explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-05-10T15:52:04Z

172.70.86.133: /* Explanation */ Better distinction of how much we *know* about DM (almost nothing, except some things that we know it's not) but where our guesses also seem like reasonable assumptions. Removed definitely deprecated comments (left other bits + rewrote).

{{comic
| number = 3085
| date = May 5, 2025
| title = About 20 Pounds
| image = about_20_pounds_2x.png
| imagesize = 666x278px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In addition to gravity, burritos interact through the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, which is believed to be a major contributor to their popularity.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|
*'''The article might be off-topic'''. We should focus on explaining the comic, not everything known to humans about dark matter.

*'''The article might be too technical and short''', especially the leading paragraph.
Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
The nature of {{w|dark matter}} is a significant unsolved problem in physics. We observe that galaxies spin faster than we expect based on the nearby observable matter. Likewise galactic motions indicate additional mass that we have not observed in other ways. Dark matter is the name we give to this mass. In the comic, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] consult an {{w|oracle}} to learn about dark matter.

The pentacle and candles suggest that the oracle is supernatural, summoned by an occult ritual; something which would present its own challenges to our understanding of the physical world. There may be a pun here, in that they may be using 'dark magic' to communicate with something from the 'dark realm' on the assumption that it will know about dark matter. However, the word 'dark' in dark matter simply means that we do not know how to observe it; we have no evidence that dark matter is evil or satanic, though [[Randall]] may consider it [[:Category:Comics with cursed items|cursed]]. The oracle is used very similarly to how people have been using and customizing {{w|large language model|large language models}}.

In general, not all forces interact with all particles; indeed, {{w|gravity}} is believed to be the only force that interacts with everything we have observed. If a force doesn't interact with a particle, then the particle's existence cannot be directly observed via disturbances in that force. In particular, something that doesn't interact with electromagnetism cannot be 'seen', as photons will pass through it relatively unaffected, and likewise cannot be felt, because collision is a side effect of the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}.

Even {{w|neutrino}}s, famous for {{what if|73|interacting with ''almost'' nothing}}, still interact via the {{w|weak force}}, allowing them to be detected with sufficiently large tanks of dense material. This is the main reason neutrinos cannot be dark matter: they interact far too much to be a viable option. A particle that interacts with ''nothing'' except gravity could only be detected by a {{w|LIGO|gravitational telescope}}.

We can theorise the presence of dark matter thanks to how ''something'' interacts with the matter we can see, i.e. the nature of the rotation of far away galaxies implies significant additional mass that does not emit, absorb, reflect ''or'' diffuse light. While there are also other theories which try to account for what we do see, a number of the suggestions are that it is one or other form of unseeable but gravitationally-interactive substance, given the soubriquet of "dark matter".

In trying to determine what form this actually exists in, and on the assumption that if it exists at all then it is also drifting past (and through) our own neighbourhood, experiments here on Earth are trying to detect it using any other means. For example, a popular dark matter candidate is a {{w|weakly interacting massive particle}}, which interacts via the {{w|weak nuclear force}}. Dark matter experiments build large tanks of liquid xenon with a gaseous top, keep them extremely dark, and look for some way in which passing particles might interact and produce electroluminescent scintillations. There are good theoretical reasons to expect some interaction, which would mean the oracle in the comic is lying, but there are no sufficiently conclusive results as of now.

There is one dark matter candidate where the only interaction is overwhelmingly gravitational: black holes formed through collapse in the early Universe. These primordial black holes may not be detectable through any terrestrial experiment. However, even these objects can be found through their lensing effects if they are sufficiently large and common to account for the 'missing mass' we are looking for. Black holes of around 10 kg would also likely quickly evaporate through Hawking radiation, so are not a good dark matter candidate. Black holes of around asteroid mass would be extremely hard to detect and are a good dark matter candidate given current information.

The particle's mass is described vaguely as ''about twenty pounds'', roughly 10 kilograms, in line with how all-knowing oracles legendarily use ambiguous statements. This is a ludicrous amount of energy for particle physics. Any interaction would have to involve an equally ludicrous amount of other particle mass being in exactly the right place and time, a coincidence that might be so rare that one would not expect it to occur ever in the history of the universe. By comparison, the {{w|top quark|heaviest single particle}} we have observed, with a mass over a hundred times that of the proton, is around a tenth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a pound.

Under more normal circumstances, we might still hope to observe the properties of the particle via creating it ourselves under controlled laboratory conditions. But again, there is no reasonable way to focus the energy required into a single particle interaction. The {{w|Large Hadron Collider|most powerful particle accelerator in the world}}, for example, peaks at about ten thousand times the mass of the protonn (a solid billion times less energy than required) so it's out too.

Despite all this, twenty pounds is also much too ''small'' to be detectable via gravitational interaction; its {{w|Perturbation (astronomy)|influence on the orbits of planets}}, say, or the strength of its {{w|gravitational lensing}} effect, would be entirely negligible. In the scenario posed by the comic, then, there is no plausible way to observe more about dark matter while on Earth. Even if we did find some such particles naturally occurring, and had instruments that could measure such small gravitational forces, since it would interact only via gravity, the only properties it could have other than mass would be its decay rates from other particles. Which, again, would all be essentially nil, due to its mass.

The oracle proceeds to break expectations by suggesting that Ponytail and Cueball go out for {{w|burrito}}s. When faced with the apparent futility of continuing to try to investigate dark matter, the oracle predicts that going out for burritos is precisely as productive as any other approach. It justifies the suggestion by burritos being "pretty" good, again neither exactly quantifying the oracularity, and likely not even giving the optimal idea.

The title text observes that burritos interact through all four known {{w|fundamental interactions}}, making burritos popular. The electromagnetic force mediates the chemical reactions leading to a burrito's taste, the strong force keeps atomic nuclei together, and gravity gives burritos heft, all of which are helpful for enjoying them. It's hard to see how the weak force, which takes part in radioactive decay, helps with burrito enjoyment or popularity, but the weak force is responsible for the nuclear fusion that allowed the complex elements of the burrito to exist in the first place.

The previous comic [[3084: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object]] dealt with particles which do not even interact with gravity.
In [[2035: Dark Matter Candidates]] these 20 lb dark matter particles fit between magic 8 balls and space cows. The squirrels that make up [[2186: Dark Matter]] near the earth must be pretty chunky. Talking to a floating sphere is becoming a returning subject in xkcd. See more about other instances of this on the page for the [[:Category:Time traveling Sphere|Time traveling Sphere]] series.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing in front of a pentacle with lit candles at the corners. A black sphere, the oracle, is floating above the middle of the pentacle.]
:Ponytail: Dear oracle,
:Ponytail: What is the nature of dark matter?
:Oracle: It's about 20 pounds.

:[Close up of oracle]
:Off-panel: What?
:Oracle: Dark matter is a particle. It weighs about 20 pounds.
:Oracle: It only interacts through gravity.

:[Same view as first panel]
:Cueball: Only gravity, huh?
:Cueball: So none of our experiments are really going to tell us any more about it, then.
:Oracle: Afraid not.

:[Same view as first and third panels, except Cueball lifted his forearm.]
:Cueball: So what do we do?
:Oracle: You should go out for burritos.
:Ponytail: How will that help?
:Oracle: Well
:Oracle: Burritos are pretty good.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:3079: Air Fact

2025-04-22T13:31:58Z

172.70.86.133:

average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted” [[Special:Contributions/172.68.7.184|172.68.7.184]] 15:19, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:🔥🔥🔥🔥 [[User:Broseph|Broseph]] ([[User talk:Broseph|talk]]) 15:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:{{citation_needed}}[[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.138|172.68.174.138]] 15:52, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:This is one of those factoids like "Over 5% of the population has an above average number of fingers."[[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.136|172.68.245.136]] 16:16, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
::That factoid sounds true. Assuming there are more people who have fewer than ten fingers than those who have extra fingers (some people have whole hands missing, but extra digits to my knowledge normally only come in ones and twos), then the average is slightly less than ten, and the ten-fingered vast majority of people have an above-average number of fingers, certainly more than 5% of the population. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.164|141.101.98.164]] 19:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:::I have more than the average number of legs (for a human), as I famously insisted once in my mathematics class. And still do. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.94|162.158.74.94]] 22:34, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:I don't really get the way the title text is written. Why is "so many ants" assumed to be a small number, like the number of spiders? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
::If the factoid in the comic were true, the fact that the average person has a tidal volume of about half a litre, and takes between 12-20 breaths per minute means that they breathe in and out about 10 cubic metres per day. That’s over 100,000 ants. The fact that you are talking about “per year” implies that the rate is a reasonable number per year, not over 36 million. It’s like comparing the speed of continents to the speed of a car. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.0.190|172.68.0.190]] 20:03, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
::Because that's part of the joke. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.123|172.71.241.123]] 08:49, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The term "microscopic ants" supposedly refers to viruses and other microorganisms, not actual tiny ants. The actual concentration of airborne germs is pretty much in that ballpark, so it's not about sampling bias, it's about framing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.36|162.158.103.36]] 17:00, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:There isn't even such a thing as a "microscopic ant". The smallest ant species is 0.8mm long. That's tiny, but easily visible without aid. And if there were 10,000 of them in a cubic meter of air, you'd notice. It would be like walking through a thick swarm of gnats. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, I don't understand what would be difficult about taking air samples. Currently the article claims it's sampling bias, but why should that be anymore difficult with air than with e.g. soil?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.67.22|172.69.67.22]] 18:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
: Tried to address this ... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.123|172.71.146.123]] 19:23, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
: It's difficult to take an exact volume of air and analyze it's content. The less you care about how close to exact volume you took, the easier it is. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 05:07, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
:There's nothing difficult about taking air samples - I do it myself about every 3-5 seconds. More, when exercising. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.157|172.71.178.157]] 08:53, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Microscopic wasps, on the other hand: surprisingly commonplace. Many species are too small to be seen with the naked eye, and if Megan took her samples near hedgerows in summer, there could have been some microscopic wasps in every sample cubic metre. Probably a few orders of magnitude less than 10,000. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.219|141.101.98.219]] 19:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
:"Many species are too small to be seen with the naked eye" - Wikipedia claims that [[wikipedia:Fairyfly|fairy wasps]] are the smallest flying insect at 0.15mm, which is large enough to see if you get close enough. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.39|172.68.26.39]] 22:55, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence Megan is referring to microbes as microscopic ants. As a microbiologist, if she meant a bacterium, etc. it seems like she would have just said so, especially since the ants claim is made again in the title text. She's preying on Cueball's gullibility and unfamiliarity with the subject for her own amusement, to convince him the air is overrun with literal microscopic ants which don't exist and wouldn't be in the air if they did. Likewise the paragraph about extrapolation errors seems unnecessary as well. She's not making a sampling error - she's just making the whole thing up. Just my take. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.17.211|172.69.17.211]] 22:06, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Pat

This comic is dumb and makes no sense. {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.37|01:34, 22 April 2025}}
:Did you write 'comic' when you meant 'comment'?[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.157|172.71.178.157]] 08:53, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
::Literally nobody in this talk page understands the joke. Randall isn't going to notice you just because you'll defend any slop he puts out. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.48|172.68.55.48]] 10:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
:::Except that's literally untrue. And your second sentence has nothing to do with anything.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.133|172.70.86.133]] 13:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Talk:1678: Recent Searches

2025-03-28T21:30:44Z

172.70.86.133:

You can convert jpg to Excel (http://www.think-maths.co.uk/spreadsheet), so converting gif to Excel is not really absurd... {{unsigned ip|141.101.93.51}}
:Or maybe Randall(?) has a screenshot of a spreadsheet (or more realistically, an over-the-shoulder video of someone's spreadsheet), and he wants to OCR it back into a spreadsheet. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.209|108.162.218.209]] 19:19, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly enough "CPU temperature sensor limits" might be a serious consideration for extreme overclockers, who use things like liquid nitrogen to cool their PC. [[User:SG 01|SG 01]] ([[User talk:SG 01|talk]]) 15:45, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
: Not really, the limit of the CPU temp sensors would only necessary if you are planing to get the cpu to really high temperatures. That is, if you are using liquid nitrogen to cool the cpu, you should never reach the limit of the sensors.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.69|108.162.221.69]] 18:38, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
:: Hey, [[165|our IP addresses differ only in 8 bits]]! Does this mean we are in the same part of campus? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.59|108.162.219.59]] 19:38, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
::: What... that one is not not my ip! And the guy that mentioned "OCR" up there also has a very similar ip to ours. Is some kind of proxy explainxkcd has? (btw, I wonder if I'll get the same ip on this comment. I haven't disconnected my router or anything) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.69|108.162.221.69]] 21:58, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
:::: It appears that explainxkcd.com is using Cloudflare, so all the wiki edits are probably logged as coming from Cloudflare's proxies. A WHOIS search confirms that the IPs 108.162.192.0 to 108.162.255.255 are part of Cloudflare's network --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.167|108.162.228.167]] 22:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
::::: I had thought explainxkcd was anonymizing IP addresses to some carefully chosen ranges. Apparently that's just a helpful side effect. Does Cloudflare always assign the same proxy to a particular source address? [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 23:34, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
:::::: There are collisions. Someone else has edited via the same proxy I use, so now there is another [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 21:11, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
: Note that it says "limits" in plural, i.e. both upper and lower. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.209|108.162.218.209]] 19:28, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
:: There are several "upper limits" -- one for turn on the fan, then speedup the fan, then start making sounds to alarm the user and the final one for doing a hard-shutdown of the computer before it burn out -- so assuming that anybody want to disable the lower is a stretch [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.219|162.158.255.219]] 04:00, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

;Safe mode
This is my first time trying to help out with an explanation, please let me know if I did something wrong ^_^; [[User:Undergroundmonorail|Undergroundmonorail]] ([[User talk:Undergroundmonorail|talk]]) 15:48, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
: I like where you went with safe/dangerous. Of the "unsafe" synonyms I found my favorite is "menacing mode". [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

: My first impression here though was that he's so often dropping to safe mode he forgot what's regular system like or how to get there – so he searches for reference how to get there. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.95.129|141.101.95.129]] 20:29, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Is it possible the first one is an attempt to misuse google translate to translate programming code (to another programming language or even between linguistic languages)? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:59, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

GIF to XLS could be a reference to http://www.think-maths.co.uk/spreadsheet [[Special:Contributions/141.101.93.55|141.101.93.55]] 16:16, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
: Nice find. I was thinking like that + a macro to flip sheets. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

Doesn't "recursive" mean that it repeats (recurs)? [[User:Cardboardmech|Cardboardmech]] ([[User talk:Cardboardmech|talk]]) 16:44, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
:Sort of. In computing, it's a little more specific, though, referring to functions that call themselves as part of their normal running. This in turn has led to the idea of recursive definitions, that of course refer to the original word. Example: "recursion: see recursion."

:I take issue with the explanation for another reason, though. True, regexes probably can't be used to check the validity of EBNFs. It's a little bit more complicated than that, though. If one has ever used a compiler-compiler like yacc (which, supposedly uses EBNF grammars or EBNF-like grammars), another tool in the Unix world comes to mind, awk. Awk is similar enough in design to a cc that it can do the job of one, and people have apparently made compilers in awk. And what does awk use for its pattern matching? Regexes. Exercise for the reader: Write an EBNF for EBNFs. :D. [[User:Tibfulv|Tibfulv]] ([[User talk:Tibfulv|talk]]) 17:49, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

:: If you allow recursive regexes, it *is* possible to match EBNF with a regex: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=115494&p=3974658#p3974278 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.68.5|162.158.68.5]] 19:38, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Silly comment because: can't...stop...laughing. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

Hey... what does this line refer to? "A complication in attempting to solve computer problems this way would be presented by Google's search term autocorrection, which for several years has replaced technical terms with unrelated language from recent popular culture." I can't see how it's relevant to the comic, is it implying that these arent actually the questions he searched for, they're one autocorrection away from what he was trying to find? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:14, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

: For example, Google suggests "fsck" should be "fleck" and automatically alters the results accordingly. "Fleck Chrome extension" is a reasonable search query (Fleck is a web annotation service) but "fleck" is implausible as a typo. [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 00:28, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

:: That seems like a stretch to me... if that was the intention then there would be no joke. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:03, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

;autoexec joke

isn't this related to autoexec.bat? [[User:Blydro|Blydro]] ([[User talk:Blydro|talk]]) 16:00, 9 May 2016 (UTC)blydro
: Or...autoexec.ncf (Netware), autoexec.nt (Windows), autoexec.cfg (Source/Valve/Counterstrike) and an adult reference at Urban Dictionary. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

This isn't farfetched. In need of a server, I was recently considering using obfuscated strings in a public blog to temporarily control my own apps...and malware's been doing stuff like this for ages. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

:: I don't think a reference to "autoexec.bat" makes sense in the context of the comic... it's just a word that sounds similar (not being cheeky) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:03, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

;Keybinding

I originally interpreted "clean reinstall keybinding" as meaning that his keybindings were so entirely screwed that he wanted to do a clean reinstall of the keybinding system, but the other interpretation is funnier. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.74|108.162.219.74]] 16:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I interpreted this to mean that he created a keybinding that automatically performs a clean reinstall of the OS [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.46|173.245.54.46]]

;FSCK

I've only ever seen "fsck" as a way of saying "fuck" that bypasses content filters, such as in global chat in games like World of Warcraft. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.62|173.245.52.62]] 16:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's file system consistency check. It's a program for checking your Linux filesystem. I think the Joke is that he needs to check his filesystem for corruption so often that he needs the convenience of a chrome extension. I have not edited the page because I neither use chrome extensions nor have I ever run fsck. Can anyone back me up on this? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.197|108.162.218.197]] 16:43, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

:Yes, that's what fsck refers to here. I've run it many a time on my old Red Hat installation that somehow kept corrupting itself. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 16:54, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Can some wonderful person provide an explanation for this? "This is probably a search for an interface to the Unix filesystem checker fsck via third-party software added to Chrome. Repairing a filesystem this way would be inadvisable. [citation needed]" It jokingly says "citation needed", but ironically, some sort of citation (well, explanation) really is needed... it's not obvious at all why it would be inadvisable, or what the joke actually means. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:21, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

: I added the line "fsck is a program for checking your filesystem for corruption." based on the discussion immediately above, but an explanation for why a Chrome extension to execute this program is funny/weird would be helpful to people like me. The lines immediately after it (about Chromium etc.) seem unrelated to the joke, and only make it more confusing... if a Unix user could spell it out maybe... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:28, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

::As long as you are not trying to run the fsck on ROOT filesystem (or /home, or anything other currently mounted), it doesn't matter if it's chrome extension. But it's true that usually fsck is run as part of system boot, when no filesystem is mounted in read/write mode, and it is not possible to run Chrome in such situation. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

: [Extended explanation] Information about files often occur in multiple places on the disk. This redundancy increase the chance of repairing a corrupt file system. Fsck will read data from the disk, and if it finds inconsistencies, write new corrected data back. When a file system is mounted, a file system driver will read and write data of the disk in normal operation. If the two processes are simultaneous and unaware of each other, they may be confused and even create inconsistencies that wasn't there to begin with. E.g. original research: A file system driver may have cached data in working memory. If fsck updates that data on disk, the cache will be out of sync. The file system driver may be confused by this, or, if it writes back the cache to the disk, the fsck fix will be undone, and possibly a new different inconsistency would be created. Or, while fsck is comparing different parts of the file system, it will read one block at one point in time and another block at another point in time. At a time in between, normal operation may have created, changed or removed a file. Fsck then may think it has found an inconsistency (that does not exists) and try to fix it, possibly creating an inconsistency. Therefor, the fsck command will detect if a file system is mounted and issue a really scary warning against proceeding. /David A [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.33|141.101.80.33]] 21:22, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

;Predictable touchpad

A predictable touchpad would actually be a major blow to internet security -- mouse events are being used to seed randomness generators for cryptography. I don't think this piece of information is suited for the explanation, but just in case someone's interested: You're welcome! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.91.247|141.101.91.247]] 16:26, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Just came across this:
Pre-Touch Sensing for Mobile Interaction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiZkEYLXctE
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 12:38, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

;Title text
After the npm burndown, someone actually made it possible to require from twitter: (https://gist.github.com/rauchg/5b032c2c2166e4e36713) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.114|162.158.83.114]] 18:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

;Syntax highlighting a natlang
Syntax highlighting a natural language might color the subject, verb, object, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. --[[User:Tepples|Tepples]] ([[User talk:Tepples|talk]]) 18:27, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
:Google Translate is not limited to natlangs (e.g. it has Esperanto). And I heard of some syntax highlighters for conlangs (namely Lojban). --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.209|108.162.218.209]] 19:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

;Permutations
"[https://www.google.com/search?q=syntax+highlighting+Google+translate syntax highlighting Google translate]" gives wildly different results from "[https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+translate+syntax+highlighting Google translate syntax highlighting]". The explainxkcd article has been climbing in the results; can it displace Wikipedia or CPAN for these queries? Might there be a hidden joke related to some query in the list? [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 00:54, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

: (Update: for both queries, we have displaced Wikipedia, StackOverflow, and CPAN in some Google servers.) [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 02:49, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

: The first result ''was'' Google's own documentation. No more! [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 04:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Is it really suitable to use the word leopard instead of keyboard? Even though it's linked to the relevant comic explanation it seems likely to add unnecessary confusion and doesn't really add to this explanation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.217|162.158.34.217]] 10:30, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

: It seems cool to me as long as the explanation is clear enough that your brain expects "keyboard" even if you previously didn't know what "keybinding" meant. I added a sentence to try and make it more obvious. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:08, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Isn't the clean reinstall keybinding pointless for saving time since he'd have to redo it every time he did a clean reinstall? [[User:Figvh|Figvh]] ([[User talk:Figvh|talk]]) 11:34, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

: I think you're assuming that keybinding is about setting up new shortcuts (which the explanation used to seem to be saying); I think the jokes actually about the keyboard being functional at all... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 00:08, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Idea for Turing-complete hardlinks: get an old UNIX that allows hardlinks to directories. With those, you can create loops in the filesystem (it's now an arbitrary directed graph, not a tree). Write an interpreter repeatedly calls link, chdir, mkdir, or rmdir based on some pattern matching on the existing names. It could terminate when it finds itself in an empty directory. Now you write programs on top of that interpreter by carefully setting up a tangle of directories and launching the interpreter at the right starting point. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.60.53|162.158.60.53]] 00:13, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

;whoooooosh
maybe it's just me, but does google actually do this any more? it certainly used to. now all i get is nothing until i start typing, when i get a list of the most popular results for other people's searches. if you have to turn javascript (or something else) off to see this, maybe it should be mentioned. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 12:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
:still having problems with this. i think i understand the joke, but the comic seems to rely on something which i'm pretty sure doesn't happen. i'm old enough to remember when google would allow the default browser behaviour for textboxes, which is to cache the values you entered in this box and display them to you as a dropdown when you started typing. pressing alt-down would open the list unfiltered and unsorted. this is, i'm guessing, what randall is alluding to. which means that the list is hist search history in google. which makes the text of the joke funny. unfortunately google doesn't do this any more. i've tried it in chrome, firefox, ie and edge and it just doesn't, even if i'm logged in as me. alt-down has no effect. if you start typing it does open a dropdown to autocomplete, but from very scant research this isn't in any way tailored to the user. it just gives you the most popular searches that complete the text you type, with no regard for your search history. i could be wrong about that. if i am, and google does tailor it to your particular search history, then that does make the joke funny again. since not only does randall search for these things enough that google noticed that he likes them (possibly because this is all he searches for) but people search for these ridiculous things enough that google thinks that they are popular. which, even if true is a little remote a possibility. and undermines the joke about randall being special in breaking his computer. maybe i'm overthinking it. or not. did i miss something obvious? this is supposed to explain the comics and i need a little help. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 12:57, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but I think the explanation for "Google docs from bootloader" is missing the point entirely - I believe this is not referring to the application from Google but instead means having the bootloader access Google document files (note that "docs" is lower case here) in order to somehow control or modify the bootloader behavior. These document files might be created and maintained through Google Docs (the application) and then accessed from within the bootloader later. While this may be technically infeasible and extremely unwise for a variety of reasons, if it could be done, it would fit the subject of this comic perfectly - the result would be the potential for severe bootup problems! --[[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 17:02, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

: I see now that the text within the comic is all upper case, but the thought is still valid. --[[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 17:08, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Here is a link to font names "recursive": https://www.recursive.design/ [[Special:Contributions/172.68.154.88|172.68.154.88]] 18:10, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

The "autoexec" may be used to force others to follow the user. I'm not certain. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 06:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

;Paramount -> tantamount?
In the following sentence, shouldn't it be tantamount? Paramount doesn't make much sense to me: "A job that updates the crontab (therefore creating new jobs, removing old ones or editing existing ones) is paramount to a job scheduler"
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.164|172.69.79.164]] 20:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
:Different meanings. I take the original "paramount" as being the sense "of the highest importance" ("...to any kind of thing in the general crontab/scheduler group"), whereas the use of "tantamount" is saying it is "equivalent" ("...to a scheduler"; thus stating that a crontab thing is very like one of these, but not the same). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.54|172.69.195.54]] 21:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

327: Exploits of a Mom

2025-03-18T22:00:58Z

172.70.86.133: /* Explanation */ Hard to say whether they'd consider Miss Roberts as a once-'trapped' victim, culpable of ensnareing the "Help!" person, negligent as failing to raise concerns already or merely the unknowing recipient of the clue that something is amiss.

{{comic
| number = 327
| date = October 10, 2007
| title = Exploits of a Mom
| image = exploits_of_a_mom.png
| titletext = Her daughter is named Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--, a rather unusual name. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "[[Little Bobby Tables]]." As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the "Students" table in the database to be dropped, meaning it gets deleted.

This comic was a prequel for the [[:Category:1337|1337 series]] where the entire family is shown for the first time. The title of this comic is a pun: "exploit" can mean an accomplishment or heroic deed, but in computer science, the term refers to a program or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability in other software. The title can also refer to her choice of name for her son, which is rather extraordinary. In {{w|SQL}}, a database programming language, commands are separated by semicolons <code>;</code>, and strings of text are often delimited using single quotes <code>'</code>. Parts of commands may also be enclosed in parentheses <code>(</code> and <code>)</code>. Data entries are stored as "rows" within named "tables" of similar items (e.g., <code>Students</code>). The command to delete an entire table (and thus every row of data in that table) is <code>DROP TABLE</code>, as in <code>DROP TABLE Students;</code>. In [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], someone (presumably Mrs. Roberts) attempts to perform a similar trick, submitting the name <code>e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--</code> to the IAU.

The exploited vulnerability here is that the single quote in the name input was not correctly "escaped" by the software. That is, if a student's name did indeed contain a quote mark, it should have been read as one of the characters making up the text string and not as the marker to close the string, which it erroneously was. Lack of careful parsing is a common SQL vulnerability; this type of exploit is referred to as {{w|SQL injection}}. Mrs. Roberts thus reminds the school to make sure that they have added data filtering code to prevent code injection exploits in the future.

For example, to add information about Elaine to a data table called 'Students', the SQL query could be:
 <code>INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Elaine');</code>

However, using the odd name <code>Robert');DROP TABLE Students;-- </code> where we used "Elaine" above, the SQL query becomes:
 <code>INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Robert');DROP TABLE Students;-- ');</code>

By insertion of the two semi-colons in the odd name, this is now three well-formed SQL commands:
 <code>
INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Robert');

DROP TABLE Students;

-- ');
</code>

The first line is valid SQL code that will legitimately insert data about a student named Robert. The second line is valid injected SQL code that will delete the whole Students data table from the database. The third line is a valid code comment (<code>-- </code> denotes a comment), which will cause the rest of the line to be ignored by the SQL server. For this to work, it helps to know the structure of the database. But it's quite a good guess that a school's student management database might have a table named <code>Students</code>.

Of course, in real life, most exploits of this kind would be performed not by engineering a person's name such that it would eventually be entered into a school database query, but rather by accessing some kind of input system (such as a website's login screen or search interface) and guessing various combinations by trial and error until something works, perhaps by first trying to inject the <code>SHOW TABLES;</code> command to see how the database is structured. In 2019, a person chose a vanity license plate that said "NULL" and subsequently [https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/ received thousands of dollars in fines from random vehicles] for which the license plate was unavailable. Some database programmers somewhere along the way failed to consider the difference between the string NULL and the value {{w|NULL}}.

In 2017, a Swiss group called their book "<script>alert("!Mediengruppe Bitnik");</script>" to make e-commerce websites display an innocuous pop-up as soon as the book name loads. [https://i.imgur.com/Dd4XN7d.png It immediately worked on several sites] and to this day, [https://www.tomlinsons-online.com/p-16381221-scriptalertmediengruppe-bitnikscript.aspx some websites] are still affected. In 2020, the British corporate register [https://forum.aws.chdev.org/t/cross-site-scripting-xss-software-attack/3355/8 accepted a registration] for ""><SRC=<nowiki>H</nowiki>TTPS://MJT.XSS.HT> LTD", which was soon officially renamed "THAT COMPANY WHOSE NAME USED TO CONTAIN HTML SCRIPT TAGS LTD" to avoid a cross-site scripting problem.

To include the odd name correctly and harmlessly in the Students table in the school database the correct SQL is:
 <code>INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Robert<nowiki>''</nowiki>);DROP TABLE Students;-- ');</code>

Note that the single quote after Robert is now sanitized by doubling it, which changes it from malicious code to harmless data, and the full first 'name' of the student <code>Robert');DROP TABLE Students;--</code> is now stored correctly. It should be noted that while data sanitization can mitigate the risks of SQL injection, the proper prevention technique is to use {{w|Prepared statement}}s. Noting the difference between the "actual" name using the word TABLE and the child's nickname being Bobby Tables, one could argue that there's an implied reference to one of the most argued topics of database naming conventions - should table names be singular or plural.

The title text references that Mrs. Roberts' daughter is named "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory". This is a play on how if someone is stuck and forced to work in a manufacturing factory/plant, then they will write on the product {{tvtropes|HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory|"Help I'm trapped in a ____ factory"}} in order to tell people on the outside. Having this name would cause any police officer who pulls her over to show some concern towards the hypothetical artesan who created the identification. And getting the license in the first place would likely be difficult. The idea of inserting a help message like this was already used in [[10: Pi Equals]]. It was later revealed that the daughter's middle and last names (which she more generally was known by) together are "[[Elaine Roberts]]".


==Transcript==
:[Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school on her wireless phone. She is standing with a cup of hot coffee or tea (shown with a small line above the cup) facing a small round three-legged table to the right. The voice of the caller is indicated to come from the phone with a zigzag line.]
:Voice over the phone: Hi, This is your son's school. We're having some computer trouble.

:[In this frame-less panel Mrs. Roberts has put the cup down on the table turned facing out.]
:Mrs. Roberts: Oh, dear – did he break something?
:Voice over the phone: In a way –

:[Mrs. Roberts is now drinking from the cup again looking right. The table is not shown.]
:Voice over the phone: Did you really name your son <code>Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--</code> ?
:Mrs. Roberts: Oh, yes. Little Bobby Tables, we call him.

:[Mrs. Roberts holds the cup down.]
:Voice over the phone: Well, we've lost this year's student records. I hope you're happy.
:Mrs. Roberts: And I hope you've learned to sanitize your database inputs.

==Trivia==
* This comic has become rather famous, spawning a site at http://bobby-tables.com about preventing SQL injection and also at the official [https://docs.python.org/2/library/sqlite3.html Python SQLite documentation]. Noted security expert {{w|Bruce Schneier}} (who often quotes xkcd) [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/pen-and-paper_s.html mentioned a similar attack] that happened in the 2010 Swedish general elections, and [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ several people tried it on Randall's color survey].
* This is the first xkcd comic featuring [[Mrs. Roberts]], her daughter later names [[Elaine Roberts]], with the titel text name as her middle names, and [[Little Bobby Tables]].
* This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023401/https://store.xkcd.com/products/signed-prints available as a signed print] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Mrs. Roberts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Little Bobby Tables]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elaine Roberts]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computer security]]
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

Template:blog

2025-01-31T19:59:03Z

172.70.86.133: whoops... Minor consistency, in examples, re-established.

<includeonly> data-sort-value="{{#expr:{{formatnum:{{{1|0}}}|R}}}}" {{#if:{{{archiveOnly|}}}||style="background-color:#cceeff;"}}|'''{{ordinal|{{{1|0}}}}}''' blog article{{#if:{{{2|}}}|, on {{#iferror:{{#time:Y‑m‑d|{{{2|}}}-{{{3|}}}-{{{4|}}}}}| {{{2|}}}‑{{{3|}}}‑{{{4|}}}}}}}{{#if:{{{5|}}}| ''({{{5|}}})''}}{{#if:{{{archiveOnly|}}}| (Removed: see [{{{archiveOnly}}} archive link])}}</includeonly><noinclude>Used in the [[What If? chapters|''what if?'' index]], to mark the article number, date of release, and how late/early the article was. It also colors the cell blue. For the books and the YouTube videos, use {{template|book}} instead. The number is required, and the date is always needed if known.

===Usage===
<nowiki>{{blog|ARTICLE-NUMBER|YYYY|MM|DD|</nowiki>'''''LATE-OR-EARLY'''''}}
*If there is no valid ARTICLE-NUMBER, for some reason, it becomes the 'zeroth' blog article.
*Date details are optional, but require ''at least'' a prior blank ARTICLE-NUMBER field
*LATE-OR-EARLY is optional (e.g. if 'on schedule'), but requires all prior fields (which can be left blank)

If the blog concerned is only now available from an archive location, give the appropriate URL by appending it to the named <code>archiveOnly=</code> parameter. This does not depend upon any other details.
<nowiki>{{blog|ARTICLE-NUMBER|YYYY|MM|DD|</nowiki>'''''LATE-OR-EARLY'''''|archiveOnly='''''URL'''''}}

===Examples===

<nowiki>{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD|1m 19d late}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD|1m 19d late}}

and

<nowiki>{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD}}

and

<nowiki>{{blog|69}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog|69}}

and

<nowiki>{{blog}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog}}

and

<nowiki>{{blog|||||Very late!}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog|||||Very late!}}

and

<nowiki>{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD|1m 19d late|archiveOnly=https://archive.site/article69}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD|1m 19d late|archiveOnly=https://archive.site/article69}}

and

<nowiki>{{blog|archiveOnly=https://archive.site/article0}}</nowiki>

'''''Produces:'''''

{{blog|archiveOnly=https://archive.site/article0}}

{| class="sortable wikitable"
!Thumbnail
!Title
!Reader's question
!Randall's answer
!Blog
!Books
!YouTube
|-
|[[File:Relativistic Baseball.png|100px]]
|'''{{what if|1|Relativistic Baseball}}'''
|''"What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?"''
|The ball would create plasma and reach home plate by about 70 nanoseconds. The result would be some kind of nuclear explosion, destroying everything about a mile from the field. A ruling of "{{w|hit by pitch}}" could be interpreted in this situation.
|{{blog|8|2012|07|10|10d early}}
|{{book|1|2}}
|{{book|5|2024|02|06|3EI08o-IGYk|What if you threw a baseball at nearly light speed?}}
|-
|[[File:SAT Guessing.png|100px]]
|'''{{what if|2|SAT Guessing}}'''
|''"What if everyone who took the SAT guessed on every multiple-choice question? How many perfect scores would there be?"''
|No one would get a perfect score. The odds of guessing correctly on every question would be less than the odds of every ex-living president at that time and the main cast of [[:Category:Firefly|Firefly]] getting struck by lightning on the same day.
|{{blog|69|YYYY|MM|DD|1m 19d late}}
|
|
|-
|[[File:Yoda.png|100px]]
|'''{{what if|3|Yoda}}'''
|''"How much Force power can Yoda output?"''
|Yoda can output about 19.2 kilowatts, or 25 horsepower. "Yoda power" would cost about $2/hour.
|{{blog|420}}
|
|
|-
|[[File:A Moles of Moles.png|100px]]
|'''{{what if|4|A Mole of Moles}}'''
|''"What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place?"''
|As a mole is such a high number this would be tricky. They would condense into a pressurized sphere of meat that would freeze and occasionally explode from gases.
|{{blog|4|2025|07|24}}
|
|
|-
|[[File:Robot Apocalypse.png|100px]]
|'''{{what if|5|Robot Apocalypse}}'''
|''"What if there was a robot apocalypse? How long would humanity last?"''
|Humanity would survive if the robots cared about keeping themselves alive as well. If not, then we would all die.
|{{blog|56|2012|07|31}}
|
|
|-
|[[File:Glass Half Empty.png|100px]]
|'''{{what if|6|Glass Half Empty}}'''
|''"What if a glass of water was, all of a sudden, literally half empty?"''
|If the vacuum were on the bottom half, it would explode, but if it were on the top half, the air rushes in and it becomes normal water.
|{{blog|100|2012|08|07}}
|
|
|-
|[[File:Glass Half Empty.png|100px]]
|'''Test 'removed' article (#9876)'''
|''"What if an article was, for some reason, deleted?"''
|If the vacuum were on the bottom half, it would explode, but if it were on the top half, the air rushes in and it becomes normal water.
|{{blog|9876|2061|07|28|archiveOnly=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2061:_Odyssey_Three}}
|
|
|}
[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>

3029: Sun Avoidance

2024-12-26T14:48:57Z

172.70.86.133: /* Trivia */ Transplanted, reworded, left open to linking.

{{comic
| number = 3029
| date = December 25, 2024
| title = Sun Avoidance
| image = sun_avoidance_2x.png
| imagesize = 311x403px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = C'mon, ESA Solar Orbiter team, just give the Parker probe a LITTLE nudge at aphelion. Crash it into the sun. Fulfill the dream of Icarus. It is your destiny.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SANTA BOT FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (SKILL ISSUE). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic shows the end of a table of human missions, both terrestrial and space-based, ranked by how far they stayed away from the {{w|Sun}}.

The vast majority of these missions have been on Earth, a few on the Moon, and most of the rest in Earth orbit, so about 157 million km from the Sun. There have also been 8 probes sent to the outer planets; they could be at the top of the list if this were shown, but only if they started by flying directly away from the Sun, at at time when the Earth was farthest from the Sun. Else they would have been closer to the Sun at the start than all missions on Earth when Earth was farthest. It is not how far away the mission ends but how close it comes at closest approach to the Sun.

Most space probes try not to get too close to the Sun, because it's extremely hot{{Citation needed}} and their equipment (especially the electronics) are not designed to work at such temperatures and radiation levels. If they have to venture into the inner Solar System, either because the mission is to an inner planet or other body there or to use {{w|gravity assist}} of Mercury or Venus, mission planners will design the trajectory so it remains tens of millions of kilometers away from the Sun, to minimize the Sun's effect on the spacecraft.

This comic was posted the day after December 24, 2024, when the {{w|Parker Solar Probe}} made its closest approach to the Sun. As a result, it has set a new record for the worst failure in solar avoidance. This mission needs to be really close to the Sun so it can make close-up analysis of its corona and magnetic field. It has been engineered with special solar shields to protect it from the extreme heat and radiation.

Obviously the joke is to mischaracterize Parker's impressively close approach to the Sun as a failure to avoid it, but it's still perhaps mistaken to title the list as a leaderboard of ''skill''. The Parker mission needed an extremely ''high'' degree of skill to successfully avoid the Sun's main mass whilst still needing to go through a layer of tenuous atmosphere — and should rank well above all the missions that went nowhere as near the Sun, and therefore showed little to no skill in avoiding it. By analogy, {{w|Shooting an apple off one's child's head#William Tell|"William Tell"}} avoided shooting his son with great skill, and would have needed much less if the real target had been a beach ball rather than an apple.

The next closest mission that's still in operation (the {{w|Helios (spacecraft)|Helios}} missions ended in 1985) is the {{w|European Space Agency}}'s {{w|Solar Orbiter}}. The title text jokes that it should nudge Parker so it crashes into the Sun fulfilling the supposed dream of {{w|Icarus}}, a character from Greek mythology who flew too close to the Sun using wings crafted by his father {{w|Daedalus}}, and fell into the sea because the beeswax in the wings melted. Flying too close to the Sun is a saying that relates to Icarus, whose dream may have been to fly even closer to the Sun (or just so high that he was), but the 'reality' was instead a fall ''out'' of the sky and into the sea, making the title text somewhat metaphorically mixed.

If the Solar Orbiter did this it would then retake its lead among missions in operation of being bad at avoiding the Sun (or, in terms of the comic, aquiring a "last place" position). But it would be be difficult to accomplish the feat, since at Parker's aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun in its orbit) it's still only about 7 million km, 35 million km from Solar Orbiter's orbit and the mission had not been designed with this degree of capability in reserve.

Note that falling into the Sun, starting from Earth, needs almost as much effort as it would take to launch a probe ''from'' the surface of the Sun (assuming one could be) and out into Earth's orbit, which might involve reversing the {{w|Gravity assist|gravitational slingshots}} used to save some effort. The possible advantage for a Sun-destined probe is that it can end by taking advantage of {{w|aerobraking}} in its {{w|Stellar atmosphere|thickening atmosphere}}, but this would mean surviving higher tempereratures for even longer than Parker probe is designed to hopefully withstand; it would take further development to have a probe with a good chance of surviving long enough to make useful studies all the way up to not missing the Sun at all, or could only be considered as beyond the end of any practical mission.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|There should not be a wikitable there, just do it with Transcript-style description. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Sun Avoidance Skill Leaderboard
:[A table with an ellipsis indicating a large number of rows being omitted, followed by seven substantive rows. All of the rank numbers except "1." are cut off at the left, with the leftmost digit being a partially cut-off "4", except that on the fourth substantive row, the "4" is shown in full with a cut-off "2" to its left. Hence, these ranks actually represent numbers with at least eight digits.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Rank
!Mission
!Sun Nearest Miss
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 1. ⋮ ... ⋮ 4303857.
|colspan="2"|[All other expeditions in human history]
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 4303858.
|Mariner-10
|69.0 million km
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 4303859.
|Helios 1
|46.4 million km
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 4303860.
|BepiColombo
|45.8 million km
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 24303861.
|Messenger
|45.3 million km
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 4303862.
|Solar Orbiter
|43.8 million km
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 4303863.
|Helios 2
|43.3 million km
|-
| style="text-align:right" | 4303864.
|Parker
|6.17 million km
|-
|}

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Congratulations to the Parker Solar Probe for setting a new record for "Worst Job Avoiding the Sun."

==Trivia==
This comic was released on Christmas Day of 2024, but makes no reference to Christmas. This year marks the first time in xkcd's 20 year history (of releasing comics around Christmas), that there have been no [[:Category:Christmas|Christmas comics]] released during those days. Also all nine times before this year, when a release day fell on Christmas Day, that comic has always been about Christmas.

It might explain why this comic was released on Christmas Day instead of a Christmas comic, if [[Randall]] found the accomplishments of the Parker Solar Probe more interesting than Christmas itself. It would not be the first accomplishment mentioned on or around Christmas, however, with the others having been given a seasonal spin.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space probes]]

Talk:1563: Synonym Movies

2023-08-31T11:29:53Z

172.70.86.133:

Space Trip would probably be Star Trek, right?
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.166|141.101.98.166]] 05:17, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Is this supposed to be related to "Thing explainer"? But then there are words like government, and Vulcan...
--[[User:Zzyss|Zzyss]] ([[User talk:Zzyss|talk]]) 06:51, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:No I do not think so. It is not simple words, just different words with he same meaning --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:29, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Funny, I would've said "''The Sword Wizard'''s Are''' Back''"... I've always interpreted that instance of ''Jedi'' as being plural.
--[[User:Vor0nwe|vor0nwe]] ([[User talk:Vor0nwe|talk]]) 08:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:It could refer to Luke, the only Jedi alive at the end of the movie... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:29, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
::Leia Amidala Skywalker died? Didn't noticed that. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Funny, I always assumed it referred to Anakin, as it's the move where his sith side is freed and his Jedi side "returns".--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.163|141.101.98.163]] 11:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Leia was never established as a Jedi - at least, not in the movies. There are only two places (both in Return of the Jedi) where it's hinted that she has any Force power at all: First, when Luke tells her that she's his sister and she says she's somehow always known, and second when Darth Vader divines her existence from Luke's feelings and suggests that she could be turned to the Dark Side. Neither of these scenes serve to establish her as a potential Jedi, so I don't think she could be reasonably included in OH WHAT THE HELL I'M SUCH A GEEK. [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 18:57, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:::: Not enough of a geek. When Kenobi says "That boy is our last hope," Yoda informs him that there is another. This, combined with Vader's implication she can be turned to the Dark Side - something that is only ever presented as a concern for those with Force power - clearly indicates that Leia is a potential Jedi. Further, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, she hears Luke "calling" for her, another indication of Force sensitivity. - Val
::::: I would like to add that the novelization of Return of the Jedi, which I believe was canon at the time, strongly implies Leia Organa (at the time, as of 2019 I believe her full name at time of death was General Leia Skywalker Organa Solo, explaining how her padawan took her last name) used the Force to kill Jabba. I'm pretty sure the title is plural (like in the German translation) and can refer to Luke, Anakin, and/or the Jedi Order as a whole (I always interpreted it as the Order as a whole) - Human Physics Padawan {{unsigned ip|162.158.86.144|06:30, 31 August 2023}}
:::::I would like to interject that Yoda's other hope is probably Anakin/Vader, who actually is the person who defeated the last (canon) Sith in existence. This also fulfilled the prophesy from the fantom menace.[[User:HisHighestMinion|HisHighestMinion]] ([[User talk:HisHighestMinion|talk]]) 05:50, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
:::::I add another vote for plural. I believe it refers to the concept of Jedi which all but died out in the prequels (the only living Jedi were hidden and inactive). The film is about the Jedi returning both into existence and into... being active. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
: In German the title is "Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter" which would translate back into "Return of the Jedi Knights" - Plural. So it is/was naturally plural for me, too. But, of course, German movie titles are no reference to the actual meaning. Since some years we occasionally use English titles in Germany, too. But somehow they are different to the original English titles... (No worry: Star Wars is Star Wars - but even that was translated in the 70's to "Krieg der Sterne") [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:: Now this is real funny: in Spanish the title is "El retorno del Jedi" which refers to one single Jedi, so it is/was naturally singular for me. I never even considered the possibility of "Jedi" referring to several people - until now. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.74|173.245.49.74]] 11:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:: Also, Spanish movie titles (especially in the 1980s and 1990s) have less even to do with original titles than German ones. "Star wars" became "La guerra de las galaxias" (which means "The galaxy war" and is not much of a stretch). However, "The money pit" is "Esta casa es una ruina" (This house is a wreck), "Switch" is "Una rubia muy dudosa" (A very dubious blonde) and "Trading places" is "Entre pillos anda el juego" (sort of "This game is about rascals"). These are mere examples, it looks like in the 1990s every movie had to triple its title length when translated into Spanish. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.74|173.245.49.74]] 11:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:::In Latin America ''The Money Pit'' was ''Hogar, dulce hogar'' (Home, sweet home). ''Switch'' was ''Pasaporte al cielo'' (A passport to heaven). ''Trading places'' was ''De mendigo a millonario'' (From beggar to millonaire). It's absurd that they translate all titles twice. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 21:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:: In Finnish, it's "Jedin paluu", which translates literally as "The Jedi's return", again in the singular. Star Wars is translated to Tähtien sota, which roughly means "The stars' war" (plural possessive). The Money Pit is Rahareikä, literally "Money Hole" (or "The Money Hole", Finnish doesn't have words for the, a, or an), Switch is called "Apua, olen muuttunut naiseksi" (roughly "Help, I'm a changed woman") and Trading Places is Vaihtokaupat (literally "Shops Swap"). {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.207}}
:: My favourite example in Germany is "Once upon a time in the West" (as far as I can tell a direct translation from the Italian original) which is "Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod" in Germany: "Play the song about death/of Death to me" (don't know if The Death or just death is meant). This is one of the rare occasions on which I prefer the German title, while the English translation of the German title sounds quite silly, imho. However, back to topic: The word "Jedi" is used as plural and singular in each English and German (at least I'm not aware of ever having heard "Jedis" in either language). While in German it's quite easy to distinguish them by the article (Der (sg)/ Die (pl)) even that is the same in English (The). [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 13:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Actually, the Italian title would translate to "Once upon a time there was the West". "Il ritorno del Jedi" implies one Jedi only. [[User:Red Lieutenant|Red Lieutenant]] ([[User talk:Red Lieutenant|talk]]) 07:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia does note that Czar had become a title equivalent to King by the 19th Century, so perhaps that ought to be mentioned regarding "We Have a Czar Again." {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.41}}
:: Specifically, Цар, or "Tsar" would in Bulgarian and Russian mean the equivalent of (native) monarch, while Крал/"kral" would be reserved for foreign monarchs. When referring to an emperor, you'd use император/"imperator". Thus I would argue that "Czar", as the western spelling of Tsar, is a reasonable facsimile for "King". [[User:Meledin|Meledin]] ([[User talk:Meledin|talk]]) 14:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Gaaaah! Power and force are not synonyms! Power and force-velocity are! Edit:thx whoever [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.75|108.162.221.75]] 10:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:You can probably put that in the same category as the mass delusion about what weight actually is. (SWIDT?) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.90|141.101.99.90]] 14:35, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:Not the same, right, but given the other variables remain the same, the Power raises aequivalent to Force. The sentence in whole remains correct that way. {{unsigned ip|162.158.90.235}}

The movie cases look like they form an upside down V, I and I. Could this also be a reference to the new Star Wars movie? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.30|141.101.98.30]] 19:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
:I doubt it. It's not obvious enough. [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 21:22, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

"Conveniently" forgot Space Trips V: The Ultimate Border and VI: A Pristine Land, did we Randall? {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.165}}
: "Ultimate border" sounds too good. I would suggest:"Remote border" or "The furthest we have been from home (so far)". Continuing: "Space Trip: Overlooked Land ", "Space Trip: Full House", "Space Trip: Touched for the very first time", "Space Trip: Trouble with locals", "Space Trip: Recurring villian", "Space Trip: Space Trip", "Space Trip: Who turned off the light?", "Space Trip: To Infinity!" [[User:Carewolf|Carewolf]] ([[User talk:Carewolf|talk]]) 10:35, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
:: "Pristine Land" or "Overlooked land" doesn't really resonate with either the movie or the play. Why not "Space Trip VI: Life After Death"? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.145|141.101.98.145]] 16:34, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

:::He also skipped Space Fights: When Identical Twins Attack and Space Fights: The Bad Wizards' Comeback.

::::Make that 2002's Space Fights: The Lookalikes' Offensive - Human Physics Padawan {{unsigned ip|162.158.86.144|06:30, 31 August 2023}}

:::And of course Foreigner, Foreigners, Foreigner Cubed, Born-Again Foreigners, and Foreigners Fighting Carnivores. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.52|162.158.255.52]] 10:33, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

:::Great, now we have to add Demigod who Stole Fire and Foreigner: Agreement. {{unsigned ip|172.68.211.82}}

Alright, now I'm going to try to do the DC and Marvel Cinematic Universes. Feel free to add or change if you think you could put something better in.

Marvel:

The Angry Green Guy
Ferric Man
Ferric Man Defends Himself Against the Government
Thunder God
Patriotic Commanding Officer
Everyone From the First Five Films
Ferric Man Loses His Gadgets
Patriotic Commanding Officer: His Enemy is
His Old Friend
Thunder God: (The Dark World)
Defenders of the Star System
Everyone From the First Nine Films Fight a Robot
Formicidae Man
Patriotic Commanding Officer against Ferric Man
Mystic Superhero
Defenders of the Star System Again
Arachnid Man Returns
Thunder God: The Apocalypse
(At present)

DC:
Übermensch
Übermensch II
Übermensch III
Übermensch IV: No More Nuclear Weapons
Chiroptera Man (1989)
Chiroptera Man Comes Back
Eternal Chiroptera Man
Chiroptera Man & Erithacus Rubecula
Felidae Woman
Chiroptera Man Starts Out
Übermensch Comes Back to Earth
The Sombre Sir
The Source of Light in the 500nm Wavelength
The Sombre Sir Climbs
The Iron-carbon mixture Man
Übermensch fights Chiroptera Man, just because.
Villains as Heroes
Amazing Amazon
All The Heroes So Far
(At present) {{unsigned ip| 172.68.211.82}}

Thank you to the person who did the comic rotated! My neck was hurting. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.164}}

I'm curious, does anyone have a list to movie titles that have been similarly altered? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.227|162.158.2.227]] 06:33, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
: Not what you mean, but I'd used Google to look for "[https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=film+titles+translated+names&meta=&gws_rd=ssl film titles translated names]" (yeah, 'film' vs. 'movie', I know... but Google seems to have translated my Rightpondian terminology sufficiently) and it looks like it's definitely something people pay attention to. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.159|141.101.98.159]] 13:15, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I had no idea what "The Jewelry God," meant, since that's a terribly mangled: "The Lord of the Rings" is of course a reference to the ring that rules all the other rings, as was made plain in the book. So "The Jewelry God" is backwards, and should have been "The God Jewelry." [[User:Mwenechanga|Mwenechanga]] ([[User talk:Mwenechanga|talk]]) 17:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
:Commenting very late, but: not necessarily. Sauron is actually referred to as "The Lord of the Ring" in the book (by Gandalf). [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 15:35, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I feel it would've been even better if he'd done word-for-word synonyms transcriptions, instead of phrase "synonyms", which are only synonyms if one takes the "-nym" literally, the full phrase being the movie's name. —[[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 17:06, 12 November 2019 (UTC)