explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2814: Perseids Pronunciation

2023-08-16T08:35:47Z

172.70.85.200: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2814
| date = August 11, 2023
| title = Perseids Pronunciation
| image = perseids_pronunciation_2x.png
| imagesize = 291x414px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = When speaking out loud, you can can [sic] call it the 'Perseids meatier shower' and no one will ever know. (If you do get caught somehow, just tell them to Google the 'Kentucky meat shower' and that will distract them while you escape.)
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by the per-se-DEIS meteor shower - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic references the {{w|Perseids meteor shower}}, which is active in July and August. Their name ultimately derives from the ancient Greek hero ''Perseus'' (for ''his'' pronounciaton, check {{w|Perseus}}). There are various ways of pronouncing ''Perseids'', and [[Randall]] gives the obvious ones before the comic spirals into virtual nonsense, or possibly parodies of {{wiktionary|va-jay-jay|common euphemistic replacement words}}.

It should be noted that the last consonant is often pronounced as a "z" sound rather than "s" (the technical term is "voiced"), which is not reflected in these spellings.

{| class="wikitable"
! scope="col"| Section
! scope="col"| Term
! scope="col"| Explanation

|-
! scope="row"| Generally accepted
| PER-see-ids
PURSE-yids
| These are the most common pronunciations in English.
|-
! scope="row"| Also heard sometimes
| Per-SEE-ids
Per-SAY-ids
| These are also considered acceptable.
|-
! scope="row"| Generally frowned on
|Per-SIDES
Per-ZAY-uds
PER-suds
| These are not very correct, but better than below
|-
!rowspan="5"| Definitely wrong
| Perky-ids
| Calling them Perky may refer to them being very energetic, or could be an attempt to be dirty.
|-
| Pewpewpews
| This refers to fictional lasers - in particular, laser guns - which are known for their "pewpewpew" sounds. When most people think of meteors, it is as streaks of light across the sky, which may look somewhat like depictions of such laser fire. However, meteors are most definitely not lasers. Fictional lasers are also often used to shoot fictional meteors, so "pewpewpew meteors" might make a kind of sense as a description of such action.
|-
| Per-say-says
| This is a tradition of rhyming lazy/cute slang, like referring to the female reproductive part as {{wiktionary|va-jay-jay}}.
|-
| Percies  Purps
| Spaced out to indicate that each word in the row is a separate entry. "Percies" seems akin to nicknaming each meteor "Percy" and referring to all of them as a group. Purps is close to Perps, a short slang form of Perpetrator (generally the person responsible for a crime).
|-
| Pepsids  Peeps
| Also spaced out. "Pepsids" seems to refer to Pepcid, an antacid, but misspelled to match the original word. It could also be referencing {{w|Pepsi}}. "Peeps" are shorebirds that are impossible to identify (for example, {{w|Least Sandpiper}}). See {{w|stints}}. But more likely either a reference to the Peep, a spongy candy which is shaped and decorated like baby chickens, or the slang for "people", particularly a group that the speaker identifies with, "my peeps". If the two names on this line were joined together, they could refer to a group of people in some way associated with antacids.
|}

The title text mentions how "meteor" sounds like "meatier," {{w|Homophone|although the meanings are completely different}}. It suggests telling people about the {{w|Kentucky meat shower}}, an anomalous weather event in 1876, as a [[2467: Wikipedia Caltrops|way to distract]] them.

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

:How to pronounce the name of the Perseids meteor shower

:Generally accepted
::PER-see-ids
::PURSE-yids

:Also heard sometimes
::Per-SEE-ids
::Per-SAY-ids

:Generally frowned on
::Per-SIDES
::Per-ZAY-uds
::PER-suds

:''Definitely'' wrong
::Perky-ids
::Pewpewpews
::Per-say-says
::Percies Purps
::Pepsids Peeps

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

1168: tar

2023-01-25T14:57:39Z

172.70.85.200: /* Explanation */ Restoring some sense accidentally lost through someone's editing.

{{comic
| number = 1168
| date = February 1, 2013
| title = tar
| image = tar.png
| titletext = I don't know what's worse--the fact that after 15 years of using tar I still can't keep the flags straight, or that after 15 years of technological advancement I'm still mucking with tar flags that were 15 years old when I started.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Tar (computing)|tar}} ("tape archive") is a {{w|Unix|Unix}} application that creates (and extracts) archives in the ".tar" format. It is typically used through the text-based terminal, using cryptic single-letter arguments such as "<code>tar -cvf archive.tar *</code>". Many Unix executables are distributed via tar archives; as a result tar files would be encountered by Unix users as commonly as Windows users encounter EXE files. Depending on the flavor of Unix, the order of the flags, or the exclusion of the hyphen, could render the command incorrect, which would either throw up an error or worse, cause one to accidentally overwrite or delete important files.

The comic alludes to the fact that, despite years of use of the command, it is incredibly hard to remember what the letters stand for without looking them up, such as with Google. The joke here is that a "tar" command with perfect syntax on the first try without outside help is such a daunting task that even [[Rob]] can't overcome it with confidence, and apologizes for not being able to prevent their imminent death.

The title text points out that while much of computing changes very quickly, the tar program, which is very old (originating ca. 1975), is still around and heavily used. [[Randall]] points out the paradox that after 15 years he is still unable to write out a proper tar command from memory, yet at the same time he feels that he shouldn't ''have'' to and a newer, better tool really should have come along already.

There is probably also a pun on "{{w|tarbomb}}," a poorly created tar archive that, when extracted, dumps a load of files into the current directory that the user has to clean up. And although the bomb looks more like {{w|Fat Man}}, the type of bomb that was used over {{w|Nagasaki}}, at least size-wise, it may also be a pun on the name of the largest ever {{w|hydrogen bomb}} which was called the {{w|Tsar Bomba}} (translation: "emperor bomb").

In [[208: Regular Expressions]] [[Cueball]] saves the day by knowing {{w|regular expression}}s, although in the title text it is alluded to how easy these may also miss a character.

Rob may refer to {{w|Rob Pike}}, who was a member of the team at AT&T who created Unix.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and White Hat stand next to a nuclear bomb. The bomb has a hatch open on top, and a small blinking screen. The two people are shouting off-screen.]
:Megan: Rob! You use Unix!
:White Hat: Come quick!

:[Megan, White Hat, and Rob look at the screen on the bomb. Rob peers closely. The screen is on the bomb, but is shown at the top of the panel in black with white letters, except "tar" and the last underscore which is in gray and "ten" which is black but written in a white box. The text reads:]

<div style="background-color:black; padding:5px; width:fit-content; margin-left: 2em">
To disarm the bomb, simply enter a valid ''<tt>tar</tt>'' command on your first try. No Googling. You have <code>ten</code> seconds. ~# _
</div>

:[They all stand in the same position, but without the text displayed. Beat panel.]

:[Still in the same position but White Hat becomes impatient.]
:White Hat: ...Rob?
:Rob: I'm so sorry.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Linux]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

Talk:1921: The Moon and the Great Wall

2023-01-22T15:52:39Z

172.70.85.200:

https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html

gives something like an authoritative explanation togeter with photos taken from the ISS.

Summary: the great wall can't really be seen from space. But you may be able to spot its shape if the conditions are right. Such as light from the right direction (see the shadow), or snow accumulating on one side of the wall but not the other.

Jyrki Lahtonen

"The statement in the comic, however, is actually true." - It might be, but the part about the Great Wall in it is somewhat irrelevant - it is equally true also from anywhere else in the world. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.210.88|162.158.210.88]] 09:49, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah it's simply a reversal of the myth. "The Great Wall of China" could be replaced with "anywhere on Earth". But that would be less funny. [[User:Jdluk|Jdluk]] ([[User talk:Jdluk|talk]]) 10:27, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

The Great Wall is 13,000+ miles long, but only 35 feet wide. It's the narrowness that make it impossible to see from space. If we use thread (approx 1/100th of an inch wide) as an analogue, the GWC can be represent by a piece of thread 732 ft long (1.5 inches equals one mile), viewed from 5.5 feet away (equivalent to the 100 miles "edge of space"), or 1222 ft (22,000 miles geosynchronious orbit) or 2.5 miles (238,855 miles orbit of the moon) [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 15:07, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

: 732 feet long viewed from 5.5 feet away doesn't sound credible. And the "edge of space" is 100 kilometres up, not 100 miles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.40|198.41.238.40]] 03:50, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
:: What part of that don't you find credible? Are you questioning my math? And I guess, the definition of "Edge of Space" has been revised since I first did the calculations when I was in college. [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 17:26, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

: "The wall is a maximum 9.1 m (29 ft 10 in) wide ... The apparent width of the Great Wall from the Moon is the same as that of a human hair viewed from 3 km (2 mi) away." - Wikipedia. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.40|198.41.238.40]] 03:59, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

That's simply false. The Great Wall of China is another structure on the surface of a celestial body that can be seen with the naked eye from the Great Wall of China. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.34|172.68.54.34]] 19:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

: definition of celestial body: "A natural object which is located OUTSIDE OF EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE, such as the Moon, the Sun, an asteroid, planet, or star."
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/celestial_body
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/celestial?s=t [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.168|172.68.65.168]] 21:04, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

:: As opposed to terrestrial body, which is, well, the earth XD [[Special:Contributions/172.68.2.22|172.68.2.22]]
::: Actually, there are four terrestrial bodies in our solar system alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_planet https://www.space.com/17028-terrestrial-planets.html [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.239|141.101.104.239]] 15:27, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
:: Could be possibly correct if they were referring to the Celestial Empire (China). Can't tell with mixed case. Probably unlikely.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.227|162.158.79.227]] 03:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Those merlons are way too small. They are not going to protect Megan & Ponytail from incoming arrows. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.34|172.68.54.34]] 19:08, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
: Depends how high the wall is... Perhaps in order to reach the top of the wall archers might need to be so close that the merlons are actually sufficient. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
::Looking at the pictures on the wiki-page, the merlons are indeed taller than what one would infer from the comic. Obviously the characters are standing on loose stones or crates or something. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.22|141.101.76.22]] 18:23, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

So the moral of this comic is that Randall doesn't classify cometary tails as celestial bodies? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 03:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
:Are they ''structures'', though? (Either of the two tails, from any given comet.) Insofar as sunspots, arguably as structural as anything 'on' the Sun, in terms of plasma/magnetic-field interactions, but tails are particulates/ions set adrift from the solid nucleus that don't really form a body, ''per se'', and practically are uncordinated individual ejecta in a way that (arguably, loosely) the formation of sunspot material is not. But IANAAstrophysicist, and I imagine the definition boundary is even fuzzier than a comet's (''or'' a star's) corona, amongst those experts who study the various phenomena with great intensity! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.158|172.69.79.158]] 15:33, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
:(I meant to add, there are "structures" in nebulae, and even at the scale of galactic superclusters there are signs of something (to appropriate telescopes, at least) described as a "structure". And you might even consider The Milky Way to be a Mk1 Eyeball-visible structure of our home galaxy that is formed of a myriad of stars. But the filaments of gas/dust (at whatever scale), or the tight grouping of not-entirely-just-asterism neighbouring stars, are tied to multiple other node-bodies within the whole, not flailing loose as briefly visible streaming detritus/evaporates as transient and unstructural as a meteor's trail also is. But, again, analogistic and technical terminology might well not entirely agree on a consistent standard.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.200|172.70.85.200]] 15:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2725: Sunspot Cycle

2023-01-17T15:24:36Z

172.70.85.200:

Holy cow, just made my first edit! It was SUPER stressful, and I didn't even know how to make a 'citation needed' thing. Hopefully it was ok, I tried to match the style of the wiki. [[User:GordonFreeman|GordonFreeman]] ([[User talk:GordonFreeman|talk]]) 03:06, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
:Welcome to explain xkcd then. Any edit that is not vandalism is a good edit, because it makes other think about what should be here. So even if it is later completely changed it got things going. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Is it perhaps worth mentioning that sunspots, while they're darker than the rest of the sun's surface, are not actually black. They are cooler than surrounding regions and appear dark by contrast, but they're emitting lots of IR and some visible light. A sunspots-only (ignore the oxymoron) sun would still emit light and heat, just less. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't the cycle be 20 ("every other decade") or 22 years (11 in each half of the cycle)? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
:The cycle of darkness of the sun would be 22 years, but the 11-year cycle referred to in the comic, and described by both diagrams within the comic, is the cycle of "number of sunspots" which peaks when the sun is half light, half dark, and decreases again as there are so many spots that they start to merge into fewer, larger spots. It cycles from very few (or zero) sunspots, when the sun is light, through many sunspots, sun is heavily light/dark spotted, and completes the cycle when the number of spots returns down to near-zero, when the sun is dark. {{unsigned ip|172.70.85.201}}

To what "financial crash of 2014" does this refer? I recall the housing crisis causing financial trouble, but that was around 2008. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
:This has nothing to do with finance so if you think the peak at 2014 should have any meaning I think you are wrong. there where just for some reason more sunspots even though the sun was still in the dark period. Maybe most of the few huge sunspots broke into smaller but with only thin lines between, so still dark but the count goes up. Then they closed again later keeping the sun dark but the number of spots fluctuating. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone have any idea what is supposed to be on the Y axis of the bottom graph? Something that goes up when the sun is transitioning between brightnesses and is at its lowest when the sun is either fully bright or fully dark? {{unsigned ip|108.162.241.213}}
:It's the "number of spots" (whether light or dark), since a fully bright sun has no dark spots and a fully dark sun has no "light spots"[[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 05:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
::But what are the thin lines indicating, it it just to show that the sun is not yet really dark? Like a gray shade with very long between the dark lines? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Did anyone else notice that the sine-wave is wrong? the trough should be the same every cycle, yet it's drawn as bright in the first trough and dark in the second trough. -Weylin Piegorsch [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.117|172.70.126.117]] 06:52, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
:If you reefer to the bottom graph it is correctly drawn. The sunspots number are near zero when the sun is bright in the first through and then it is again near zero when the sun is dark as there are then only one sunspot. So that is why it is alternating between light and dark for every through. Just as shown in the upper graph. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
::Ah - the y axis of the upper graph is #subspots (which maximizes as they merge and minimizes at full dark/full bright), not magnitude of brightness. Thanks for the clarification! -Weylin Piegorsch [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.79|172.70.114.79]] 14:47, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I do not think it is set in an alternate universe per se, but in the images of the sun spots the minimum brightness of the whole sun is subtracted. So only the sun spots stay visible. So the sun images are depictions of our sun. The number of sun spots loses common-sense meaning after merging starts. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.10|162.158.86.10]] 07:58, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
:Well since the sun is dark in this universe for 10 years, then it cannot be our universe, and since they also have 90s memes, then it is either a parallel universe or well... Randall's fantasy :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I didn't have enough space in my last edit summary to explain my change. As if anyone who needs to really reads those, anyway... So here (unconstrained by petty character limits!) is why I took off the apostrophes in "90's kid", etc...:
/* Explanation */ Removing apostrophes not used by Randall. (I would personally say '90s, the apostrophe being for the contraction of 1990s, but here only the quoting-apostrophes of '90s kid' seems necessary and capable of being consistent. "The 90s" is a pluralisation of all years of the decade based upon (19)90. A kid *of* the 90s could be a 90s' kid, but I think we're intended to treat this as an adjectival descriptor, not a posessive element.)
And I outright reject the idea that apostrophes can ever be used for pluralising, despite some 'authorities' on the matter. Especially where it clashes with plural-possessive, contraction ''and'' single-quoting uses in a single case, upon a wiki where doubled-up apostrophes would incite ''italics''. Better to rewrite. But, for now, I've just rationalised to go with actual demonstrated usage (both from Randall and {{w|1990s|more or less in general}}) and intent. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.133|172.70.85.133]] 10:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
: Well, I don't think there's any value in spending 000's of hours debating it.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 15:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Does this remind anyone else of oscillations in population dynamics (increase in population eventually causes overpopulation and triggers a period of reduction before the population starts to recover, etc.)? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.201|172.70.85.201]] 15:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

2725: Sunspot Cycle

2023-01-17T10:07:28Z

172.70.85.200: /* Explanation */ Removing apostrophes not used by Randall. (I would say '90s, but here only the quoting of '90s kid' seems necessary.)

{{comic
| number = 2725
| date = January 16, 2023
| title = Sunspot Cycle
| image = sunspot_cycle_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x503px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Who can forget the early 2010s memes? 'You know you're a 90s kid if you remember the feeling of warm sunlight on your face.' 'Only 90s kids remember the dawn.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NINETIES KID WHO FELT SUN - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic seems to be set in an alternative reality where the Sun's brightness rises and falls based upon an 11 year cycle, causing there to be complete darkness for around 10 years. The change in brightness over the cycle is due to sunspots accumulating over half of the cycle. When standard sunspots appear, the Sun darkens. When fictitious 'bright' sunspots appear (in the midst of the now all-covering dark sunspot mass), it brightens.

This is probably a reference to the {{w|solar cycle}}, which is a roughly 11-year cycle of changes in the Sun's activity from a period of minimal levels of solar radiation, ejecta, sunspots and solar flares to maximum activity in these areas. Historically this cycle was observed by changes in the Sun's appearance, which this comic exaggerates.

This would obviously be impossible{{citation needed}} as not only do sunspots cool the area of the Sun where they appear but, during a dark phase, no light is coming from the Sun, so the Earth would freeze if all wavelengths of the Sun were blocked (if the spots only affect light in the visible spectrum, then Earth would not freeze but plants would have trouble with photosynthesis). Sunspots are also not totally dark; NASA says that each sunspot on its own would glow orange brighter than the full moon.[https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/workbook/sunspot.html]

The title text indicates the effect on internet memes that this process has. During the 2010s, when '90s kid' memes were still funny{{citation needed}}, many have changed to reflect that the Earth has been dark since the 2000's, and thus only those born in the 90s and before would remember dawn.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Caption above the comic]:
:Ever wonder why the sun disappears for about 10 years every other decade? This terrifying period of worldwide darkness is a natural consequence of the 11-year sunspot cycle:

:[A graph with "Sunspot number" on the Y axis and "Time" on the X axis. A dashed line increases, then decreases, then slightly increases again. Above the dashed line are eight circles representing the sun with various levels of sunspots, with an arrow between each circle. From left to right: The first circle is clear. The second circle has a few sunspots.]
:Dark sunspots appear.
:[The third circle has a few more, and darker, sunspots.]
:Sunspot number rises.
:[The fourth circle has some large black sunspots with much of the remainder of the circle in gray. Between the fourth and fifth circle is a label:]
:Number falls as sunspots merge.
:[The fifth circle is mostly black. The sixth circle is all black.]
:Sunspots envelop sun, Earth enters years of darkness.
:[The seventh circle is mostly black with a few light areas. The eighth circle is still mostly black but with some larger white areas.]
:Bright sunspots appear, cycle reverses.

:[A second graph is labeled "History" but its Y axis is not labeled. The X axis has the years "1970", "1980", "1990", "2000", "2010", and "2020" labeled. The areas between 1970 and 1980, 1990 and 2000, and approximately 2012 and 2025 are labeled "Sun is bright". The areas between 1980 and 1990, and 2000 and approximately 2012 are labeled "Sun is dark".]
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]

2725: Sunspot Cycle

2023-01-17T10:00:13Z

172.70.85.200: /* Explanation */ actual proper wikilink; and it's *the* Sun, not just any sun, so capitalised as proper name.

{{comic
| number = 2725
| date = January 16, 2023
| title = Sunspot Cycle
| image = sunspot_cycle_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x503px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Who can forget the early 2010s memes? 'You know you're a 90s kid if you remember the feeling of warm sunlight on your face.' 'Only 90s kids remember the dawn.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NINETIES KID WHO FELT SUN - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic seems to be set in an alternative reality where the Sun's brightness rises and falls based upon an 11 year cycle, causing there to be complete darkness for around 10 years. The change in brightness over the cycle is due to sunspots accumulating over half of the cycle. When standard sunspots appear, the Sun darkens. When fictitious 'bright' sunspots appear (in the midst of the now all-covering dark sunspot mass), it brightens.

This is probably a reference to the {{w|solar cycle}}, which is a roughly 11-year cycle of changes in the Sun's activity from a period of minimal levels of solar radiation, ejecta, sunspots and solar flares to maximum activity in these areas. Historically this cycle was observed by changes in the Sun's appearance, which this comic exaggerates.

This would obviously be impossible{{citation needed}} as not only do sunspots cool the area of the Sun where they appear, but during a dark phase, no light is coming from the Sun, so the Earth would freeze if all wavelengths of the Sun were blocked (if the spots only affect light in the visible spectrum, then Earth would not freeze but plants would have trouble with photosynthesis). Sunspots are also not totally dark; NASA says that each sunspot on its own would glow orange brighter than the full moon.[https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/workbook/sunspot.html]

The title text indicates the effect on internet memes that this process has. During the 2010's, when '90's kid' memes were still funny{{citation needed}}, many have changed to reflect that the Earth has been dark since the 2000's, and thus only those born in the 90's and before would remember dawn.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Caption above the comic]:
:Ever wonder why the sun disappears for about 10 years every other decade? This terrifying period of worldwide darkness is a natural consequence of the 11-year sunspot cycle:

:[A graph with "Sunspot number" on the Y axis and "Time" on the X axis. A dashed line increases, then decreases, then slightly increases again. Above the dashed line are eight circles representing the sun with various levels of sunspots, with an arrow between each circle. From left to right: The first circle is clear. The second circle has a few sunspots.]
:Dark sunspots appear.
:[The third circle has a few more, and darker, sunspots.]
:Sunspot number rises.
:[The fourth circle has some large black sunspots with much of the remainder of the circle in gray. Between the fourth and fifth circle is a label:]
:Number falls as sunspots merge.
:[The fifth circle is mostly black. The sixth circle is all black.]
:Sunspots envelop sun, Earth enters years of darkness.
:[The seventh circle is mostly black with a few light areas. The eighth circle is still mostly black but with some larger white areas.]
:Bright sunspots appear, cycle reverses.

:[A second graph is labeled "History" but its Y axis is not labeled. The X axis has the years "1970", "1980", "1990", "2000", "2010", and "2020" labeled. The areas between 1970 and 1980, 1990 and 2000, and approximately 2012 and 2025 are labeled "Sun is bright". The areas between 1980 and 1990, and 2000 and approximately 2012 are labeled "Sun is dark".]
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]

2724: Washing Machine Settings

2023-01-16T09:43:47Z

172.70.85.200: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2724
| date = January 13, 2023
| title = Washing Machine Settings
| image = washing_machine_settings_2x.png
| imagesize = 308x524px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I guess the engineers who built my dishwasher MIGHT have some insight into how to load it, but instead of reading the booklet they gave me, it seems easier to experiment for years and then get in arguments so heated that I get banned from Quora.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GUY ON QUORA TYPING RTF(WM)M - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic strip depicts Cueball (possibly [[Randall]]) standing in front of a washing machine, wondering which settings starts to use for his particular wash. He starts guessing which settings would do what from the perspective of an engineer, planning to look up detailed information on what the settings do and when to use them. However, he doesn't realize that all the information he is looking for should be found by looking at his product manual. Most of the time, people don't spend time on viewing product manuals and instead just use whatever settings seem best to them, obviously not going into the depth of thought Cueball has fallen into.

This comic may allude to the fact that product manuals are easy to lose, at which point the person having questions about the product is obliged to find other ways to find out how to use the product.

Settings on appliances with dials or radio-button selectors are often contradictory and arbitrary. In this case Cueball likely is trying to wash something that is both "delicate" and has "colors", but is forced to choose between them, even though there would ideally be a washer setting that includes both. Due to the vagaries of the terminology employed by the interface design team, the "(Light)" ''may'' indicate that the treatment is actually gentle, for this colors-specific setting; but it might just as easily be specifying suitability for either brighter ''or'' more pastel hues, in some manner, or even be there to take over the function of the "half load" control for the quicker and less resource-intensive cycle.

The title text proposes deliberately ignoring the manual for a dishwasher and continuing to use the internet and other people for information on household devices, as with in the comic itself. It references [http://quora.com Quora], a website which allows users to publicly ask questions and answer the questions of others. This website is not typically known for its debates, although the situation in this comic could probably lead to one - when someone who doesn't really understand the subject provides an answer, it could lead to a lengthy and unnecessary argument as multiple parties, at least one of them being incorrect, continue to stand their ground rather than be persuaded. Although Quora moderation is notably inconsistent, being inflammatory (as people tend to be in debates that progress too long) could lead to one's account being reported and banned, like on a typical social network or forum.

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

:[Cueball is standing in front of a large combination washing machine/dryer, holding a coat, wondering.]
:Cueball: Okay, do I want "Colors (light)" or "Delicate"? Does delicate mean less agitation? Or a slower spin?
:Cueball: I should Google, I bet clothing experts have experimented with various settings/clothing combos.
:Cueball: Ooh, someone should make a tool that indexes people's results by washer model, so you can look up what settings to use for a given...

:[Caption below the panel]:
: Every now and then I forget that product manuals exist and spend a while reinventing them.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1007: Sustainable

2023-01-15T11:49:39Z

172.70.85.200: Undo revision 304781 by 172.71.154.157 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1007
| date = January 23, 2012
| title = Sustainable
| image = sustainable.png
| titletext = Though 100 years is longer than a lot of our resources.
}}
==Explanation==
This is a simple scatterplot showing how often the word "sustainable" has been used in English texts in the US each year. As can be seen, the y-axis is given a logarithmic scale, meaning that the apparently linear trend is actually exponential. [[Randall]] [[605: Extrapolating|humorously attempts to extend the graph]] to the point the frequency exceeds 100% about a century from now, which is obviously impossible (hence the quip that the word's usage is itself "unsustainable").

The use of the word "sustainable" has been increasing as people become more aware of the steadily increasing use of nonrenewable resources and need to ensure that the Earth's resources do not become totally exhausted, through sustainable development. {{w|Sustainable development}} refers to the practice of using resources that simultaneously aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present time, but also for generations to come.

As Randall somewhat depressingly mentions in the title text, the ~100 years that it will supposedly take for the word "sustainable" to become unsustainable is actually a lot longer than most of our nonrenewable resources will last on the Earth. The idea that ''all'' of the Earth's coal, oil, natural gas, etc. that has built up over the past millions of years may be completely gone within the century is unsettling.

More realistically, the actual use of "sustainable" is likely to be logistic rather than exponential growth. A logistic curve describes a trend that at first behaves exponentially, but then tapers off and reaches a cap. This is demonstrated by the [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sustainable&year_start=1940&year_end=2014&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csustainable%3B%2Cc0 Google ngrams graph of word usage for "sustainable"]. Logistic growth is commonly used to model data that naturally increases exponentially but has a limiting factor, which in this case is the meaningfulness of text consisting entirely or mostly of a single word.

This comic was used in the 2018 book ''[https://books.google.ca/books?id=J6grDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=enlightenment+now+xkcd&source=bl&ots=8LvAVHQU2_&sig=ACfU3U27rxPWl4N8-muk1eRSm0BMMqWoHA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOkIne-rTkAhUYs54KHRCZCHsQ6AEwEHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=enlightenment%20now%20xkcd&f=false| Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress]'' by Steven Pinker as it discusses the concept of sustainable energy.

Extrapolation of data has also appeared in the following comics [[605: Extrapolating]], [[1204: Detail]] and [[1281: Minifigs]]. And yes, "sustainable" has appeared in every paragraph so far.

==Transcript==
:[A large two-axis scatterplot graph with a caption below. The y-axis displays percentages on a logarithmic scale from 0.000001% to 1,000%, and is labeled "Frequency of use of the word "sustainable" in US English text, as a percentage of all words, by year. Source: Google NGrams." The x-axis displays years from 1950 to 2140, and is labeled "Year". Plotted data points show a high linear correlation (effectively exponential due to being a log scale), ranging from approximately 0.000005% in 1960 to approximately 0.003% in 2012. A linear trend line is drawn through the data points, and is extrapolated to the end of the graph. Four points on this trend line are marked and labeled:]

:(2012, ~0.003%): Present Day
:(2036, ~0.03%): 2036: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per page
:(2061, ~0.5%): 2061: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per sentence
:(2109, 100%): 2109: All sentences are just the word "sustainable" over and over.

:[The trend line continues past the year 2109, exceeding 100% and breaking up into question marks.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The word "sustainable" is unsustainable.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]

Talk:2723: Outdated Periodic Table

2023-01-13T12:41:30Z

172.70.85.200:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis BBN did only produce unstable Berylium-7 with a half-life of 53.22 days. Thus after 30 minutes there was still plenty of Be-7 left.
--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.38|172.71.160.38]] 15:36, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

"unnilium" is a reference to "unnilunium", which was the name for Mendelevium (atomic number 101; from "un nil un", 1-0-1) before it was given a formal name. Therefore the 6th new element referenced, on top of the 4 already in the table, would be #10, or "un nil", or unnilium. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.190.132|172.71.190.132]]

"Pentium" was also the first non-numeric name for the Intel family. Before that, it was the 80486/i486. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.195|172.70.134.195]] 16:17, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
:Then they chickened out and didn't called the next CPU hexium. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 18:24, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
::Maybe they considered the Pro, II, III, 4, etc. just as isotopes (or alternate oxidation states!).
::Though then your criticism still applies to the Core brand (..., 2, i3, etc; although most of that range are clearly imaginary, as well as odd). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.75|162.158.159.75]] 19:50, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
::Because they didn't want to curse it.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.200|172.70.85.200]] 12:41, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I have a science textbook at home that doesn't have ''any'' elements in a periodic table, though you'd think it should. It has a very nice ''list'' of elements (with dodgy details, e.g. I think at least one of them was later proven to be two separate but tricky to isolate elements), but was written prior to the popularisation of Mendeleev's table. (i.e. post-1869, but not by much!) Now, obviously, I don't want to diss Randall's humour, but I have so few such retro-geeky things I can brag about so I just wanted to mention this in passing. (Also, when I actually did my own chemistry, the lab wall had a PT on it that featured the element "{{w|Dubnium|Hahniun}}", and some others since replaced/resolved differently. I sometimes still forget myself and refer to the wrong names if I have to answer trivia questions about them ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.127|172.70.91.127]] 23:45, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
: It's a proleptic periodic table [[User:Sabik|Sabik]] ([[User talk:Sabik|talk]])
:: Indeed, but your comment now makes me wonder what a ''pre-lepton'' table would look like. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.200|172.70.85.200]] 10:00, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Is there a category for comics about the Periodic Table? I recall one from a year or so ago where the symbols were replaced with ones based on the modern names for the elements. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 05:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

: I think you mean [[2639:_Periodic_Table_Changes]]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.156|172.70.242.156]] 06:35, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

After an edit, I was left with <code>and adding an -[LINEWRAP HERE]ium at the end</code>, at least on my display (may depend on browser/display width, etc). If I adjusted the to bring the characters away from the line-wrap point then it could just break again whenever/wherever it found itself back in the same bit of the screen again, so I tried to quote it, but got <code>and adding an "-[LINEWRAP HERE]ium" at the end</code> anyway. If anyone can recall how to implement a 'non-breaking ''non-''space' character, or perhaps wishes to aplly a whole wrap-preventing enclosing tag, then I invite them to apply it there. Assuming it isn't edited out of existence, already, and making the issue moot. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.222|172.70.162.222]] 16:27, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2723: Outdated Periodic Table

2023-01-12T10:00:39Z

172.70.85.200: