explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2868: Label the States

2023-12-16T04:36:45Z

172.71.146.43: /* Explanation */ image file has an error

{{comic
| number = 2868
| date = December 15, 2023
| title = Label the States
| image = label_the_states_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x500px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Even with a blank map, a lot of people can only name 45-50 of the 64 states.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LEONIDA MAN - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:label the states 2x highlighted.png|thumb|301px|The map with the extra states highlighted.]]
[[File:Blank US Map (white on gray and black).svg|thumb|301px|A real blank map of the United States for comparison.]]
This is a blank map of the United States. At first glance, it looks correct, because all the large states with distinct shapes are correctly represented, but some states have been added. For example:

* On the west coast, Washington, Oregon, and California all have their normal shapes, but there is a new rectangular state south of Oregon and north of California.
* East of this, two more nearly rectangular states have been added between Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah.
* A column of five rectangular states has been inserted between Montana/Wyoming/Utah/Arizona and the Dakotas/Nebraska/Colorado/New Mexico.
* Another somewhat rectangular state has been added between South Dakota and Nebraska. (Note: Nebraska is incorrectly colored blue in the illustrative map to the right. It's the space above it that should be blue.)
* Ohio and Indiana have been narrowed with a new state being created between them.
* New states shaped like Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina have been added directly south of those states.
* New Hampshire now has a state that looks like its reflection between itself and Maine.

In summary, a whole row and a whole column of states have been added, and two new states have been added between Indiana and Ohio and between New Hampshire and Maine. The external shape of the United States has also been slightly modified to accommodate the new states. As the title text says, there are now 64 states on Randall's map, not 50.

In comic [[2394: Contiguous 41 States]], the opposite has been done, removing states so that there are 41 states instead of 50 or 64.

The title text comments on the cliché that Americans are bad at geography, parodying comments that Americans cannot name all 50 of the US states. The cliché is also parodied in [[850|comic 850]].

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

:Geography Challenge:
:Can you label all the states?

:[An unlabeled map of the United States, but instead of 50 states, there are borders for 64.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:US maps]]

Talk:2865: The Wrong Stuff

2023-12-09T00:04:00Z

172.71.146.43:

the design is very timeghost-esque [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.165|172.71.167.165]] 21:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)Bumpf

== personal similarity ==

I made a post to the derelict cypherpunks list right before this about ghost visits. It’s notable because I used to post to the same derelict list about making a spaceship out of tissue paper, specifically pursuing the wrong materials in response to a ghostlike experience preventing me from effective work (which i now understand as a dissociative disorder). I’m planning to edit this comment with my posts (in progress).

[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-December/120247.html Thu Dec 7 20:57:06 PST 2023]<blockquote><code>2249

a ghost visits you

you: “oh! a ghost! are you a spirit of a person who is now dead?”

the ghost looks sheepish

ghost: “i am a psychological result of something you went through!”

the ghost grins, trying to put on a great-looking appearance

you: “awww frack”

the ghost stops grinning and looks crestfallen and depressed

ghost: “i want to repeat something that perturbed you from the thing you went through, over and over … would this be okay with you?” [translator may have taken liberties with this line]

you: “oh no that would um be really perterburing! um !!”

ghost [looking sheepish again]: “um !”

you and the ghost both put handkerchiefs over your mouths to represent politeness or something and you go for a walk down a lane in your town called “memory la—
</code></blockquote>

[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-January/110003.html Mon Jan 30 18:35:20 PST 2023]<blockquote><code>[crazy][spam]

let’s reduce the tension and go back to a concept spammed to this list before

let’s make a space rocket out of tissue paper! or s9mething similarly incredibly flimsy like cobwebs or dustballs.
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-January/110004.html Mon Jan 30 18:36:19 PST 2023]
<blockquote><code>[crazy][spam]

- we can use an nlp bot to scrape the internet for materials
properties and perform the rough design

- we can make bots that replicate like a reprap generator to collect
the materials
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-September/117502.html Sun Sep 3 18:03:06 PDT 2023]
<blockquote><code>Model Spaceship Made Of Snow

I'm guessing we can make it out of ice when it is really cold. We
could press or melt the snow to make it into ice, and cast, cut, or
assemble and fuse parts into a spaceship shape.

Rocket fuel could melt the ship when it burns, maybe need a way to
cool it significantly, but with a model maybe it could hold compressed
air somehow? it does seem hard
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-September/117517.html Sun Sep 3 18:23:54 PDT 2023]
<blockquote><code>how to make spaceship out of ice?

so, ice is likely to melt when traveling at escape velocity, maybe
imagining a huge buffer around the ship: like, design it to melt its
exterior. big wide giant spaceship near ground, little tiny spaceship
at edge of atmosphere
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2022-March/097050.html Tue Mar 8 17:35:33 PST 2022]
<blockquote><code>The Questioning Spam

A worker was building a rocket ship out of grass.

Questioner: "Why don't you use, I dunno, like, steel and ceramic
plates, to make your rocket ship, rather than grass?"

Worker: "It's just a hobby project."

Questioner: "Why don't you make it a serious proiject?"

Worker: "I really have more time than money, honestly."
…
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2022-January/094637.html Fri Jan 7 03:23:38 PST 2022]
<blockquote><code>[ot][spam][crazy] holding community goals

stone soup is kind of a puzzle, no? like building a spaceship out of
wet noodles
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-December/093963.html Wed Dec 22 09:47:30 PST 2021]
<blockquote><code>Making a Spaceship out of Wet Noodles in C

It's hard to make a C program that builds a spaceship out of wet noodles.

But, at the end of the day, it's down to your free time,
experience+ingenuity, and the libraries you have available to call
into.
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-December/093000.html Wed Dec 1 00:17:51 PST 2021]
<blockquote><code>[spam][ot][rambling][crazy] Building a Spaceship Out Of Something Ridiculously Weak and Flimsy

I like to daydream around hard challenges.

I don't know how to build a spaceship. But maybe it would be fun to try.

To make it harder, let's make it out of only something ridiculously hard to
do it with, like toilet paper, or leaves, or old newspapers.

I don't know what kinds of problems one runs into when building a
spaceship, but when I start planning it I think the first problem will be
getting something to go really, really far against gravity.

Another problem I hear about is burning up as you accelerate through the
atmosphere.

I imagine aiming what direction you go in is pretty hard too.

I'm thinking I'm probably okay with there being some guidance computers and
robotics on the craft, but that we would _mostly_ make it out of tissue
paper or whatnot. Making computers out of tissue paper can be considered a
separate problem, for now.

One way to make tissue paper move is to burn it. Could we use a
tissue-paper-fueled rocket to accelerate the craft? Almost certainly not,
but doing the calculations for this could inform what thing to consider
next.

I have no idea how to make a rocket, or how rockets work, but I imagine
that when you burn something, it turns into gas, and the expansion of the
gas is much larger than the thing you burned, so if you direct this gas in
some direction or another, it might push something further. I dunno. Like
getting up from a chair because of a fire you sat in. Maybe? I dunno.

Maybe I'll briefly websearch for "solid fuel rocket" and see what I get.
</code></blockquote> … the post goes on and I then replied with more things for a few days. Rereading it turns out I was playing with my psychological triggers from social influence AI, and it’s hard to continue cause my amnesia and dissociation is kicking in (might try a different part not sure). I think of this xkcd as about me though!

[[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.32|172.71.254.32]] 21:48, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

It's probably worth a mention that the title is most likely a reference to "The Right Stuff" (film). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.65|172.69.247.65]] 22:57, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The title is probably a reference to "The Right Stuff" (TV Series) instead, since the title's unusual capitalization aligns with the series's title's font style but not the film's title font. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.43|172.71.146.43]] 00:04, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

875: 2009 Called

2023-11-01T23:59:30Z

172.71.146.43: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 875
| date = March 21, 2011
| title = 2009 Called
| image = 2009 called.png
| titletext = 2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic deconstructs a {{w|snowclone}} or common idiom - "X called, they want their Y back." In a common version, the "X" in this phrase is a year, or era, and "Y" is something that was common in that time, but is now unfashionable, or outright ridiculous.

Here, [[Megan]] notices a Three-Wolf Moon T-shirt that [[Cueball]] apparently owns. The {{w|Three Wolf Moon|Three-Wolf Moon}} is a shirt of three wolves howling at the moon that reached meme status when several people posted ironic reviews ascribing supernatural powers to it on {{w|Amazon}} around late 2008. Like many memes, it became popular for a short period, but rapidly became outdated.

Presumably, Megan is trying to say "2009 called, they want their shirt back", mocking Cueball for still owning something so outdated. Before she can finish, though, Cueball appears to take her literally, and responds as if she'd actually received a call from the year 2009. If she'd actually had the opportunity to communicate across time, that would be a golden opportunity to warn the people of the past about events that had not yet occurred. Specifically, he asks if she'd warned the people of the past about {{w|2010 Haiti earthquake|the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti}} and {{w|2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami|the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan}}, and admonishes her when she admits she didn't. Both of these were events in which huge amounts of human suffering and death likely could have been prevented with foreknowledge.

The comic was posted shortly after the latter disaster, so it is reasonable to assume that it was created as a specific response to what had occurred. It's not entirely clear whether Cueball is preempting Megan's attempt to mock him, or whether he actually thinks the past called.

The title text continues the snowclone by implying a terrible future awaits in 2017. Likewise, non-apocalyptic events, such as political protests, can generate "yelling and screaming". Given the public's general inclination to focus on the negative the prediction of a "bad future" may have worked with any date.

2017 has occurred, and the world hasn't exploded.{{Citation needed}} In hindsight, 2020 would work better for the joke. [insert hindsight is 2020 joke here]

However, 2017 was actually one of the world's most devastating years in terms of natural disasters, for starters, there were Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and Maria: all particularly devastating, for that particular corner of the world. In addition, the election of Donald Trump was upsetting for many people, especially people who did not agree with his controversial beliefs.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is at computer. Megan is standing behind him, looking at clothes on the floor.]
:Megan: Is this a three wolf moon shirt?
:Megan: Dude, 2009 called, and they-
:Cueball: ''OH MY GOD!''
:Cueball: ''DID YOU WARN THEM?''
:Cueball: ''ABOUT HAITI AND JAPAN?''
:Megan: What? No, I-
:Cueball: You ''ASSHOLE!''

==Trivia==
See also:
*[[102: Back to the Future]]
*[[1072: Seventies]]

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