explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3086: Globe Safety

2025-05-12T08:16:04Z

172.70.91.12:

; You are welcome to comment on the April Fools' Day talk page
Hey, I thought we could revamp the old [[April Fools' Day comics]] page. I proposed a table or a list, and it would be nice if you commented. It should be a small project. '''You are welcome to [[Talk:April Fools' Day comics#Restructuring as a table or a nice list|comment here]]'''. Thanks!--[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:02, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
----

Hello! First time i got to a comic first --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.176.76|172.69.176.76]] 06:17, 8 May 2025 (UTC){{unsigned ip|104.23.175.202}}
:Well [[269: TCM|first of all]] remember to sign your comments :-). But congratz... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
::Sorry. I now realize that that was an extremely trollish thing to do. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.92.140|172.70.92.140]] 07:09, 8 May 2025 (UTC) ٠ـ٠
:: Also i MAY OR MAY NOT have permanently altered the editing process of this talk by including arabic numbers in an emoticon.{{unsigned ip|172.70.92.140|07:09, 8 May 2025 (UTC)}}

I believe he indicates that a globe is made by making a copy of the Earth, and then compressing it until it fits on a desktop. Hence having the same mass and thus the same Schwarzschild radius as Earth. I have changed the explanation a bit because of this observation.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Gotta wonder what kind of a desk could support a desktop globe that weighs as much as the Earth --[[User:StumbleRunner|StumbleRunner]]
:[...] desk? Convince me that such a globe wouldn't plunge straight through the Earth's crust and into the mantle. I sense a marketing problem. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.69|172.71.147.69]] 07:07, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Radius. <s>Is there a typo in the comic where 7/10" should be 7/20", i.e., 0.35" as later written? Or would a 7/10" Earth collapse into a black hole nonetheless?</s>[[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.129|172.71.154.129]] 06:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
:Nope… the Schwarzchild radius is 0.35", which is indeed 7/20", but the measurement shown on the globe is the diameter, not the radius, so 7/10" is correct. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.143|172.71.178.143]] 06:49, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Isn't there also a jab at the weird way USsians use power-of-two fractions for inch measurements? I've never seen something like 7/10" before, it would be approximated as 11/16".[[Special:Contributions/172.71.95.69|172.71.95.69]] 09:18, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
: It isn't a weird USian thing - it's just the historical way that inches (being a non-metric unit) were divided. The same way that an inch is a 1/12 division of a foot, which is a 1/3 division of a yard, etc. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.83|141.101.98.83]] 10:23, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I think we have a bigger problem: there are millions of globes on Earth! I haven't done the calculations, but that might be enough to turn Earth into a black hole already; if not, I expect at least it would turn it into a star. --[[Special:Contributions/104.23.190.34|104.23.190.34]] 11:44, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

BTW. what would be a 12-inch object with a mass of Earth? Neutron star? Neutron planet? Neutron meteoroid? -- 12:46, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
: Crunching the numbers (thanks to Copilot.microsoft.com):
:* A sphere with a 30 cm radius has a volume of about 1.13×10<sup>-2</sup> m³.
:* Compressing Earth's mass into that volume gives a density of roughly 5.3×10<sup>28</sup> g/cm³.
: That is way way denser than a neutron star. It's doubtful that such a sphere would remain at that density; it would likely explode immediately, or if prevented from doing so, continue to shrink down past 9mm and become a black hole. {{unsigned ip|172.70.110.59|13:26, 8 May 2025 (UTC)}}

'''False precision: .889 cm?''' Could someone please check "0.35 inches (0.889 cm)"? I'm concerned that this is a matter of {{w|false precision}}, with two significant digits for the customary / imperial system precisely converting to three significant digits in SI (similar to the way people obsess over 98'''.6'''F, which is a precise conversion of the estimate of 37C.). Also, I'd suggest that millimeters are preferable to centimeters. [[Special:Contributions/104.23.170.118|104.23.170.118]] 14:11, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
: 2 × 6.6738×10^−11 m^3⋅kg^−1⋅s^−2 × 5.972168×10^24 kg / (299792458 m⋅s^−1)2 = 0.00887 m , so the current 8.9mm looks good. [[User:Nosh|Nosh]] ([[User talk:Nosh|talk]]) 19:16, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Why are globes over 12 inches safer than those less than 12 inches? The density calculation above seems to indicate that an earth mass object of 12 inch diameter is much denser than a neutron star. (Of course that calculation was done with an AI - so may not be right.) I did a little searching for things denser than neutron stars - didn't find much. So what is special about 12 inches that makes earth mass things of that size change in safety regime [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.75|172.68.22.75]]
:I'm pretty sure there aren't any things denser than a neutron stars. (There are black holes, of course, but those are not really things and may not actually HAVE a meaningful density.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 05:07, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
::')DROP TABLE Talk:3086: Globe Safety; {{unsigned ip|162.158.108.51|07:22, 9 May 2025 (UTC)}}
::So, I'm guessing you've never heard of the theoretical {{w|Quark star}} (a specific example of an {{w|Exotic star}}, which is hypothesized to exist between the two). [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 18:13, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
:I think that's part of the joke. There's no safe cut-off at which globes made in this fashion would be OK - placing an Earth-sized Earth-mass object immediately adjacent to the Earth would be utterly catastrophic, never mind anything smaller.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.107|172.71.26.107]] 08:32, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
I'd just like to point out the the Schwarzchild radius of one Planck mass is two Planck lengths (obvious from the standard formula). Since the mass unit is an incredibly huge 22 micrograms, this makes me nervous about all those bacteria for some reason. [[Special:Contributions/104.23.209.191|104.23.209.191]] 17:43, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

I have three globes in my home office. I wondered why they were so heavy. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 00:58, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

1016: Valentine Dilemma

2025-05-03T01:20:14Z

172.70.91.12: Presumably the intended tagging.

{{comic
| number = 1016
| date = February 13, 2012
| title = Valentine Dilemma
| image = valentine_dilemma.png
| titletext = The worst resolution to the Valentine Prisoner's Dilemma when YOU decide not to give your partner a present but your PARTNER decides to testify against you in the armed robbery case.
}}

==Explanation==
Both [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are agonizing over what to get each other for [[:Category:Valentines|Valentine's Day]]. Both of them seem to have a similar mindset towards the holiday: that it's arbitrary, imposes a set of demands and expectations, and is used by corporations to mandate consumerism. At the same time, both are aware that rituals and social expectations are important to other people, and so are torn between their distaste at following contrived rules and their concerns about being inconsiderate.

In the 6th frame, Megan worries that Cueball might get her something and be hurt if she didn't reciprocate, explictly referencing the {{w|prisoner's dilemma}}. This dilemma is a classic thought experiment in game theory, in which two accused criminals are given the opportunity to testify against one another, but not allowed to communicate. The offer is set up so that the best total outcome for both prisoners is if neither testifies. But each individual prisoner, not knowing what the other will choose, may personally benefit from turning on the other (or give away this advantage if they, alone, choose not to). In a similar way, Megan and Cueball might both be most satisfied if neither buys a gift, but neither wants to take the risk of looking inconsiderate (and apparently aren't open to communicating about it).

The ultimate resolution is that neither gets the other a conventional gift. Cueball buys Easter candy (candy is a common Valentine's day gift, but the Easter theme makes it less cliche) and a jar of hammers, which clearly isn't an expected romantic gift.{{cn}} Megan panicked and, even more inexplicably, staples her hand to her face. There's something sweet in the fact that they're both equally befuddled by this social ritual, but they recognize that they've been badly overthinking what should be a fairly simple interaction.

The title text combines the two dilemma scenarios in an absurd juxtaposition, with the reader ("you") choosing with one person choosing not to get a gift (from the Valentine's Dilemma) and the other choosing to testify in a criminal case (from the prisoner's dilemma).

The Prisoner's Dilemma has been referenced before, in [[696: Strip Games]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball standing with hand on chin.]
:Cueball: Flowers seem so... trite. Something homemade? Easy to look halfhearted.

:[A frame-less panel of Megan sitting at a computer, also with hand on chin.]
:Megan: Valentine's day is a corporate construct.
:Megan: But hard to opt out of.
:Megan: I don't want to be a corporate tool ''or'' an inconsiderate jerk.

:[Cueball pacing.]
:Cueball: How do I fight cliché? I could get her a gift on a ''different'' day.
:Cueball: But what am I proving?

:[Megan leaning back with stapler in hand.]
:Megan: It's such a contrived ritual. But maybe rituals are necessary social glue.

:[Zoomed in on Cueball panicking.]
:Cueball: Forty presents. No, ''none!'' No, give her five items and then steal two from her.
:Cueball: OK, breathe. Keep it together.

:[Zoomed in on Megan sweating, still holding the stapler.]
:Megan: And what if he gets me something and I don't reciprocate?
:Megan: Prisoners dilemma!
:Megan: AAAAAAAAAA!!

:[Cueball and Megan talking. Cueball is holding a basket and a jar of hammers. Megan's hand is stapled to her face.]
:Cueball: I got you Easter candy and a jar of hammers.
:Megan: I panicked and stapled my hand to my face.
:Cueball: We overthought this.
:Megan: Yes.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Psychology]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Valentines]]

2769: Overlapping Circles

2025-04-09T08:38:45Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */ If I had no idea what that even was, others won't.

{{comic
| number = 2769
| date = April 28, 2023
| title = Overlapping Circles
| image = overlapping_circles_2x.png
| imagesize = 369x260px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "The Venn diagram of the sun and the moon is a circle." --someone being snarky at totality
}}

==Explanation==
The comic shows two overlapping circles. This is a simple example of a {{w|Venn Diagram}}, which is a way that set theorists often illustrate the relationships between sets. Venn diagrams can consist of a number of overlapping shapes to describe the similarities and differences between any number of objects. Up to three overlapping circles can be used to represent every combination of membership of those separate sets. Beyond this, circles cannot suffice and other shapes (ovals or even concave shapes) are needed, but just two such areas is as trivial as shown, with the portion of the diagram where the two circles overlap represents the intersection of the sets (items that are in both sets). There are [[:Category:Venn diagrams|several other comics about Venn diagrams]].

The two sets in this diagram are set theorists and astronomers. Set theorists would find the shape here interesting because such diagrams would appear regularly in their work. Astronomers also find overlapping circles interesting, because this is what they see during {{w|eclipses}}, when one astronomical body is directly or partially in front of another. In the overlapping section in the middle would be people who are both set theorists and astronomers. The joke here is that these people would be particularly excited by the shape, because it represents the overlapping of both their fields of study.

Note that Randall seems to have chosen humor over scientific accuracy. Read literally, this diagram appears to be saying that the only people who are excited about the shape are those who are both set theorists and astronomers. The label that is in the {{w|Intersection (set theory)|intersection}} of the two circles should properly apply to their {{w|Union (set theory)|union}}. However, a pedantic person might note that the label is actually within the union of the two circles, so perhaps all is well after all.

A common snarky comment on the Internet is "The Venn diagram of [x] and [y] is a circle" (for example, "xkcd" and "[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/peak-fiction peak fiction]"), implying that the two sets are identical. {{w|Totality}} describes a total (full) eclipse, when one astronomical body completely blocks the light from another. During totality, the shape of the eclipse is a circle. The title text references the totality that occurs during a total solar eclipse and its corresponding shape (or "Venn diagram," as the title text phrases it).

This comic was released 8 days after the {{w|Solar eclipse of April 20, 2023}}, which was visible across parts of South East Asia and Australia, and of which an excited astronomer would certainly be aware.

==Transcript==
:[The comic is an image of Venn diagram, which is used to compare groups of objects.]
:[The Venn diagram in the comic has two overlapping circles. The leftmost circle is labeled "set theorists," the rightmost circle is labeled "astronomers," and the intersection between the circles is labeled "people who get excited about this shape."]

[[Category:Venn diagrams]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

{{comic discussion}}

2003: Presidential Succession

2025-03-23T19:13:13Z

172.70.91.12: /* List of specific individuals */ Updated Sunni's post-'stranded in space' status. (Haven't heard of future missions planned. Having had the extended stay may mean that she's now 'done' the next mission she was unofficially lined up to do, even.)

{{comic
| number = 2003
| date = June 6, 2018
| title = Presidential Succession
| image = presidential_succession.png
| titletext = Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|United States presidential line of succession}} is the order of people who serve as president if the current incumbent president is incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office. The {{w|Presidential Succession Act#Presidential Succession Act of 1947|Presidential Succession Act of 1947}} revised the presidential order of succession to its current order. This Act, though never challenged in the courts, may not be constitutional for two reasons. First, the Act names two members of Congress as successors. There are fundamental questions as to whether this violates the principle of Separation of Powers. The second issue is that the Act allows for anyone skipped over for succession to later assume the office if circumstances change to allow them to hold it. This would mean that the person in question could effectively unseat a sitting President, which raises serious constitutional issues.

There are also practical concerns regarding the Act. The line of succession includes all members of the Cabinet in the order that their department was established, with the oldest departments first. No consideration is given to which departments would be most relevant to the Presidency, particularly considering that this type of succession would presumably involve a serious crisis, which the new president would need to be able to address immediately. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of the security and protection of the United States and its citizens and would probably already be privy to sensitive intelligence and briefings related to national security, but because it is the latest of the Departments to have been established (in 2003), the Secretary of Homeland Security is last in the current Presidential line of succession, behind Secretaries in much less sensitive roles, such as those of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Education. Another concern is that, by including members of Congress immediately after the Vice President, there is a serious risk that the simultaneous death of the President and Vice President could cause the Presidency to change to the opposing party, which could lead to serious political instability at the precise moment when the country is facing a national crisis. It even presents the possibility that simultaneous assassinations of the President and Vice President could function as an effective coup, shifting power to their opponents.

Finally, there is the issue that, usually, everyone in the line of succession lives and works in Washington D.C. Hence, a sufficiently destructive attack or natural disaster impacting the city could realistically incapacitate all of them, leaving the USA leaderless at a time of extreme crisis. It is already established practice in the USA that everyone in this line not gather together at once. In cases where most senior government officials gather (such as the {{w| State of the Union}}), at least one member of the line of succession (referred to as the "designated survivor") is secured off-site, and would assume the presidency in the unlikely event that a {{w| mass casualty event}} were to kill or incapacitate everyone else in the line. However, disasters impacting an entire city remain a possibility, and no provision is made for them in current law.

To correct these issues, a think tank known as the {{w| Continuity of Government Commission}} prepared a report recommending a new line of succession, which would not include members of Congress, would reorder the cabinet secretaries so that the most suitable roles would be the first successors, and would include people who do not live or work in Washington DC. The full text of their report can be found [https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf here]. A short, readable summary, including the report's recommended new line of succession, is [https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-continuity-of-the-presidency-the-second-report-of-the-continuity-of-government-commission here].

The first six members of the commission's list are taken from the current line of succession, though the order is changed; they propose that after this, five new people should be appointed specifically for the purpose of assuming the presidency, if needed. Randall's list begins with these eleven people (combining the five new appointees into #7); afterwards, his list becomes increasingly comical and ridiculous.

Randall's list omits members of Congress, as well as other cabinet positions, in accordance with the report's concerns about constitutionality and qualifications. However, his other additions totally ignore these issues, including people with no apparent qualifications for the office (such as actors, athletes, and competitive eaters) and people who are constitutionally ineligible for the office. The US Constitution requires that the President of the United States must be a natural-born US citizen, at least 35 years of age, and have resided in the US for at least fourteen years. Randall's list includes many people who don't meet these requirements. Most notably, he includes the entire succession to the British crown, almost none of whom meet the requirement of being natural-born citizens of the United States.

It may be expected that many of the athletes, musicians and actors on this list are likely to be ineligible as well. Most professional athletes in the relevant sports are under 35 years old, particularly those at the peak of their careers (when they'd likely win MVP awards), the most popular musicians also tend to be younger than 35, and many who meet these requirements were not born US citizens (and some many not even reside in the US). However, the existing line of succession can also contain ineligible people, who would simply be skipped over for succession. For example, at the comic's publication, {{w|Elaine Chao}} was the Secretary of Transportation and would normally be 14th in line, but because she is a naturalized citizen of the US, rather than native-born (she was born in Taiwan) she would not qualify for the office if the line came to her. The presidential line of succession was first mentioned in [[1933: Santa Facts]].

The title text mentions that ties will be broken by whoever was closest to the surface of {{w|Europa}} when they were born. Europa is a moon of Jupiter and one of the most likely locations in the Solar System for {{w|Habitability of natural satellites|potential habitability}}. This is likely a parody of systems in which ties are broken by semi-arbitrary rules (such as the older candidate automatically winning a tie) or a randomized ones (such as ties being decided by a coin flip). The position of Europa with respect to Earth at the time of one's birth depends on enough factors that it acts as a pseudo-random tie breaker, albeit a needlessly complicated one.

==Order of succession==
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!#
!Randall's order
!Current order by the 1947 Act
!Notes
|-
|1
|{{w|POTUS|President}}
|President
|Not generally considered part of the line of succession, as incumbents cannot "succeed" to their own post. (This should really be item 0 on the list.)
|-
|2
|{{w|POTUS|Vice president}}
|Vice president
|This is the same as in the actual line of succession. Succeeding the President is one of the only two roles assigned to the Vice President by the Constitution, the other being presiding over the Senate (including breaking ties), but Vice Presidents are often given additional roles during office.
|-
|3
|{{w|United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State}}
|Speaker of the House of Representatives
|Moved up from 5th position. This is likely a serious suggestion. As mentioned above, the existing Succession Act includes the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, which presents serious practical and constitutional issues. The Secretary of State is the chief officer responsible for the country's international relations and diplomatic missions, and would be a logical successor, particularly in times of crisis.
|-
|4
|{{w|United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense}}
|{{w|President pro tempore of the United States Senate|President pro tempore of the Senate}}
|Moved up from 7th position. Also likely a serious suggestion. The existing succession places the Secretary of Defense behind the Secretary of the Treasury in succession. If the three preceding officials were simultaneously killed or incapacitated, there would be a high likelihood that the country was under attack, and other powers could easily try to take advantage of any power vacuum. Since the Secretary of Defense is most connected to the nation's military, and most in tune with information regarding potential threats and risks, this would be a logical succession.
|-
|5
|{{w|United States Secretary of Homeland Security|Secretary of Homeland Security}}
|Secretary of State
|Moved up from 19th position. Again likely a serious suggestion. As with the Secretary of Defense, this officer would likely be closely aligned with the national emergency response infrastructure (including overseeing the {{w|Federal Emergency Management Agency}}), and would be well equipped to deal with a major attack or natural disaster.
|-
|6
|{{w|United States Attorney General|Attorney General}}
|{{w|United States Secretary of the Treasury|Secretary of the Treasury}}
|Moved up from 8th position. Once again, likely a serious suggestion. The Attorney General oversees national law enforcement, and would be in a position to deal with internal chaos that could result from a disaster that impacted the federal government so deeply.
|-
|7
|Five people who do not live in {{w|Washington, D.C.}}, nominated at the start of the President's term and confirmed by the Senate
|Secretary of Defense
|Washington, D.C is the capital of the United States, and is where the {{w|White House}}, the President's residence, is located. Presumably this provision covers the case where much of the government, including positions 1–6 here, are killed by a natural disaster or attack in Washington, D.C.

This suggestion establishes no qualifications for these people, but the fact that they'd need to be confirmed by the Senate suggests that they would be chosen to be competent for the role. It is also unclear if an order is determined among these five or if they take up a joint presidency. This suggestion is taken from the Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission to prevent the danger of the entire line of succession being removed in a single event.
|-
|8
|{{w|Tom Hanks}}
|Attorney General
|Academy Award-winning American actor. This is the first unambiguously unserious suggestion.{{Citation needed}} Tom Hanks is very popular and considered exceptionally likeable by many Americans, but has never served in public office or displayed any particular affinity for politics. The implication is that Mr. Hanks would be easily accepted as a leader, based solely on his personal charm. It should also be noticed that Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell, who served in the navy before becoming an astronaut (Many early astronauts were former military members.), in ''Apollo 13'', a military captain in ''Saving Private Ryan'', a prison officer in ''The Green Mile'', a naval intelligence officer in ''James B. Donovan'', and a member of the House of Representatives in ''Charlie Wilson's War''; if Tom Hanks's appearances in movies counted as real-life experience, then he would be adequately qualified.
|-
|9
|State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
|{{w|United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior}}
|Also taken from Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission. At the time of publication, the last {{w|United States Census}} was the 2010 Census. As California is the most populous state, its Governor ({{w|Jerry Brown}} at the time of publication) would have been first in line.

See also the {{w|2010_United_States_Census#State_rankings|state population rankings}} and the {{w|list of current United States governors}}. As worded, this criterion would exclude territorial governors (and the Mayor of Washington, D.C.).
|-
|10
|Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
|{{w|United States Secretary of Agriculture|Secretary of Agriculture}}
|Oscars, or {{w|Academy Awards}}, are annual film awards awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the time of publication, the only Oscar awarded for playing a governor was {{w|Broderick Crawford}}'s 1949 Best Actor award for the fictional Willie Stark in ''{{w|All the King's Men (1949 film)|All the King's Men}}'' (a character based on {{w|Huey Long}}). However, Crawford died in 1986, so would be unable to serve as President.

This may be a reference to the {{w|Political career of Arnold Schwarzenegger}}: a highly-lauded actor who became governor of California, but did not win an Oscar or play a governor before being elected. (As a naturalized citizen, he is also ineligible for the Presidency.)
There is also humor in suggesting that playing a governor delivers just as much experience as being a governor. (Something similar was mentioned in the section about Tom Hanks, who played, among other things, a member of the House of Representatives.)
|-
|11
|Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
|{{w|United States Secretary of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce}}
|The {{w|Governors Awards}} are an annual award ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present lifetime achievement awards within the film industry. As this award is a lifetime achievement award, it does not seem possible that an actor could win this award for simply playing someone named Oscar. Notwithstanding the nature of the award, at the time of publication, no recipient of a Governors Award has played a character named Oscar.

Obviously, the joke is that changing the order of the words from the previous proposal produces something that could actually exist.
|-
|12
|{{w|Kate McKinnon}}, if available
|Secretary of Labor
|Comedic actress famous for being a cast member on {{w|Saturday Night Live}}. She is known for her character work and celebrity impressions. She has recently done impersonations of members of the Trump administration including Spokeswoman {{w|Kellyanne Conway}} and Attorney General {{w|Jeff Sessions}}. She also played {{w|Hillary Clinton}} during the 2016 campaign and presumably would have played her when she was President had she won; but since Clinton lost, McKinnon has not actually played a President. At the time the comic was released, she was 34 years 5 months old; thus she was not "available" until seven months later. Being available could also refer to not already having an acting commitment, in which case the comic would be humorously implying that fulfilling her acting roles is more important than the country having leadership.
|-
|13
|Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
|Secretary of Health and Human Services
|The {{w|Billboard Hot 100}} is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine. The weekly data is aggregated into a cumulative {{w|Billboard Year-End}} (based on a "year" that ends the third week of November, in order to meet December publication deadlines). At the time of publication, the most recent such list was the {{w|Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2017}}.

Based on that list, the artists considered for the presidential succession would be: {{w|Ed Sheeran}}, {{w|Luis Fonsi}}, {{w|Bruno Mars}}, {{w|Kendrick Lamar}}, Alex Pall (of {{w|The Chainsmokers}}), {{w|Quavo|Quavoius Keyate Marshall}} (of {{w|Migos}}), {{w|Sam Hunt}}, {{w|Dan Reynolds}} (of {{w|Imagine Dragons}}), and {{w|Post Malone}}. There are only nine names instead of ten because The Chainsmokers had two of the top 10 singles in 2017. Of these, only Luis Fonsi (40 years old, born in Puerto Rico) was legally eligible for the office; all the others were too young, and Sheeran is additionally from the United Kingdom.
|-
|14
|The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
|Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
|Astronauts are highly respected and rigorously selected, but most have little involvement in politics. According to [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-station-astronaut-record-holders NASA], the top 5 US astronauts by cumulative space time at the time of publication were: {{w|Peggy Whitson}}, {{w|Jeffrey Williams (astronaut)|Jeff Williams}}, {{W|Scott Kelly (astronaut)|Scott Kelly}} (whose brother {{w|Mark Kelley (astronaut)|Mark}} is a sitting US Senator), {{w|Mike Fincke}}, and {{w|Mike Foale}}. However, it is unclear whether Foale would qualify as a natural-born citizen, as he was born in the United Kingdom to a British father and American mother.
|-
|15
|{{w|Serena Williams}} (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
|Secretary of Transportation
|As of the time of publication, Serena Williams was a top female tennis player. She is arguably the greatest female tennis player of all-time, winning 39 {{w|Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam}} titles, including 23 women's singles titles. At the time of publication Serena Williams did win her most recent match (2018 French Open, third round, on June 2nd), although she withdrew from her next match against Maria Sharapova (which perhaps should count as a loss, especially if she withdrew in order to preserve her place in the line of succession and killed everyone in place ahead of her).

If her most recent defeat was to a non-US player, presumably she would be skipped over in line although this is not explicitly stated (the current succession list skips over anyone who would not normally qualify for not being a natural-born US citizen).
|-
|16
|The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
|Secretary of Energy
|MVP stands for {{w|Most Valuable Player}}. The 4 listed leagues are the major sports leagues in the United States, the {{w|National Basketball Association}} (NBA), the {{w|National Football League}} (NFL), {{w|Major League Baseball}} (MLB), and the {{w|National Hockey League}} (NHL). We're assuming that Randall meant the regular season MVPs of each league, as each league also awards MVPs for their respective championships (or in the case of the NHL's {{w|Conn Smythe Trophy}}, their entire playoffs).

As of the time of publication, the most recent MVPs for the listed sports were {{w|Russell Westbrook}} (NBA), {{w|Tom Brady}} (NFL), {{w|José Altuve}} and {{w|Giancarlo Stanton}} (MLB has two, one for the American League and one for the National League), and {{w|Connor McDavid}} (NHL). Of these, only Brady would qualify for the list - Altuve and McDavid are Venezuelan and Canadian citizens respectively, and Westbrook (29) and Stanton (28) were too young.
|-
|17
|{{w|Bill Pullman}} and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
|Secretary of Education
|American actor, known for playing President Thomas J. Whitmore in the 1996 film ''{{w|Independence Day (1996 film)|Independence Day}}''.

Absolute primogeniture is a form of succession where the oldest direct descendant regardless of gender receives the title. This is contrasted to {{w|Male-preference primogeniture}}, in which males come before females in the order of the throne, whether the males were born first or not. This may be a reference to the British law {{w|Succession to the Crown Act 2013}}, which changed the order of the throne from male-preference primogeniture to absolute primogeniture. This act allows {{w|Princess Charlotte of Cambridge|Princess Charlotte}} to retain her place in line before {{w|Prince Louis of Cambridge|Prince Louis}}.

At the time of publication, Pullman's immediate descendants consisted of three children, with Maesa Pullman being the oldest at age 29. Thus all but Bill Pullman himself were too young for the presidency.
|-
|18
|The entire line of succession to the British throne
|Secretary of Veterans Affairs
|According to the Constitution, only a natural-born citizen of the United States can become President, which means that at least most of the line of succession to the British throne is ineligible. However, it is possible that someone in the line of succession to the British throne either is a dual citizen or is not British (a person from outside of Britain or Ireland can become King; for example, some, including George I, were from what is now Germany).

The first 59 names on the list are {{w|Succession_to_the_British_throne#Current_line_of_succession|here}}. [https://lineofsuccession.co.uk/?date=2018-06-06 British Line of Succession on 6 June 2018] shows the list as it was at the comic's publication. American citizens [http://articles.latimes.com/1988-02-11/news/vw-42233_1_royal-house have, at times] been on the list, but no natural-born Americans were on the list when the comic was published. However, after this comic was published {{w|Archie Mountbatten-Windsor}} was born on May 6, 2019; he is currently seventh in the line of succession to the British throne and has US citizenship through his mother {{w|Meghan, Duchess of Sussex}}. As with Mark Foale, though, whether that qualifies as natural-born has not be tested (leaving aside his age and the fact that many royals in his position have historically relinquished their birthright US citizenship voluntarily, which he may choose to do once he reaches age 16). In theory, the full British succession list includes [http://www.wargs.com/essays/succession/2011.html several thousand people] (living descendants of {{w|Sophia of Hanover}} who are not Roman Catholic or otherwise disqualified), and it is possible that one or more such people would also be eligible to be President of the United States beyond Master Archie. Archie's sister Lillibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born in Santa Barbara, California, USA, on June 4, 2021, making her definitively a natural born US citizen, and thus, theoretically eligible to become US president upon turning 35.

The humor here derives from the fact that the United States was established by declaring independence from the United Kingdom, with rejection of the British monarchy being a basic founding principle, and a core principle of US governance. To appoint the British monarchy to the American presidency would contradict the basic goals of American independence. Alternatively, it may reference the recent wedding of {{w|Prince Harry}} to {{w|Meghan Markle}}, although she is not in the order of succession. A similar sequence of events was the plotline of the comedy film ''{{w|King Ralph}}'', which saw an American become the British monarch after the death of the royal family.
|-
|19
|The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
|Secretary of Homeland Security
|The {{w|Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest}} is an annual American hot dog competitive eating competition sponsored by {{w|Nathan's Famous}} held on July 4th. As of the time of publication, the most recent men's winner was {{w|Joey Chestnut}} and the women's winner was {{w|Miki Sudo}}. At the time of publication, neither was old enough to assume the office.

The comic does not specify whether the men's or women's winner should take office, creating a tie that would be broken by distance from Europa at birth. Had they both been eligible, [https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/29132/was-earth-closer-to-europa-on-1983-11-25-or-1985-07-22 Sudo would have won] by between 0.125 and 2.2 {{w|Astronomical unit}}s.
|-
|20
|All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament
|''None''
|Effective for a population up to 536,870,912 individuals (2^29) which would be enough to cover the entire US population (estimated at around 325 million at time of publication), although additional rounds can be added should the population grow further.

This is probably a reference to the {{w|Matter of Britain}} (e.g., {{w|The Sword in the Stone (film)|The Sword in the Stone}}), where, after the death of Uther Pendragon, with no known successor to the throne of Britain (some versions of the legend refer incorrectly to England) for years, it is decided that the winner of a jousting tournament shall be crowned. However, Arthur, the Wart, pulls the Sword from the Stone.
|}

===List of specific individuals===
Based on the comic's defined criteria for the order of succession, these are the specific individuals in that order, including only people who are otherwise eligible to be the President of United States (35 year old and natural born US citizens who lived in US for last 14 years) '''as of the date the comic was published'''.
#[[Donald Trump]] ({{w|President of the United States}})
#{{w|Mike Pence}} ({{w|Vice President of the United States}})
#{{w|Mike Pompeo}} ({{w|United States Secretary of State}})
#{{w|Jim Mattis}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Defense}})
#{{w|Kirstjen Nielsen}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Homeland Security}})
#{{w|Jeff Sessions}} ({{w|United States Attorney General}})
#*''As Donald Trump did not appoint anyone to fill position #7 on Randall's line of succession, Hanks immediately followed after Sessions.''
#{{w|Tom Hanks}} (Tom Hanks)
#{{w|Jerry Brown}} (Governor of California)
#{{w|Greg Abbott}} (Governor of Texas)
#{{w|Andrew Cuomo}} (Governor of New York)
#{{w|Rick Scott}} (Governor of Florida)
#{{w|Bruce Rauner}} (Governor of Illinois)
#{{w|Tom Wolf}} (Governor of Pennsylvania)
#{{w|John Kasich}} (Governor of Ohio)
#{{w|Rick Snyder}} (Governor of Michigan)
#{{w|Nathan Deal}} (Governor of Georgia)
#{{w|Roy Cooper}} (Governor of North Carolina)
#{{w|Phil Murphy}} (Governor of New Jersey)
#{{w|Ralph Northam}} (Governor of Virginia)
#{{w|Jay Inslee}} (Governor of Washington)
#{{w|Charlie Baker}} (Governor of Massachusetts)
#{{w|Eric Holcomb}} (Governor of Indiana)
#{{w|Doug Ducey}} (Governor of Arizona)
#{{w|Bill Haslam}} (Governor of Tennessee)
#{{w|Mike Parson}} (Governor of Missouri)
#{{w|Larry Hogan}} (Governor of Maryland)
#{{w|Scott Walker (politician)|Scott Walker}} (Governor of Wisconsin)
#{{w|Mark Dayton}} (Governor of Minnesota)
#{{w|John Hickenlooper}} (Governor of Colorado)
#{{w|Kay Ivey}} (Governor of Alabama)
#{{w|Henry McMaster}} (Governor of South Carolina)
#{{w|John Bel Edwards}} (Governor of Louisiana)
#{{w|Matt Bevin}} (Governor of Kentucky)
#{{w|Kate Brown}} (Governor of Oregon)<br/>''Born in Spain to a member of the US Air Force, should be considered a natural-born citizen until proven otherwise.''
#{{w|Mary Fallin}} (Governor of Oklahoma)
#{{w|Dannel Malloy}} (Governor of Connecticut)
#{{w|Kim Reynolds}} (Governor of Iowa)
#{{w|Phil Bryant}} (Governor of Mississippi)
#{{w|Asa Hutchinson}} (Governor of Arkansas)
#{{w|Jeff Colyer}} (Governor of Kansas)
#{{w|Gary Herbert}} (Governor of Utah)
#{{w|Brian Sandoval}} (Governor of Nevada)
#{{w|Susana Martinez}} (Governor of New Mexico)
#{{w|Jim Justice}} (Governor of West Virginia)
#{{w|Pete Ricketts}} (Governor of Nebraska)
#{{w|Butch Otter}} (Governor of Idaho)
#{{w|David Ige}} (Governor of Hawaii)
#{{w|Paul LePage}} (Governor of Maine)
#{{w|Chris Sununu}} (Governor of New Hampshire)
#{{w|Gina Raimondo}} (Governor of Rhode Island)
#{{w|Steve Bullock (American politician)|Steve Bullock}} (Governor of Montana)
#{{w|John Carney (politician)|John Carney}} (Governor of Delaware)
#{{w|Dennis Daugaard}} (Governor of South Dakota)
#{{w|Bill Walker (U.S. politician)|Bill Walker}} (Governor of Alaska)
#{{w|Doug Burgum}} (Governor of North Dakota)
#{{w|Phil Scott (politician)|Phil Scott}} (Governor of Vermont)
#{{w|Matt Mead}} (Governor of Wyoming)
#*''Entries 10 and 11 on Randall's list had no eligible living members.''
#*''Kate McKinnon was only 34 years 5 months old at the time the comic was released, making her ineligible at that time.''
#{{w|Luis Fonsi}} (Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2017, #2 artist)<br/>''Fonsi was the only eligible individual under the Billboard criterion.''
#{{w|Peggy Whitson}} (Astronaut, 665 days in space)
#{{w|Jeffrey Williams (astronaut)|Jeff Williams}} (Astronaut, 534 days in space)
#{{w|Scott Kelly}} (Astronaut, 520 days in space)
#{{w|Mike Fincke}} (Astronaut, 382 days in space)
#{{w|Mike Foale}} (Astronaut, 374 days in space)<br>''Foale was born in the UK but his mother is an American, and he holds dual citizenship with both countries. It isn't clear legally whether this situation would qualify him as being a "natural-born" citizen as US courts have never definitively ruled on what the term means, so similar to Governor Kate Brown his name is included in the list as being not ruled out.''
#{{w|Serena Williams}}<br/>''Serena's place on this list assumed that you do not count her withdrawal against Maria Sharapova as a ''loss''; if that counted as a loss, then subsequent entries moved up one position (as Sharapova was ineligible).''
#{{w|Tom Brady}} ({{w|National Football League Most Valuable Player Award|NFL MVP}})<br>''The MVPs of all other listed sports leagues were ineligible for the office due to age or nationality.''
#{{w|Bill Pullman}} (Bill Pullman)<br/>''None of his children were old enough to become President at that time.''
#Rowan Lascelles (was 64th in line to the throne at the time, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Sophie Lascelles (was 67th in line to the throne at the time, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Alexander Hohenzollern (was 111th in line to the throne at the time, born to an American mother abroad)
#{{w|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia}} (was 113th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#{{w|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia}} (was 114th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#{{w|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (born 1982)|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia}} (was 116th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Christopher Habsburg (was 128th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Peter Habsburg (was 132nd in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Anton Habsburg (was 133rd in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Ileana Snyder (was 134th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Constanza Bain (was 140th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Count Sandor von Hohenzollern (was 143rd in line to the throne at the time, mother is American)
#Count Gregor von Hohenzollern (was 145th in line to the throne at the time, mother is American)
#Marc Saint (was 303rd in line to the throne at the time, born in US)
#Carla Saint (was 304th in line to the throne at the time, born in US)<br>''This only covers the first 345 people in line to the throne, including Catholics, who, if they did not convert, would be excluded, but not including illegitimate or adoptive issue. This list is based on people who could plausibly have been eligible - people 35 and older who were either born in the US or at least one of their parents was. They could still be excluded based on residence or current citizenship.''
#Everyone else (as would be further determined by jousting tournament)

Based on the comic's defined criteria for the order of succession, these are the specific individuals in that order, including only people who are otherwise eligible to be the President of United States (35 year old and natural born US citizens who lived in US for last 14 years) '''as of the current date'''. (Last updated on 5 January 2025)



#{{w|Donald Trump}} ({{w|President of the United States}})
#{{w|JD Vance}} ({{w|Vice President of the United States}})
#{{w|Marco Rubio}} ({{w|United States Secretary of State}})
#{{w|Pete Hegseth}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Defense}})
# {{w|Kristi Noem}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Homeland Security}})
#{{w|Pam Bondi}} ({{w|United States Attorney General}})
#*''Donald Trump has not appointed anyone in accordance with item #7 on Randall's line of succession.''
#{{w|Tom Hanks}} (Tom Hanks)
#{{w|Gavin Newsom}} (Governor of California)
#{{w|Greg Abbott}} (Governor of Texas)
#{{w|Ron DeSantis}} (Governor of Florida)
#{{w|Kathy Hochul}} (Governor of New York)
#{{w|Josh Shapiro}} (Governor of Pennsylvania)
#{{w|J. B. Pritzker}} (Governor of Illinois)
#{{w|Mike DeWine}} (Governor of Ohio)
#{{w|Brian Kemp}} (Governor of Georgia)
#{{w|Josh Stein}} (Governor of North Carolina)
#{{w|Gretchen Whitmer}} (Governor of Michigan)
#{{w|Phil Murphy}} (Governor of New Jersey)
#{{w|Glenn Youngkin}} (Governor of Virginia)
#{{w|Bob Ferguson (politician)|Bob Ferguson}} (Governor of Washington)
#{{w|Katie Hobbs}} (Governor of Arizona)
#{{w|Maura Healey}} (Governor of Massachusetts)
#{{w|Bill Lee (Tennessee politician)|Bill Lee}} (Governor of Tennessee)
#{{w|Mike Braun}} (Governor of Indiana)
#{{w|Wes Moore}} (Governor of Maryland)
#{{w|Mike Kehoe}} (Governor of Missouri)
#{{w|Tony Evers}} (Governor of Wisconsin)
#{{w|Jared Polis}} (Governor of Colorado)
#{{w|Tim Walz}} (Governor of Minnesota)
#{{w|Henry McMaster}} (Governor of South Carolina)
#{{w|Kay Ivey}} (Governor of Alabama)
#{{w|Jeff Landry}} (Governor of Louisiana)
#{{w|Andy Beshear}} (Governor of Kentucky)
#{{w|Tina Kotek}} (Governor of Oregon)
#{{w|Kevin Stitt}} (Governor of Oklahoma)
#{{w|Ned Lamont}} (Governor of Connecticut)
#{{w|Spencer Cox (politician)|Spencer Cox}} (Governor of Utah)
#{{w|Kim Reynolds}} (Governor of Iowa)
#{{w|Joe Lombardo}} (Governor of Nevada)
#{{w|Sarah Huckabee Sanders}} (Governor of Arkansas)
#{{w|Tate Reeves}} (Governor of Mississippi)
#{{w|Laura Kelly}} (Governor of Kansas)
#{{w|Michelle Lujan Grisham}} (Governor of New Mexico)
#{{w|Jim Pillen}} (Governor of Nebraska)
#{{w|Brad Little}} (Governor of Idaho)
#{{w|Patrick Morrisey}} (Governor of West Virginia)
#{{w|Josh Green}} (Governor of Hawaii)
#{{w|Kelly Ayotte}} (Governor of New Hampshire)
#{{w|Janet Mills}} (Governor of Maine)
#{{w|Dan McKee}} (Governor of Rhode Island)
#{{w|Greg Gianforte}} (Governor of Montana)
#{{w|Matt Meyer}} (Governor of Delaware)
#{{w|Larry Rhoden}} (Governor of South Dakota)
#{{w|Kelly Armstrong}} (Governor of North Dakota)
#{{w|Mike Dunleavy (politician)|Mike Dunleavy}} (Governor of Alaska)
#{{w|Phil Scott (politician)|Phil Scott}} (Governor of Vermont)
#{{w|Mark Gordon (politician)|Mark Gordon}} (Governor of Wyoming)
#*''No eligible living members for #10 on the list.''
#*''No eligible living members for #11 on the list.''
#{{w|Kate McKinnon}} (Kate McKinnon, subject to availability)
#{{w|Kendrick Lamar}} (Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2024, #6 artist)
#{{w|Peggy Whitson}} (Astronaut, 675 days in space; upcoming mission planned)
#{{w|Sunita Williams (astronaut)}} (Astronaut, 608 days in space; active, no missions planned)
#{{w|Jeffrey Williams}} (Astronaut, 534 days in space; retired)
#{{w|Mark Vande Hei}} (Astronaut, 523 days in space; active, no missions planned)
#{{w|Scott Kelly}} (Astronaut, 520 days in space; retired)
#*''{{w|Serena Williams}} lost the final match of her career against {{w|Ajla Tomljanović}}, who is ineligible due to age and nationality.''
#*''The most recent MVPs of all listed sports leagues are ineligible for the office due to age and/or nationality.''
#{{w|Bill Pullman}} (Bill Pullman)
#Maesa Pullman (born 1988, first descendant of Bill Pullman via absolute primogeniture)
#Jack Pullman (born 1989, became eligible 2024)


#Rowan Lascelles (currently 74th in line to the throne, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Tewa Lascelles (currently 75th in line to the throne, born in America)
#Sophie Lascelles (currently 77th in line to the throne, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Alexander Hohenzollern (currently 129th in line to the throne, born to an American mother abroad)
#{{w|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia}} (currently 131st in line to the throne, born in the US)
#{{w|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia}} (currently 132nd in line to the throne, born in the US)
#{{w|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (born 1982)|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia}} (currently 135th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Christopher Habsburg (currently 149th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Saygan Habsburg (currently 151st in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Peter Habsburg (currently 154th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Anton Habsburg (currently 155th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Ileana Snyder (currently 156th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Nicholas Snyder (currently 157th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Alexandra Snyder (currently 159th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Constanza Bain (currently 164th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Count Sandor von Hohenzollern (currently 166th in line to the throne, mother is American)
#Count Gregor von Hohenzollern (currently 168th in line to the throne, mother is American)
#Hereditary Prince Alexander von Hohenzollern (currently 216th in line to the throne, born in US)
#Philippa von Hohenzollern (currently 217th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Marc Saint (currently 337th in line to the throne, born in US)
#Carla Saint (currently 338th in line to the throne, born in US)
#*''This only covers the first 345 people in line to the throne, including Catholics, who, if they did not convert, would be excluded, but not including illegitimate or adoptive issue. Also includes several who may be ineligible due to the Royal Marriages Act. This list is based on people who could plausibly be eligible - people 35 and older who were either born in the US or at least one of their parents was. They could still be excluded based on residence or current citizenship.''
#{{w|Miki Sudo}} (Women’s champion of the 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest; listed first due to being closer to Europa at birth) 
#{{w|Patrick Bertoletti}} (Men's champion of the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest)
#Everyone else (through jousting tournament elimination)<br/>''Assumes that the number of eligible US citizens does not exceed 536,870,912.''

==Transcript==
: A proposal for a new presidential line of succession
: Current politics aside, most experts agree the existing process is flawed. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is probably unconstitutional on several counts, and there are many practical issues with the system as well.
: <span style="color:gray">(For more, see the surprisingly gripping ''Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission'', June 2009.)</span>
: Proposed line of succession:
:# President
:# Vice president
:# Secretary of State
:# Secretary of Defense
:# Secretary of Homeland Security
:# Attorney General
:# Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the president's term and confirmed by the Senate
:# Tom Hanks
:# State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
:# Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
:# Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
:# Kate McKinnon, if available
:# Billboard year-end Hot 100 singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
:# The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
:# Serena Williams (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
:# The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
:# Bull Pullman and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
:# The entire line of succession to the British throne
:# The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
:# All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Politics]]

Talk:1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

2025-03-05T17:40:14Z

172.70.91.12: As the old 'pre-comment' was removed, adding in the current fuller form, just in case it is needed/obeyed.

{{notice2|Because this is a controversial topic, there are several {{rw|climate_change|denialist trolls}} below. Beware of feeding them.}}

Well, never mind then. Oh well. -- [[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 1:02, 12 September 2016
:I acknowledge that the picture is WAY too long, so I added a "skip to explanation" bar, to speed things up. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 17:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
::Thank you [[User:Run, you clever boy|Run, you clever boy]] ([[User talk:Run, you clever boy|talk]])

Is it just me or does the picture not render all the way down in full resolution on firefox? I found it worked on Chrome and explorer... And Wauw, just after I had created the new [[:Category:Climate change]]... Was also just watched a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxEGHW6Lbu8 QandA program] yesterday where [[1644: Stargazing|Brian Cox]] tried to convince some Australian politician about global warming, but the other one just cried conspiracy... Will take some time to make this one complete I guess? Great ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:53, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
:That's the thing with this kind of stuff. It takes a LONG time to make it just right. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 19:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Please delete the ridiculous trivia
*The colors used to represent temperature vary from blue (the perceived hue of a black body at 20000K) to pale red (perceived at 2200K).
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.139|108.162.221.139]] 19:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course you can pretty much ignore the part of the diagram that is in dotted line, you can't rely on that data. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 20:40, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
:Note that even if we ignore the extrapolated future, the warming in the past century is already a vastly more abrupt climate shift than anything that happened in the preceding 219 centuries. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 21:15, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
::Actually we don't know what the shifts were on that scale in the past. The dotted line before modern measurement is a very limited estimate. We have no idea what the year to year changes were in the past, at best we can work out an average. I am reminded of a house mouse(life span of about 1 year) looking at the leaves fall from the tress and saying "Surely this is the end of the world". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 14:44, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
:::Randall explicitly addresses your specious complaint at 15900 BCE. Year-to-year fluctuations are not the same as the current century-long surge. Either show scientific evidence or go away, Mr Troll from Seattle Cloudflare. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 16:11, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
::::I should have known better to enter into a religious debate on the internet. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 00:17, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
:::::No it is not that which is the problem, but that you try to disqualify the data without even bothering to look through them. Aa mentioned Randall tries to let us know that such a high fluctuation as we have in these last 100 years would not be hidden in the old data. As mentioned by Fankie this is explained between 16000 and 15500 BCE... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
::::::I refuse to debate a matter of faith with you. Note that 15500-16000 is 500 years, perhaps when we have 500 years of accurate temperature measurements we will know more. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 03:54, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
:::::::I'm not surprised that you can't even read a chart. 16000-15500 BCE is where the explanation is placed on the chart. The fluctuations he shows that would not register are small fluctuations over a decade or two. A fluctuation of a century would "unlikely" be smoothed out. The examples are even drawn to scale... 3rd grade level stuff here. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.145|108.162.221.145]] 17:28, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
:::::::Why even bring your faith into this? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.92|108.162.212.92]] 16:29, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
:::::::I call Troll. Talking about the significance of where the subchart/Legend/footnote lies? Like what years it's next to actually has any significance? Either he's too dim to actually look, or he's trolling. The standard recommendation is "Don't feed the trolls". :) - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.118|108.162.218.118]] 02:55, 16 September 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. (Heh, seems I was right, looks like the troll stopped after I called him out) :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 11:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
::::[[User:Frankie|Frankie]], funny how the nonaveraged plots [and even the averaged plot] [[#wikimedia|linked]] to below invalidates Randall's plot, "Hence the comparison is not comparing like with like and is scientifically invalid." The temperature rate between 1859 (coincident with America's discovery of petroleum and the Carrington Event) and today does not exceed that within the past 2,000, 20,000, or 100,000s of years. The present surge (the tip of the "hockey stick") concerns not 100 years but almost 40 years (36 years in Randall's plot) which does not successfully meet the three fluctuation disclaimers. As mentioned in the Wikimedia discussion the temperature resolution is about 300 years; therefore it should take another 150 years to see whether this slope corrects itself. [[User:Lysdexia|Lysdexia]] ([[User talk:Lysdexia|talk]]) 13:04, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

:Have you read the referenced papers? Well you fit well with the people he refers to between the two lines at the top. ;-) We are heading for troublesome times :-( [[164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win]]... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:22, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

*the use unqualified of the words "still many people" is exactly the kind of weasely nonsense that this comic is designed to refute. there are "still many people" who claim the earth is flat, that they have been abducted by aliens, or that the MMR jab made their children autistic. those people are deluded or insincere. the difference with deniers of climate change is that there are in their ranks scientists who are clear-sighted but who have decided that funding at any price is better than none. this site should be better than that. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]]
::You're absolutely right, the ranks of climate deniers do indeed include a few scientists willing to sell their voices to the highest bidder (e.g. http://www.polluterwatch.com/heartland-institute ). But is that what you meant to say? - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 11:50, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
:::that the wording be changed to reflect that. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 11:59, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

For a large post like this, it's a wonder that we can all keep up and edit something like this all at once. Wow. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 11:56, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
:Also, anyone else notice that this was a top trending post on Facebook last night? I don't know if I could call it a milestone but it's still pretty cool. And '''WE''' edited it! :D --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 12:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
::Very interesting, so it was explain xkcd and not xkcd that where the top trending post? Could you post a link to where you found this out? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
:::I can see you are right from the fact that Randall has chosen to postpone his next comic in order to keep this one on the front page for all the new visitors as has now been noted in the explanation and in the trivia section. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe someone should add the fact that the transcript may be a reference to oxidation?[[User:Transuranium|Transuranium]] ([[User talk:Transuranium|talk]]) 19:21, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Transuranium
:I think you mean the "title text" not the transcript? And that you refer to the recent comic [[1693: Oxidation]] which is indeed referened in the title text, then that has been written at the bottom of the main explanation and has been there already since the 12th edit less than 1½ hour after the comic came out... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:02, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Is nobody else having a problem seeing the comic? Both here and on XKCD I get an "Image not found" icon, a blue question mark. I thought maybe this was an interactive comic that doesn't work on my iPad (like that garden thing, though that did nothing on my computer either). If I tap it on XKCD nothing happens, here it leads to the picture's Wiki page - also with the question mark - which says it's a PNG, which I know this iPad can show. It's 11pm EST, maybe night maintenance on XKCD? Or the file got renamed without updating the sites? - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.227|162.158.126.227]] 03:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 11:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
:I had trouble seeing it on my own PC using Firefox but not the other browsers I have. See my early comment above. I guess the file is too big for your iPad as it is a very huge file. I tried to download it but it failed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
::It's weird that I got what is clearly an "Image not found" icon, though. Maybe my 1st Gen iPad's Safari saw the file, decided "No way I'm loading that!"(or "that size can't be right", LOL!) and chose to show the error icon instead. When I force the issue, by going directly to the image URL listed on XKCD, the first time Safari crashed rather than load the image (but it crashes on a regular basis, so that didn't deter me), the second time it crashed, the third time it actually loaded, and I was able to see it. After seeing mentions here of spelling errors (though I have to disagree on "Pokemon", generally only people connected to the show bother with the accent. Like how I'm the only one who spells Hallowe'en correctly, with the apostrophe), I thought maybe the comic was taken down to correct it, but guess not. LOL! - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.239|108.162.218.239]] 20:54, 14 September 2016 (UTC) So's this! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 11:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I feel that the missing bottom axis is a usability problem, so I fixed it. [http://info.org.il/data/earth_temperature_timeline_bottom_axis.png See it here.] [[User:Hananc|Hananc]] ([[User talk:Hananc|talk]]) 10:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
:Nice but I'm sure it was on purpose to indicate that time continues down,as well as a possible even worse temperature change. As shown in the previous global warming comic [[1379]] Earth has been 8 degree hotter than now... And apart from the last small segment (albeit a very important one) you either remember that white is normal and bluer is colder redder is warmer or else you cannot use the chart in between the top and bottom, and since this is the longest xkcd comic so far it would be a shame. :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, now that I've managed to SEE the damn thing, I have a question. There's no mention of why this is using "BCE" and "CE" instead of the standard "BC" and "AD", never mind what these stand for (thinking and thinking about it, my guess is "Before Christ Era" and "Christ Era"). This is the kind of thing that should be mentioned on ExplainXKCD, LOL! Fun fact: when I searched this page for "BCE", to confirm it wasn't explained, I got "Over 100 matches". :) Anyway, I figure maybe those are currently accepted scientific terminology, especially since "AD" is Latin, unlike "BC", but the average person still uses BC and AD. In fact, I think this is the first time I've ever seen BCE and CE (unless it's been on XKCD before and I just dismissed it as a typo or something. This time there are WAY too many for it to be a mistake every time, including here in the explanation!) - NiceGuy1[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.239|108.162.218.239]] 21:20, 14 September 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 11:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
:It's "Before Common Era" and "Common Era", an alternative to BC/AD. Pretty common alternative, though I don't know why off-hand - probably to remove the religious connotations of "Christ" and "Year of our Lord". --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.236|108.162.215.236]] 23:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
::Because they're the standards in the scientific community. The guy above assumed his way is standard, but that's inaccurate. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.92|108.162.212.92]] 00:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
:::I assume nothing. My statements are completely accurate. I OBSERVE it is the standard, the only standard anybody (else) seems to use. BC/AD is the "standard" because it is standard practice to use it. For good reason, since I would estimate just about everybody knows what it means, while I am sure I am in the majority in having never heard BCE/CE. It is also not "my" way, I made no choice here, it is the established convention, it is the way accepted and adopted by society. While I would normally be more inclined towards terminology devoid of religion (as seems to be the point here, now that someone kindly clarified these acronyms for me), I feel this would be a losing fight, one it would be foolish to attempt, the classic terminology is too ingrained in society. Sorry. - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.118|108.162.218.118]] 02:44, 16 September 2016 (UTC) Also mine! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 11:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
:: For the convenience of archeologists working in the Middle East. [[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 01:16, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
::Thank you! Yes, it sounds to me like the point would be to remove the religious aspect. Personally, I don't really mind the religious terminology, I just see it as historical, keeping a record of where the names and numbering came from. - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.118|108.162.218.118]] 02:44, 16 September 2016 (UTC) Also mine! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 11:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
:::Well, "it is the established convention" isn't quite correct either.. checking Wikipedia suggests to me that it's a large argument, and that people that aren't Christian or Muslim (i.e. just under half of all people) really never used the AD/BC notation in the first place. BCE/CE appears to have originated in Jewish European communities some point before the 1700s. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.192|172.70.100.192]] 20:12, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
What this comic doesn't show is what kind of changes occurred in the previous interglacial period as opposed to the current one. Since the current one is not yet over there could still be a stage of an interglacial with rapid temperature rise which we are only now reaching, but has happened in previous interglacial periods.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.54|108.162.219.54]] 02:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
:Check out this 400k year comparison of temperature variations from two ice core projects in Antarctica, Lake Vostok and EPICA. <span id=wikimedia>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png</span> (Note that Randall's timeline matches up pretty well with the last 20k years on the far right of the graph) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.98|162.158.69.98]] 13:23, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I think this would be first time where I see global thermonuclear war described as "best case scenario". There was and still is lot of discussion about how much is current warming caused by humans, but that's not important. Important question is "can we stop it?" and the answer is "not without literally billions of dead" (and even that might not suffice). Any money currently used for most plans to reduce CO2 (which usually fails to reduce CO2, not speaking about global warming, but succeed in their main goal, which is moving the money into pockets of their proponents) would be better spent on ADAPTING to the change. Only plans for reducing CO2 actually worth doing are the ones related to stopping burning fossil fuels, because we will soon need fossil fuels to make food (and other stuff) from. Oh, and also stop burning FOOD. So we should replace fossil fuel power plants with only viable alternative - NUCLEAR. So called renewable power sources like solar are good addition, but doesn't scale to the amount of power and stability we need. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 14:12, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

So disappointing to see that Randall Hitler Munroe subscribes to the obviously false "global warming" religion. He should know better. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.83|172.68.55.83]] 00:11, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
: Troll troll trolly trolly troll troll troll [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.217|162.158.214.217]] 03:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/261:_Regarding_Mussolini {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.126}}

I understand the concept behind this comic, but why doesn't the graph include atmospheric CO2, sulfur aerosols, and solar 10.7cm radio flux for comparison? Also, for the person who suggested we look at previous interglacial periods, I may be wrong, but I believe a lot of that data comes from ice cores, that would make it hard to look at time periods before the present ice sheets existed. IIRC, there were periods not too long ago (geologically speaking) where Antarctica was covered in lakes, tundra, and sparse forests instead of ice sheets.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.127|172.68.65.127]] 05:08, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

The jump of 0.5 degrees from 2000 to 2016 has been shown to be false. It exists because "scientists" went back and changed (or "seasonally adjusted") their data to fit their preconceived conclusions. Just look at Al Gore's 'Inconvenient [Non]Truth', pretty much every doomsday scenario has not occurred. I expect better of XKCD.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.77|173.245.48.77]] 20:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

It would be very nice if they wouldn't spread climate change misinformation.
22,000 year Time line [20,000 BC to 2000 AD]
versus
2.5 to 3 billion years of Evolution
on a 4 Billion year old Planet

22,000 / 2,500,000,000 = 0.0000088
Using 0.00088 % of Evolutionary History do decide what the weather is supposed to look like.
Now an atmospheric history lesson
-
Cambrian
Oxygen 12.5% - Carbon Dioxide 0.45% - Average Temp. 21 °C - sea level 30 - 90 meters
-
Ordovician
Oxygen 13.5% - Carbon Dioxide 0.42% - Average Temp. 16 °C - sea level 180 - 220 - 140 meters
-
Silurian
Oxygen 14% - Carbon Dioxide 0.45% - Average Temp. 17 °C - sea level 180 meters
-
Devonian
Oxygen 15% - Carbon Dioxide 0.22% - Average Temp. 20 °C - sea level 189 - 120 meters
-
Carboniferous
Oxygen 32.5% - Carbon Dioxide 0.08% - Average Temp. 14 °C - sea level 120 - 0 - 80 meters
-
Permian
Oxygen 23% - Carbon Dioxide 0.09% - Average Temp. 16 °C - sea level 60 - 0 - -20 meters
-
Triassic
Oxygen 16% - Carbon Dioxide 0.1750% - Average Temp. 17 °C - sea level 0 meters
-
Jurassic
Oxygen 26% - Carbon Dioxide 0.1950% - Average Temp. 16.5 °C
-
Cretaceous
Oxygen 30% - Carbon Dioxide 0.17% - Average Temp. 18 °C
-
Paleogene
Oxygen 26% - Carbon Dioxide 0.05% - Average Temp. 18 °C
-
Neogene
Oxygen 21.5% - Carbon Dioxide 0.028% - Average Temp. 14 °C
-
Current
Oxygen 20.9% - Carbon Dioxide 0.039% - Average Temp. 15 °C

As you can see an atmosphere when healthy should have
Oxygen 25 - 32%
Carbon dioxide 0.1 - 0.15%
Average Temperature 14 - 18 °C
Sea level 60 - 180 meters
and there should be no polar ice caps

our sea level is at extinction levels
our carbon dioxide is almost too low for plants to survive
and our oxygen level is almost suffocatingly low

Less Carbon Dioxide means less Plants
Less plants means less Oxygen
Less Oxygen means less Life[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.112|108.162.246.112]] 07:24, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

:I think the point of comics is that while there were changes in temperature before, they were never this rapid. Although I wouldn't be sure about THAT either ... granted, the previous rapid changes were accompanied with mass extinction ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 15:16, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
::Yeah, the long sample intervals and best fit curves from pre-industrial temperature estimates tend to smooth out any rapid changes that may have occurred over the time period (Think of an ECG/EKG that took a single instantaneuos microvolt sample once every 15 minutes of your life from birth to death, the resulting deflection graph would not look like anything like a normal heart rhythm, but it could be interpreted as the average electrical activity of your heart over the course of a lifetime). It's true that the rapid climate shifts we are able see in geological records usually coincide with things like supervolcano eruptions and asteroid impacts. But those shifts are usually to the negative end from the nuclear winter effect. Idea for reversing global warming without affecting CO2 emissions, just send a couple of hypervelocity rods or a gravity-tractored asteroid into a dormant supervolcano caldera every few years and... instant winter. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.51.75|173.245.51.75]] 02:38, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Very interesting and important work.

Actually.... Solomon and Jesus are not historical figures. Outside the Old and the New Testament, there is no archaeological or other evidence for their existence. I suppose, Jesus has played a significant role in history. So, you may be justified to add an entry saying something like "Date that religious traditions hold as the date of birth of Jesus."

Then, if you mention, say, Shakespeare, then you should also mention the estimated composition of the Bible, an event with more important historical influences.

Roman empire was continued for more than thousand years (Eastern Roman Empire, today reffered as Byzantium).

Current scholarly wisdom is that the Homeric epics, (the Iliad and the Odussey) were composed at the second half of the 8th century, perhaps around 720 BCE.
[[User:Konstantas|Konstantas]] ([[User talk:Konstantas|talk]]) 05:14, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

:Except that no historical evidence has ever contradicted the Bible, and many archaeological discoveries were predicted by it.
:According to proper scientific analysis, it is the most accurate historical document(s) in existence. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.51.173|172.70.51.173]] 02:19, 11 August 2021 (UTC) Darryl

::yeah, like when that guy puts two of each animal in a big boat because god put the whole planet under water. Such accuracy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.90.207|172.69.90.207]] 11:35, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if it is getting to be a good time to make a followup, showing the further warming over the last several years and the rightward movement of the 'if we...' paths. 21-Feb-2020

~5000 BCE is <s>higher</s> slightly lower then now [[User:Squishmallow fan]] ([[User talk:Squishmallow fan|talk]]) 01:47, 10 February <s>2011</s> 2024 (UTC)

;Actual best-case scenario ;

The [http://imgur.com/a/H4prq actual best-case scenario] is far better than Randall's depiction; please see. However, the URLs below in that linked Imgur gallery's first caption were rendered unclickable, probably for spam protection measures, so I reproduce them here:
:;Actual "best-case scenario assuming immediate massive action to limit emissions"
:From https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/17/why-cant-we-give-up-fossil-fuels
:What will it take to get to this scenario? https://www.solveforx.com/explorations/foghorn/ with http://freenights.txu.com/ and http://co2-chemistry.eu/ for ocean carbonate-sourced plastic composite structural lumber allowing reforestation.
[[User:JSalsman|JSalsman]] ([[User talk:JSalsman|talk]]) 15:02, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

: First, the Guardian is a newspaper, not a science journal. Second, that article is from 2013, before the latest upsurge. Third, even ignoring those things, the article doesn't say what you claim it does. The single most optimistic sentence I see is ''"If we are lucky, the impact of burning all that oil, coal and gas could turn out to be at the less severe end of the plausible spectrum."'' The rest of the article is quite pessimistic, such as ''"it is overwhelmingly likely that we would shoot well past 2C and towards 3C or even 4C of warming."''
: Please post exact quotes where your links talk about a better scenario. Please do not post URLs and expect us to figure out what you mean. You are making the claim, the burden of proof is on you. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 17:13, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
::How do you expect me to quote from [http://imgur.com/a/H4prq the graphs]? I can't upload images, maybe I need more edits. Please ask any questions you like. [[User:JSalsman|JSalsman]] ([[User talk:JSalsman|talk]]) 06:14, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
::: please explain how the Guardian graph you posted on imgur has to do with better scenarios. The title: "Cuts required for 50% chance of not exceeding 2°C". The footer: "CO2 emissions since 1850 (red); exponential growth (blue); cuts to hit climate target (dashed)." It says that in order to '''possibly''' reach the "optimistic" +2° scenario (Randall's 2nd line, not the 1st one), we would need to cut anthropogenic CO2 to about 1/10th our current level, which is ridiculously unlikely to happen. The other graphs you posted are just hypothetical extrapolations about energy production that, even if they're trustworthy (which I doubt) don't reference any climate scenarios at all, much less ones better than the timeline. Until you can post a cogent explanation, I will assume you are trolling and undo your edits. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 17:19, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
:::: If you extrapolate [http://i.imgur.com/G6OSyYE.jpg] to 2023-4, renewables dominate, right? Wind has been in competitive equilibrium with coal since 1995, and solar hit grid parity early this year and is expected to continue falling in price about as fast at least until 2035. Is there any reason to believe fossil fuels won't be abandoned by 2030? [[User:JSalsman|JSalsman]] ([[User talk:JSalsman|talk]]) 02:01, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
::::: Exactly zero words in your explanation discuss how the linked graphs show the existence of a better scenario than the ones listed in the timeline. Your very first graph, from the Guardian, explicitly says '''50% chance of not exceeding 2°C''', which is Randall's middle scenario. That means '''it supports exactly what Randall is saying.''' It says absolutely nothing about a scenario better than the "best case" timeline. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 21:06, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
::::: Do you understand the words that I am saying? The words that I have been saying from the start of this conversation? I don't f***ing care about pie in the sky energy projects. '''Even if your energy claims are correct, they don't say a single d**n thing about beating the +1.2°C curve.'''. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 21:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
:::::: I apologize. I confused the +1° mark with +2°. The labels are so far above at the top. You are correct. I will forgo uploading the graphs as we are now in agreement. [[User:JSalsman|JSalsman]] ([[User talk:JSalsman|talk]]) 22:23, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Came here to see if anyone had made an updated version of this, instead I find a whole metric ton of climate change deniers. What are you people even here for? Sheesh. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.90.167|172.69.90.167]] 11:22, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

;Joanne Nova

* http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-Jo-Nova-doesnt-get-past-climate-change.html
* http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/03/almost-everything-we-know-about-fake.html
* http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2009/02/global-warming-denial.html
* http://www.desmogblog.com/joanne-nova-climate-skeptics-handbook
* http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Joanne_Nova
* http://itsnotnova.wordpress.com/
- [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 23:41, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

;Interesting Ways to Look at it.

Hey, I had a great time scrolling down and watching the earth heat up :).[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.115|108.162.245.115]] 19:47, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

ICYMI, [https://www.cato.org/ Cato] provides an [http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/wigley/magicc/ IPCC MAGICC] [http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/wigley/magicc/UserMan5.3.v2.pdf climate model] simulator for [https://www.cato.org/blog/current-wisdom-we-calculate-you-decide-handy-dandy-carbon-tax-temperature-savings-calculator anyone to examine]. FWIW, I side with {{w|Bjorn Lomborg}}, who famously champions a [http://www.lomborg.com/ middle way] in climate science for the sake of [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/09/19/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-lets-get-our-priorities-straight/ downtrodden peoples around the world]. Should we reconsider this [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1732:_Earth_Temperature_Timeline#Explanation explanation] in this light? [[User:Run, you clever boy|Run, you clever boy]] ([[User talk:Run, you clever boy|talk]])

;Fact checking the chart on Stack Exchange

I posted a question on Earth Sciences Stack Exchange about how the {{w|Younger Dryas}} fits into this comic: http://earthscience.stackexchange.com/q/9103/6973

There was also an existing question about the chart's general accuracy: http://earthscience.stackexchange.com/q/8746/6973

--[[User:Aaron Rotenberg|Aaron Rotenberg]] ([[User talk:Aaron Rotenberg|talk]]) 02:53, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

;Translation of the Morse code message

The translation of the explanation in "Telegraph", written in Morse code, is: "Now, the mother of Samuel Morse always sent the lad out on a horse." [[User:Agusbou2015|Agusbou2015]] ([[User talk:Agusbou2015|talk]]) 15:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

;"Sad comics"
<blockquote>...So after the election of a climate change denier later in the year of this comic's release, several sad comics have been posted. Some of the reason could be that Randall no longer believes that even his worst fears (as expressed by the current path at the bottom) will hold up, when USA gets a president, who will on purpose act in a way that scientist claims will make the temperature rise even more. See more here.</blockquote>

I've mentioned this on the talk page for [[2137: Text Entry]], but I'll reiterate it here: this observation is not factual, not relevant to the explanation, and does not belong in the description of this comic. If you read it in context, you will see that it is also a non-sequitur, clumsily inserted after one or two factual sentences - it does not follow from anything prior in the discussion. It is poorly expressed and the point being made is unclear in any case.

While the user doing this may well have honest intentions, they are simply defacing articles with their own anti-Trump projections and spamming a link to their own, misleadingly-titled page ([[Sad comics]]) which has no clear meaning or explanatory value. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 16:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
:I have removed the offending paragraph. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 21:20, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race, and this graph shows it.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.19|172.68.50.19]]
:I agree that it has probably been a disaster (certainly a gamechanger) for the ecosystems, causing changes and challenges that are so much different to what everything else woupd have experienced without such a heavy hand of humans upon the planet. But for "the human race",vI wonder if there'd be so many billions of us if industrial (and post-malthusian) developments had never arisen. By a simplistic numbers game, we are (currently) ranking higher than it seems likely a more nature-tuned alternative 20th/21st-Century would have looked like.
:A higher population doesn't guarantee "success", I know, and only hindsight will say for sure whether unprecedented growth leads to unprecedented decline in the same 'scoring' value (indicating that it isn't the best score to use long-term), but some would say this. (Not me, I'm just philosophising here.)
:Beyond this, if only by entering the Industrial Age do we have the ability to foresee and forestall some asteroid impact..? Perhaps then the (somewhat damaged) ecosystem actually lives on 'better' (subjectively) from our flawed attempt to industrially improve the planet, to our own ends, the rediscovery of ecoprinciples and then the successful aversion of another planet-killing asteroid (or at least the development of "arks" to let the current biodiversity to ride out the problem, here or elsewhere). Unless you have the view that the post-now changes (like the post-dinosaur/etc changes) are themselves higher scoring on the nature-scale. (But then if an unaverted asteroid is equal to a prior one, then is our polluion of the world equal to when earlier organisms started to fill the atmosphere with deadly oxygen and convert the world to an entirely different phase of life?)
:What can definitely be said is that we're doing ''something'', but expect some people (who aren't actually full-on deniers) to suggest that it isn't really a bad thing. Which it probably is, of course. Or at least not the ''best'' thing, and there's probably better outcomes than the one we're tumbling into, by whatever measure. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.31|172.70.86.31]] 09:03, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

3056: RNA

2025-02-28T09:50:00Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3056
| date = February 26, 2025
| title = RNA
| image = rna_2x.png
| imagesize = 566x291px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 2040s: RNA formed the basis for life each of the five known times it arose on the early Earth.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT FROM RNAWORLD. EARLY EXPLANATION THIS IS A BASE!<sup>[''No, {{w|Uracil|this}} is a base!'']</sup> - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is a comic about the evolution of our understanding of {{w|DNA}} and {{w|RNA}} over time as we've done more research into how they figure into cellular and viral processes. In the 1960s, we had just started to understand the role of DNA. But as the years progressed, we realized RNA played a part, initially as an intermediary, and it turned weird as we learned that RNA's role is potentially as complex as DNA's, if not more so. People now believe that life as we know it developed as RNA, and then evolved proteins and DNA later; this is called the "{{w|RNA World}}" theory.


The first panel (1960s) shows the simplified (though incorrect) version of the {{w|central dogma}}, saying that RNA's sole function is to carry information from DNA to produce proteins.

The second panel (1980s) shows the discovery that RNA itself can also catalyze reactions, like in {{w|ribozymes}}.

The third panel (2000s) shows the more recent discovery of many different types of RNA that have numerous functions, like {{w|small interfering RNA|siRNA}} which acts in the {{w|RNA interference}} pathway, {{w|microRNA|miRNA}} which causes regulation of transcript expression, {{w|Piwi-interacting RNA|piRNA}} which regulates {{w|transposons}} and other genetic elements, and more.

The fourth panel (2020s) explains that RNA seems to be the primary actor in life, and it merely uses DNA for permanent storage of information. In particular, DNA contains the genetic information that's copied when cells divide and when ova and sperm combine. This seems to be a reference to the {{w|RNA-based evolution}} theory, which claims that RNA is the primary driver of evolution. It's similar to the idea that [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/118413-a-hen-is-only-an-egg-s-way-of-making-another a hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.]

The title text [[605: Extrapolating|extrapolates]] from the fourth panel into the 2040s, when humans have learned that RNA was responsible for the formation of life on Earth, and that life formed on Earth five times. At the present time, all types of life we know of today (or have evidence of having existed) seem highly likely to have arisen from the {{w|last universal common ancestor}} of every other example. (It has also been hypothesized that viruses may have {{w|Viral_evolution#Origins|evolved independently of cellular life}}.) Whether this can change by the 2040s is unknown. It might take more advanced study of ancient rocks, and the sheer good fortune to uncover/discover a suitably preserved 'bed' of alternative biochemistry, to establish convincing evidence of some other origin(s) of life. Another possibility is that intense analysis of the current diversity of biology ''could'' extrapolate multiple origins for some of the chemical pathways that eventually became cooperative parts in some or all more recent forms of biological cells.

RNA has been mentioned previously in [[2425: mRNA Vaccine]], where the [[:Category:COVID-19 vaccine|COVID-19 vaccine]] is explained, and [[3002: RNAWorld]], in which Disney decides to capitalize on the success of RNA.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[In each panel, Cueball is standing in front of a poster. On the poster there is a picture of a double helix (presumably DNA) and some illegible text, although the poster is different in each panel. Each panel has a header indicating the decade in which it takes place.]

:'''1960s'''
:[Cueball has a hand up in an explanatory pose]
:Cueball: Life is based on DNA, which uses RNA to make proteins do stuff.

:'''1980s'''
:[Cueball faces towards the poster, with his hand on his chin.]
:Cueball: Also, the RNA does some stuff itself, which is weird.

:'''2000s'''
:[Cueball has his arms raised in the air.]
: Cueball: There are so many types of RNA. It's doing ''so'' much stuff!

:'''2020s'''
:[Cueball has both his hands down]
:Cueball: Life is a seething mass of RNA that sometimes uses DNA to take notes.
:Person out of frame: What do the proteins do?
:Cueball: Errands for RNA.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Biology]]

3056: RNA

2025-02-26T23:28:30Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */ Need to check what I'm edit-conflicting, BRB.

3042: T. Rex Evolution

2025-01-25T12:45:57Z

172.70.91.12: /* Transcript */ oh, come on

{{comic
| number = 3042
| date = January 24, 2025
| title = T. Rex Evolution
| image = t_rex_evolution_2x.png
| imagesize = 418x378px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Unfortunately, body size and bite force continue to increase.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH NEGATIVE LIMBS, CURRENTLY LIVING IN LOCH NESS - fact-check the graph's "early" claim and flesh things out a bit. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The small and seemingly useless forelimbs of ''{{w|Tyrannosaurus rex}}'' have often been used as a source of humor in works of fiction that feature dinosaurs. [[Randall]] claims that the ancestors of ''T. Rex'' had (relatively) longer and therefore more useful forelimbs, and hypothesizes that - had non-avian dinosaurs not suffered an {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event|extinction event}} - this trend of "reduced limbs" would continue until present-day descendants of ''T. Rex'' were limbless creatures not unlike a giant snake.

Evolutionary theory indicates that different selection pressures cause the development or loss of characteristics, as those characteristics which enable better survival to continuation of the species are emphasised and those which don't (such as wasting nutrients on growing unnecessary limbs) are not.

In reality, while animals have evolved to lose the use of the limbs of their predecessors - such as the hind legs of a whale - the development of these vestigial limbs would not apply to other limbs. A T. rex would continue to have substantial need for its hind legs, which it used for running and chasing prey, and would have no reason to lose legs unless environmental factors favored a limbless lifestyle. This has happened multiple times in the Order Squamata, the lizards and snakes, where limbless body plans have evolved convergently over and over such as in blind worms as compared to true snakes. However these circumstances that encourage such lifestyles are not likely to happen to the large predatorial Tyrannosaurus. With that said Tyrannosaurus would likely eventually lose its arms altogether if it never went extinct.

The title text claims that as ''T. Rex'' was also larger than its ancestors, the same trend in growth would continue such that the hypothetical limbless present-day descendant would be even larger than the [https://what-if.xkcd.com/78/ famously elephant-sized] ''T. Rex''. In reality animals do not linearly grow in size and a modern Tyrannosaurus would not necessarily be dramatically larger, and could easily have gotten somewhat smaller even with the same body plans and lifestyle.

This comic may be tangentially related to the fact that birds are dinosaurs that survived the KT extinction, which is a recurring theme on xkcd.

Extrapolation was first the subject of a comic in [[605: Extrapolating]] and has since become a [[:Category:Extrapolation|recurrent topic]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown. The Y-axis is labelled and has two labeled ticks at the top and halfway up from the X-axis:]
:Limbs
:4
:2

:[The X-axis is not labelled but represents time and it has ticks every 10 million years, from 180 million years ago until present time. Every fifth tick is a bit larger and has a label beneath it. Except the one at the present time. Below the last tick is an arrow pointing to that tick with a label. There is another arrow that points to about 65 million years ago and this also has a label:]
:150 million years ago
:100 MYA
:50 MYA
:Now
:Extinction

:[The graph shows three animals positioned from the top left, to the middle to the bottom right of the graph.]
:[The first animal is a regular dinosaur walking on its hind legs, with fairly long front legs. It is positioned at 4 limbs and 150 million years ago. A label is written above and right of it:]
:4 normal limbs

:[An arrow goes along the diagonal of the chart down and right and points to the second animal, a Tyrannosaur Rex, which is located in the middle of the chart next to 2 limbs and, just left of the "extinction" arrow. Larger than the first and with almost no front legs. A label is written above and right of it:]
:Barely more than 2

:[A dashed arrow with a label in the middle continues along the diagonal of the chart to the last animal: A leg-less "dinosaur" with a big open mouth. The animal lies on its belly but with the head part and the tail lifted from the ground. A label is written above it.]
:?
:???

:[Caption below the panel:]
:If T. Rex hadn't gone extinct
:(Linear extrapolation)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

3042: T. Rex Evolution

2025-01-25T12:45:26Z

172.70.91.12: wrong word

{{comic
| number = 3042
| date = January 24, 2025
| title = T. Rex Evolution
| image = t_rex_evolution_2x.png
| imagesize = 418x378px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Unfortunately, body size and bite force continue to increase.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH NEGATIVE LIMBS, CURRENTLY LIVING IN LOCH NESS - fact-check the graph's "early" claim and flesh things out a bit. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The small and seemingly useless forelimbs of ''{{w|Tyrannosaurus rex}}'' have often been used as a source of humor in works of fiction that feature dinosaurs. [[Randall]] claims that the ancestors of ''T. Rex'' had (relatively) longer and therefore more useful forelimbs, and hypothesizes that - had non-avian dinosaurs not suffered an {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event|extinction event}} - this trend of "reduced limbs" would continue until present-day descendants of ''T. Rex'' were limbless creatures not unlike a giant snake.

Evolutionary theory indicates that different selection pressures cause the development or loss of characteristics, as those characteristics which enable better survival to continuation of the species are emphasised and those which don't (such as wasting nutrients on growing unnecessary limbs) are not.

In reality, while animals have evolved to lose the use of the limbs of their predecessors - such as the hind legs of a whale - the development of these vestigial limbs would not apply to other limbs. A T. rex would continue to have substantial need for its hind legs, which it used for running and chasing prey, and would have no reason to lose legs unless environmental factors favored a limbless lifestyle. This has happened multiple times in the Order Squamata, the lizards and snakes, where limbless body plans have evolved convergently over and over such as in blind worms as compared to true snakes. However these circumstances that encourage such lifestyles are not likely to happen to the large predatorial Tyrannosaurus. With that said Tyrannosaurus would likely eventually lose its arms altogether if it never went extinct.

The title text claims that as ''T. Rex'' was also larger than its ancestors, the same trend in growth would continue such that the hypothetical limbless present-day descendant would be even larger than the [https://what-if.xkcd.com/78/ famously elephant-sized] ''T. Rex''. In reality animals do not linearly grow in size and a modern Tyrannosaurus would not necessarily be dramatically larger, and could easily have gotten somewhat smaller even with the same body plans and lifestyle.

This comic may be tangentially related to the fact that birds are dinosaurs that survived the KT extinction, which is a recurring theme on xkcd.

Extrapolation was first the subject of a comic in [[605: Extrapolating]] and has since become a [[:Category:Extrapolation|recurrent topic]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown. The Y-axis is labelled and has two labeled ticks at the top and halfway up from the X-axis:]
:Limbs
:4
:2

:[The X-axis is not labelled but represents time and it has ticks every 10 million years, from 180 million years ago until present time. Every fifth tick is a bit larger and has a label beneath it. Except the one at the present time. Below the last tick is an arrow pointing to that tick with a label. There is another arrow that points to about 65 million years ago and this also has a label:]
:150 million years ago
:100 MYA
:50 MYA
:Now
:Extinction

:[The graph shows three animals positioned from the top left, to the middle to the bottom right of the graph.]
:[The first animal is a regular dinosaur walking on it's hind legs, with fairly long front legs. It is positioned at 4 limbs and 150 million years ago. A label is written above and right of it:]
:4 normal limbs

:[An arrow goes along the diagonal of the chart down and right and points to the second animal, a Tyrannosaur Rex, which is located in the middle of the chart next to 2 limbs and, just left of the "extinction" arrow. Larger than the first and with almost no front legs. A label is written above and right of it:]
:Barely more than 2

:[A dashed arrow with a label in the middle continues along the diagonal of the chart to the last animal: A leg-less "dinosaur" with a big open mouth. The animal lies on its belly but with the head part and the tail lifted from the ground. A label is written above it.]
:?
:???

:[Caption below the panel:]
:If T. Rex hadn't gone extinct
:(Linear extrapolation)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

BTC

2025-01-01T13:10:25Z

172.70.91.12: Undo revision 360669 by Firestar233 (talk) modified undo, to make the case in more space than available here

#REDIRECT [[Bitcoin address]]

3025: Phase Change

2024-12-17T12:26:12Z

172.70.91.12: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3025
| date = December 16, 2024
| title = Phase Change
| image = phase_change_2x.png
| imagesize = 296x354px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Even when you try to make nice, smooth ice cubes in a freezer, sometimes one of them will shoot out a random ice spike, which physicists ascribe to kiki conservation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOTBA - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a reference to the {{w|bouba/kiki effect}} (the [[2611: Cutest-Sounding Scientific Effects#Trivia|cutest-sounding scientific effect!]]), where people associate different shapes with different nonsense words.
Because the word "bouba" is pronounced with long and soft sounds, it is often associated with soft and round objects. "Kiki", on the other hand, uses fast, higher pitched, and "cracking" sounds so it is associated with sharp and hard objects. Some real life examples are the antonyms rigid and flowing. This is partly due to humans' needs to {{w|Cognitive categorization|categorize things}}.

The comic intentionally conflates this with the {{w|Phase transition|phase transition}} that water undergoes around 0 degrees Celsius. Water in its liquid state can be described as soft and round, as can the sound of the word "water" itself. In contrast, ice is hard and can form sharp objects like icicles, and the word "ice" also contains a sharp hissing sound.

The title text refers to {{w|ice spike|ice spikes}}, which are caused by the uneven freezing of ice in a freezer. The title text expands on the joke by claiming that ice cubes wish to maintain the pointiness of objects characterized as "kiki."

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A vertical graph is shown, indicating temperature in degrees Celsius, with a horizontal dotted line at zero degrees and positive temperatures above it. The graph has labels against gradation marks for -10, -5, 0, 5 and 10 °C, a mark for each other whole degree present and extends to meet the top and bottom border of the graph's frame, at approximately ±11.5°C. The area above the dotted line is filled with several illustrations of liquid water in various forms: dripping down from a surface, forming a droplet, pouring from a glass, splashing onto a surface of water, etc. This area is labeled "Bouba" with an arrow pointing up. The area below the dotted line is filled with illustrations of ice in various forms, namely icicles hanging from a surface, ice cubes, snowflakes, a thin piano-shaped piece of ice and a thicker sheet of ice on water along with an iceberg. This area is labeled "Kiki" with an arrow pointing down.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:When water temperature falls below 0°C, it undergoes a phase transition from bouba to kiki.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Charts]]
[[Category: Language]]
[[Category: Physics]]

3016: Cold Air

2024-11-26T09:49:37Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3016
| date = November 25, 2024
| title = Cold Air
| image = cold_air_2x.png
| imagesize = 713x283px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = We also should really have checked that the old water tower was disconnected from the water system before we started filling it with compressed air.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 204 atm COMPRESSED BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Tornadoes generally create winds of about 40-400 mph [https://www.weather.gov/ffc/fujita] (about 60-640 kph) which causes damage to buildings. Cueball proposes a method to essentially blow tornadoes away from cities by keeping enough "tornado repelling" air in a tank. It is not clear if the compressed air will be used to "blow away" the whole tornado, to try to exactly counteract the tornado itself (through applied counter-rotation) or to remove the conditions that cause the development of the tornado's system. The last of these is heavily implied, as replacing any troublesome hot and humid air will remove the conditions required to invoke a nascent tornado. Whether this would work is questionable, since it's precisely the mixing of warm and cold air that produces the swirling motion that creates tornadoes. Rather than dissipating the threat, the very act of displacement could create atmospheric mixing and tornado-generating turbulence in its own right.

In a compressed air system, peak pressure is considered about 40 bar [https://www.directindustry.com/prod/kaeser-kompressoren/product-4742-24559.html] (about 500 psi). Cueball proposes keeping the tank at 6 times that pressure to properly counteract the tornado. The title text confirms the tower is a repurposed water tower, which, if using 16 inch pipes as [https://www.waterworld.com/home/article/14071043/the-perfect-pipe is common], would produce much stronger winds than those of the tornado, because flow speed is inversely proportional to the diameter of the pipes and even a "wide" 16 inch pipe is very narrow for this purpose indeed.

The formula for the velocity of a fluid (air is considered a fluid in physics) is V=√(2*P/ρ) where V is the velocity, P is the pressure, and ρ is the density of the fluid. The density of the fluid is given by the formula ρ=P/(RT) for a given constant R and a Temperature T. In this case, ρ is [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=3000psi%2F%280.287kj%2F%28kg+Kelvin%29*21C%29 0.245 g/cm^3] assuming room temperature, meaning the V=√(2*3000psi/ 0.245 g/cm^3)[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=sqrt%282*%283000psi%29%2F%280.245+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29 =410.9 m/s], which is just under 1500kph, almost three times faster than the max speeds of the tornados Cueball is trying to prevent.

Further, highly compressed tanks are prone to bursting,{{acn}} which is why they are only used for small volumes of air in highly controlled settings. Cueball's proposal would put it in the center of a dense city, creating the possibility for further damage. Especially if, as it appears, the tank is itself twice the height of the tallest surrounding buildings (drawn to resemble skyscrapers, so probably tens of stories tall) elevated high above them upon a base of a similar reach.

Finally, tornadoes tend to form in ''sparsely'' populated areas, where structures are few and wind can flow uninterrupted, making his invention's necessity questionable at best. Even if Cueball's air tanks produce winds no faster than a normal tornado, they are now being produced in the center of a heavily built-up area, significantly increasing the potential for damage.

The result is a quadrupling in damage caused by wind, since now, not only are the tornadoes causing heavy winds, but the tanks — when functioning properly and when malfunctioning — are causing heavy winds too.

In the title text, it is revealed that the water tower they were using to store the compressed air was still plumbed in to the water mains. Given the pressure required for the tower to work properly against tornadoes and the fact that water is nearly incompressible, the pressure from the tower would have been nearly instantly transmitted into the water distribution system. The ''best'' case scenario would have been 'just' to have dangerously highly-pressurised water jetting into sinks, bathtubs and toilet cisterns whenever they were used; more severe consequences could be catastrophic failures of pipes and plumbing.

Using technology to disrupt tornadoes before they form was a plot element in Liu Cixin's novel ''{{w|Ball Lightning (novel)|Ball Lightning}}'', and [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Weather_Modification_Net other works].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is seen in front of a diagram of a tornado with a pointer in his hand. The diagram has arrows flowing from the bottom toward the tornado at the top and from the tornado toward the rain below it]
:Cueball: Tornado supercells are powered by the inflow of warm, moist surface air.

:[Cueball is now seen in front of a representation of his compressed air tank with a PSI of 3000 next to smaller buildings, appearing to be high-rise buildings or even skyscrapers in their own right, on either side of the tank]
:Cueball: Compressed air tanks could produce artificial pools of cold, dry air on demand, disrupting tornado inflow to protect cities.

:[Cueball, again with a pointer, is seen in front of a line graph labeled "Wind Damage over Time" (wind damage has increased after a point on the graph labeled "Giant experimental compressed air tanks installed in the middle of every major city"). In a frame in the top left corner, there is a label:]
:Several years later:
:Cueball: In retrospect, I can see how my plan went wrong.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Tornadoes]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]

1883: Supervillain Plan

2024-05-16T09:48:48Z

172.70.91.12: /* Trivia */ Not impossible, but wouldn't be 'disconnect the plates at a boundary', more 'create a new plate boundary' (and securely staple together the current cracks, hopefully!)

{{comic
| number = 1883
| date = August 30, 2017
| title = Supervillain Plan
| image = supervillain_plan.png
| titletext = Someday, some big historical event will happen during the DST changeover, and all the tick-tock articles chronicling how it unfolded will have to include a really annoying explanation next to their timelines.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Black Hat]] is a {{w|supervillain}}, befitting his {{w|Black hat|character}}. He plans to use {{w|Unmanned aerial vehicle|drones}} and explosives to move the entire State of California into the Pacific, a la {{w|Lex Luthor}} in the 1978 ''{{w|Superman (1978 film)|Superman}}'' movie.

His {{w|Henchman|henchmen}} are [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]]. The latter appears to be a programmer who is concerned that the mission (and hence the drones' coding) may have to account for time/date adjustments, such as {{w|time zone}}s and {{w|daylight saving time}} (DST), which would be a factor if the event took place on the wrong date or the landmasses were pushed too far apart. (Though by coding the drones on UTC, the drones would not need to change time zones, except for displaying the local time for some reason, which would likely be unneeded.)

In computer programming, working with dates and times can be complicated. Think about {{w|Leap year|leap years}} or {{w|Leap second|leap seconds}}, the non existing {{w|Year zero|year zero}} which even worse for scientists does exist in {{w|Astronomical year numbering|astronomical calendars}}, or the {{w|Year 2000 problem|Y2K}} and {{w|Year 2038 problem|year 2038}} problem. Nevertheless in this comic there is only a ''time zone problem'' mentioned. To handle this the {{w|tz database}}, also known as ''tzdata'', provides all relevant information for every country back to 1970 and, less accurate, before. But it's still up to the programmer to use this data in useful ways.

Supervillains have reason to fear daylight saving time issues. In 1999, two coordinated car bombings ended up killing the terrorists transporting the bombs when they exploded one hour early. Details explained e.g. on the [http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-38.html Darwin Awards] site.

Time zones and DST can give seemingly nonsensical results when used improperly. For example, a flight going west might leave at 02:00pm and reach its destination at 03:00pm while the reverse flight will leave at 02:00pm and arrive at 05:00pm. In both cases, the travel time is two hours, but the one hour difference between the two time zones makes it seem otherwise. You might even find yourself arriving at your destination at an earlier time than your departure! DST can also makes a given time mean two different things, if after 01:59am you go back to 01:00 am, 01:30am can either be one hour after 00:30am, or one hour before 02:30am. Or in the reverse change, some dates don't actually exist, like 02:30 when going straight from 01:59 to 03:00. Humans often avoid this issue by being in only one place at the same time{{Citation needed}}, or by sleeping when the DST changes happen, but computer communications often span over large distances, and drones don't need to sleep at night. Megan wants to make sure she won't have to deal with the difficult problem of communication between drones and other systems with those issues, where a single poorly communicated date can have disastrous effects (although possibly far less disastrous than moving California into the sea{{Citation needed}}).

California is currently located entirely within the {{w|UTC−08:00|UTC-8}} time zone (at standard time {{w|Pacific Time Zone|PST}}, while in summer PDT is at {{w|UTC−07:00|UTC-7}}). But after Black Hat's actions California is at risk of floating West into the next time zone at {{w|UTC−09:00|UTC-9}}.

However, in reality, time zones in the United States are determined by [https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=6a1a124065df269aff9faa2340478852&node=pt49.1.71&rgn=div5#se49.1.71_12 Department of Transportation regulations], and California's time zone is not defined based on its longitude. Consequently, even if California were pushed out to sea, its time zone would remain the same unless the Department of Transportation issued a regulation otherwise, so Megan can rest easy. (On the other hand, Black Hat could alter the time zone of any of the East Coast states except Maine if his drones could push the state east of 67°30' W. longitude, since the Eastern Time Zone's eastern boundary is mostly based on longitude, except for Maine.)

Note: Megan should be happy Black Hat hasn't planned [https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-11-12/daylight-saving-donut-arizona-ken-jennings-maphead to involve Arizona in his scheme].

A [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tick_tock "tick tock article"] is a term in journalism for a step by step account of an event or timeline, such as [https://web.archive.org/web/20111001222353/http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7033428/breakdown-wednesday-games this one recounting the end of the 2011 MLB regular season]. Such an article published for an event during the change to or from Daylight Saving Time would need to account for the changeover, making the timeline confusing for those unaware of the switch.

==Transcript==
:[On the left of this single panel comic Black Hat sits on a high throne, showing a fist, and looking down to Cueball and Magan who stand in front of him on the right.]

:Black Hat: ... then, after our drones take control of the cities, we will detonate the devices. California will break off from the mainland and drift out to sea!
:Megan: How far out to sea? Will it put any of the cities in the UTC-9 time zone?
:Black Hat: What? I don't know.
:Megan: One request: Can we make sure this doesn't happen during the daylight saving changeover?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:You can tell when someone's been a programmer for a while because they develop a deep-seated fear of time zone problems.

==Trivia==
*Different time zones often confuse people. When [[xkcd]] comics are released on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday early as possible at 00:00 according to [[Randall]]'s home at Eastern Time (EST/EDT) it is still the day before in the most regions of the United States further to the west. In California (PST/PDT) that would be 21:00 in the evening before. Nevertheless most comics are released later when the entire US is at the same day. This particular comic was released at 13:00 UTC, which was 09:00 EDT or 06:00 PDT.
*Black Hat's drone ownership was also the subject of 1881: Drone Training.
*Black Hat's scheme would also be more awkward to execute than some fictional representations would have you believe, due to the fact that bits of California and its neighbors are attached to the same tectonic plate.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Drones]]
[[Category:Daylight saving time]]
[[Category:Programming]]

Talk:2924: Pendulum Types

2024-04-24T14:47:57Z

172.70.91.12:

Example of the creepy fingers: https://youtu.be/3zoTKXXNQIU?si=MgZgSRFFyxrNGhw3 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.25|172.70.175.25]] 12:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
:If that's as creepy as Maxwell's Demon gets, you have to wonder if he's related to Gachnar: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3090746901188850 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.12|172.70.91.12]] 14:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

1504: Opportunity

2024-04-13T10:03:23Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */ Disconnecting a 'small lake of blue' that visually crossed a sentence boundary.

{{comic
| number = 1504
| date = March 27, 2015
| title = Opportunity
| image = opportunity.png
| titletext = We all remember those famous first words spoken by an astronaut on the surface of Mars: "That's one small step fo- HOLY SHIT LOOK OUT IT'S GOT SOME KIND OF DRILL! Get back to the ... [unintelligible] ... [signal lost]"
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is talking about the robotic science platform {{w|Opportunity (rover)|''Opportunity''}}. On January 25, 2004, two rovers, named {{w|Spirit (rover)|''Spirit''}} and ''Opportunity'' were landed on the surface of {{w|Mars}} for the purpose of gathering data about the surface of Mars. The original plan called for these rovers to function and collect data for 90 days on the surface.

Both rovers proved to be remarkably robust, with ''Spirit'' functioning for 6 years, 24 times longer than the original mission plan, before it became stuck in a sandstorm, which covered its solar panels. This was covered in [[695: Spirit]], in which the Spirit rover is also portrayed with an anthropomorphic personality.

Even after ''Spirit'' ceased to function, ''Opportunity'' continued to operate. As of the publication of this strip, it had been operating for over 11 years. This comic extrapolates the rover's resilience to absurdity for comedic effect, implying that the rover begins to operate independently, even with its original power sources disconnected, and presumably developing some form of general intelligence. It then takes a darker turn, implying that ''Opportunity'' attacks both later rovers and even human astronauts that later land on Mars. This evolution is similar to the stories of {{w|HAL 9000}} (from {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|''2001: A Space Odyssey''}}) and {{w|List of Star Trek characters (T–Z)#V'Ger|V'Ger}} (from ''{{w|Star Trek: The Motion Picture}}''), both of which became dangerous to human beings. The final panel suggests that humans eventually manage to terraform Mars, but that ''Opportunity'' grows so powerful that humanity cedes half the planet to it.

In real life, as of Feb 12th, 2019, the Opportunity rover has finally been {{w|Opportunity mission timeline|declared dead}} after 5352 Sols (Mars Days) or 5500 Earth days on Mars. On Feb 13th, 2019, [[Randall]] eulogies the Opportunity Rover in [[2111: Opportunity Rover]].

In 2023, the comic's timeline version of Opportunity is said to be still moving despite having supposedly no power source. It also started to show aggression in the span of 8 years and deactivated the {{w|Mars 2020|Perseverance rover}}, as sent in 2020. [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] can't explain how it moves, but investigating is now too dangerous. This evolution is similar to the stories of {{w|HAL 9000}} (from {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|''2001: A Space Odyssey''}}) and {{w|List of Star Trek characters (T–Z)#V'Ger|V'Ger}} (from ''{{w|Star Trek: The Motion Picture}}''), both of which became dangerous to human beings. This, however, never ended up happening, as Opportunity "officially" stopped working on June 10, 2018.

"Everything the light touches" is a reference to a line by {{w|List of The Lion King characters#Mufasa|Mufasa}} in ''{{w|The Lion King}}''. Mufasa's son {{w|List of The Lion King characters#Simba|Simba}} then asks "What about that shadowy place?" and Mufasa tells him "That is beyond our borders. You must never go there". This was used again in [[1608: Hoverboard]], where [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/a/a0/1608_0986x1076y_Our_kingdom_from_a_cliff.png Cueball tells the same line] to Ponytail in the left part of the world. In the ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' article ''[https://what-if.xkcd.com/48 Sunset on the British Empire]'', concerning the end of the sun shining on the British Empire, Cueball tells a child that everything the light touches is their kingdom, and the child asks (in the title text) "What about that shadowy place over there?" to which Cueball replies (also in the title text), "That's France. We'll get it one of these days."

The title text forecasts the first words of the first astronauts on the surface of Mars. At first, the astronaut copies the first words of {{w|Neil Armstrong}} on the Moon ("That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind") but it is interrupted by the ''Opportunity'' rover. Opportunity has a drill to collect Martian rock samples, but here it is heavily suggested that the drill is being used as a weapon against the astronaut.

==Transcript==
:[The year (or year and first sentence) for each panel is written in a small frame at the top of each panel. It breaks the top frame of the panels.]

:[Ponytail is sitting at a computer, facing left. Hairbun stands behind her.]
:2010:
:Ponytail: After six years, ''Spirit'' is down, but ''Opportunity'' is still going strong.
:Hairbun: Tough little rover!

:[Opportunity traveling on Mars. Text is written in frames with zigzag lines]
:2015:
:Off-screen: Eleven years, wow.
:Off-screen 2: Wasn't the original mission 90 days?
:Off-screen: This is starting to get weird.

:[Cueball and Megan sitting at a computer, facing right.]
:2023:
:Cueball: The battery is totally disconnected. How can it still be moving??
:Megan: Given what it did to the Mars 2020 rover, we may never know.

:[Two Martian inhabitants looking like Cueball and Megan stands on a cliff edge pointing towards a dark, mountainous region. Behind them are a tower and a hover car]
:2450, terraformed Mars, Martian imperial capital:
:Martian Cueball: Everything the light touches is our kingdom.
:Martian Megan: What's that dark area?
:Martian Cueball: That is ''Opportunity's'' half of the planet. We must never go there.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Mars rovers]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:The Lion King]]

2913: Periodic Table Regions

2024-03-30T09:45:57Z

172.70.91.12: /* Table Sections */ Covers whichever two elements are usually slotted in there (in case of doubt over this).

{{comic
| number = 2913
| date = March 29, 2024
| title = Periodic Table Regions
| image = periodic_table_regions_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x501px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Cesium-133, let it be. Cesium-134, let it be even more.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LAWFUL NEUTRAL MURDER WEAPON COMMONLY USED TO MAKE SPARK PLUGS' VOICES SQUEAKY- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|periodic table}} is used to arrange {{w|chemical element}}s based on their properties. This comic groups them together into regions with labels that depict what they are used for.

=== Table Sections ===

{| class=wikitable
! scope="col" | Section
! scope="col" | Real table
! scope="col" | Elements contained
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| Slightly fancy protons || Hydrogen || Hydrogen || Hydrogen atoms are a proton and an electron. Since the electron can be removed (so only a proton remains) and you can call that a H<sup>+</sup> ion, [[Randall]] calls hydrogen atoms "slightly fancy protons".
|-
| Weird dirt || Group 1 and 2 metals || Lithium, Beryllium || Lithium and beryllium, as some of the lightest elements, have unusual properties compared to heavier metals. Lithium, for instance, is the least dense metal on the periodic table, and is used in applications such as [https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/3/lithium rechargeable batteries]. Beryllium is both toxic and transparent to x-rays, but also keeps its shape and stiffness over a wide range of temperatures, leading to its use in the primary mirrors of the [https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/ote/mirrors/index.html#3 James Webb Space Telescope].
|-
| Regular dirt || Group 1 and 2 metals || Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium || Despite being metals, these are listed as "dirt" rather than "metal." Perhaps this is because they are commonly found in dirt, as they are essential nutrients for plant life and for many other forms of life, including humans).
|-
| Ends in a number, let it slumber. Ends in a letter, not much better. || Group 1 and 2 metals || Rubidium, Strontium, Cesium, Barium, Francium, Radium || Highly reactive metals, some of which are commonly used as radioactive isotopes (which are known by a number; e.g. radium-223).<br/>The title text mentions cesium-133 and cesium-134, with the former being the only stable isotope of cesium.
|-
| Boring alloy metals. Probably crucial to the spark plug industry or something. (But one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes.) || The left transition metals || Scandium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Molybdenum, Technetium, Ruthenium, Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium || Not actually so boring, but they tend to be used as constituents (sometimes as a small but vital trace) in alloys with specific uses, including {{w|stainless steel}}, {{w|Electric light|bulb filaments}} and {{w|Superconductivity|superconductors}}.<br/>A {{w|spark plug}} may use {{w|austenitic stainless steel}}, which includes chromium and (in some cases) molybdenum, for heat and oxidation resistance.<br/>{{w|Technetium}} is the lightest element that has no stable isotope and is thus radioactive. Technetium is commonly used in medical imaging.
|-
| Regular metals || The top transition metals || Titanium, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Zinc, Aluminum, Silicon || Commonly known metals (and one metalloid, silicon). These all have important uses in construction and other major industries.
|-
| $$$$ || The platinum group || Rhodium, Palladium, Silver, Iridium, Platinum, Gold || Rare and highly prized metals.
|-
| Weird metals || The "ordinary metals" and some transition metals || Gallium, Germanium, Cadmium, Indium, Tin, Mercury || These are more obscure than the other metals (except tin and mercury) and tend to have fewer or more specialized uses. Mercury is also the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, and gallium melts just above that at 30 °C (86 °F).
|-
| Boron (fool's carbon) || Boron || Boron || Just as like how {{w|pyrite}} is commonly called "fool's gold", Randall calls {{w|boron}} "fool's carbon" due to its similarities in the way both elements can make stable {{w|covalently bonded}} molecules. Many of boron's {{w|allotropes}} are also analogous with those of carbon.
|-
| You are here || Nonmetals || Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus || Other than hydrogen, these are all the elements required to make {{w|DNA}}, and they make up the majority of atoms in other biological molecules, thus placing you over here.
|-
| Murder weapons || Ordinary metals and metalloids || Arsenic, Antimony, Tellurium, Thallium, Lead, Bismuth, Polonium || Arsenic, thallium, lead, and polonium are highly toxic and have been involved in many notorious poisoning cases. Antimony and tellurium are also hazardous, though to a lesser degree. Bismuth is the odd one out, having little toxicity at all, but it is used in lead free bullets and shot; the compound bismuth subsalicylate is the main ingredient in Pepto-Bismol.
|-
| Safety goggles required || The halogens || Fluorine, Sulfur, Chlorine, Selenium, Bromine || These elements are highly reactive, so safety goggles are required. Randall has previously mentioned the nasty properties of {{w|bromine}} at room temperature in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/50/ Extreme Boating].
|-
| Very specific health problems || Iodine and radon || Iodine, Radon || Radon can accumulate in buildings, especially in basements and cellars, since it is formed in the decay series of uranium and thorium, which occur in trace levels in many common minerals. The gravel and concrete used in construction include such minerals, and the radon is released into air via pores and cracks in the stone and concrete. The relatively poor ventilation in underground spaces can cause the radon to accumulate rather than being released into the environment. Eventually, the radon itself decays into other elements, which are also radioactive. Radon is chemically very inert and doesn't bind to anything, but it can still be inhaled, and its daughter elements can bind to dust particles. The radioactive materials, when inhaled, can cause damage to cells, especially in the lungs, with lung cancers as a possible long-term consequence. Iodine is a required nutrient that humans need in trace amounts to remain healthy, with an iodine deficiency typically causing thyroid problems such as goitre. Radioactive iodine is easily taken into the body, deliberately to counteract hyperthyroidism or uncontrollably due to exposure to material in nuclear fallout/accidents. Giving high doses of 'normal' iodine would ideally flush out the problematic isotope. Even comparing the two radioactive effects, these two specific health problems are entirely unrelated, and it is only by coincidence that they are corner-to-corner on the periodic table.
|-
| Lawful Neutral || Noble Gases || Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon || These elements are mostly unreactive.
Lawful Neutral is a reference to the D&D alignment chart, which gives moral categories for characters. The chart goes from Lawful to Chaotic on one axis, and Good to Evil on another. Lawful Neutral means following the law without any bias towards Good or Evil, which could be exemplified by the unreactivity of the Noble Gases.
|-
| Don't bother learning their names – they're not staying long || Astatine and Period 7 from Rutherfordium onwards || Astatine, Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicum, Nihonium, Flevorium, Moscovium, Livermorium, Tennessine, Oganesson || These elements are hard to produce in large quantities and decay within hours or less... in some cases, milliseconds. (Their names haven't exactly been stable, either, with previous multiple systems of placeholder names.)
|-
| Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize || The internal transition metals || Lanthanum, Cerium, Praesodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium, Actinium, Thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium, Fermium || The {{w|lanthanide}}s and {{w|actinide}}s are placed awkwardly "outside" of the main periodic table, taking two elements out of their own position (not all versions with separated rows do this); there are alternative {{w|types of periodic tables}} with differing ways of displaying the elements, however they are usually considered either less visually appealing or more difficult to parse.
|}

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

:[A periodic table with regions labeled.]

:[Hydrogen:]
:Slightly fancy protons
:[Lithium and beryllium:]
:Weird dirt
:[4 elements below:]
:Regular dirt
:[6 elements further below:]
:Ends in a number, let it slumber
:ends in a letter, not much better
:[Left side of the transition metals group:]
:Boring alloy metals
:Probably critical to the spark plug industry or something
:(but one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes)
:[Most of the top row of the transition metals + aluminum:]
:Regular metals
:[Below the rightmost "regular metals":]
:Weird metals
:[Between "boring alloy metals" and "weird metals":]
:$$$$
:[Boron:]
:Boron (fool's carbon)
:[Top-center of p-block:]
:You are here
:[Top-right of p-block, excluding the rightmost column:]
:Safety goggles required
:[5 uppermost elements of the rightmost column:]
:Lawful neutral
:[Iodine and radon:]
:Very specific health problems
:[Below and to the right of "weird metals":]
:Murder weapons
:[Bottom row from the fourth column onwards:]
:Don't bother learning their names - they're not staying long
:[The lanthanoids and actinoids below the rest of the table, arrow pointing to a gap in the third column:]
:Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]

Talk:2908: Moon Armor Index

2024-03-21T21:30:26Z

172.70.91.12: Tweaks

Can someone hurry up/w the explanation?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.162|162.158.159.162]] 22:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
:Did it :) --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 00:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

According to https://sl.bing.net/kR6wrqrekg0 it would be 43.1 meters. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.117|172.70.174.117]] 23:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Bing was wrong, it screwed up the units [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.181|172.70.38.181]] 23:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)!

Anyone figure out if this takes the recently-discovered moons into account? I'd expect as much but it would make a good addition to the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.155|172.70.131.155]] 01:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:The new moon around Uranus is 8 km in diameter, and the moons around Neptune are 23 km and 14 km in diameter. The inventory of outer moons is believed to be complete down to 2 km for Jupiter, 3 km for Saturn, 8 km for Uranus, and 14 km for Neptune. And the total combined mass of smaller moons (e.g. in Saturn's rings) is also constrained.

:All these moons are round, and thus approximately ball-shaped. The volume of a 3-ball with radius r₀ is 4⁄3 πr₀³. Uranus and Neptune are also approximately ball-shaped with radii of 25,559 km and 15,299 km, respectively. (I don't know exactly how these radii are defined, but I assume optically. Uranus and Neptune don't have solid surfaces.) The volume of a spherical shell is just the difference of the outer and inner spheres, so 4⁄3 π(R³−r³) if the outer radius is R and the inner radius is r. These volumes are equal if the whole moon is converted into a spherical shell. So for Uranus, we have 4⁄3 πr₀³ = 4⁄3 π(R³−r³), where r₀ is the radius of the moon, r is the radius of Uranus, and R−r is the thickness of the shell. Solving gives R−r = ³√(r₀³+r³)−r. Plugging in r₀ = 8 km and r = 25,559 km gives R−r = 0.26 mm. If we laid it on top of the other moons instead of the "surface" of Uranus itself, it would make practically no difference. Doing the same calculation for each newly-discovered moon of Neptune gives thicknesses of 17 mm and 3.9 mm (for a total of 21 mm).

:In other words, they are tiny rounding errors. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
::Not for Pluto, it seems... small planet, huge moon. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 21:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I like that turning the Moon into a spherical shell coating the Earth is not definitely stated to be impossible with current technology. There's so much hedging going on I feel like I'm trapped in a maze in ''The Shining.'' [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The formula used seems to give the instantaneous technical distance, but in reality, there would be a rate of change of the surface area of the planet as each layer of thickness x was added. Does anyone know if this is significant with the distances we are talking, or does it just turn out to be a rounding error? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.0.254|172.68.0.254]] 03:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:For most, I suspect it is indeed the roundingest of rounding errors. Obviously, Earth+Moon and Pluto+(Charon+the others) would be the most ''out'', but subtending difference of area at (say) sea-level radius and sea-level plus 43km doesn't sound like much to account for.
:A=4πr², so A<sub>dif</sub> of A<sub>2</sub>-A<sub>1</sub> would be (4πr<sub>2</sub>²)-(4πr<sub>1</sub>²) or 4π(r<sub>2</sub>²-r<sub>1</sub>²) ((which looks like you could work it out as a pythogorean calculation, i.e. model a new line-length that would go at a tangent out from r<sub>1</sub> until it hits the endpoint of the r<sub>2</sub> radius elsewhere ... but that's probably not useful!)).
:Given Earth at a normal 6371km (between equatorial and polar radii, to simplify as a true sphere), Earth+Moon therefore 6371+43 (using figure stated by comic), that gives ...if I've done it right... now an extra 7 million km² on top of the roughly 510 million that it normally has. An increment of 5%, by the time you start spreading your arbitrarily thin final layer (so approximate back to being 2.5% extra by volume, without actually using Eebster's alternate direct shell-volume calculation or doing an integration).
:Pluto (saying 44km of layering, as slightly more than Earth's 'pile', on its far smaller radius) isn't that much more 'off'. It would increase the surface by about 8% (so says my mental arithmatic, at least) so maybe 4% more volume than a "flat surface raised up prismatically".
:(Not quite the same as "wrap a string around a tennis ball, add an inch to its length, what is its additional radius? / wrap a string around the Earth, add an inch ..." sort of thing, due to the extra dimensionality involved, but I don't feel like doing the full algebraic differentiations necessary to establish the trend of departure.).
:It certainly initially looks like the '≈'ing of the result holds fairly well under even the two most extreme examples (cases of particularly large moons-by-volume). And, at a certain point, a planet's (single largest) moon cannot be made bigger without drifting into double-planet territory (indeed, Pluto/Charon may be considered double-dwarfs!), and then, soon after, you're switching their roles around and dismantling the 'planet' (really a moon) to armour the 'moon' (now the planet). So that probably suggests we're at our limit, with twin-binary capping our one-satellite scenarios, until you get into 'busy' N-ary systems with many not-insignificant moons but somehow an identifiable 'main body' planet in the midst of them.
:I don't think "armour the Sun with all the planets (''and'' their moons), dwarf-planets, minor-planets, random detritus, etc" will strain that relationship. Top of my head estimate is that it'd be nowhere near as high as Earth/Pluto examples, if the Oort cloud isn't oddly massive in total. But someone can correct me if I've goofed or overly hand-waved something. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.118|172.69.195.118]] 06:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad there are at least links to them, but shouldn’t there be at least ONE sentence HERE on explainxkcd saying what the heck the last five ‘worlds’ are? I’d bet that’s what most people needing an explanation come here to find out! and all there are are links. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.98|162.158.186.98]] 09:59, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:I added a sentence about the trans-Neptunian dwarf planets. But I don't know why Randall left out Makemake, Orcus and Sedna... any hypotheses? [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 12:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
::I don't know this for a fact, but is it possible that those objects have no known moons to contribute any armor thickness? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 13:06, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Makemake has a small moon. Orcus has a fairly large moon relative to is size, similar to Pluto. I'm slightly bitter that Salacia is here guven that astronomers don't even consider it a dwarf planet. Orcus is also much more interesting. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.133|172.68.64.133]] 08:07, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Imagining (especially) the gas planet examples, and some sort of mechanical means (partly overlapping plates of 'moon armour', that can slide over each other, remaining gas-tight?) allowing free vertical moment, I'm wondering how much the shell could contain and actually compress the predominantly atmospheric mass below it. Not being in orbit (perhaps give it the nominal gas-cloud spin), having chosen the amount of atmosphere it sits upon it'll not really be held up by the previously uncapped atmosphere, but as it falls inwards it must eventually pressurise the volume within until it equalises against the hermetic (and magically balanced, to not crumple and fold inwards irregularly) shielding material... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.21|172.69.194.21]] 16:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Now, the real challenge is doing it quickly - that is, on noticing danger, armor the planet, then dearmor and rebuild the moon when danger passes. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I thought I was being very clever when I added the gravitational compression effects, because some tiny moons have a low density, and some of them aren't remotely as solid as the Earth's Moon because they only formed from separate rocks quite recently. But then someone applied this thought to the planet itself, where I feel (without any motivation to do the math) that such effects should be utterly negligible 5 billion years after the solar system's formative period... (though, who knows what else Pluto/Charon hold in store??) So: I'm not sure if the bit in brackets about the minuscule gravitational compression effect on the host planet should stay in the explanation. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 21:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Since as far as we currently know, there is no life on the other planets, isn't rather biocentric to suggests that the preservation of life is relevant to protecting the planet earth? (Intended as humor, if you didn't get it.) [[User:Inquirer|Inquirer]] ([[User talk:Inquirer|talk]]) 00:22, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that Phobos and Deimos are so tiny. Neat! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.45|172.70.111.45]] 13:58, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
:Of those we know, Phobos is listed at somewhere around 80th-or-more by size (and Deimos 90th-or-more), depending upon what you count as a moon (and any more discoveries we may be making). Both smaller than Pluto's largest two-or-three satellites (Charon, if you count it as such, plus Hydra and Nix), and and a significant number of major asteroids. At some point, we're going to be more certain whether they were actually originally Mars-crossing asteroids/similar that ended up captured, or a different origin. All indeed interesting, if it piques your interest. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.61|172.69.194.61]] 15:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

How thick would the armor be around the Sun, if the rest of the Solar System's mass, including the Oort Cloud, were used? Before it turns to plasma, that is. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.42|172.70.39.42]] 18:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
:Let's try and use the Munrovian approximation:
:*Solar surface: 6.09×10<sup>12</sup> ''or'' 6.078×10<sup>12</sup> km² (I get at least two different figures, depending on where on wikipedia I look)
:*System Volume:
:**Sun is 1.412×10<sup>18</sup> ''or'' 1.409×10<sup>18</sup> km³, for reference, but we don't actually count that. It contains 99.86% of the mass, but complex density pigeonholing makes that not any easy fact to derive from.
:**I can add up to 2.387×10<sup>15</sup> volume from the largest objects (down to 400km in radius), after that is extreme guesswork, even of what objects we might not know of.
:***Which means that 0.17% of the system's volume (so far counted) is not in the Sun, in case you're interested.
:**What we don't know enough about, I'm not sure we can easily estimate...
:*Volume/Surface=393ish km
:**The first 235km is Jupiter (assuming we can do this with all that gas)
:**Add the other three gas giants, we get to 392km
:**The next 30 bodies contribute a little over 419m, of which Earth is 178m, Venus the next 153m, Mars 27m, from then on it very quickly becomes pocket-change (4.4cm, the last on my list)
:**I doubt we can do that much more with the cumulative <400km objects, and Kuiper and Oort objects (so far uncounted) might not help significantly.
:**The "new Planet 9" (post-Lovell 'Planet X') might do a ''little'' bit more, if it exists. It's supposed to be Super-Earth size, by those who think it's there to be found (and, if it isn't perhaps the same missing mass (and volume) is there in a lot of snaller trans-Neptunian objects, so still worth quoting). That's perhaps 8-64 times Earth's volume, adding 1.5-11km to this particular estimate of Sun-armour.
:I'm a little surprised it was that much, actually, I expected it to be thinner just from thinking about how the Sun had so much surface to spread the planets over. But it looks like I underestimated the gas-giant contribution, until I got my hands on hard numbers. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.175|172.71.242.175]] 21:25, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

999: Cougars

2024-03-11T03:42:53Z

172.70.91.12: Saw the tag move, but wrong side of comma. Also, now using the full-form, not a redirected subordinate.

{{comic
| number = 999
| date = January 4, 2012
| title = Cougars
| image = cougars.png
| titletext = If you're lying in bed tonight and you see yellow eyes glinting in your window, are you being stalked by a puma, a mountain lion, a panther, a catamount, or a cougar? Trick question--in North America, they're all names for the same species, Puma concolor! Isn't learning fun? Anyway, sleep tight!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] is giving reason number 58 why he should not have children. We see fictitious "father [[Cueball]]" talking about the Wikipedia entry for "{{w|List of fatal cougar attacks in North America}}". As stated, many of the victims were young children near their home.

If you tell a child about something dangerous, but without giving them necessary context to feel protected from it, you are likely to cause nightmares, sleeplessness, or other fear-related issues. In most, if not all, cases this would be considered bad parenting,{{Citation needed}} hence a person who enjoys doing so should perhaps not have children.

The title text demonstrates that not only is Cueball sharing factual information, he is intentionally adding hypothetical detail (e.g. "yellow eyes glinting in your window") to make the danger seem even worse. The child is unlikely to agree that learning this is fun. Incidentally, a panther is not an actual species but rather a term for either leopards or jaguars with melanistic conditions. Mountain lions themselves are rarely called panthers.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at a computer; a child is standing behind.]
:Cueball: Whoa, ever seen Wikipedia's list of people who were attacked and killed by cougars?
:Cueball: Crazy how many of them were kids who were just playing outside their houses.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Reason #58 I should never have children: My love of learning and sharing knowledge about the world.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Kids]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:2887: Minnesota

2024-02-29T14:44:10Z

172.70.91.12:

Does NGS's request about "supple" have to be "rather than" commenting on the data? It could be in addition to it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Where do I find the latitude and longitude gain or loss of arbitrary points not relative to the African Plate but to the rotation axis and whatever is the official longitude? Does the official prime meridian move every time the European plate moves or is it fixed to Greenwich Observatory? {{unsigned|Oxygen|19:46, 29 January 2024}}
:Based on {{w|IERS Reference Meridian}} article, I think I can answer that with definitive "maybe". I mean, it's not fixed to Greenwich (is actually 100m apart of it) but I wasn't able to decipher what exactly they are doing regarding tectonic shifts, just that they were thinking about it. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally, my go-to "other question" is "what is the square root of pi?". Tends to get a fun mix of answers. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 05:50, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
:Rhubarb. (OK - it's not quite square, and it's a stem, not a root, but close enough, and it does make a damn good pie.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.36|172.69.194.36]] 09:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
::Not to be pedantic (or, to be self-pedantic, maybe this ''was'' indeed pedantry), but rhubarb is surely the square ''stalk'' of pie. Or you're eating it wrongly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 10:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Probably unrelated, but I've seen several 'scare' articles over the weekend that say the Moon is 'shrivelling', due to its core cooling. Tend to say something like that it has shrunk by 330ft (without indicating over what time period, or relating that distance to the much larger general diameter such that it makes this not exactly a visible difference if you were to stare at any given bit of surface). The 'scare' is that it'll make it impossible to settle the Moon (due to selenological settling, ironically), especially at its (probably valuable) South Pole. Apart from it not being new info (LRO provided "the Moon has been shrinking 150ft over hundreds of millions of years" data, last decade; and that could even be the exact same thing, only quoted as a rough radius change instead of a roughish diameter one), there's also various ways of adding resiliance to reasonable surface changes (e.g. the current Halley Research Base used by the British Antarctic Survey) if you need to. Obviously the recent topical interest in landings (current and nearish-future) could have brought it up as a bit of 'current' news. ''Maybe'' it then filtered through to inspire the comic's premise (after searching for a sort-of-equivalent Earthly effect that was even more ripe for absurdist humour)... Likely not, but still thought it worth a mention, as a footnote. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.68|172.70.86.68]] 15:02, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Problem with comics like this is that I've now gone from not knowing the word "geodetic" at all to wondering why Alabama is the only one of the 48 contiguous states without [https://geodesy.noaa.gov/SPCS/images/spcs83-legislation-feet.png state plane coordinate system legislation from 1983]. [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 16:35, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I think some more detail on the borders of Minnesota as legally defined would be useful, but I'm not sure I have the complete picture. As far as I've been able to research, the northern border (with Canada) is in part defined by geographical features, such as Lake of the Woods, so the rebound would be affecting it, but I'm not sure to what degree. The southern border (with Iowa), on the other hand, is defined as a line
at 43° 30' N, which wouldn't be affected by rebound - in fact, it's plausible that the rebound would be pulling parts of Iowa into Minnesota. I don't think this marks any errors in the comic (which only states that that the northern border is moving towards the southern, not vice-versa), but some of the commentary may need to be tweaked or elaborated on. --[[User:Penguin Zero|Penguin Zero]] ([[User talk:Penguin Zero|talk]]) 02:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
:The image in the second panel clearly implies that the southern border is moving northwards as well.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 09:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

"All meetings should be about Minnesota until we resolve this" reminds me of something, maybe another XKCD. Maybe the "but someone is wrong on the Internet!" one. There's a infrequent theme of nerd-sniping or very specific issues hijacking normal business. Anyone remember this? [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 16:25, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

The National Geodetic Survey asked him to stop using the word "supple" so often, which means they are ok with him using it from time to time. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.12|172.70.91.12]] 14:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

2875: 2024

2024-01-02T16:46:02Z

172.70.91.12: Undo revision 331871 by SomeoneIGuess (talk)

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[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
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[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
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[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
</div>
</div>
== Headline text ==
<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2024". For comic #2024, see [[2024: Light Hacks]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2875
| date = January 1, 2024
| title = 2024
| image = 2024_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x553px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It wasn't originally constitutionally required, but presidents who served two terms have traditionally followed George Washington's example and gotten false teeth.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by OBAMA'S TEETH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In what starts off almost like a "[[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|doesn't time fly?]]" scene, the unstoppable progression of the calendar is observed, as [[Ponytail]] points out that it's now 2024. [[Cueball]], in response, notes that it is an election year, in this context a {{w|President of the United States#Election|US ''Presidential'' election}} year, which occurs every four years and has (in one form or other) since 1788. Ponytail then replies in some form of exasperated tone that they "keep on happening", which is true but (normally) unsurprising, even/especially with other major elections happening every two years, presumably not compared to how [https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/youre-joking-not-another-one/ some other democracies] might be less predictable/more frequent.

On top of this, Ponytail seems to have not been aware (or maybe has chosen to forget) the passing of two whole election cycles (and two newer incumbents) as the discussion focuses upon {{w|Barack Obama}}, the ''former'' US President. Ponytail seems to be quite behind the times as she asks if Obama is still president (he left office January 20th, 2017, which was 7 (!) years ago, a fact that Cueball cannot quite believe Ponytail is ignorant of). Ponytail states that she liked him, and wonders if he'll be up for taking on the position again. But Cueball states that he ''can't'' be made President again, having already served two terms, which Ponytail confirms by checking for herself the details of the {{w|Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}.

The humor in the comic comes in the second half; Cueball and Ponytail discuss whether Obama is the same person (like the mythical {{w|Ship of Theseus}}, most of his constituent cells are frequently replaced), with Ponytail looking into the possibility of Obama's re-election based upon philosophical/biological technicalities (as applied to the Constitution's words), rather than as legal/political convention might normally suggest. But when even that approach is seen to be wanting, requiring a wait significantly exceeding 30 years, Ponytail suggests negating that issue by having all of Obama's teeth removed and replaced with false teeth.

In order to facilitate the latter goal, Ponytail announces her intention to consult a dentist and (for exact reasons that can only be guessed at) a lawyer. Seeing where her current misplaced, and {{w|Dunning–Kruger effect|less than informed}}, zeal might be leading her, Cueball gives his prediction that the probable {{w|Supreme Court of the United States|ultimate legal arbiters}} of her plan might be unanimous in rejecting its validity (if not dissuading its attempt). SCOTUS being unanimous on an issue is now a [https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/07/as-unanimity-declines-conservative-majoritys-power-runs-deeper-than-the-blockbuster-cases/ comparatively rare event].

The title text references {{w|George Washington's teeth|George Washington's (in)famous 'false teeth'}}. Washington's dentures are often falsely claimed to be made of wood; in truth they were ''real'' teeth procured from other sources. Regardless, this would have likely resolved the rather specific problems established in the philosophical conundrum, and the title text claims that other presidents used this plan to get around the Constitutional limitations concerned in case they wanted to serve more than two terms.

However, no one has yet even ''needed'' to carry out this plan. Only one President has exceeded the limit; {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}} died in office during his ''fourth'' term, but he served prior to the 22nd Amendment and was thus unaffected by the rule, which was enacted six years after his death. (FDR did have a partial denture, but given that he retained some of his natural teeth, he did not engage in Ponytail's proposed scheme.) Presidents since then have definitely tried various schemes aimed at securing a second term, with both successes and failures, but nobody has yet planned ''this particular plan'' to achieve a third or beyond. Or at least one can assume that those that perhaps did (including, as noted, all those who were not yet 'required' to go to these lengths) failed to attain their goals for entirely different reasons.

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

:[Ponytail and Cueball are walking.]
:Ponytail: So this is 2024.
:Cueball: Yup. Guess it's an election year now.
:Ponytail: Again? Man, those just keep happening, huh?

:[Ponytail and Cueball now standing.]
:Ponytail: Who's the president these days, anyway? Is it still Obama?
:Cueball: What? No? He hasn't been... How do you not...

:[Ponytail and Cueball still standing.]
:Ponytail: Darn, I liked him. Is he running this time?
:Cueball: No, he's not allowed to.
:Ponytail: He's not? Why?
:Cueball: Constitution.

:[Ponytail checks her smartphone.]
:Phone: ''Amendment 22''
:Phone: No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice
:Ponytail: What?? C'mon...

:[Ponytail talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Don't all your cells get replaced every seven years, Ship of Theseus-style? Is he even the same person?
:Ponytail: Maybe "no person shall be elected more than twice" isn't a prohibition, it's more of an observation, like "you can't step in the same river twice."

:[Zoom in on Cueball.]
:Cueball: Isn't the cell thing a myth?
:Cueball: I think tooth enamel has a turnover half-life of 30+ years. His teeth molecules are probably the same.

:[Ponytail heads off with a finger raised.]
:Ponytail: So if Obama just gets false teeth, he can run again! I need to talk to a dentist and a lawyer!
:Cueball: The Supreme Court is about to vote 9-0 to block your number.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2875: 2024

2024-01-02T16:38:18Z

172.70.91.12: Undo revision 331861 by 172.71.166.98 (talk)

<div style="top: 0px; left: 0px; position: fixed; float: left; z-index: 99999;">
[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
</div>
== Headline text ==
<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2024". For comic #2024, see [[2024: Light Hacks]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2875
| date = January 1, 2024
| title = 2024
| image = 2024_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x553px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It wasn't originally constitutionally required, but presidents who served two terms have traditionally followed George Washington's example and gotten false teeth.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by OBAMA'S TEETH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In what starts off almost like a "[[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|doesn't time fly?]]" scene, the unstoppable progression of the calendar is observed, as [[Ponytail]] points out that it's now 2024. [[Cueball]], in response, notes that it is an election year, in this context a {{w|President of the United States#Election|US ''Presidential'' election}} year, which occurs every four years and has (in one form or other) since 1788. Ponytail then replies in some form of exasperated tone that they "keep on happening", which is true but (normally) unsurprising, even/especially with other major elections happening every two years, presumably not compared to how [https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/youre-joking-not-another-one/ some other democracies] might be less predictable/more frequent.

On top of this, Ponytail seems to have not been aware (or maybe has chosen to forget) the passing of two whole election cycles (and two newer incumbents) as the discussion focuses upon {{w|Barack Obama}}, the ''former'' US President. Ponytail seems to be quite behind the times as she asks if Obama is still president (he left office January 20th, 2017, which was 7 (!) years ago, a fact that Cueball cannot quite believe Ponytail is ignorant of). Ponytail states that she liked him, and wonders if he'll be up for taking on the position again. But Cueball states that he ''can't'' be made President again, having already served two terms, which Ponytail confirms by checking for herself the details of the {{w|Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}.

The humor in the comic comes in the second half; Cueball and Ponytail discuss whether Obama is the same person (like the mythical {{w|Ship of Theseus}}, most of his constituent cells are frequently replaced), with Ponytail looking into the possibility of Obama's re-election based upon philosophical/biological technicalities (as applied to the Constitution's words), rather than as legal/political convention might normally suggest. But when even that approach is seen to be wanting, requiring a wait significantly exceeding 30 years, Ponytail suggests negating that issue by having all of Obama's teeth removed and replaced with false teeth.

In order to facilitate the latter goal, Ponytail announces her intention to consult a dentist and (for exact reasons that can only be guessed at) a lawyer. Seeing where her current misplaced, and {{w|Dunning–Kruger effect|less than informed}}, zeal might be leading her, Cueball gives his prediction that the probable {{w|Supreme Court of the United States|ultimate legal arbiters}} of her plan might be unanimous in rejecting its validity (if not dissuading its attempt). SCOTUS being unanimous on an issue is now a [https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/07/as-unanimity-declines-conservative-majoritys-power-runs-deeper-than-the-blockbuster-cases/ comparatively rare event].

The title text references {{w|George Washington's teeth|George Washington's (in)famous 'false teeth'}}. Washington's dentures are often falsely claimed to be made of wood; in truth they were ''real'' teeth procured from other sources. Regardless, this would have likely resolved the rather specific problems established in the philosophical conundrum, and the title text claims that other presidents used this plan to get around the Constitutional limitations concerned in case they wanted to serve more than two terms.

However, no one has yet even ''needed'' to carry out this plan. Only one President has exceeded the limit; {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}} died in office during his ''fourth'' term, but he served prior to the 22nd Amendment and was thus unaffected by the rule, which was enacted six years after his death. (FDR did have a partial denture, but given that he retained some of his natural teeth, he did not engage in Ponytail's proposed scheme.) Presidents since then have definitely tried various schemes aimed at securing a second term, with both successes and failures, but nobody has yet planned ''this particular plan'' to achieve a third or beyond. Or at least one can assume that those that perhaps did (including, as noted, all those who were not yet 'required' to go to these lengths) failed to attain their goals for entirely different reasons.

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

:[Ponytail and Cueball are walking.]
:Ponytail: So this is 2024.
:Cueball: Yup. Guess it's an election year now.
:Ponytail: Again? Man, those just keep happening, huh?

:[Ponytail and Cueball now standing.]
:Ponytail: Who's the president these days, anyway? Is it still Obama?
:Cueball: What? No? He hasn't been... How do you not...

:[Ponytail and Cueball still standing.]
:Ponytail: Darn, I liked him. Is he running this time?
:Cueball: No, he's not allowed to.
:Ponytail: He's not? Why?
:Cueball: Constitution.

:[Ponytail checks her smartphone.]
:Phone: ''Amendment 22''
:Phone: No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice
:Ponytail: What?? C'mon...

:[Ponytail talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Don't all your cells get replaced every seven years, Ship of Theseus-style? Is he even the same person?
:Ponytail: Maybe "no person shall be elected more than twice" isn't a prohibition, it's more of an observation, like "you can't step in the same river twice."

:[Zoom in on Cueball.]
:Cueball: Isn't the cell thing a myth?
:Cueball: I think tooth enamel has a turnover half-life of 30+ years. His teeth molecules are probably the same.

:[Ponytail heads off with a finger raised.]
:Ponytail: So if Obama just gets false teeth, he can run again! I need to talk to a dentist and a lawyer!
:Cueball: The Supreme Court is about to vote 9-0 to block your number.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2871: Definitely

2023-12-23T15:59:34Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2871
| date = December 22, 2023
| title = Definitely
| image = definitely_2x.png
| imagesize = 463x461px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A really mean prank you can play on someone who's picky about words is to add a 'definitely->definitively' autocorrect rule to their keyboard.
}}

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

The word {{wiktionary|definitely}} is commonly {{wiktionary|misspelt}}, perhaps because it may be voiced as "def-in-ATE-ly", or with other vowels/emphisis. (The wiktionary link mentions three, /ˈdɛf.ɪ.nɪt.li/, /ˈdɛf.ə.nɪt.li/, /ˈdɛf.nɪt.li/, which suggest differences other than those that this editor is colloquially most familiar with.) Remembering that it ultimately has a common root with "finite" does not help when you also perhaps link it to "define" (and not "definition").

The comic gives twelve 'words' that the subtitle claims are all real, and gives their definitions, whereas in reality only the first (the definitely definitive spelling of "definitely" and the last (defying the trend by being the actual word {{wiktionary|defiantly}}) are indeed so.

The first three alternate 'words' listed do have Wiktionary entries that indicate they are common mis-spellings of the first, and the last has a secondary 'meaning' of possibly being such an error, but (as of the publication of this comic/edit) the words "defenitely", "defintely", "definetely", "definantly", "defanitely", "defineatly" and "definitly" are ''so'' wrong that they don't even have a corrective article created for them. Some of them don't even look like they'd even be sufficiently homophonic substitutes, though the actions of accent and dialect may indeed be capable of creating compatible (mis)elocutions for each.

The title text adds to the word confusion by suggesting that the (real) word {{wiktionary|definitively}} be made to be used (against the will of a word-wise individual) as a substitution for the original definitely definitive spelling. In certain contexts it even fulfils the same basic sense as the original and so may survive proofreading by a third party. Or even the author glancing through their own work, and the brain not twigging the increased number of riser-rich characters but mentally voicing the intended word anyway...

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

:<u>Word</u>   <u>Meaning</u>

:Definitely - Definitely
:Definetly - ''Almost'' definitely
:Definately - Probably
:Definatly - Probably not
:Defenitely - Not telling (it's a surprise)
:Defintely - Per the prophecy
:Definetely - Definitely, maybe
:Definantly - To be decided by coin toss
:Defanitely - In one universe out of 14 million
:Defineatly - Only the gods know
:Definitly - Unless someone cute shows up
:Defiantly - Defiantly

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People think the word "definitely" is often misspelled, but it's actually just several words with different meanings.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]

2866: Snow

2023-12-14T11:25:12Z

172.70.91.12: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2866
| date = December 11, 2023
| title = Snow
| image = snow_2x.png
| imagesize = 609x379px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = For someone who has ostensibly outgrown staying up late waiting for Santa, I do spend an awful lot of time refreshing websites to see if packages are here yet.
}}

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

This comic is about people being excited by snow, which can induce what might be seen as "childish" or less mature behaviour. Many people like snow for a variety of reasons; it may be nostalgic for them, in areas where it is infrequent it may be the novelty factor, it may be aesthetically pleasing, they may simply like walking around in snow, etc.

As the graph shows, Randall's "apparent age" drops significantly when snow starts to fall, and while it rises fairly quickly as the initial rush of excitement subsides, it is still lower whenever snow is falling (and possibly beyond this, while it is still lying). Evidently, the mere presence of snow keeps Randall acting somewhat childishly; it may take a lot more time (or reality-inducing [[1674: Adult|grown-up events]]) to catch up to his true age. He can be seen staring out of the window in the fourth panel, obviously still significantly entranced and distracted, even if he is no longer running around in supposedly age-inappropriate excitement.

The title text refers to another common behavior of many adults - [[281: Online Package Tracking|constantly refreshing tracking websites]] to see if a package has moved - and compares it to the idea of a child who believes in Santa and tries to stay up late enough to see him deliver presents. Constantly refreshing tracking websites is an abnormal behaviour and should be discouraged in favour of other more socially acceptable habits such as constantly refreshing [[xkcd]] to check if a new strip is out.

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

:[Above the comic, there is a graph labeled "Time" on the X-axis and "My apparent age" on the Y-axis. The graph is flat until a large drop, labeled "The moment it starts to snow". After the drop, the line rises, but it doesn't reach as high as before.]
:[Under the graph, there are four comic panels. All show Cueball, a desk with a laptop, and a window. The panels line up with the graph's X-axis.]

:[Window without snow. Cueball at desk, apparently working.]

:[Window with several snowflakes. Cueball at desk, turning around to the window.]

:[Window with a lot of snow. Cueball jumps excitedly up from his chair, shouting.]
:Cueball: Hey! It's snowing! Outside! There's snow falling! Look! Snow! Hey!

:[Window with a lot of snow. Cueball at desk, apparently working, but possibly looking at the window.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]