn't mean there is one. That there is no pattern doesn't mean it contains every possible sequence. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.98|108.162.231.98]] 12:14, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
:::Have edited it to add that this requires a proof that pi is normal. For readers, to see the flaw in NSDCars5's reasoning, consider how he might have seen the entire infinite sequence of pi's digits, then realize it's impossible without a formal proof. Which is what the proof of pi being normal would solve. As it is, we don't have that proof yet, and so we cannot say for sure that pi has every possible finite sequence. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.63|103.22.201.63]] 16:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
:I vote we modify that. It's almost certainly true that pi does include the entire works of Shakespeare, but good luck proving that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.58|108.162.216.58]] 07:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
::If you would argue that, statistically, even one line of Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet could be found within Pi, then statistically, it would be found thousands of time with typos or mistakes first. By the time someone found ALL of Shakespeare's works lined up, first we would have found the individual works separated, millions of times, with all manner of mutations that would result from random chance. Something to consider. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.44|108.162.221.44]] 16:30, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

I feel like there should be a mention that, since pi is a mathematical constant rather than a physical constant, even if you did create the universe you'd have no control over it. You might be able to influence the directions math takes and exert some control
over what constants seem important, but that will only give you a few bits of control, meaning that you can only encode a message a few bits long. You could easily encode messages into the fine structure constant, but if you stick it too close to the beginning it might inhibit life, and if you stick it too far nobody will be able to measure it accurately enough to find it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.58|108.162.216.58]] 07:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, manipulating such a mathematical constant would require changing in some incomprehensible way basic rules of logic or arithmetic, which seems much farther beyond human comprehension than physical constants which human physicist still don't fully understand a clear reason behind their known value needing to be what it is and can only deduce by calculating them based on experimental results. However some being outside the universe making universes including fine tuning their details would have to be in some way beyond human comprehension anyway. This was a topic in the Contact book btw, with a conversation with the Alien like "how could a message be hidden inside pi? It's part of the fabric of the universe!" To which the alien replied "exactly." Note that most of this topic, like a ton of other stuff was left out of the movie supposedly based on it.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.215|108.162.216.215]] 23:21, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Whereas the fictional prisoner in a Fortune Cookies Factory may harbor hopes that once his message gets out and the finder of the message take it to the authorities who will trace it's origins and affect a rescue; no such hopes are available to the Universe Factory prisoner. Not unless the residents of the created universe have a manner of interfacing with the creators civilization. Which brings up an interesting question: Once an intelligence has deciphered a message from a higher being, do they just move on as if nothing happened, or do they now focus their resources toward ascending into the higher realm just revealed. If the latter, than our Universe Factory prisoner may have some hope after all... [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 08:52, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The link to TV tropes yields "403 Forbidden", please find a different link. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.220|108.162.210.220]] 18:15, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Though the fortune cookie story is fictional, I once read a credible seeming article about someone buying a Halloween decoration made in China and finding a hand written letter inside asking for help.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.221|172.70.178.221]] 23:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

The fact that the digits 7108914 appear at position 13709690 of pi doesn't mean that it is the string that is represented in the comic. The 7108914 in the comic might be one of the 19 other times it appears in the first 200 million digits of pi. "helpimtrappedinauniversefactory" might represent a longer string of digits and each letter might represent a whole number of digits in pi. [[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 01:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Using A=1, B=2 … instead of ASCII makes messages shorter ⇒ more probable. HELP→851216 occurs 17x in the 1st 10M digits of π alone, sadly none followed by I=9. HELPME→851216135 is absent, too. RANDA→1811441 occurs 2x, none followed by L=12. I find 6x MUN→132114 and 87x ROE→18155 in the 1st 10M digits, but not consecutively. What does this tell us? That my lunch break's been over for a while and I'd better stop now. :) --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.94|172.70.230.94]] 21:43, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
:Brief comment: If A=1, and L=11, then what does …11… in a sequence decode to? Either/both?
:Requiring A to be …01… is one solution, but then there are sequences (…00… and …27… to …99…) that disqualify themselves from decoding. You could treat invalid numeric pairs as null-encoding (but then …019999999901… as as much "AA" as any other block of 'ignorables' between two 'A's, so might give many other new matches for resolvable strings), though you might also assign other numbers to other non-alphabetic characters like spaces, punctuation or even formatting-associated markup. Which is not far from ASCII/ANSI/Unicode/etc! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 22:50, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2993: Ingredients

2024-10-03T08:59:07Z

172.70.85.138:

Added a quick draft of an explanation. Is it good? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.147.164|172.68.147.164]] 07:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
: sign your damn comment [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 07:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
:: Be more f'ing polite![[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 08:59, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

== Voice actor speculation ==

Since we're rapidly approaching number 3000, let's designate voice actors to the xkcd cast.

Beret Guy could be voiced by Michael Kovach, doing the same voice as he does for N from Murder Drones.

Black Hat could be voiced by JamsDX, with the same voice he did for X in his cover of Obituary.

And so on. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 07:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
:It would help if I knew who either of those were, or even the things that they are described as doing. And I suspect my own prospective choices would be similarly unknown to you. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.62|172.70.85.62]] 08:35, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

2988: Maslow's Pyramid

2024-09-21T21:09:08Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */ The whole "slaves built the pyramids" thing is very much shown to not be the case. Changing to a more realistic description.

{{comic
| number = 2988
| date = September 20, 2024
| title = Maslow's Pyramid
| image = maslows_pyramid_2x.png
| imagesize = 744x422px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The local police, building inspector, and fire marshal are all contesting my 'safety' assertion, or would be if they could reach me past all the traps.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PHYSICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A METAPHORICAL HEURISTIC MODEL - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Maslow's hierarchy of needs}} is a psychological model of human needs. It posits that human needs are prioritized from basic physiological requirements to more abstract forms of comfort and happiness. The idea is frequently represented by a pyramid-shaped diagram ("Maslow's Pyramid"), with basic foundational needs near the bottom creating the stability to enable {{w|self-actualization}} at the top, at least in the 'simplified' version. (Although the 'pyramid', really a segmented triangle, is often used to represent this model, {{w|Abraham Maslow}} never actually used such a pyramid to illustrate it.)

In this comic, [[Cueball]] has interpreted Maslow's Pyramid too literally, as an actual 3d construction. He attempts to achieve true happiness by physically building a pyramid that resembles this common representation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, instead of actually attempting to meet the needs within the conceptual pyramid. Cueball complains that the pyramid only fulfills one of the five needs listed on its side: literal safety, plus shelter from the elements. The pyramid is useless for his social and emotional needs: everyone, including Cueball, thinks the pyramid was a poor idea. However, this reasoning ignores the crucial fact that controlling enough workforce to build a pyramid can provide Cueball with social esteem, and building a pyramid might be much-needed self-actualization for any serious egyptologist.

The title text indicates that the pyramid probably doesn't meet the safety requirements established by local {{w|building codes}}, even though Cueball feels that it provides him with physical safety. This safety is apparently achieved in part by various traps, which are preventing the authorities from getting into the pyramid to verify compliance or serve him with a notice of non-compliance. Of course, having one's home full of traps that provide that level of deterrence is, of itself, likely to be a violation of laws and building codes.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is facing White Hat and Megan and pointing to a giant pyramid modeled after Maslow's hierarchy of needs, with each tier labeled after its need on the pyramid, and a comment next to it in the comic. From top to bottom:]
:Self-actualization: [Red X] Honestly questioning my life choices here
:Esteem: [Red X] People seem less impressed by it than I hoped
:Belonging and Love: [Red X] Friends are worried about me
:Safety: [Green Checkmark] Highly defensible
:Physiological needs: [Red X] Provides basic shelter but no food, water, heat, etc

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I built Maslow's pyramid thing, but it's a total ripoff - it's only providing 20% of my needs.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Psychology]]

704: Principle of Explosion

2024-09-21T21:06:09Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */ Internal link form...

{{comic
| number = 704
| date = February 19, 2010
| title = Principle of Explosion
| image = principle_of_explosion.png
| titletext = You want me to pick up waffle cones? Oh, right, for the wine. One sec, let me just derive your son's credit card number and I'll be on my way.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball|Cueball's]] friend (who also looks like Cueball) explains the {{w|principle of explosion}}, a classical theorem of logic, which shows that if within a system of logic you can use the axioms and rules of deduction to derive (prove) a contradiction, it then becomes possible to derive any statement at all within that system (whether it’s actually true or not). In particular, if you start by assuming a self-contradictory statement, you can derive anything.

Cueball then proceeds to misinterpret (perhaps intentionally) that you can derive any ''fact'' about the physical world. His formula of {{w|propositional logic}} in the third panel reads "'''P''' and not '''P'''", where '''∧''' is the formal logic symbol for "and" and '''¬''' is the symbol for "not". '''P''' stands for a proposition. As "'''P''' and not '''P'''" is shorthand for "'''P''' is both true and false", this forms a contradiction from which the principle of explosion can begin. Humorously and to his friend's bewilderment he then successfully manages to 'derive' the phone number for his friend's mom.

:'''An example from math''': If you assume that √2 is a rational number, you can 'prove' things that are obviously false, such as the fact that some numbers must be both even and odd. Consequently, you can draw the conclusion that √2 must be an irrational number (provided such a thing exists at all! - luckily, it does and obeys the same calculation rules as for rational numbers; this is how {{w|proof by contradiction}} works.)

:This can be seen in a {{w|Truth Table}}:
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
! P
! ¬P
! P ∧ ¬P
! P ∧ ¬P ⇒ Q
|-
| T
| F
| F
| T
|-
| F
| T
| F
| T
|}

:The formula P ∧ ¬P ⇒ Q is true in every possible interpretation. No matter what propositions are substituted for P and Q the implication is true. So if a single example of a contradiction were found, then every proposition would be true, (and simultaneously false).

After deriving the phone number Cueball instantly calls his friend's mom, who turns out to be [[Miss Lenhart|Mrs. Lenhart]]. She asks Cueball out, without any preamble, to his friend's vexation. It does not get better when it is obvious that she wishes to drink "[[915: Connoisseur|cheap]]" {{w|boxed wine}} with him, and Cueball is free tonight! There is definitely a hint of {{w|Mrs. Robinson}} over Mrs. Lenhart here.

In the title text we hear more of Cueball's (one-sided) conversation with Mrs. Lenhart. She asks him to pick up waffle cones, a variety of {{w|ice cream cone}}. And when he sounds bewildered by this she explains that it is for drinking the wine. This is probably not a very good idea, since waffles are typically not water proof and would also dissolve into the wine. The rest of the title text is just more of the main comic's derivation joke, since Cueball will take a second to derive her son's credit card number, so he can buy the cones at his expense.

In reality, Cueball really could start with the principle of explosion and "prove" a statement such as "Mrs. Lenhart's phone number is {{w|867-5309}}", but the same could be said of any conceivable phone number, most of which don't actually belong to Mrs. Lenhart, and because his axiom system is inconsistent, he has no way of knowing which is correct. Likewise for his friend's credit card number. Much like {{w|The Library of Babel}}, an axiom system which can prove ''any'' statement might as well prove nothing. Perhaps Cueball already knows these phone and credit card numbers, and is just talking about the principle of explosion to mess with his friend.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball's Cueball-like friend is talking to him.]
:Friend: If you assume contradictory axioms, you can derive anything. It's called the principle of explosion.
:Cueball: ''Anything?'' Lemme try.

:[Cueball is writing on a piece of paper on a desk.]

:[Cueball is holding up a piece of paper to his friend, while holding a phone.]
:Cueball: Hey, you're right! I started with '''P∧¬P''' and derived your mom's phone number!
:Friend: That's not how that works.

:[The friend is looking at the piece of paper, while Cueball is talking to someone on a phone. The desk from before can be seen to the right.]
:Cueball: Mrs. Lenhart?
:Friend: Wait, this ''is'' her number! How—
:Cueball: Hi, I'm a friend of— Why, yes, I ''am'' free tonight!
:Friend: ''Mom!''
:Cueball: No, box wine sounds lovely!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]

Talk:2985: Craters

2024-09-17T11:09:02Z

172.70.85.138:

==Delaware/Pennsylvania Arc==
The Delaware/Pennsylvania arc is a circle, sure, but so is every other allegedly "straight" line on the map. The 49N parallel looks like a straight line on some projections, but a polar projection shows that it is clearly a circle around a point on the Earth's axis. The Delaware/Pennsylvania arc is only unique for NOT being aligned with the axis. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.20|172.71.102.20]] 19:07, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
:The "Delaware/Pennsylvania arc" has a long and juicy history. Not a circle. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-Mile_Circle Twelve-Mile Circle] Signed- --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 20:36, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
:True about map projections, but the Venn section title here does say *Weird*. The Delaware/Pennsylvania arc is indeed "weird"; few other such arcs are found in regular map content, and the original story for it is indeed uncommon. <s>Great Circle</s> Parallel latitude "arcs" aren't weird in either way. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.64|172.68.34.64]] 20:52, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
::North-South lines are great-circle arcs, but non-equatorial East-West lines - as well as many diagonal ones - are minor-circle arcs (is that the right term?), just link the 12-Mile Circle. (Let's see if this retains my IP address from my top post.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.109|172.70.46.109]] 21:29, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
:::Right you are! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.64|172.68.34.64]] 23:00, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

==Great Blue Hole==
There are two Great Blue Holes, one in Belize, one in Dahab, Egypt (Red Sea). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.20|172.71.102.20]] 19:11, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
==Recent Google Maps discovery==
This may be inspired Joël Lapointe's very recently announced discovery of a 15km-diameter "pit" he found near Marsal Lake (Quebec) using Google Maps. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-meteorite-impact-crater-1.7313418 "He saw a suspicious pit on Google Maps. Experts say it could be a crater from an ancient space rock"] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.64.185|172.69.64.185]] 20:10, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

----

man, why are so many of these in Quebec? does it have a natural meteor/circle magnet? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.232|172.68.174.232]] 01:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

: Parce qu'on y parle français. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.68|172.69.71.68]] 12:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

==New Column==
I'm thinking about a new column or two: GPS coordinates (with an Open Earth link?) and a satellite image, or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.76|172.71.102.76]] 03:27, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

: The table seems incomplete without something like that. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.172|172.69.34.172]] 22:50, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

==Meta Reference: Venn Diagram Double Crater==
No comment yet on the fact that the two circles in the Venn Diagram refer to craters and circles... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.53|172.71.102.53]] 01:32, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

==Geographic bias by meteorites or Randall?==
Boy am I happy that I don't live in North or Central America, where 11 out of 13 "craters" are located... [[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 07:44, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
:Maybe over here (rightpondia, oceania, down-under and the cradle of humanity itself), we just cleaned them up easier (or messed them up badly) so they were less obvious. (c.f. Nördlingen.) Y'all over thataway, however, haven't had time to do anything too drastic to obscure them. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.48|172.70.163.48]] 14:10, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
:Haha, yeah, that was also my first thought when I googled the places I didn't know: very America-centric by either Randall or meteorite or other circle-creating entities... And even the other 2 places are in English speaking places (yes, I know English isn't the official language of India, but still one of the most common)--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 04:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I am tickled pink that two significant items in my life appear adjacent in this diagram: Stonehenge, and Crater Lake. My company name is Stonehenge (and I've been to the real rock pile a few times), and I'm a native Oregonian, using Crater Lake as my video-call background. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 22:02, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

==Crater Lake==
So we're not going to talk about Crater Lake not being an actual crater? {{unsigned ip|172.69.134.107|22:12, 16 September 2024}}
:"Crater Lake (Klamath: Giiwas)[2] is a volcanic crater lake..." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.2|172.70.91.2]] 23:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

== no monday comic ==

silly randall [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.146|172.70.86.146]] 07:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
:nvm [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.136|141.101.99.136]] 08:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

==What's with the excessive use of headers in this chat?==

Talk:1386: People are Stupid

2024-09-06T10:56:55Z

172.70.85.138: Correcting obvious typo (excuse me!). Adding 'signature' hint. Adding a layer of indent (rather than shift its chronology, keeping it close the point it was replying to but not reversing straight-down reading-order).

On average yes, an individual is of average intelligence. But taken as a population of a whole, well, that's a different story entirely. Randall needs a vacation, ever since he jumped the shark with the dead baby it just feels like the downward trend is getting steeper. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.135|108.162.210.135]] 13:20, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
::"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." - Kay, Men in Black 1997 {{unsigned ip|172.71.30.187|01:33, 6 September 2024}}
:I don't really think that he jumped the shark. I don't quite get what you are trying to say, and individual can't be of average intelligence. You must first define the average, if we take the mean intelligence of the whole population, then take a person from the sample, then we say that the individual is of average intelligence. You can't say people is stupid while referring to the whole population, because of the definition of stupid, if we take a sample of low IQ people then those people are going to be of average intelligence within the sample, the same goes to the whole population. So this comic is perfectly valid. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.192|108.162.212.192]] 04:50, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
::I know this is a lot later, but I believe that OP was referring to the difference between mean and median measures of intelligence. More than 50% of the population can be below average intelligence if the distribution is skewed right. [[User:NotLock|NotLock]] ([[User talk:NotLock|talk]]) 03:36, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Isn't that a reference to the Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.119|103.22.200.119]] 04:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)krayZpaving

White Hat being burned? This certainly will not end here.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.102.208|141.101.102.208]] 04:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

'''''Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.''''' This wiki is founded on the very principle that people are stupid. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.223.29|108.162.223.29]] 05:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: You make an intelligent point, which I both appreciate and like. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.50|108.162.222.50]] 13:41, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
::Awww, it's just a joke, it's not personal or anything! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

This comment is one that makes me scratch my head and wonder... surely Randall is able to see that intelligence is not a relative but rather an absolute thing (if one were to kill the 10% most intelligent people the rest wouldn't get dumber, nor smarter). Surely intelligence is not to be measured in units of the common denominator. Surely it is obvious that 2nd panel is a pure strawman. Sigh...
Oh and btw an IQ of 100 is the median, not the average. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.17|141.101.104.17]] 09:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: I am wondering if the explanation should not include a mention of the Median/Mean problem because it is entirely possible for a majority of a population to be above or below some mean (average) statistic depending on the distribution. Also stupidity is a standard that is not dependent on either median or mean.[[User:Sturmovik|Sturmovik]] ([[User talk:Sturmovik|talk]]) 11:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: The IQ of 100 is actually defined to be the median AND the average (and also the mode). It is also defined that the distibution around the IQ of 100 is a perfect bell curve. The IQ just tells you how many people in the world have your IQ (It is also defined that two values that have same distance from hundred, e.g. 80 and 120 have the same amount of people, 'cause it's a perfect bell curve (this means that there are as many people with IQ 120 as people with IQ 80). If the overall population gets more intelligent they have to make the IQ tests harder, so that 100 is again the average and median (This really happened). This and some other things are reasons why I think that IQ tests are BS. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.93.219|141.101.93.219]] 14:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
:: "A test device with numerous correlates measures an amount of environmental influences beside innate determinants, therefore bullshit"... What are your other objections to I.Q. testing? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.221|141.101.89.221]] 14:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The mocking "award", which is an analogy of saying "intelligence isn't everything" (an EXTREMELY common cliche), reflects the fact that Randall, like just about anyone, is oblivious to the magnitude of the totality of positive correlates of intelligence, and even (TRIGGER WARNING, TABOO CONCEPT AHEAD) I.Q. Intelligence, I.Q., not only makes you happier, it also makes you more helpful to other people, more creative, more socially stable, better-to-do, less susceptible to mental illnesses, more likely to remember events in your life, etc. etc. etc... Basically, there isn't a positive trait or quality of life with which intelligence doesn't correlate. But people positively LOATHE awareness of how highly intelligence, in fact, matters. Hence the vehement denial whenever someone indicates its importance, all the "I know an intelligent person who is miserable/mean/...", all stressing of exceptions, all ridicule of the notion of intelligence in general, all the "don't think about it"-mentality, all writing off of I.Q. as "antiquated, grossly limited, racist, metric" rather than the extremely potent predictor that it is. tl;dr Randall at all, take time to actually STUDY intelligence or the g factor before you mock it like that. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 09:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

: IQ is based on an arbitrary test and isn't necessarily accurate or reliable. Cognitive ability (which IQ does not accurately measure) WOULD make you more creative, have better memory, etc. I don't know anything about the mental illness thing, but it doesn't make you happier- you can be extremely intelligent but still have a miserable life. Also many "geniuses" in history have emotional issues and unbalanced lives. Intelligence doesn't make you more helpful, either. Yes, you might be more ABlE to help others, but only if you were educated, and only if you WANT to. Plus, this is a webcomic poking fun at people generalizing humanity, not an in-depth analysis of IQ. This whole argument is pointless, and I don't know why I just wasted a bunch of time on it... I guess I have fallen for the trap described by comic 386, Duty Calls. [[User:Random xkcd Fan|Random xkcd Fan]] ([[User talk:Random xkcd Fan|talk]]) 00:41, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

: In other words (and this is going to be my last addendum to this note, because it is a vast subject), whenever people say (or imply, as in the comic's case) that "intelligence isn't everything", the question to ask in return is, "okay, now what is the degree to which intelligence enables, facilitates, contributes to, 'the rest' to which you're opposing intelligence here?". People minimise the depth and breadth of the intellectual substrate of achievement. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 09:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

: Also, Randall (and everyone saying that) is being highly unjust in equating "people aren't smart" with "people aren't as smart as me". A perfectly valid alternative sense is, "people aren't as smart as to be rationally expected to contribute to rather than damage the discussion/situation/position at hand"--having the objective good, the objective recognition that certain situations (for instance, a certain online conversation which is expected to be competent) require certain minimal intellectual thresholds (for instance, an I.Q. of 120), in mind rather than egotic comparison. Lower intelligence, deny it all you please, comes with temperamental problems for instance. Selection for intelligence will largely filter them out. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 09:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

:: tl;dr of my entire production here: people must learn that BOTH situations of the Dunning-Kruger are equally harmful, the one that's less often considered perhaps actually even more so. Mistaken self-perception as intelligent is bad for the individual, but refusal to acknowledge the importance of one's own cognitive capacity (which is as good as universal in intelligent people--"I am not that smart" (who hasn't heard that one innumerable times?), "I just like doing thing x, my proficiency in it has nothing to do with my intelligence or I.Q.", "I have areas in which I'm 'stupid' too", "effort counts too") has societal consequences, of contributing to erroneous dismissal of the notions of intelligence & I.Q. & g etc. Shutting up for good now. Night. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 10:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

::: GAHHHHH just one more thing. Consider this: the fact that people dismiss I.Q. is the best indicator of how important a trait it really is. Thing is, people would not feel compelled by modesty to deny its importance had it not been vitally integral to many, many things. We deny what we value, so to give hope to those who lack that thing (to comfort those who lack intelligence). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 10:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

:::: Okay, no offense, but maybe you should calm down a bit. It's just a WEBCOMIC, not the Universal Decree of All Things Correct and Accepted as True. Also, I'm pretty sure you're overthinking it. Randall is just poking fun at those who say, "oh, people are stupid, you know". Cueball isn't seriously giving statistics (although I do agree with his logic- intelligence is NOT absolute, it's relative. And IQ is obsolete; it's based on arbitrary tests and vary based on things like race and social class, which should be evidence enough that it isn't some divine, and 100% precise way of calculating cognitive ability). Cueball is simply making fun of White Hat's statement that "people are stupid". Also the comic generally points out making remarks about the human race as a whole doesn't help anything... {{unsigned|Random xkcd Fan}}

:::: Hey 141.101.89.211... I wonder if you have something to say, but despite my best efforts, I'm having trouble following everything you're saying - I have a feeling you were a bit emotional (perhaps tired?) when writing that, or you might have had fewer "more things" immediately following "I'm done" statements. If you're up for it, I'd appreciate you taking the time to make sure you're saying what you want to say, and ''then'' say it, because you seem to at least have good grammar (though there ''were'' a few British spellings... :-D), so I suspect you probably have a good point. It's also conceivable that I'm just not smart enough to get what you're saying (?) or perhaps it's just too ''early'' for me. BTW the best way of making sure I see what you're saying would probably be to let me know on my [[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk page]]... might even have the conversation there if you'd prefer. Thanks for your time. [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 11:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: I don't know why you think that 141.101.89.211... No where does the comic say that. The mocking award is simply mocking people who '''may or may not''' have higher intelligence than the people they're addressing taking a Better Than Thou attitude because they think they do. In other words: "Higher intelligence doesn't give you an excuse to act like a jerk." I'm sure you can agree with that too [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.218|108.162.245.218]] 04:42, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I would add one "people are stupid" angle not yet mentioned: judging by behavior, most groups of people are less intelligent that any member of that group individually. This is valid even for the "all people" group - just look at the planet. Surprisingly, judging by content of most wikis, the "editors of wiki" groups seems to immune. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: Good point--conforming to pressures of one's group or one's position to the detriment of one's judgment is a separate personality trait. The phenomenon is remedied by intelligence, but independent from it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 10:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: Beat me to it. I'd like to add that even individual people have their occasional stupid and intelligent moments, with the stupid ones typically being of greater magnitude. Thus, it's not unreasonable to say that the average actions of people are at least slightly less intelligent than the average intelligence of most people on most days. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.83|173.245.55.83]] 12:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: Similar to the statement in the film "Men In Black". Agent J says, "Why the big secret [about the aliens among us]? People are smart. They can handle it." Agent K responds, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.45|108.162.221.45]] 01:15, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I can't believe people say things like that, man, people are stupid [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 10:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the Lake Wobegon references. Not only is it on-target, but I take personal joy seeing mentions of uniquely Minnesotan culture anywhere I can find them. --BigMal27, Minnesota-born, Minnesotan-raised // [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.88|173.245.55.88]] 11:53, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Instead of saying, "People are stupid," we would do better to say "People make poor decisions / statements / judgments." And this, for multiple reasons, few of them I suspect tied to basal intelligence. Stage of life, level of health and stress, experience relative to the topic, level of education and the quality of that education, cultural idiotic beliefs that interfere with optimal choices, and a zillion others. Plus, as a large percentage of humans are either just coming online in experience and education, or are winding down in health and mental function, we are guaranteed to see a large percentage of stupid decisions right across the IQ landscape. No help for it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.217|108.162.246.217]] 13:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: I.Q. affects level of health and stress, rate of acquisition of experience, level of education, quality of education obtained, preference of cultural beliefs. It doesn't seem to defy reason that it affects the zillion other factors, too. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.221|141.101.89.221]] 13:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
: Remember, in interaction between psychological and social factors, the question is never of *existence* of a connection, but of its magnitude. It is fine to posit a multitude of environmental factors that determine (ir)rationality, but as long as such position keeps people from connecting I.Q. with those factors' actual occurrence (how much I.Q. does it take to finish a good school? to develop a habit of reading a book every month? this is not at all trivial question, and it needs to be resolved with more than anecdotal evidence of "I know an intelligent illiterate person"), there might be an elephant buried underneath the room which no one knows about. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.221|141.101.89.221]] 13:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I know Cueball's explanation can be construed to illustrate otherwise; but I doubt the comic was meant to be a comment on the relative intelligence of humanity. It seems more likely, to me, that the purpose of the comic was to comment on the stonewalling that the mindset, "I'm better than you," induces. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.35|108.162.216.35]] 15:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The cartoon never mentions I.Q. at all, Just "Average Intelligence", so the Mean/Median discussion is moot. As for the other discussion on this page, I'm just going to quote Blaise Pascal: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time" [[User:Jim E|Jim E]] ([[User talk:Jim E|talk]]) 16:00, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned above, in other comments that it's hard to find a way to indent from, there's a difference between different 'average's. (To compare "the median" with "the average" is not a good way of doing it, because one needn't know whether you're talking mean or mode in the second sense. I could even say that I have more than the average number of arms, for a human.) The assumption that the median [i]and[/i] mean (and, perhaps, also mode) are a single location at which 100IQ can be placed is dependant upon the bell curve being symmetrical. Just one hyper-intelligent could skew the mean well above the median. (Ok, so we're talking about comic-book "hyper"ness, to make it significant, in a world's worth of population, but the principle still stands for any more manageable population.) And about IQ tests being recalibrated... there is already a common convention that there's a score-adjuster (or a look-up table, based on this) that gives you different IQs for the same number of correct answers but for people of different ages (and sometimes male/female). Which seems to me like "we give up trying to be demographically neutral, let's just find how well different people answer in our test and then work out where their own arbitrary sub-group's bell-curve stradles". That said, I like IQ tests. I do well in them, and have fun doing them, even if I don't actually believe in them any more than I believe in Sudoku puzzles! And, sorry, I ended up typing far more than I had intended... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.193|141.101.99.193]] 16:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I see a lot of discussion on intelligence, but nothing on "losing faith in humanity". The way I see it everywhere is not in response to stupid people, but to acts of inhumanity. Random acts of violence and hate, for example. Or not random, but large scale. "Restored my faith in humanity" comments often refer to the opposite (in my experience) which involve random acts of kindness, or large-scale altruism. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.161|108.162.237.161]] 08:48, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

What about people using Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and any other "social network web 2.0" thing? They certainly aren't an individual or small group, they are stupid and I've lost my faith in them. :) {{unsigned ip|173.245.56.166}}

There are distributions where majority of the population would indeed be below average. Luckily for humanity, intelligence is on a bell curve! I am happy beyond words that this is the case. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.31}}

This has to be one of the most entertaining boring conversations I've ever come across! Brilliant! (Or not.) [[User:Taibhse|Taibhse]] ([[User talk:Taibhse|talk]]) 14:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I think when someone says "people are stupid", they actually usually mean something like "people systematically make mistakes that I feel are readily avoidable", rather than making an actual judgement regarding general intelligence. So this comic feels rather off to me. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.113|173.245.48.113]] 08:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

:If you read xkcd long enough, you'll find a lot of Randall's comics feel "off." {{unsigned ip|108.162.212.215}}

Interestingly, the people making comments about average people being stupid tend to be, eh, below-average-smart themselves. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.217|108.162.246.217]] 00:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

:"Interestingly," huh? You sound smart. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.215|108.162.212.215]] 14:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

When I say "People are stupid" I mean that a group of people making a decision is much stupider than a person. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.215|108.162.246.215]] 04:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

'''"No, people aren't stupid. On average, people are of average intelligence."'''

Hey, guys. Consider that average intelligence ''is'' stupid. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.215|108.162.212.215]] 14:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
: Yeah, this is how I've always interpreted "People are stupid" it means, considering we all think we're a smart species, our average intelligence is really low. It's not "I'm better than everybody/average/most people" but "Everybody/the average person/most people is/are worse than most people believe" [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.216|141.101.99.216]] 13:15, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
:: You stupid, stupid humans. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.52|162.158.255.52]] 02:25, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

What if the distribution of intelligence is bimodal? If no one is of "average" intelligence, might the more extreme stupidity of a large portion of the population give the impression that the actual average is lower than it appears? [[User:Bppubjr|Bppubjr]] ([[User talk:Bppubjr|talk]]) 14:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

"People is dumb." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.164|173.245.52.164]]

All the (admittedly online) IQ tests I've done have always been focussed on logic, mental manipulation of shapes, maths, deduction etc. While this favours those with a certain type of brain, I can't help but think it is heavily biased against those with creative types of thinking. Hand me a paintbrush and canvas, and my logical brain is of no help at all --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
:Intelligence is the ability of learning, the use of logic and solving problems. While being creative is good, necessary and a very useful thing by itself, is NOT intelligence. So a person could be creative and being dumb at the same time, or the opposite. Also, there are not different kind of brains. The whole left-brain vs right-brain thing is a myth: http://www.livescience.com/39373-left-brain-right-brain-myth.html [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.29|173.245.48.29]] 21:07, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Not XKCD's best work. This is a normal response that smarter people initially feel when encountering others, having taking themselves as the baseline. This actually reflects a lack of elitism, where you expect other people to be the same as you and are surprised they are not (pretty much the opposite as portrayed here). Case in point is Freeman Dyson. Here's an excerpt from the Atlantic Monthly piece on him:

The prodigy in question, Freeman Dyson, now middle-aged, stared ahead, his incessant concentration on the road unbroken. He seemed mesmerized by the oncoming pavement, or by some idea or formulation glimpsed in the immateriality beyond the pavement. I asked him whether as a boy he had speculated much about his gift. Had he asked himself why he had this special power? Why he was so bright?

Dyson is almost infallibly a modest and self-effacing man, but tonight his eyes were blank with fatigue, and his answer was uncharacteristic.

“That’s not how the question phrases itself,” he said. “The question is: why is everyone else so stupid?”

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.124|108.162.241.124]] 00:41, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

'''386 + 1000?'''

In Duty Calls (386) http://http://xkcd.com/386/ people were just wrong. Fast forward 1000 strips and they are stupid. [[User:Hananc|Hananc]] ([[User talk:Hananc|talk]]) 13:55, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with the author here. Due to ambiguities of language it can correctly be said that most people are stupid. On one hand, we have the strict definition of average intelligence: it is defined by the intelligence of the average. If, however, one defines intelligence based on each person's average use of what they have, well, averaged over time, most people don't use what they have. That is why I assert that most people are stupid: because they have the ability to be average or above, but in practice their lack of thinking leads to decisions as bad of those who would score far worse on any real or theoretically perfect test.

note: The form of testing and its accuracy is irrelevant. It's just a score generated by a process.

[[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.16|172.68.174.16]] 07:37, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Anybody else notice how '''TRIGGER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN'T TAKE CRITICISM''' might be proving [[White Hat]]'s idea right? Just look at the arguments! Note: While not all people are stupid, a moderate percentage of internet contributers have been observed to act stupidly.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.21|108.162.242.21]] 19:50, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

== Analysis of definitions ==

1. "People are X" can mean either "all people are X" (1a) or "most people possess the property Y at least to the degree X" (1b), in this case " a majority of people are unintelligent enough to be called stupid"

2. "Stupid" can mean "below average intelligence" (2a) or "less smart than a reference value (ex. the intelligence of the speaker, or how intelligent the speaker would like humans to be, or than required to deal with a task or problem at hand)" (2b).

Now we just need to go through the combinations of the definitions.

1a/2a. All people have intelligence below average. Impossible by definition of "average".

1b/2a. A majority of people have below average intelligence. Possible if the distribution curve is skewed, i.e. if most people have intelligence slightly below average and some people are a lot smarter than the average. My sample, however, says that the opposite is the case, though it might also be skewed in respect to general population.

1a/2b. No people are smart enough for X. Possible depending on the definition of "enough". The speaker is very probably not the smartest human being in existence, but some statements such as "no living human have demonstrated enough intelligence to formulate a definite proof of Riemann hypothesis as of yet" are objectively true.

1b/2b. Most people are not smart enough for X. Again possible depending on the definition, moreso as most if not all problems could be solved well enough if all or most people just cooperated better and prioritized the global good over their own.

Therefore, the statement can be fine as long as the speaker has a good reason to say it in a particular context and/or includes himself in it. In any other case, Cueball's reaction is justified. {{unsigned ip|172.68.65.20|16:45, 10 February 2021}}

I have to disagree with this comic. Yes, on average, people are of average intelligence. However, if the average intelligence is "stupid", then the average person is stupid. [[User:R3TRI8UTI0N|R3TRI8UTI0N]] ([[User talk:R3TRI8UTI0N|talk]]) 00:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
:As long as you're happy with calling half* of all people ''very'' stupid.
:* - Or you could be mean and assume it's an extreme outlier dragging the number down.
:Which begs the question how smart one needs to be to be considered smart. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.56|172.70.85.56]] 00:49, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2979: Sky Alarm

2024-08-31T11:27:22Z

172.70.85.138:

♫♪ Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... ♪♫ :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I've tried to do just this by subscribing to a channel promisingly named "AstroAlert", which then proceeded to spam me 500 times per day with messages about a random meteor on the opposite part of the world. Woe. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.200|162.158.110.200]] 05:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
:Hence the need for this alarm, to keep it LOCAL, :) That's the thing, any such thing needs a LOCATION, to limit results to what is locally relevant to each person. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

This comic seems super simple, so I added as muc( explanation as I can think of... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Local58 moment 💔

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 11:27, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

2973: Ferris Wheels

2024-08-19T13:20:20Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2973
| date = August 16, 2024
| title = Ferris Wheels
| image = ferris_wheels_2x.png
| imagesize = 624x280px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They left the belt drive in place but switched which wheel was powered, so people could choose between a regular ride, a long ride, and a REALLY long ride.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BELT POWERED BY A DIFFERENT WIKI PAGE IN ORDER TO KEEP THIS ONE GOING - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic depicts an attempted connection of three {{w|Ferris wheel}}s using a {{w|Belt (mechanical)|mechanical belt drive}}, a system typically used to transfer motion between rotating shafts. By connecting the wheels at different circumferences, the relative motion is geared up or down. If the belt passes around the circumference of one wheel and is connected around the hub of another, the latter will rotate significantly faster. In this case, the second wheel's circumference is in turn connected to a third wheel's hub, resulting in even greater rotational velocity. However, this setup is mechanically unsound and possibly dangerous, as Ferris wheels are not intended to be connected in this way.{{cn}} As shown, the first wheel on the left is running at a normal speed, while the other two are rotating increasingly fast, leading to a potentially hazardous situation where passengers are flung around at various (possibly {{w|G-force#Human tolerance|quite hazardous}}) extents.

A Ferris wheel might have a diameter of about 200 feet (60 m) and take around 10 minutes per full rotation.{{acn}} The apparent ratio between the connected wheels in the comic is approximately 12.5:1, meaning the motion is significantly sped up as it’s transferred. The second Ferris wheel, driven by the first, could spin at around 1.3 rpm, with passengers moving at 9 mph (14 km/h), which is faster than usual but not inherently dangerous. However, when this motion is further transferred to the third Ferris wheel, it could spin at 16 rpm, with passengers traveling at over 110 mph (180 km/h), subjecting them to 8 Gs of force—conditions that would be hazardous.

In the caption [[Randall]] says that he was fired for this ill-advised modification, highlighting the impracticality and dangers of the idea. A cruise line also fired the cartoonist due to an unsound engineering proposal earlier in [[2935: Ocean Loop]].

The title text imagines the consequences of leaving the belt drive system in place but switching which wheel is powered. If the most extreme wheel (the third one on the right) is powered, the gearing would be reversed, making for a possibly pleasant and normal ride on the right-hand wheel, but rendering the experiences of the riders on the other two wheels far too slow for an enjoyable carnival ride. One revolution of the center wheel might take two hours and five minutes, while the left wheel would take more than a day (twenty-six hours to be exact)  per revolution.    This exaggerates the impracticality and unintended effects of using a belt drive system on Ferris wheels, humorously illustrating how such an idea would lead to absurdly varied ride experiences.

==Transcript==
:[Three Ferris wheels are shown side by side, with some people stood on the ground for scale. Each of the first two wheels has a belt connecting its circumference to the axle of the wheel to its right. "Agitrons" indicate that the middle wheel is turning notably faster than the left wheel, with the gondolas seen to be rocking significantly at all points round the wheel. The spokes of the right wheel are completely replaced by "motion lines", indicating that the the right wheel is turning the fastest of all. All its gondolas are hanging outwards against centripetal force, interspersed with their own motion lines.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The county fair fired me for adding a belt drive to the Ferris wheels.

==Trivia==
The first (slowest) wheel can be seen to notably lack a 'spoke' at approximately the five'o'clock position, supporting the point where its respective passenger seating is hung. Clearly, however, the wheel design is strong enough to withstand much greater forces in the other two versions of the wheel (which appears to be complete in the case of the second, though the thin spokes are only seen as blurs in the third wheel) suggesting that there may not be significant danger from this omission. It does not bode well, however, for general {{w|Occupational Safety and Health Administration|OSHA compliance}} in how they erect/maintain the rides, even before the belt-drive idea added its own issues.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

2967: Matter

2024-08-05T14:43:22Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */ More whoops (editing with on-screen keyboard, very hard to touch-type)...

{{comic
| number = 2967
| date = August 2, 2024
| title = Matter
| image = matter_2x.png
| imagesize = 234x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = He was the first person to land a 900, which is especially impressive because pulling off a half-integer spin requires obeying Fermi-Dirac statistics.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GOOFY FRONTSIDE WIKI GRIND TO SECRET PHYSICS DEMO TAPE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In {{w|skateboarding}}, the term "goofy" means to push with the left foot, using the {{w|Footedness#Goofy_stance|opposite stance}} to the supposedly standard stance of pushing with one's right foot. The comic uses the goofy stance as a analogy for {{w|antimatter}} in particle physics, which exhibits the opposite charge to ordinary matter and will annihilate both upon collision with its counterpart, releasing energy proportional to their combined mass. In this comic, famed professional skateboarder {{w|Tony Hawk}} has obtained a professorship in physics and is teaching the theory with this non-standard terminology borrowed from his other field of expertise. 'Professor' Hawk already has an early xocd comic named after him: [[296: Tony Hawk]].

Hawk's presence here could in part be inspired by professor {{w|Stephen Hawking}}, a famous astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge who died in 2018. As Tony Hawk does not have a degree in physics,{{Citation needed}} teaching inaccurate lessons could be a likely pitfall of his gaining a professorship in real life.

Unlike other distributions of handedness in the natural world (chemical {{w|chirality}}, or the {{w|skewness}} of {{w|Multimodal distribution|bimodal statistics}} describing asymmetries in nature such wz {{w|homochirality}}), 'goofy-footed' skateboarders are about as common as those using standard footing. But this analogy also indirectly raises the problem of {{w|baryon asymmetry}}, in which ordinary matter appears to be much more common than antimatter. The baryon asymmetry is often thought to have resulted from inhomogeneities, or fluctuations, during {{w|Inflation (cosmology)|cosmological inflation}} which occured between 10−33 and 10−32 seconds [https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251301 after the Big Bang], although there are several other candidate explanations of varying falsifiability.

The title text describes Hawk as the first person to "land a 900," meaning the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYTNkAdDD8&t=1m30s successful completion] of a {{w|900 (skateboarding)|skateboarding trick}} that involves two and a half rotations, i.e. nine hundred degrees (2.5 × 360° = 900°). In physics, {{w|Spin (physics)|spin}} is a {{w|quantum number}} describing subatomic particles (see [[1862: Particle Properties]]), named in reference to the vaguely analogous ''but crucially distinct'' concept of {{w|angular momentum}} in classical physics. Obeying {{w|Fermi–Dirac statistics}} requires that the particles involved are {{w|fermion}}s, which include all of the electrons, protons and neutrons that comprise the entirety of everyone's standard mass and electrochemical state. Fermions all have {{w|half-integer}} (i.e., ...–1½, –½, ½, 1½...) {{w|spin quantum number}}s which do indeed include 2½, but only 5/2.[https://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/s137 extremely rare particles] have a spin of However, it's very important to remember that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYeRS5a3HbE&ab_channel=ScienceClicEnglish quantum mechanical spin is ''not'' rotation], but actually how quickly the corresponding particle changes state when rotated.

While everyone (and al most everything we ordinarily interact with except light and cosmic rays) is comprised entirely of fermions, {{w|Boson#Composite bosons|any composite particle made of an even number of fermions, including entire atoms and their nuclei, are not fermions}} but {{w|boson}}s, which do ''not'' obey Fermi–Dirac statistics. Luckily, landing a 900 does not actually require obedience to Fermi–Dirac statistics; a skateboarder comprised entirely of bosonic atoms would still have fermionic electrons in the orbitals of those atoms and thus would still (at a reductionist level) obey the far more macroscopically fundamental and consequential {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}} (as described in [https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/pauli-lecture.pdf this 1946 lecture]. That principle gives mostly empty atoms the property of substance, allowing you to hold things, walk, make sound waves with your voice and employ any mechanical property of matter. This gives a sufficiently skilled skateboarder the ability to land a 900, as well as everyfhing else they normally do (both on and off the skateboard).

==Transcript==
:[Tony Hawk (drawn with short hair) is gesturing at a narrow whiteboard on which illegible things are marked, what may be a Feynman diagram with one of the particle/antiparticle pair going into a circle (possibly representing a black hole, and thus depicting the popularized (incorrect) analogy for {{w|Hawking radiation}}), and at the bottom, a 2x3 table of illegible values.]
:Tony Hawk: In the standard model, regular matter will annihilate if it comes in contact with oppositely-charged ''goofy'' matter.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tony Hawk becomes a physics professor

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Skateboard]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

2967: Matter

2024-08-05T14:42:09Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */ Whoops.

{{comic
| number = 2967
| date = August 2, 2024
| title = Matter
| image = matter_2x.png
| imagesize = 234x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = He was the first person to land a 900, which is especially impressive because pulling off a half-integer spin requires obeying Fermi-Dirac statistics.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GOOFY FRONTSIDE WIKI GRIND TO SECRET PHYSICS DEMO TAPE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In {{w|skateboarding}}, the term "goofy" means to push with the left foot, using the {{w|Footedness#Goofy_stance|opposite stance}} to the supposedly standard stance of pushing with one's right foot. The comic uses the goofy stance as a analogy for {{w|antimatter}} in particle physics, which exhibits the opposite charge to ordinary matter and will annihilate both upon collision with its counterpart, releasing energy proportional to their combined mass. In this comic, famed professional skateboarder {{w|Tony Hawk}} has obtained a professorship in physics and is teaching the theory with this non-standard term8n9logy borrowed from his other field of expertise. 'Professor' Hawk already has an early xocd comic named after him: [[296: Tony Hawk]].

Hawk's presence here could in part be inspired by professor {{w|Stephen Hawking}}, a famous astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge who died in 2018. As Tony Hawk does not have a degree in physics,{{Citation needed}} teaching inaccurate lessons could be a likely pitfall of his gaining a professorship in real life.

Unlike other distributions of handedness in the natural world (chemical {{w|chirality}}, or the {{w|skewness}} of {{w|Multimodal distribution|bimodal statistics}} describing asymmetries in nature such wz {{w|homochirality}}), 'goofy-footed' skateboarders are about as common as those using standard footing. But this analogy also indirectly raises the problem of {{w|baryon asymmetry}}, in which ordinary matter appears to be much more common than antimatter. The baryon asymmetry is often thought to have resulted from inhomogeneities, or fluctuations, during {{w|Inflation (cosmology)|cosmological inflation}} which occured between 10−33 and 10−32 seconds [https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251301 after the Big Bang], although there are several other candidate explanations of varying falsifiability.

The title text describes Hawk as the first person to "land a 900," meaning the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYTNkAdDD8&t=1m30s successful completion] of a {{w|900 (skateboarding)|skateboarding trick}} that involves two and a half rotations, i.e. nine hundred degrees (2.5 × 360° = 900°). In physics, {{w|Spin (physics)|spin}} is a {{w|quantum number}} describing subatomic particles (see [[1862: Particle Properties]]), named in reference to the vaguely analogous ''but crucially distinct'' concept of {{w|angular momentum}} in classical physics. Obeying {{w|Fermi–Dirac statistics}} requires that the particles involved are {{w|fermion}}s, which include all of the electrons, protons and neutrons that comprise the entirety of everyone's standard mass and electrochemical state. Fermions all have {{w|half-integer}} (i.e., ...–1½, –½, ½, 1½...) {{w|spin quantum number}}s which do indeed include 2½, but only 5/2.[https://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/s137 extremely rare particles] have a spin of However, it's very important to remember that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYeRS5a3HbE&ab_channel=ScienceClicEnglish quantum mechanical spin is ''not'' rotation], but actually how quickly the corresponding particle changes state when rotated.

While everyone (and al most everything we ordinarily interact with except light and cosmic rays) is comprised entirely of fermions, {{w|Boson#Composite bosons|any composite particle made of an even number of fermions, including entire atoms and their nuclei, are not fermions}} but {{w|boson}}s, which do ''not'' obey Fermi–Dirac statistics. Luckily, landing a 900 does not actually require obedience to Fermi–Dirac statistics; a skateboarder comprised entirely of bosonic atoms would still have fermionic electrons in the orbitals of those atoms and thus would still (at a reductionist level) obey the far more macroscopically fundamental and consequential {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}} (as described in [https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/pauli-lecture.pdf this 1946 lecture]. That principle gives mostly empty atoms the property of substance, allowing you to hold things, walk, make sound waves with your voice and employ any mechanical property of matter. This gives a sufficiently skilled skateboarder the ability to land a 900, as well as everyfhing else they normally do (both on and off the skateboard).

==Transcript==
:[Tony Hawk (drawn with short hair) is gesturing at a narrow whiteboard on which illegible things are marked, what may be a Feynman diagram with one of the particle/antiparticle pair going into a circle (possibly representing a black hole, and thus depicting the popularized (incorrect) analogy for {{w|Hawking radiation}}), and at the bottom, a 2x3 table of illegible values.]
:Tony Hawk: In the standard model, regular matter will annihilate if it comes in contact with oppositely-charged ''goofy'' matter.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tony Hawk becomes a physics professor

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Skateboard]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

2963: House Inputs and Outputs

2024-07-29T08:52:11Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2963
| date = July 24, 2024
| title = House Inputs and Outputs
| image = house_inputs_and_outputs_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x684px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = People think power over ethernet is so great, and yet when I try to do water over ethernet everyone yells at me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a possible reference to [[1037: Umwelt]] in panel 16 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic in a series depicting {{w|confusion matrix|confusion matrices}}, similar to [[2813: What To Do]], [[2420: Appliances]], and [[1890: What to Bring]]. It is arranged as a table of five columns of conduits to and from a house, by five rows of resources and people, each of which typically enter, exit or both enter ''and'' exit the house via at least one of the identified conduits. The table cells have a green background for compatible methods of transit; a red tint is used for the more problematic pairings. Each panel can be read as "[row label] [entering and/or exiting] the house via the [column label]", for example, "Fresh water entering the house via the well".

{| class="wikitable" style="background-color: lightpink;"
|+ Explanations of the "House Inputs and Outputs" table cell drawings
! !! Well !! Garage !! Power lines !! Front door !! Septic tank
|-
! Fresh water (Input)
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The purpose of a well is usually to supply fresh water into the home, primarily for drinking or washing. It may be unnecessary in many places if a reliable {{w|water supply network}} is available. || Long gone are the days of {{w|Labours_of_Hercules#Fifth:_Augean_stables|having to clean up after your primary mode of transportation}}, for most people. A source of water may be useful to clean a vehicle itself, although this would perhaps be more commonly done outside. || Power lines conduct electricity, not water. The two functions are inherently dangerous if carelessly combined. Water can be used to cool high-energy lines, such as fast battery charger cables[https://www.connectortips.com/where-liquid-cooled-connectors-and-connectors-for-liquid-cooling-used-in-evs-faq/] and cables supplying electric arc furnaces, but not overhead residential power lines. || Many people prefer to control the amount of water they get, and contain it to a controlled area, since the water may damage things inside the house. || Pumping water into a septic tank could cause it to back up, resulting in the unpleasant contents being forced back in to the house. Also, if this were the only supply of water, most people would prefer anything they drink not to contain (or go through pipes that have contained) sewage.
|-
! Cars (Input/Output)
| Most cars can't fit inside most wells. Storing them in a well is also likely to be inconvenient when you come to need to use them again.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Garages are in fact built for the storage of cars and other similarly-sized vehicles. Placing a car in one will both help protect it from the elements and make it easier to access from inside your own home. || The illustration has the car actually balancing upon the strained wire, a rather difficult 'track' to drive upon, even assuming the cable is strong enough to withstand the forces. || Most cars can’t fit through a typical front door, and are likely to cause damage if forced. || Comedian {{w|Garrison Keillor}}'s 2008 ''More News from Lake Wobegon'' includes a story where an old septic tank is discovered to actually be a buried car.[https://theseriouscomedysite.com/comedy-cd-or-download/garrison-keillor-more-news-from-lake-wobegon/]
|-
! Electricity (Input)
| Wells are not designed to safely and effectively transfer electrical power to the devices that require it. The water would mostly just conduct the electricity into the surrounding construction. || In the United States, lightning is responsible for causing around 24,600 structure fires annually, resulting in $8 to $10 billion in losses.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Power lines are designed to facilitate the connection of individual homes to the broader local power network. [[Randall]] omits the fact that electricity can also be an output; e.g. houses with solar panels regularly export electricity too. || {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} invented the {{w|lightning rod}} to prevent lightning strike damage to structures. || As Knit Cap observes, septic tanks are not a source of electric power.
|-
! People (Input/Output)
|style="background-color: lightpink"| Inputting a person to a well can be very dangerous.{{Citation needed}} The comic depicts a view from inside a well (as a [[:Category:Comics with inverted brightness|dark scene]], it is drawn red-on-black). The motif resembles poster art for the 2002 horror movie remake ''{{w|The Ring (2002 film)|The Ring}}'', which involves a girl left to die in a well who becomes a vengeful ghost (see also [[396: The Ring]]).
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A person can enter and exit their home through a garage door, provided the garage has an internal door to the rest of the home. Though it is perhaps a fairly common way for such a house's residents to conveniently enter and exit, it isn't generally the best way to welcome or discharge most guests. || Overhead power lines to homes are generally not strong enough to climb, and attempting to do so incurs a very serious risk of electrocution.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The front door of a home is designed for entry and exit of humans and similarly sized items. || In general, people find crawling through waste unpleasant. Also, the septic tank is not connected to the street.
|-
! Sewage (Output)
| Sewage in drinking water can cause disease. It is/was the main cause for most {{w|cholera}} epidemics.
|colspan=3| Sewage spills are smelly, disgusting and hard to clean. They can destroy carpets, floors, drywall and property value.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A {{w|septic tank}} is an underground chamber through which wastewater flows for basic {{w|sewage treatment}}.
|}

The title text references {{w|Power over Ethernet|power over ethernet (PoE)}}, first implemented in the early 2000s, to provide electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. A welcome development, it removed the need for many separate power supplies. While networked water delivery ("running water") is also a welcome development, doing so over ethernet cables would be extremely problematic, risking several top points of failure, while providing limited amounts of water. However, again, electric vehicle fast charging cables and arc furnace power inputs are sometimes water-cooled.

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

:[A 5x5 grid of squares. The columns are labeled: Well, Garage, Power lines, Front door, Septic tank. Each row's label has an arrow and a basic house icon next to it. The rows are: Fresh water (horizontal arrow towards house), Cars (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Electricity (horizontal arrow into house), People (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Sewage (vertical arrow out of bottom of house).]

:Well, Fresh water: [green]
::[A many-featured house front and cross-sectional subsurface infrastructure, with various aspects that recur throughout most further grid-squares in one or other form. This particular one is distinguished by an arrow indicating movement up through a pipe leading inwards from an adjacent external borehole]
::Voice from house: Mmm! Refreshing!

:Garage, Fresh water: [red]
::[An obliquely off-frontal view of the house, featuring a set of Cueball-like figures directing a hosepipe's stream of water into the open garage-port doorway]
::''Fwoosh''

:Power lines, Fresh water: [red]
::[A different oblique angle concentrated upon the edge of the house upon which the overhead powerlines connect to, from a pole with transformer box and other wire coming from off-frame; the house wire appears to be dripping liquid]

:Front door, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view of the house, featuring the hosepipe cueballs directing water into the front door]
::Voice from house: Stop it!
::''Fwoosh!''

:Septic tank, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view; The subsurface septic tank feature has an arrow leading up from it through the diagonal pipe that connects to the house itself]
::Voice from house: Eww.

:Well, Cars: [red]
::[A view only of a ground pipe/borehole-head; A car seemingly upended and balanced atop on a front corner, being manhandled by Cueball and Megan figures]

:Garage, Cars: [green]
::[Normal frontal view; Garage door open, car seen parked inside]

:Power lines, Cars: [red]
::[Two power-line poles, the rightmost with transformer, having cables from off-left, between the poles and off-right; Two cueballs stand on the ground below, looking at a car heavily balanced mid-way along the central stretch of wire]

:Front door, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front doorway has surrounding damage and a car tightly wedged into it with two figures (Beret Guy and a Cueball) visible through the windows]
::Beret Guy, from car: Do you think I scratched the paint?

:Septic tank, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of the house; Within the underground sceptic tank, displacing some of the shallow dark liquid, is a car with two occupants]

:Well, Electricity: [red]
::[Borehole pipe-head; Cueball holds a laptop with a power lead trailing down into the pipe]
::Cueball's laptop: ⚠Low battery

:Garage, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the garage door]
::''BOOM''

:Power lines, Electricity: [green]
::[Frontal view of house, arrow leading down the power-cable and several 'electricity' symbols scattered around]

:Front door, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the front door]
::''BOOM''

:Septic tank, Electricity: [red]
::[Toilet and cistern, seat raised, with Knit Cap looking at a computer system, set up nearby on the floor, with a power lead draped into the toilet-bowl and (sic) a single 'electricity' symbol indicating power flow]
::Knit Cap: Why won't my console turn on?

:Well, People: [red (though overwhelmingly black)]
::[A mostly black tile with a rough circular outline of sketchy red lines]

:Garage, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball exits the open (darkened) garage doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Power lines, People: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; A Cueball is climbing up the power-line towards the top of the pole]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Front door, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A cueball exits the open front doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Septic tank, People: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball crawls into the elbow-deep dark liquid of the subsurface septic tank, emerging from the house-draining pipes]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Well, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Speech-line emerges from the house]
::Voice from house: ''Why do I keep getting sick???

:Garage, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Garage door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh no.

:Power lines, Sewage: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; Wide pipe-end emerges from the roof, disgorging a stream of dark liquid out onto the rising power-cable]
::Cueball: Eww.

:Front door, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh ''no''.

:Septic tank, Sewage: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; Dark liquid drains down drain-pipes into sceptic tank, with an arrow indicating the direction of flow]
::''Flush''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Confusion matrices]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2963: House Inputs and Outputs

2024-07-29T08:51:27Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2963
| date = July 24, 2024
| title = House Inputs and Outputs
| image = house_inputs_and_outputs_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x684px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = People think power over ethernet is so great, and yet when I try to do water over ethernet everyone yells at me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a possible reference to [[1037: Umwelt]] in panel 16 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic in a series depicting {{w|confusion matrix|confusion matrices}}, similar to [[2813: What To Do]], [[2420: Appliances]], and [[1890: What to Bring]]. It is arranged as a table of five columns of conduits to and from a house, by five rows of resources and people, each of which typically enter, exit or both enter ''and'' exit the house via at least one of the identified conduits. The table cells have a green background for compatible methods of transit; a red tint is used for the more problematic pairings. Each panel can be read as "[row label] [entering and/or exiting] the house via the [column label]", for example, "Fresh water entering the house via the well".

{| class="wikitable" style="background-color: lightpink;"
|+ Explanations of the "House Inputs and Outputs" table cell drawings
! !! Well !! Garage !! Power lines !! Front door !! Septic tank
|-
! Fresh water (Input)
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The purpose of a well is usually to supply fresh water into the home, primarily for drinking or washing. It may be unnecessary in many places if a reliable {{w|water supply network}} is available. || Long gone are the days of {{w|Labours_of_Hercules#Fifth:_Augean_stables|having to clean up after your primary mode of transportation}}, for most people. A source of water may be useful to clean a vehicle itself, although this would perhaps be more commonly done outside. || Power lines conduct electricity, not water. The two functions are inherently dangerous if carelessly combined. Water can be used to cool high-energy lines, such as fast battery charger cables[https://www.connectortips.com/where-liquid-cooled-connectors-and-connectors-for-liquid-cooling-used-in-evs-faq/] and cables supplying electric arc furnaces, but not overhead residential power lines. || Many people prefer to control the amount of water they get, and contain it to a controlled area, since the water may damage things inside the house. || Pumping water into a septic tank could cause it to back up, resulting in the unpleasant contents being forced back in to the house. Also, if this were the only supply of water, most people would prefer anything they drink not to contain (or go through pipes that have contained) sewage.
|-
! Cars (Input/Output)
| Most cars can't fit inside most wells. Storing them in a well is also likely to be inconvenient when you come to need to use them again.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Garages are in fact built for the storage of cars and other similarly-sized vehicles. Placing a car in one will both help protect it from the elements and make it easier to access from inside your own home. || The illustration has the car actually balancing upon the strained wire, a rather difficult 'track' to drive upon, even assuming the cable is strong enough to withstand the forces. || Most cars can’t fit through a typical front door, and are likely to cause damage if forced. || Comedian {{w|Garrison Keillor}}'s 2008 ''More News from Lake Wobegon'' includes a story where an old septic tank is discovered to actually be a buried car.[https://theseriouscomedysite.com/comedy-cd-or-download/garrison-keillor-more-news-from-lake-wobegon/]
|-
! Electricity (Input)
| Wells are not designed to safely and effectively transfer electrical power to the devices that require it. The water would mostly just conduct the electricity into the surrounding construction. || In the United States, lightning is responsible for causing around 24,600 structure fires annually, resulting in $8 to $10 billion in losses.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Power lines are designed to facilitate the connection of individual homes to the broader local power network. [[Randall]] omits the fact that electricity can also be an output; e.g. houses with solar panels regularly export electricity too. || {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} invented the {{w|lightning rod}} to prevent lightning strike damage to structures. || As Knit Cap observes, septic tanks are not a source of electric power.
|-
! People (Input/Output)
|style="background-color: lightpink"| Inputting a person to a well can be very dangerous.{{Citation needed}} The comic depicts a view from inside a well (as a [[:Category:Comics with inverted brightness|dark scene]], it is drawn red-on-black). The motif resembles poster art for the 2002 horror movie remake ''{{w|The Ring (2002 film)|The Ring}}'', which involves a girl left to die in a well who becomes a vengeful ghost (see also [[396: The Ring]]).
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A person can enter and exit their home through a garage door, provided the garage has an internal door to the rest of the home. Though it is perhaps a fairly common way for such a house's residents to conveniently enter and exit, it isn't generally the best way to welcome or discharge most guests through. || Overhead power lines to homes are generally not strong enough to climb, and attempting to do so incurs a very serious risk of electrocution.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The front door of a home is designed for entry and exit of humans and similarly sized items. || In general, people find crawling through waste unpleasant. Also, the septic tank is not connected to the street.
|-
! Sewage (Output)
| Sewage in drinking water can cause disease. It is/was the main cause for most {{w|cholera}} epidemics.
|colspan=3| Sewage spills are smelly, disgusting and hard to clean. They can destroy carpets, floors, drywall and property value.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A {{w|septic tank}} is an underground chamber through which wastewater flows for basic {{w|sewage treatment}}.
|}

The title text references {{w|Power over Ethernet|power over ethernet (PoE)}}, first implemented in the early 2000s, to provide electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. A welcome development, it removed the need for many separate power supplies. While networked water delivery ("running water") is also a welcome development, doing so over ethernet cables would be extremely problematic, risking several top points of failure, while providing limited amounts of water. However, again, electric vehicle fast charging cables and arc furnace power inputs are sometimes water-cooled.

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

:[A 5x5 grid of squares. The columns are labeled: Well, Garage, Power lines, Front door, Septic tank. Each row's label has an arrow and a basic house icon next to it. The rows are: Fresh water (horizontal arrow towards house), Cars (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Electricity (horizontal arrow into house), People (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Sewage (vertical arrow out of bottom of house).]

:Well, Fresh water: [green]
::[A many-featured house front and cross-sectional subsurface infrastructure, with various aspects that recur throughout most further grid-squares in one or other form. This particular one is distinguished by an arrow indicating movement up through a pipe leading inwards from an adjacent external borehole]
::Voice from house: Mmm! Refreshing!

:Garage, Fresh water: [red]
::[An obliquely off-frontal view of the house, featuring a set of Cueball-like figures directing a hosepipe's stream of water into the open garage-port doorway]
::''Fwoosh''

:Power lines, Fresh water: [red]
::[A different oblique angle concentrated upon the edge of the house upon which the overhead powerlines connect to, from a pole with transformer box and other wire coming from off-frame; the house wire appears to be dripping liquid]

:Front door, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view of the house, featuring the hosepipe cueballs directing water into the front door]
::Voice from house: Stop it!
::''Fwoosh!''

:Septic tank, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view; The subsurface septic tank feature has an arrow leading up from it through the diagonal pipe that connects to the house itself]
::Voice from house: Eww.

:Well, Cars: [red]
::[A view only of a ground pipe/borehole-head; A car seemingly upended and balanced atop on a front corner, being manhandled by Cueball and Megan figures]

:Garage, Cars: [green]
::[Normal frontal view; Garage door open, car seen parked inside]

:Power lines, Cars: [red]
::[Two power-line poles, the rightmost with transformer, having cables from off-left, between the poles and off-right; Two cueballs stand on the ground below, looking at a car heavily balanced mid-way along the central stretch of wire]

:Front door, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front doorway has surrounding damage and a car tightly wedged into it with two figures (Beret Guy and a Cueball) visible through the windows]
::Beret Guy, from car: Do you think I scratched the paint?

:Septic tank, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of the house; Within the underground sceptic tank, displacing some of the shallow dark liquid, is a car with two occupants]

:Well, Electricity: [red]
::[Borehole pipe-head; Cueball holds a laptop with a power lead trailing down into the pipe]
::Cueball's laptop: ⚠Low battery

:Garage, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the garage door]
::''BOOM''

:Power lines, Electricity: [green]
::[Frontal view of house, arrow leading down the power-cable and several 'electricity' symbols scattered around]

:Front door, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the front door]
::''BOOM''

:Septic tank, Electricity: [red]
::[Toilet and cistern, seat raised, with Knit Cap looking at a computer system, set up nearby on the floor, with a power lead draped into the toilet-bowl and (sic) a single 'electricity' symbol indicating power flow]
::Knit Cap: Why won't my console turn on?

:Well, People: [red (though overwhelmingly black)]
::[A mostly black tile with a rough circular outline of sketchy red lines]

:Garage, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball exits the open (darkened) garage doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Power lines, People: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; A Cueball is climbing up the power-line towards the top of the pole]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Front door, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A cueball exits the open front doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Septic tank, People: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball crawls into the elbow-deep dark liquid of the subsurface septic tank, emerging from the house-draining pipes]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Well, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Speech-line emerges from the house]
::Voice from house: ''Why do I keep getting sick???

:Garage, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Garage door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh no.

:Power lines, Sewage: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; Wide pipe-end emerges from the roof, disgorging a stream of dark liquid out onto the rising power-cable]
::Cueball: Eww.

:Front door, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh ''no''.

:Septic tank, Sewage: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; Dark liquid drains down drain-pipes into sceptic tank, with an arrow indicating the direction of flow]
::''Flush''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Confusion matrices]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2963: House Inputs and Outputs

2024-07-27T04:08:42Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */ Minor refactoring to cover the many social variations and expectations (given a compatible site/neighbourhood layout). It will depend vastly upon circumstances, of course.

{{comic
| number = 2963
| date = July 24, 2024
| title = House Inputs and Outputs
| image = house_inputs_and_outputs_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x684px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = People think power over ethernet is so great, and yet when I try to do water over ethernet everyone yells at me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a possible reference to [[1037: Umwelt]] in panel 16 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic in a series depicting {{w|confusion matrix|confusion matrices}}, similar to [[2813: What To Do]], [[2420: Appliances]], and [[1890: What to Bring]]. It is arranged as a table of five columns of conduits to and from a house, by five rows of resources and people, each of which typically enter, exit or both enter ''and'' exit the house via at least one of the identified conduits. The table cells have a green background for compatible methods of transit; a red tint is used for the more problematic pairings. Each panel can be read as "[row label] [entering and/or exiting] the house via the [column label]", for example, "Fresh water entering the house via the well".

{| class="wikitable" style="background-color: lightpink;"
|+ Explanations of the "House Inputs and Outputs" table cell drawings
! !! Well !! Garage !! Power lines !! Front door !! Septic tank
|-
! Fresh water (Input)
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The purpose of a well is usually to supply fresh water into the home, primarily for drinking or washing. It may be unnecessary in many places if a reliable {{w|water supply network}} is available. || Long gone are the days of {{w|Labours_of_Hercules#Fifth:_Augean_stables|having to clean up after your primary mode of transportation}}, for most people. A source of water may be useful to clean a vehicle itself, although this would perhaps be more commonly done outside. || Power lines conduct electricity, not water. The two functions are inherently dangerous if carelessly combined. Water can be used to cool high-energy lines, such as fast battery charger cables[https://www.connectortips.com/where-liquid-cooled-connectors-and-connectors-for-liquid-cooling-used-in-evs-faq/] and cables supplying electric arc furnaces, but not overhead residential power lines. || Many people prefer to control the amount of water they get, and the water may damage things inside the house. || Pumping water into a septic tank could cause it to back up, resulting in the unpleasant contents being forced back in to the house. Also, if this were the only supply of water, most people would prefer anything they drink not to contain (or go through pipes that have contained) sewage.
|-
! Cars (Input/Output)
| Most cars can't fit inside most wells. Storing them in a well is also likely to be inconvenient when you come to need to use them again.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Garages are in fact built for the storage of cars and other similarly-sized vehicles. Placing a car in one will both help protect it from the elements and make it easier to access from inside your own home. || As of yet, cars cannot be transferred through power lines and require roads to travel on. This could significantly reduce travel costs. However, the illustration here has the car actually balancing upon the strained wire, indicating a more mundane (but still not easy!) method of transit. || Most cars can’t fit through a typical front door, and are likely to cause damage if forced. || Comedian {{w|Garrison Keillor}}'s 2008 ''More News from Lake Wobegon'' includes a story where an old septic tank is discovered to actually be a buried car.[https://theseriouscomedysite.com/comedy-cd-or-download/garrison-keillor-more-news-from-lake-wobegon/]
|-
! Electricity (Input)
| Wells are not designed to safely and effectively transfer power to the devices that require it. The water would mostly just conduct the electricity into the surrounding construction. || In the United States, lightning is responsible for causing around 24,600 structure fires annually, resulting in $8 to $10 billion in losses. It is possible, though, for the house's junction box (where the main utility line terminates in order to supply the house's own wiring) to be located in or on the outside wall of the garage, so, in a sense, this may be workable.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Power lines are designed to facilitate the connection of individual homes to the broader local power network. [[Randall]] omits the fact that electricity can also be an output; e.g. houses with solar panels regularly export electricity too. || {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} invented the {{w|lightning rod}} to prevent lightning strike damage to structures. || As Knit Cap observes, septic tanks are not a source of electric power.
|-
! People (Input/Output)
|style="background-color: lightpink"| Inserting people into wells can be very dangerous.{{Citation needed}} The comic depicts a view from inside a well (as a [[:Category:Comics with inverted brightness|dark scene]], it is drawn red-on-black). The motif resembles poster art for the 2002 horror movie remake ''{{w|The Ring (2002 film)|The Ring}}'', which involves a girl left to die in a well who becomes a vengeful ghost (see also [[396: The Ring]]).
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A person can enter and exit their home through a garage door, provided the garage has an internal door to the rest of the home. Though it is the perhaps a fairly common way for such a house's residents to conveniently enter and exit, it isn't generally the best way to welcome or discharge most guests through. || Overhead power lines to homes are generally not strong enough to climb, and attempting to do so incurs a very serious risk of electrocution.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The front door of a home is designed for entry and exit of humans and similarly sized items. || In general, people find crawling through waste unpleasant. Also, the septic tank is not connected to the street.
|-
! Sewage (Output)
| Sewage in drinking water can cause disease. It is/was the main cause for most {{w|cholera}} epidemics.
|colspan=3| Sewage spills are smelly, disgusting and hard to clean. They can destroy carpets, floors, drywall and property value.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A {{w|septic tank}} is an underground chamber through which wastewater flows for basic {{w|sewage treatment}}.
|}

The title text references {{w|Power over Ethernet|power over ethernet (PoE)}}, first implemented in the early 2000s, to provide electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. A welcome development, it removed the need for many separate power supplies. While networked water delivery ("running water") is also a welcome development, doing so over ethernet cables would be extremely problematic, risking the several top points of failure, while providing limited amounts of water. However, again, electric vehicle fast charging cables and arc furnace power inputs are sometimes water-cooled.

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

:[A 5x5 grid of squares. The columns are labeled: Well, Garage, Power lines, Front door, Septic tank. Each row's label has an arrow and a basic house icon next to it. The rows are: Fresh water (horizontal arrow towards house), Cars (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Electricity (horizontal arrow into house), People (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Sewage (vertical arrow out of bottom of house).]

:Well, Fresh water: [green]
::[A many-featured house front and cross-sectional subsurface infrastructure, with various aspects that recur throughout most further grid-squares in one or other form. This particular one is distinguished by an arrow indicating movement up through a pipe leading inwards from an adjacent external borehole]
::Voice from house: Mmm! Refreshing!

:Garage, Fresh water: [red]
::[An obliquely off-frontal view of the house, featuring a set of Cueball-like figures directing a hosepipe's stream of water into the open garage-port doorway]
::''Fwoosh''

:Power lines, Fresh water: [red]
::[A different oblique angle concentrated upon the edge of the house upon which the overhead powerlines connect to, from a pole with transformer box and other wire coming from off-frame; the house wire appears to be dripping liquid]

:Front door, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view of the house, featuring the hosepipe cueballs directing water into the front door]
::Voice from house: Stop it!
::''Fwoosh!''

:Septic tank, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view; The subsurface septic tank feature has an arrow leading up from it through the diagonal pipe that connects to the house itself]
::Voice from house: Eww.

:Well, Cars: [red]
::[A view only of a ground pipe/borehole-head; A car seemingly upended and balanced atop on a front corner, being manhandled by Cueball and Megan figures]

:Garage, Cars: [green]
::[Normal frontal view; Garage door open, car seen parked inside]

:Power lines, Cars: [red]
::[Two power-line poles, the rightmost with transformer, having cables from off-left, between the poles and off-right; Two cueballs stand on the ground below, looking at a car heavily balanced mid-way along the central stretch of wire]

:Front door, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front doorway has surrounding damage and a car tightly wedged into it with two figures (Beret Guy and a Cueball) visible through the windows]
::Beret Guy, from car: Do you think I scratched the paint?

:Septic tank, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of the house; Within the underground sceptic tank, displacing some of the shallow dark liquid, is a car with two occupants]

:Well, Electricity: [red]
::[Borehole pipe-head; Cueball holds a laptop with a power lead trailing down into the pipe]
::Cueball's laptop: ⚠Low battery

:Garage, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the garage door]
::''BOOM''

:Power lines, Electricity: [green]
::[Frontal view of house, arrow leading down the power-cable and several 'electricity' symbols scattered around]

:Front door, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the front door]
::''BOOM''

:Septic tank, Electricity: [red]
::[Toilet and cistern, seat raised, with Knit Cap looking at a computer system, set up nearby on the floor, with a power lead draped into the toilet-bowl and (sic) a single 'electricity' symbol indicating power flow]
::Knit Cap: Why won't my console turn on?

:Well, People: [red (though overwhelmingly black)]
::[A mostly black tile with a rough circular outline of sketchy red lines]

:Garage, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball exits the open (darkened) garage doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Power lines, People: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; A Cueball is climbing up the power-line towards the top of the pole]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Front door, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A cueball exits the open front doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Septic tank, People: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball crawls into the elbow-deep dark liquid of the subsurface septic tank, emerging from the house-draining pipes]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Well, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Speech-line emerges from the house]
::Voice from house: ''Why do I keep getting sick???

:Garage, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Garage door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh no.

:Power lines, Sewage: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; Wide pipe-end emerges from the roof, disgorging a stream of dark liquid out onto the rising power-cable]
::Cueball: Eww.

:Front door, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh ''no''.

:Septic tank, Sewage: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; Dark liquid drains down drain-pipes into sceptic tank, with an arrow indicating the direction of flow]
::''Flush''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Confusion matrices]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2963: House Inputs and Outputs

2024-07-26T16:21:08Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2963
| date = July 24, 2024
| title = House Inputs and Outputs
| image = house_inputs_and_outputs_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x684px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = People think power over ethernet is so great, and yet when I try to do water over ethernet everyone yells at me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a possible reference to [[1037: Umwelt]] in panel 16 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic in a series depicting {{w|confusion matrix|confusion matrices}}, similar to [[2813: What To Do]], [[2420: Appliances]], and [[1890: What to Bring]]. It is arranged as a table of five columns of conduits to and from a house, by five rows of resources and people, each of which typically enter, exit or both enter ''and'' exit the house via at least one of the identified conduits. The table cells have a green background for compatible methods of transit; a red tint is used for the more problematic pairings. Each panel can be read as "[row label] [entering and/or exiting] the house via the [column label]", for example, "Fresh water entering the house via the well".

{| class="wikitable" style="background-color: lightpink;"
|+ Explanations of the "House Inputs and Outputs" table cell drawings
! !! Well !! Garage !! Power lines !! Front door !! Septic tank
|-
! Fresh water (Input)
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The purpose of a well is usually to supply fresh water into the home, primarily for drinking or washing. It may be unnecessary in many places if a reliable {{w|water supply network}} is available. || Long gone are the days of {{w|Labours_of_Hercules#Fifth:_Augean_stables|having to clean up after your primary mode of transportation}}, for most people. || Power lines conduct electricity, not water. The two functions are inherently dangerous if carelessly combined. Water can be used to cool high-energy lines, such as fast battery charger cables[https://www.connectortips.com/where-liquid-cooled-connectors-and-connectors-for-liquid-cooling-used-in-evs-faq/] and cables supplying electric arc furnaces, but not overhead residential power lines. || Many people prefer to control the amount of water they get, and the water may damage things inside the house. || Most people don't want anything they drink to contain (or go through pipes that have contained) sewage.
|-
! Cars (Input/Output)
| Most cars can't fit inside most wells.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Garages are in fact built for the storage of cars and other similarly-sized vehicles. Placing a car in one will both help protect it from the elements and make it easier to access from inside your own home. || As of yet, cars cannot be transferred through power lines and require roads to travel on. This could significantly reduce travel costs. However, the illustration here has the car actually balancing upon the strained wire, indicating a more mundane (but still not easy!) method of transit. || Most cars can’t fit through doors, apart from the garage door. || Comedian {{w|Garrison Keillor}}'s 2008 ''More News from Lake Wobegon'' includes a story where an old septic tank is discovered to actually be a buried car.[https://theseriouscomedysite.com/comedy-cd-or-download/garrison-keillor-more-news-from-lake-wobegon/]
|-
! Electricity (Input)
| Wells are not a source of electric power, and attempting to obtain electricity from a well would likely contaminate its water supply. || In the United States, lightning is responsible for causing around 24,600 structure fires annually, resulting in $8 to $10 billion in losses. It is possible, though, for the house's junction box (where the main utility line terminates in order to supply the house's own wiring) to be located in or on the outside wall of the garage, so, in a sense, this may be workable.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Power lines are designed to facilitate the connection of individual homes to the broader local power network. [[Randall]] omits the fact that electricity can also be an output; e.g. houses with solar panels regularly export electricity too. || {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} invented the {{w|lightning rod}} to prevent lightning strike damage to structures. || As Knit Cap observes, septic tanks are not a source of electric power.
|-
! People (Input/Output)
|style="background-color: lightpink"| This depicts a view from inside a well, a very dangerous place for most people.{{Citation needed}} As a [[:Category:Comics with inverted brightness|dark scene]], it is drawn red-on-black. The motif resembles poster art for the 2002 horror movie remake ''{{w|The Ring (2002 film)|The Ring}}'', which involves a girl left to die in a well who becomes a vengeful ghost (see also [[396: The Ring]]).
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A person can enter and exit their home through a garage door, provided the garage has an internal door to the rest of the home. Not the best way to welcome unfamiliar guests though. || Overhead power lines to homes are generally not strong enough to climb, and attempting to do so incurs a very serious risk of electrocution.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The front door of a home is designed for entry and exit of humans and similarly sized items. || In general, people find crawling through waste unpleasant. Also, the septic tank is not connected to the street.
|-
! Sewage (Output)
| Sewage in drinking water can cause disease. It is/was the main cause for most {{w|cholera}} epidemics.
|colspan=3| Sewage spills are smelly, disgusting and hard to clean. They can destroy carpets, floors, drywall and property value.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A {{w|septic tank}} is an underground chamber through which wastewater flows for basic {{w|sewage treatment}}.
|}

The title text references {{w|Power over Ethernet|power over ethernet (PoE)}}, first implemented in the early 2000s, to provide electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. A welcome development, it removed the need for many separate power supplies. While networked water delivery ("running water") is also a welcome development, doing so over ethernet cables would be extremely problematic, risking the several top points of failure, while providing limited amounts of water. However, again, electric vehicle fast charging cables and arc furnace power inputs are sometimes water-cooled.

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

:[A 5x5 grid of squares. The columns are labeled: Well, Garage, Power lines, Front door, Septic tank. Each row's label has an arrow and a basic house icon next to it. The rows are: Fresh water (horizontal arrow towards house), Cars (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Electricity (horizontal arrow into house), People (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Sewage (vertical arrow out of bottom of house).]

:Well, Fresh water: [green]
::[A many-featured house front and cross-sectional subsurface infrastructure, with various aspects that recur throughout most further grid-squares in one or other form. This particular one is distinguished by an arrow indicating movement up through a pipe leading inwards from an adjacent external borehole]
::Voice from house: Mmm! Refreshing!

:Garage, Fresh water: [red]
::[An obliquely off-frontal view of the house, featuring a set of Cueball-like figures directing a hosepipe's stream of water into the open garage-port doorway]
::''Fwoosh''

:Power lines, Fresh water: [red]
::[A different oblique angle concentrated upon the edge of the house upon which the overhead powerlines connect to, from a pole with transformer box and other wire coming from off-frame; the house wire appears to be dripping liquid]

:Front door, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view of the house, featuring the hosepipe cueballs directing water into the front door]
::Voice from house: Stop it!
::''Fwoosh!''

:Septic tank, Fresh water: [red]
::[Normal frontal view; The subsurface septic tank feature has an arrow leading up from it through the diagonal pipe that connects to the house itself]
::Voice from house: Eww.

:Well, Cars: [red]
::[A view only of a ground pipe/borehole-head; A car seemingly upended and balanced atop on a front corner, being manhandled by Cueball and Megan figures]

:Garage, Cars: [green]
::[Normal frontal view; Garage door open, car seen parked inside]

:Power lines, Cars: [red]
::[Two power-line poles, the rightmost with transformer, having cables from off-left, between the poles and off-right; Two cueballs stand on the ground below, looking at a car heavily balanced mid-way along the central stretch of wire]

:Front door, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front doorway has surrounding damage and a car tightly wedged into it with two figures (Beret Guy and a Cueball) visible through the windows]
::Beret Guy, from car: Do you think I scratched the paint?

:Septic tank, Cars: [red]
::[Frontal view of the house; Within the underground sceptic tank, displacing some of the shallow dark liquid, is a car with two occupants]

:Well, Electricity: [red]
::[Borehole pipe-head; Cueball holds a laptop with a power lead trailing down into the pipe]
::Cueball's laptop: ⚠Low battery

:Garage, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the garage door]
::''BOOM''

:Power lines, Electricity: [green]
::[Frontal view of house, arrow leading down the power-cable and several 'electricity' symbols scattered around]

:Front door, Electricity: [red]
::[Frontal view of house, with lightning strike explosively hitting the area of the front door]
::''BOOM''

:Septic tank, Electricity: [red]
::[Toilet and cistern, seat raised, with Knit Cap looking at a computer system, set up nearby on the floor, with a power lead draped into the toilet-bowl and (sic) a single 'electricity' symbol indicating power flow]
::Knit Cap: Why won't my console turn on?

:Well, People: [red (though overwhelmingly black)]
::[A mostly black tile with a rough circular outline of sketchy red lines]

:Garage, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball exits the open (darkened) garage doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Power lines, People: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; A Cueball is climbing up the power-line towards the top of the pole]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Front door, People: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; A cueball exits the open front doorway, waving]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Septic tank, People: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; A Cueball crawls into the elbow-deep dark liquid of the subsurface septic tank, emerging from the house-draining pipes]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Well, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Speech-line emerges from the house]
::Voice from house: ''Why do I keep getting sick???

:Garage, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Garage door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh no.

:Power lines, Sewage: [red]
::[Oblique side view of house; Wide pipe-end emerges from the roof, disgorging a stream of dark liquid out onto the rising power-cable]
::Cueball: Eww.

:Front door, Sewage: [red]
::[Frontal view of house; Front door is open, revealing Cueball knee-deep in dark liquid]
::Cueball: Oh ''no''.

:Septic tank, Sewage: [green]
::[Frontal view of house; Dark liquid drains down drain-pipes into sceptic tank, with an arrow indicating the direction of flow]
::''Flush''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Confusion matrices]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

Talk:2960: Organ Meanings

2024-07-19T08:05:02Z

172.70.85.138: /* Confusion about "appendix" */ new section

how is thymus formed [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.102|172.70.85.102]] 07:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
: It grows from seed.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.97|172.69.194.97]] 12:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

You think Randall might have made this one as a ploy to have explain xkcd educate him on the organs and metaphors mentioned? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.33|162.158.146.33]] 07:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Why is 'Liver' so high up on the metaphor scale? The only one I can think of is 'lily-livered', which doesn't appear to make much sense at all. On the other hand, I'd have 'Spleen' nearer the top, and 'Tongue' fairly high up as well. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.185|172.70.162.185]] 08:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:Agreed; personally I’d have liver and tongue switch places, and I’d guess the one who added silver-tongued and biting one’s tongue would probably agree also. But that might be because I understand the biological function of a liver better than the average person does. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.5|172.70.210.5]] 08:21, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:: Are those really metaphors, though? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.40.152|162.158.40.152]] 09:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
::: They aren't, or at least not metaphors to the tongue. Just done an edit, before having read this, to remove the visibility of "silver tongue" (a tongue that is metaphorically as silver... or maybe even quicksilver) and a "bitten tongue" (the tongue as if restrained by biting). Though there are other forms, the metaphor to biological function must be of the general "it is the tongue of the <something else>" type, maybe such as a tongue of lava or the tongue of an oil-can (one being an extending appendage, the other additionally being a contact depositor of liquid - though not always consistent in application).
::: Something can more easily be understood as the metaphorical heart/nerves/spine/etc of something, and we also have a good understanding of what the originals do. A sewage treatment plant can be considered the kidneys of a town (arguably more understood than a liver of one, for example, so I'd have personally switched the two), but it gets more complex with some of them. In the case of the appendix, we pretty much ''only'' know (in lay-use) that it's a spare fleshy bit that might or might not have any use, so the metaphorical 'equivalent biological function' of a "town's 'appendix'" is probably more understood than a body's ''actual'' appendix, for most people, the opposite of the situation with metaphorical/actual tongues. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.64|172.70.91.64]] 10:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:::: Your understanding of metaphors is... unique. A "silver tongue" certainly is a tongue-based metaphor; we're referring to someone's manner of speech as their "tongue".{{unsigned|Collapsinghrung}}
::::: From my perspective, that's a tongue-''targetting'' metaphor. "He has a tongue of silver" (in this case "tongue" is a metonym of "manner of talking", not a metaphor). Your understanding of what the tongue refers to is different from metaphor/simile, etc, as it ''is'' the thing (the talking) that is refered to. It's the silverness that's an metaphorical element. Or, like "To bite one's tongue", having become an established idiom. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.145|172.70.86.145]] 16:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
: The one I think of is "What am I chopped Liver". Though according to google that is usually a Jewish metaphor (which I am) {{unsigned ip|162.158.158.103}}
:Liver has medieval English metaphors for bravery too, but afaik usually in the context of weak-liver = cowardly; e.g. lily-livered. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.130.19|172.69.130.19]] 14:25, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:Euch ist wohl ne Laus über die Leber gelaufen! (German proverb, "=someone angered you?!") [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.115|172.71.160.115]] 07:12, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that 'Metaphor meaning' is going to work as a column in the table - several of these have multiple metaphors associated, often with varied and little-related meanings.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.249|172.70.160.249]] 12:20, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I just added the line about anatomical metaphors varying from culture to culture. Would people like to include any examples of culturally variable metaphors? I think it was Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated" where an Eastern European character kept shouting out "spleen". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.172|172.70.46.172]] 12:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:One example off the top of my head - and might need a proper reference to add - is the common use of Kidneys in metaphor. Afaik, the most common-slang in NA for that is "ow my kidneys" as in "I laughed so hard, my kidneys hurt now." Meanwhile, in many East Asian cultures, references to the 'kidneys' is most commonly used as an euphemism for sexual performance due to the connection to traditional medicine, where having sex is seen as 'exerting/damaging the kidneys.' E.g., feeding someone food 'good for the kidneys,' references to 'oh, your kidneys have been overexerted lately,' 'are your kidneys okay,' etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.214.38|172.69.214.38]] 14:05, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

==Humors==
Bodily fluids ({{w|humors}}) had the same overlap, with early doctors thinking that fluids influenced moods (giving us terms like "sanguine", "phlegmatic", "bilious"). Could someone add a section about that? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.47.23|172.70.47.23]] 15:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

== Confusion about "appendix" ==

Your table in the article says that "appendix" has a metaphorical meaning of "uselessness", but I don't think this is true. Can you find a dictionary that has a figurative sense? Wiktionary for example does not [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/appendix]. I think Randall may be a little confused about what is a metaphor, and may have intended "appendix" here in the sense of an extra part added to a book or academic paper etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 08:05, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Template:u

2023-07-25T08:00:58Z

172.70.85.138: Undo revision 319079 by Explain XKCD Adminstrator (talk) Undo latest vandalism

<includeonly>[[Urbandict:{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1}}}{{!}}{{{2|{{{1|}}}}}}]]|{{PAGENAME}}{{!}}{{PAGENAME}}]] at [[Urbandict:|Urbandict]]}}</includeonly><noinclude>
A template to make a link to Urbandictionary.

==Usage==
*<nowiki>{{u}}</nowiki> by itself links to the Urbandictionary page for the page you use the template on
**{{u}}
*<nowiki>{{u|Page}}</nowiki> links to the Urbandictionary article on "Page"
**{{u|Page}}
*<nowiki>{{u|Page|Display}}</nowiki> prints "Display" which links to the Urbandictionary article on "Page"
**{{u|Page|Display}}

[[Category:Templates]]
</noinclude>

2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-06T08:32:45Z

172.70.85.138: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2798
| date = July 5, 2023
| title = Room Temperature
| image = room_temperature_2x.png
| imagesize = 299x352px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're also refusing to fund my device that demonstrates uncontrolled hot fusion.
}}

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

In this comic, Cueball presents a room-temperature [[wikipedia:Semiconductor|semiconductor]], consisting of layered silicon crystals. He enthusiastically describes the properties of his "discovery", namely that it can be tweaked to amplify or switch the flow of electric currents, but his audience is not impressed. This might be because silicon crystal semiconductors are already widely in use as a [[wikipedia:Semiconductor_device|key component of electronic systems]].

It appears that Cueball has confused semiconductors with [[wikipedia:Superconductivity|superconductors]] - materials that have an electrical resistance of absolute zero, meaning the flow of electrons is not slowed down at all (resistance can be thought of as the electrical equivalence of friction). Superconducting properties are extremely desirable since they allow for the lossless flow of electric current, as opposed to regular conductors like copper which have a low but non-zero resistance so the electric current decreases over time and distance. However, the known superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures close to 0 K, so their practical use is very limited. The discovery of superconductors that work above the boiling point of nitrogen (77 K or -196 °C) was a big deal because it meant that relatively cheap liquid nitrogen could be used as coolant rather than liquid helium. The discovery of a superconductor that works at room temperature (293 K) would be a much bigger deal and would likely earn the discovering scientist(s) a Nobel prize.

In the title text, Cueball talks about a device that produces “uncontrolled [[wikipedia:Nuclear_fusion|hot fusion]]” which is also not met with enthusiasm. Again, this is likely due to the fact that it has already been discovered and used - in the form of [[wikipedia:Thermonuclear weapon| hydrogen bombs]]. ''Controlled'' hot fusion could be useful as an [[wikipedia:Fusion_power|alternative power source]] of nuclear reactors (which currently use nuclear ''fission''); however, [[wikipedia:Tokamak|current implementations]] still require more energy than they create. Cueball probably confused this with [[wikipedia:Cold_fusion|''cold'' fusion]] which is a purely hypothetical nuclear reaction that would take place at room temperature. If real, this process could provide large amount of cheap energy but so far, all experiments that were claimed to have achieved cold fusion were found to be severely flawed and the results could not be replicated.

It should be noted that both "discoveries" presented in the comic were in fact very big and important discoveries back in their day. The proposal that nuclear fusion is what powers stars earned [[wikipedia:Hans_Bethe|Hans Bethe]] the Nobel price in Physics, and semiconductors are what allows modern electronic devices to be so small as their properties make it possible to selectively steer the flow of electrical current [[wikipedia:Integrated_circuit|even over an extremely small area]].

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

[A single frame with a table in the middle. To the left of the table stands a Cueball, and to the right of the table stands Megan and another Cueball.]

:Cueball: My layered silicon crystals can amplify or switch current while sitting right here on the table!
:Ponytail: Uh huh.
:Another Cueball: I see.

:Caption: No one is impressed by my discovery of room-temperature semiconductors.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]

55: Useless

2023-06-26T21:16:27Z

172.70.85.138: Typo ("multipliex"). And no need for "wikilink" with an alternate of "wikilinks" if you use "wikilink"s.

{{comic
| number = 55
| date = January 27, 2006
| title = Useless
| image = useless.jpg
| titletext = Even the identity matrix doesn't work normally
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] is attempting to apply mathematics to the concept of love to no avail. Specifically, he is attempting his "normal approach", which is a term used in mathematics for the method one typically uses to solve a certain type of problem. However, as love is not a well-defined mathematical entity, his normal approach is useless. Simply put: he's saying he has found no way of describing love using only the tools of mathematics.

From the top, moving left to right, he tries the {{w|square root}} of love, the {{w|cosine}} of love, and the {{w|derivative}} of love with respect to x. He then attempts to left-multiply love by a 2x2 {{w|identity matrix}}, and finally he defines a {{w|Function (mathematics)|function}} of love as a {{w|Fourier transform}}. These are all "normal approaches" to solving certain math problems.

The message of the comic is that for someone who uses math to solve all their problems, defining love is impossible. It also indicates that love is not always a rational (or irrational) phenomenon.

This comic has been made into a [http://store.xkcd.com/products/useless t-shirt] in the xkcd store, with a {{w|Laplace transform}} in place of the bottom integral.

===Basic explanations of the functions===
:''Note: The Wikipedia links will provide far more detailed explanations of the mathematics.''
*The {{w|square root}}s of x are the two numbers (positive and negative) where each multiplied by themself equals x. Often only the positive answer is quoted.
*{{w|Cosine}} is a {{w|trigonometric function}} that, when given the measure of an angle in a {{w|right triangle}} as an input, outputs the ratio of the lengths of two sides of that triangle (for cosine, it is the non-{{w|hypotenuse}} side adjacent to the angle and the hypotenuse).
*A {{w|derivative}} of a function is the rate of change of that function at a given value of x. It is a primary focus of {{w|calculus}}. A basic example is where "velocity" is the rate of change of displacement at a given time, the derivative of velocity is "acceleration", which is the rate of change of velocity at a given time.
*{{w|identity matrix|Identity matrices}} are {{w|matrix (mathematics)|matrices}} that consist of only zeros and ones, with zeros everywhere except along the {{w|main diagonal}}. Multiplying a matrix by the equal-sized identity matrix will result in the same output in the same way that multiplying a non-matrix by 1 does not change the original term. The title text suggests that multiplying love by the identity matrix does not return the same "love" value.
*A {{w|Fourier transform}} converts a function from one (sophisticated) function into an endless continuous series of (more simple) functions, where each next part is bringing the equation closer to the real result. This means that you can stop your calculations after a few iterations and you are very close to the real result, and it also can be used to deconstruct signals.

==Transcript==
:[Different mathematical equations, all with a heart on left side, and all ending up with question marks.]
:√♥ = ?
:cos ♥ = ?
:d/dx ♥ = ?
:[1 0]♥ = ?
:[0 1]
:F{♥} = 1/√2π ∫∞-∞f(t)eit♥dt = ?
:[Caption below:]
:My normal approach is useless here.

==Trivia==
*This was the 52nd and last comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[53: Hobby]].
**The next comic [[56: The Cure]] was not also posted on LiveJournal
***This thus ends this repeating trivia section that has been present for all those 52 LiveJournal comics.
***Also after this there has been no issue with comics released at two times, since they were now released only on xkcd.
*This comic kept its original title: "Useless"
**It is part of the last six comics on LiveJournal which all had a title without the word "Drawing" in it.
**Five of these had exactly the same title on both sites.
**Only 11 comics have the same title on both sites.
**Apart from the [[:Category:First day on LiveJournal|thirteen first comics]] posted to LiveJournal, there were only three other comics without the word "Drawing" in the title before these last six.
*There was no original [[Randall]] quote for this comic.
*This comic was the last of the last 11 comics posted on LiveJournal.
**These 11 comics were [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd|posted both on LiveJournal and xkcd]] after the [[xkcd]] site opened on the 1st of January 2006.
**The first six comics were posted on both sites on the same day.
**And then this first happened again with this last comic.
*The version used on the [http://store.xkcd.com/products/useless t-shirt] and in ''[http://store.xkcd.com/products/xkcd-volume-0 xkcd: volume 0]'' is slightly different. The derivative is with respect to time (''t'') instead of ''x'', and the function at the bottom is a {{w|Laplace transform}}.
*This comic was adapted to a wedding cake featured on [http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2011/6/26/sunday-sweets-geek-wedding-cakes.html an installment of "Sunday Sweets"], a regular feature on popular blog [http://cakewrecks.com Cake Wrecks].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal| 52]]
[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Footer comics]] 
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]