explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2983: Monocaster

2024-09-11T22:50:43Z

172.71.150.2: Guessing an answer to my own question

Unicycles aren't (or at least aren't usually) chain-driven. I might try to fix that if my phone stops being so slow that it feels like I'm using a 90s PC to do this. Maybe a restart will help. Rebooting in 10, 9, 8... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.76|172.70.91.76]] 07:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:I just went in and Actual Citation Needed it (seeing lower comment, when editor reloaded this page for me, forcing me to rewrite, that may have changed now).
:*It doesn't look like a chain-drive. Could be hub-geared, but not the same thing.
:*Chain-drive to raise the rider (most of the mass) up higher will ''raise'' the CoG.
:*'Underslung' chain-drive (see 1880s example, [[1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design|here]]?) has problems. Pedals hitting the ground would be one of them, unless your wheel was indeed significantly larger...
:*...and if it is (perhaps for better off-roading?), this intrinsically pushes up the CoG. Perhaps you are trying to lower it slightly, again, then. But you can't bring the saddle (and crotch!) lower than the now higher top of the wheel. ("Timeline of Bicycles" version excepted, assumed assymetric? In [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-4b7d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 some manner]?)
:Add to that a few niggles about the bicycle. Not sure if intended to be a Moulton-style one (wheels maybe the classic 17", frame totally wrong) or a roadbike-style-ish one (frame relatively Ok, as drawn by someone not fully adhering to the design, maybe confused by some MTB variations, but clearly not in the ~27" wheel range, give or take). Of course, wheels are neither concentric nor circular, so depends a bit on which bits of the 'circles' are right for the intended arc and which bits ended up more casually doodled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.99|172.70.91.99]] 08:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, Randall missed an opportunity to put a Penny-Farthing in there... though I'm not sure how that would have categorised given that it has two wheels of different sizes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 08:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:He has a "Big Wheel Trike" (child's low-rider style thing) in there. On the logarithmic scale, and imprecise reference point (bottom/middle(/CoG,where different)/top of wheel/vehicle/rider/whole?), both the big front wheel and the small trailing wheels colpd be in the right place-ish, although having it slightly inclined could put them in the (place Tandall considers to be) ''exactly'' right place. ((Note also where the 10(?)-wheeler truck-and-trailer is placed horizontally vs the possibly relevent "number of wheels".))
:You could do something similar with the Old Ordinary (i.e. "Penny-Farthing"), either make it roughly right or depict going up a ''marginally'' steeper hill. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.142|172.69.194.142]] 09:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: unicycles, the COG thing doesn't look right either, but I was distracted by a (thankfully) now-deleted troll comment before and actually fixing the description is beyond my skills, especially on so little sleep.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 08:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:i had good intentions, we need to call randall out --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.122|172.69.194.122]] 09:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:::If you mean your calling out the ''other'' point, that has been deleted anyway: Randall doesn't read this site (that we know; and, if I had a site such as this made for my works, I'd think it wisest to stay clear), so he probably won't get your 'message'. This particular comic doesn't even have the slightest connection to that subject, so not even the page to say anything about it. And the point made (even if it was a valid one... it presupposes that there are no nuances and compromises, that one cannot have a complex set of opinions that neither wholly match nor wholly mismatch ''your'' opinions) was also absurd, when you consider how the ''other'' party involved has proven to be even more so. I won't dignify this issue further by putting names and places here, it really isn't the forum for it. But please realise (if you don't already) that your irrelevent point is out of place here. And most places on this site that you/others like you may have tried such messaging on before. Go to /pol/, or your favourite forum's dedicated boards/threads. Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
::Call him out for *what* exactly? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.135|172.68.70.135]] 12:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:::As I dare to hint, just above, someone thinks Randall has a wrong personal opinion on some current issue. Which has nothing to do with this comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

As a unicyclist myself, I don't think the unicycle is easier to balance because of a lower center of mass and a chain drive. As a few others have mentioned, they don't normally have a chain drive, although there are a few specialist ones that do. Normally, the cranks are just attached to the hub so you can directly control the speed of the wheel at a 1 to 1 ratio, which makes it easier to balance on. The other thing that would make the unicycle easier than the monocaster is that you can control what direction the wheel is pointing by turning the seat with your thighs. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.128|172.68.186.128]] 09:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Love the log-log scale. Now let's see the zoomed-out version, with orders of magnitude more wheels and orders of magnitude larger diameters. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.230|172.71.166.230]] 13:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:The scale if off either way. Or Randall wrote centimeters while he meant inches... At least for some cases. Examples: he placed the skatebord at 2cm while skateboord wheels are at ca 5cm - which are approx. 2 inches. Scooter wheels are approx 8.5 inches, not 8.5 cm... The car is mostly fine, albeit it would be a rather small car at ~50cm (a 19 inch (50cm) wheel designates the size of the rims, not the wheel) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 15:18, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
::out of all people i would think Randall would be the last one to use a non-SI unit to measure distance. --[[User:Markifi|Markifi]] ([[User talk:Markifi|talk]]) 17:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:::He usually prefers SI units, yes. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I have NEVER heard anyone call inline skates "three wheel skates". [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.193|141.101.109.193]] 19:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
:As a quad skater through most of my youth, the depicted "three-wheel skate" was only called "inline" skates. Not sure where this 3-wheel designation came from! [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 21:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
::I too thought the term “three-wheel skate” seemed odd, and thought “inline skates” might be more appropriate. Then I remembered that in fact, most inline skates have four wheels… a memory that a quick Google image search seemed to support. So I guess a three-wheel skate is a special case of inline skate, rather than the default implementation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.137|172.70.160.137]] 06:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
:Both variants exist and the three-wheeled version has generally bigger wheels - so the relative depiction of both variants in the diagram is correct. But their position regarding to wheel size is not. See my comment above [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

title text sounds like beret guy ngl--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 23:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Not a single mention of Pollux? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux Wikipedia] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.122|172.68.70.122]] 11:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Disconcerting that this explanation does not describe any of the vehicles, instead entirely making one-sided arguments regarding the title text. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
:I was considering a tabular list of all subjects, when I had time, at least to the Preview stage. Very brief: 'Vehicle' (wikilinked, as appropriate)/№ of wheels/typical size of wheel(s)/Typical use. No long paragraphs intended. Might need a range in the size column (possibly some in the # of wheels column). If someone gets there before me, though, I wouldn't mind. :p
:...and I just discovered that the # 'key', in the numbers 'screen' of this touchscreen keyboard has ”№” as a long-press alternative! How long have I been using this and hadn't realised? (Four years. That's how long.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

[[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Missed opportunity to bring in the Letourneau l2350 loader, which I think has the largest production tires in the world at 4m, outshining those monster trucks (Bigfoot I think never had tires bigger than 3m).

I notice also a hole regarding ~30cm, multi-wheel. I say that space is filled by those amusement-park little trains. Yesss, they're "separate wagons," however, as it's several attached wagons operating together as a unit, for practical purposes, I say those trains constitute "one single" vehicle. Some have a very ingenious directional drive system, so wagons follow each other in the same path instead of a cathenary, for example in Disney; I was fascinated.[[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] ([[User talk:Yamaplos|talk]]) 17:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

No mention either of the Rip Stick, which successfully employs only two castored wheels for locomotion. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.189|172.68.23.189]] 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there any reason the title text uses "tiny" twice? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.3|172.71.150.3]] 22:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
:I'm guessing it's meant to be interpreted as the tiny "single-tiny-caster" [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.2|172.71.150.2]] 22:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

== (Inception Sound Effect) ==

Somewhere in the far corner of the chart:

{{w|Bagger 288}}

[[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

2966: Exam Numbers

2024-08-06T02:29:48Z

172.71.150.2: /* Explanation */ rm, I don't think this makes sense or has explanatory value

{{comic
| number = 2966
| date = July 31, 2024
| title = Exam Numbers
| image = exam_numbers_2x.png
| imagesize = 553x400px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Calligraphy exam: Write down the number 37, spelled out, nicely.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic depicts various similarly formatted examination questions that might appear on test papers at various points in a student's potential academic career. While they all share a similar feel, they are asking for different things, some of which might be considered more serious and examinable proofs of study than others. The joke is that the first and last questions are the same, but have very different interpretations based on the context.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Exam numbers
! Exam level !! Question !! Answer
|-
| {{w|Kindergarten}} math || Write down the biggest number you can think of || At a kindergarten-level education, it is assumed that an individual might write down a relatively small number like 300, depending upon whether they have encountered the concept of hundreds. It might also be interpreted as "what's the highest number that you (think you) can count up to". Given the nature of a child's exuberant glee at learning about ''really'' big (but otherwise normal) numbers, they may even try an answer something like "a million billion squillion gazillion... and seven!". It is not certain what criteria would be used to mark this question correct or otherwise, it may actually be a stealth question in child psychology or a question that everybody "gets right" so long as they answer it.

Although an advanced concept taught years later, infinity is not out of the question here, as employing it is often the only way to explain a substantial number of very simple math questions.
|-
| Pre-{{w|algebra}} || Write down the value of x if x=3x-8 ||

''3x'' refers to the multiplication of 3 and the originally unknown number ''x'', as a convenient shorthand.

By subtracting ''3x'' from both sides, ''-2x = -8''. Divide both sides by -2 to find ''x''=4. Alternately, subtract ''x'' from both sides to give ''0 = 2x - 8'', and as taking 8 from two ''x''s makes it zero, one ''x'' is half that

(Verify by plugging ''x''=4 into the original equation. '''4''' = (3*'''4''') - 8 -> '''4''' = 12 - 8 -> '''4''' = 4.)

4 is also the subject of [[221: Random Number]].

|-
| {{w|Calculus}} || Write down the value of ∫0π x sin2 x dx ||
The integral can be solved using {{w|List_of_trigonometric_identities#Power-reduction_formulae|a trigonometric identity}} and [https://math.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Calculus/Calculus_(OpenStax)/07%3A_Techniques_of_Integration/7.01%3A_Integration_by_Parts integration by parts]:

∫0π x sin2 x dx

= ∫0π x (1-cos 2x)/2 dx

= ½ ∫0π x dx - ½ ∫0π x cos 2x dx

= ¼ x2 |0π - ¼ ∫0π x (sin 2x)’ dx

= ¼ x2 |0π - ¼ x sin 2x |0π + ¼ ∫0π (x)’ sin 2x dx

= ¼ x2 |0π - ¼ x sin 2x |0π + ¼ ∫0π sin 2x dx

= ¼ x2 |0π - ¼ x sin 2x |0π - ⅛ cos 2x |0π

= ¼ π2 = 2.4674...

|-
| PhD {{w|Cosmology}} || Write down the Hubble constant to within 1% || The Hubble constant is a component of {{w|Hubble's law}}, which describes the relationship between the distance between galaxies and their speed of separation. Its exact value is not known to this level of precision; it is ''about'' 70 (km/s)/Mpc. Different methods of measuring it have come up with significantly different values, with their own error bars, generally of 2% to 5% (both plus and minus, or asymmetrically, but with a similar overall range) and resolving this difference (the {{w|Hubble's law#Hubble tension|Hubble tension}}) is one of the great challenges of modern cosmology. Getting a PhD involves advancing the field, so it seems this particular PhD student has completed a thesis solving this problem. This question might have a different acceptable answer if asked again of the student, depending upon further developments in cosmology, and the 'constant' itself is supposed to change over cosmological time (the nature of this change being yet another subject requiring further study, calculation and observation).

What would a correct answer look like? Because of how {{w|significant digits}} are interpreted, 69 (km/s)/Mpc could be correct to within 1% while 70 is not.
|-
| {{w|Game Theory}} || Write down 10 more than the average of the class's answers || Game Theory studies "games" (and 'game-like' situations) in which two or more participants take actions that will succeed or fail based on other participants' decisions. In this case, all students' answers will be averaged (likely a simple {{w|arithmetical mean}}), and the best answer would be one that is 10 more than that average. For instance, if the answers end up being 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70, the (mean) average would be 50, making 60 the best possible answer. As an individual test taker who doesn't know what your classmates are going to write down, the objective is to answer 10 more than your estimate of the average (taking into account your own guess), ''knowing that everyone else will be doing the same.''

Attempts at numerical solutions, including {{w|Monte-Carlo method}}s, will not converge because the problem as stated is unstable. The best answer will always be ten more than what the other students think the best answer is, and they have the same information as everyone else, which results in a contradiction.

Something similar to this question is found in the title text of [[2385: Final Exam]].
|-
| Postgraduate Math || Write down the biggest number you can think of || This question echoes the very first example, but would be expected to be answered very differently (unlike a revisiting of most of the others).
Postgraduate math students can probably think of ''very'' large numbers. While a tempting answer could be "{{w|infinity}}", most mathematicians do not consider infinity to be a number,{{acn}} but rather a class of numbers. (Writing down "Infinity" in this context would be as wrong as writing down "Primes" or "Positive integers"). Even if infinity is an acceptable answer, some infinities are bigger than others. Students familiar with the field of [https://googology.fandom.com/wiki/Googology#History Googology] may give an answer such as {{w|Rayo's number}}, which was the winning entry in the [https://googology.fandom.com/wiki/Big_Number_Duel Big Number Duel].

This might heavily depend upon the branch of mathematics you are studying. Named (finite) numbers, or ones with specific and useful notations, might satisfy some questioning contexts, whilst the existence of a whole further set of trans-finite numbers (i.e. increasingly large types of "infinity") would be important considerations in others. For those associated with more computational mathematics, any infinity would be {{w|NaN|Not a Number}}, and their answer might instead be the ceiling of some binary representation (typically ''28n-1'' for some value of ''n''), the largest unsigned value reliably storable in a given byte form for an integer (e.g. a {{w|Integer (computer science)|double quadword}}). On the other end of the spectrum, many abstract algebraists might answer with some variation of "What ring are we working in, and is it even well ordered?" It also might be a trick question: if you can envision a real number greater than one, are you even doing real math (in a given field)?

As with the kindergarten question, there may be no previously anticipated "correct" answer. It could be another "correct just so long as you answer it" (or perhaps "sensibly" so) or the mark goes only to those giving the greatest valid number across all submissions.
|-
| {{w|Calligraphy}} (title text) || Write down the number 37, spelled out, nicely || Calligraphy is the art of artistic writing. The title text expands the joke outside the realm of math and points out that since calligraphy does not require any math skills, the only way a calligraphy exam would even mention numbers is if one had to write them out in such a way as to showcase their calligraphic skill and aesthetic judgement (choosing a form and adornment of script that is "nice", which may be a highly subjective choice). In this case, it could be rendered as "thirty-seven" or "thirty seven", or possibly, "one score and seventeen" in old-fashioned writing. The subject may choose to render it in a language other than English — for example "dau ar bymtheg ar hugain" would provide significant scope to show off calligraphic skill. {{w|37}} is a number that some people believe [http://thirty-seven.org mysteriously appears more often than it should]; this was a subject of a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98 recent Veritasium video].
|}

Note that "PhD Cosmology" and "Postgraduate Math", unlike the other items, aren't specific courses but instead refer to areas of study, and as such wouldn't have a exam (unless a PhD thesis defense is considered an "exam").

This style of final exam question, un-numbered and therefore possibly the ''only'' question upon the whole of each final paper, in some ways (for some instances) echoes the question "What is your name?" that Randall will be aware was the sole question given to Discworld's {{w|List of Discworld characters#Victor Tugelbend|Victor Tugelbend}} in an attempt to ensure he comprehensively passed (or utterly failed) his final student-wizard's exam, after many prior times of deliberately not-quite-passing.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[6 different math test questions.]

:[The first panel:]
:Kindergarten math final exam
:Q. Write down the biggest number you can think of
:A. [empty box]

:[The second panel:]
:Pre-algebra final exam
:Q. Write down the value of x if x=3x-8
:A. [empty box]

:[The third panel:]
:Calculus final exam
:Q. Write down the value of [integral sign, from 0 to pi] x sin^2 x dx
:A. [empty box]

:[The fourth panel:]
:PhD cosmology final exam
:Q. Write down the Hubble constant to within 1%
:A. [empty box]

:[The fifth panel:]
:Game theory final exam
:Q. Write down 10 more than the average of the class's answers
:A. [empty box]

:[The sixth panel:]
:Postgraduate math final exam
:Q. Write down the biggest number you can think of
:A. [empty box]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]

2967: Matter

2024-08-03T00:20:44Z

172.71.150.2: Source notes that goofy is about as common as 'standard-foot'; revolutions are not synonymous to rotations

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

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

In {{w|skateboarding}}, the term 'goofy' means to use the {{w|Footedness#Goofy_stance|opposite stance}} of the 'standard-footed' one where one pushes with right foot. This comic takes this as an apparent analogy of {{w|antimatter}} in elementary physics, which exhibits the opposite charge to normal matter will mutually destroy 'normal' matter (releasing energy relative to the original mass). This appears to be the kind of explanation that one gets when {{w|Tony Hawk}}, an ex-professional skateboarder of great renown[https://www.mobygames.com/game/3567/tony-hawks-pro-skater/], is teaching.

This analogy also brings indirect attention to the problem of {{w|Baryon asymmetry}}, that "regular" matter appears to be much more common than antimatter, yet unlike many{{citation needed}} issues of handedness or "standard/nonstandard" methods, 'goofy-footed' skaters are about equally-common as 'regular-footed'.

The title text talks of a {{w|900 (skateboarding)|skateboarding trick}} which involves two and a half rotations, or (eponymously) nine hundred degrees (2.5 × 360° = 900°). {{w|Spin (physics)|'Spin'}} is a quality of subatomic particles, named for the concept of {{w|angular momentum}} as it applies to elementary and quantum physics, and the understanding of {{w|Fermi–Dirac statistics}} requires that the particles involved exhibit spin numbers that all have a half-spin on top of any given whole number, much as with the 2½-rotations (albeit at a vastly different scale and only loosely considered even the same) of the trick that Tony Hawk could have performed.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Tony Hawk (drawn with short hair) gesturing at a narrow whiteboard on which illegible things are marked, what may be a Quantum Electrodynamics diagram with one leg going into the black hole, and at the bottom, a 2x3 table of values..]
:Tony Hawk: In the standard model, regular matter will annihilate if it comes in contact with oppositely-charged ''goofy'' matter.

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

{{comic discussion}}

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

2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-05T05:42:08Z

172.71.150.2: /* Explanation */ match comic spacing more closely

{{comic
| number = 2954
| date = July 3, 2024
| title = Bracket Symbols
| image = bracket_symbols_2x.png
| imagesize = 592x569px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = ’"‘”’" means "I edited this text on both my phone and my laptop before sending it"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ([{《"Somewhat satisfied rob- I mean human"》}]) - Please~~ change this comment when editing this page. Do *NOT* delete this tag too soon.}}
Brackets, also called parentheses, are typographical symbols used to delimit a section of text. Unlike most typographical symbols, brackets usually come in pairs, and the end bracket is typically the mirror image of the start bracket.

This comic shows a variety of (mostly) real bracket symbols, along with Randall's description.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Descriptions
|-
! Symbols
! Comic text
! Real use
! Explanation of the joke
|-
|( )
|Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside
|The regular curved bracket is the most commonly used in literature, and typically denotes aside remarks that are relevant to, but not part of, a sentence (for example, a clarifying explanation). It is also frequently used in mathematical expressions and programming languages as a grouping operator, to force a particular order of evaluation.
|Randall explains, accurately, that these are regular parentheses. No joke yet.
|-
|[ ]
|Square brackets (more secure)
|In literature, square brackets often denote meta-textual information, such as glosses, omissions, translator and editorial notes. In stage plays, teleplays, and screenplays, they can indicate stage directions. In mathematics, they are often used for {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrices}} or {{w|Interval (mathematics)|closed intervals}}. Sometimes they are used as outer parentheses for easier visual matching in complicated expressions. In programming languages, square brackets are commonly used as the indexing operator, with the index being placed inside the brackets. They may also be used to denote specific data structures such as arrays or lists. In language definition syntax (such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form EBNF]) square brackets indicate something optional.
|The straight edges and sharper corners make these brackets resemble a solid box, presumably made of a hard material, which would be a more secure container than the "soft"-looking curved brackets. They also resemble staples, which are used to hold things in place securely.
|-
|{ }
|This stuff is expensive so be careful with it
|Known as "curly brackets." Rarely used in normal text, although may be used in expanded form to 'enclose' multiple optional lines following/preceding a single element of common purpose (similar to the 'split and recombined tracks' of [[2243: Star Wars Spoiler Generator]]). In mathematics, usually used to denote {{w|Set (mathematics)|sets}}, but other usage is possible. In programming languages most often used to denote begin and end of a separate block of code, declaring and [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Object_initializer initializing objects], and other uses. In language definition syntax, it is often used to represent a set of repeated expressions.
|Curly brackets look fancy, like gates with ornate ironwork. Randall implies a world where expensive stuff is set aside using the fanciest brackets available.
|-
|‶ ‶
|Someone is talking
|Used to denote speech or citations in normal text. There are various styles from the identical pairing "" to the 66-and-99-like “” which differentiates opening and closing quotes. The comic appears to use a handwriting-only slope-variation.
The first version is commonly used in programming languages to denote text that is text data, rather than code, such as literal messages intended to be displayed to the user. Word processors commonly implement “smart quotes” by detecting the use of the single-type keyboard character at each end of a possible quote and converting it into the fancier left/right versions (though this is not always desired, leading to the default behaviour being disabled or reverted).
|Normal quotation marks. Some languages or communities use different typographical conventions such as „German quotation marks“. See also below for British and French.
|-
|‵ ‵
|Someone British is talking
|[https://www.grammarly.com/blog/single-vs-double-quotes/ Allegedly 'British quotation marks'], although this may be disputed by actual Brits who were taught otherwise. Single quotes might be more often used as '{{w|scare quotes}}' or a related form of 'emphasis' marker. One possible distinction is that single-quotes give non-literal paraphrasing, wherever double-quotes are used for the verbatim reporting of words (spoken or written).

Often programming languages use the "..." version to denote non-program string data. In the Pascal family of languages, for example, <nowiki>''</nowiki>s indicate character-class data, with ""s being string-class data (as an inbuilt shortcut to a character-array record). As with the prior double-quotes, the comic versions appear to be handwriting-specific, with no easy-to-use equivalents in commonly used computer fonts.
|Some British media use these to note when people are talking, for historic reasons, though in modern usage the double quotes may be more common [https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/marks and acceptable].

Single quotes within double quotes (and/or double quotes within single, as necessary) can also be used to more clearly indicate reported words as part of an outer quote, i.e. when you're quoting one person and their statement contains a quote of someone else. The main quotation would be surrounded with double quotes, while the nested quotation is delimited with single quotes (or vice-versa, depending upon the house style in use). This may even be further alternated to arbitrary depth!
|-
|‹ ›
|An Animorph is talking
|{{w|Bracket#Angle_brackets|Angle brackets}}. Aside from telepathic speech in prose, it's often used in comics to indicate that a character is speaking a foreign language that has been translated for the reader's benefit – at least notionally. Angle brackets are heavily used in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML HTML] as markup tags to define how the source of websites intends to convey various stylistic and/or semantic distinctions.
|Books like the series {{w|Animorphs}} or science fiction novels use these when a character is communicating nonverbally, for example via telepathy. In the ''Animorphs'' series, this is called [https://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/Thought-speak thought-speak], or sometimes "thought speech".
|-
|« »
|A French Animorph is talking
|French quotation marks. Used for quotes within quotes in some languages. For quoting conventions in different languages, see [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/formex/physical-specifications/character-encoding/use-of-quotation-marks-in-the-different-languages this document].
|These symbols are French quotation marks - that's their actual name - and are used in French texts as the first-level quotes. Here Randall is mixing the SF convention described above with actual French use.
|-
|<nowiki>|</nowiki> |
|I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me
|Vertical bars in mathematics are used for the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_value Absolute Value function].
|The absolute value of a number is its value with all negative and positive signs stripped off; in practical terms this is used to ensure a given value is positive (ex. <nowiki>|-69| = 69</nowiki>). If for whatever reason you need to "protect" your equations from negative numbers (which does come up in programming from time to time) the absolute value function has you covered — though it may not always be denoted with vertical bars. {{w|Sigil}}s are symbols used in magic, often for protection from evil.
|-
|* * _ _ / /
|I have a favorite monospaced font
|These symbols are conventionally used in text-based computer communications (such as emails, chats, Usenet News articles) to denote *bold*, _underlined_, or /italic/ font; some client programs interpret them and display actual bold text etc.
|The kind of person who uses these symbols is the kind of person who uses a {{w|terminal emulator}}, which allows users to select one's favorite (preferably monospace) font. And a {{w|Monospace font}} is a font (set of shapes used for letters, numbers and symbols) in which every character has the same width, unlike {{w|Typeface#Proportional_font|variable-width (proportional) font}}, in which the letter I is much narrower than W. While proportional font is more pleasant to read, monospace is easier to represent in simple mechanical or electronic devices, and has been used almost exclusively in the advent of computer technology, specifically in text-only environments such as {{w|computer terminals}}; these most often had only one bare-bones font that did not provide separate glyphs for different styles of character (weight, slant) or the ability to superimpose characters (directly adding underlines).
|-
|~~
|I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014
|Used in the markdown specification ([https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/#strikethrough]) to denote text with a horizontal line through it, known as "strikethrough". Used by most places that implement the markdown spec, such as Discord, Reddit, most wikis, Github, and Tumblr.
|Strikethrough markup can be found on sites like Tumblr, Reddit, or Discord to indicate that you didn't really mean something you said, and such usage peaked in the mid-2010s. This could also reference the trend of putting tildes after words or sentences to indicate the words are being said in a lilting or sing-song manner, or to indicate it is being said in a cute, nice, or seductive timbre, or as a furry [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom]].
|-
|[([{()}],)]
|These Python functions are not getting along
|The square brackets denote a mutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/introduction.html#lists list], the round brackets an immutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#tuples-and-sequences tuple] , and the curly brackets a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#sets set]. It is valid to have them nested like this. [] could also be a slice (a bit of a list or tuple) and {} could be a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries dictionary], but the syntax is wrong for these.
|Random parentheses - Spaghetti code (badly maintained or written) in programming languages including Python will often be badly organized creating a mess of indentations and brackets used to create functions or loops etc.
|-
|⌊ ⌋
|Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary
|Mathematical symbols meaning "floor" (i.e. round down to the nearest lower integer).
|Mathematicians stereotypically prefer to work with abstract symbols and concepts rather than numbers or indeed anything that might pertain to the real world. When presented with an actual number, it is possible that a mathematician may wish for it to be rounded to the nearest integer so that they can treat it as part of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory number theory] rather than anything to do with reality.
|-
|∫ ∫
|Why are you trying to read my violin?
|∫ looks like the {{w|Integral symbol}} which itself is derived from a {{w|Long s}}. In mathematics it is usually paired with the differential of the variable of integration (e.g., dx). A reverse integral symbol is not used in Western mathematics typesetting; it occasionally appears in mathematical texts written in Arabic, along with other symbols likewise adapted to Arabic's right-to-left writing direction. The symbol also looks like a lowercase {{w|Esh (letter)|esh}} (ʃ), used in phonetic transcription.

There is no unicode symbol for the reversed version - it is displayed here as a reversed ∫. The esh symbol has a reversed counterpart in Unicode, but it's quite a bit shorter (ʅ).
|Violins are known for their characteristic {{w|F-hole}}s.
|-
|<nowiki>| ⟩</nowiki>
|Don't stop here–this is quantum country
|This {{w|Bra–ket notation|notation is used in quantum mechanics}} to notate a vector. This is called a ket, and the mirrored sign <nowiki>⟨|</nowiki> is called a bra. Combining them as bra-ket gives the inner product <nowiki>⟨|⟩</nowiki>.
| This is paraphrasing "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" where Johnny Depp's character Raoul Duke says: "We can't stop here, this is bat country!" while wasted on drugs, though not as wasted as later in the movie.
|}


The title text includes different kinds of quotes, including the ASCII " and ', and Unicode “ ” (which have both an opening and closing version).
By default, iOS uses the latter curly quotes, while Windows uses the former straight quotes. Editing the same text on both an iPhone and a Windows computer can leave both types of quotes in the text.

Parentheses are a running joke on XKCD. Previous parenthetical comics include:
* [[312: With Apologies to Robert Frost]] - the punchline is a close parenthesis
* [[859:_(]] - which has an open parenthesis with none to close it
* [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]] - making fun of Computer Science as a major for its tedious use of matching parentheses

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

:Bracket Symbols
:and what they mean

:( ) Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside

:[ ] Square brackets (more secure)

:{ } This stuff is expensive so be careful with it

:" " Someone is talking

:' ' Someone British is talking

:‹ › An Animorph is talking

:« » A French Animorph is talking

:| | I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me

:<nowiki>*</nowiki> * _ _ / / I have a favorite monospaced font

:~ ~ I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014

:[ ( [ { ( ) } ] , ) ] These Python functions are '''''not''''' getting along

:⌊ ⌋ Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary

:ʃ ʅ Why are you trying to read my violin?

:| ⟩ Don't stop here--this is quantum country

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Animorphs]]

2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-05T05:41:12Z

172.71.150.2: /* Explanation */ whoops

{{comic
| number = 2954
| date = July 3, 2024
| title = Bracket Symbols
| image = bracket_symbols_2x.png
| imagesize = 592x569px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = ’"‘”’" means "I edited this text on both my phone and my laptop before sending it"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ([{《"Somewhat satisfied rob- I mean human"》}]) - Please~~ change this comment when editing this page. Do *NOT* delete this tag too soon.}}
Brackets, also called parentheses, are typographical symbols used to delimit a section of text. Unlike most typographical symbols, brackets usually come in pairs, and the end bracket is typically the mirror image of the start bracket.

This comic shows a variety of (mostly) real bracket symbols, along with Randall's description.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Descriptions
|-
! Symbols
! Comic text
! Real use
! Explanation of the joke
|-
|( )
|Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside
|The regular curved bracket is the most commonly used in literature, and typically denotes aside remarks that are relevant to, but not part of, a sentence (for example, a clarifying explanation). It is also frequently used in mathematical expressions and programming languages as a grouping operator, to force a particular order of evaluation.
|Randall explains, accurately, that these are regular parentheses. No joke yet.
|-
|[ ]
|Square brackets (more secure)
|In literature, square brackets often denote meta-textual information, such as glosses, omissions, translator and editorial notes. In stage plays, teleplays, and screenplays, they can indicate stage directions. In mathematics, they are often used for {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrices}} or {{w|Interval (mathematics)|closed intervals}}. Sometimes they are used as outer parentheses for easier visual matching in complicated expressions. In programming languages, square brackets are commonly used as the indexing operator, with the index being placed inside the brackets. They may also be used to denote specific data structures such as arrays or lists. In language definition syntax (such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form EBNF]) square brackets indicate something optional.
|The straight edges and sharper corners make these brackets resemble a solid box, presumably made of a hard material, which would be a more secure container than the "soft"-looking curved brackets. They also resemble staples, which are used to hold things in place securely.
|-
|{ }
|This stuff is expensive so be careful with it
|Known as "curly brackets." Rarely used in normal text, although may be used in expanded form to 'enclose' multiple optional lines following/preceding a single element of common purpose (similar to the 'split and recombined tracks' of [[2243: Star Wars Spoiler Generator]]). In mathematics, usually used to denote {{w|Set (mathematics)|sets}}, but other usage is possible. In programming languages most often used to denote begin and end of a separate block of code, declaring and [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Object_initializer initializing objects], and other uses. In language definition syntax, it is often used to represent a set of repeated expressions.
|Curly brackets look fancy, like gates with ornate ironwork. Randall implies a world where expensive stuff is set aside using the fanciest brackets available.
|-
|‶ ‶
|Someone is talking
|Used to denote speech or citations in normal text. There are various styles from the identical pairing "" to the 66-and-99-like “” which differentiates opening and closing quotes. The comic appears to use a handwriting-only slope-variation.
The first version is commonly used in programming languages to denote text that is text data, rather than code, such as literal messages intended to be displayed to the user. Word processors commonly implement “smart quotes” by detecting the use of the single-type keyboard character at each end of a possible quote and converting it into the fancier left/right versions (though this is not always desired, leading to the default behaviour being disabled or reverted).
|Normal quotation marks. Some languages or communities use different typographical conventions such as „German quotation marks“. See also below for British and French.
|-
|‵ ‵
|Someone British is talking
|[https://www.grammarly.com/blog/single-vs-double-quotes/ Allegedly 'British quotation marks'], although this may be disputed by actual Brits who were taught otherwise. Single quotes might be more often used as '{{w|scare quotes}}' or a related form of 'emphasis' marker. One possible distinction is that single-quotes give non-literal paraphrasing, wherever double-quotes are used for the verbatim reporting of words (spoken or written).

Often programming languages use the "..." version to denote non-program string data. In the Pascal family of languages, for example, <nowiki>''</nowiki>s indicate character-class data, with ""s being string-class data (as an inbuilt shortcut to a character-array record). As with the prior double-quotes, the comic versions appear to be handwriting-specific, with no easy-to-use equivalents in commonly used computer fonts.
|Some British media use these to note when people are talking, for historic reasons, though in modern usage the double quotes may be more common [https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/marks and acceptable].

Single quotes within double quotes (and/or double quotes within single, as necessary) can also be used to more clearly indicate reported words as part of an outer quote, i.e. when you're quoting one person and their statement contains a quote of someone else. The main quotation would be surrounded with double quotes, while the nested quotation is delimited with single quotes (or vice-versa, depending upon the house style in use). This may even be further alternated to arbitrary depth!
|-
|‹ ›
|An Animorph is talking
|{{w|Bracket#Angle_brackets|Angle brackets}}. Aside from telepathic speech in prose, it's often used in comics to indicate that a character is speaking a foreign language that has been translated for the reader's benefit – at least notionally. Angle brackets are heavily used in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML HTML] as markup tags to define how the source of websites intends to convey various stylistic and/or semantic distinctions.
|Books like the series {{w|Animorphs}} or science fiction novels use these when a character is communicating nonverbally, for example via telepathy. In the ''Animorphs'' series, this is called [https://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/Thought-speak thought-speak], or sometimes "thought speech".
|-
|« »
|A French Animorph is talking
|French quotation marks. Used for quotes within quotes in some languages. For quoting conventions in different languages, see [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/formex/physical-specifications/character-encoding/use-of-quotation-marks-in-the-different-languages this document].
|These symbols are French quotation marks - that's their actual name - and are used in French texts as the first-level quotes. Here Randall is mixing the SF convention described above with actual French use.
|-
|<nowiki>|</nowiki> |
|I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me
|Vertical bars in mathematics are used for the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_value Absolute Value function].
|The absolute value of a number is its value with all negative and positive signs stripped off; in practical terms this is used to ensure a given value is positive (ex. <nowiki>|-69| = 69</nowiki>). If for whatever reason you need to "protect" your equations from negative numbers (which does come up in programming from time to time) the absolute value function has you covered — though it may not always be denoted with vertical bars. {{w|Sigil}}s are symbols used in magic, often for protection from evil.
|-
|** _ _ //
|I have a favorite monospaced font
|These symbols are conventionally used in text-based computer communications (such as emails, chats, Usenet News articles) to denote *bold*, _underlined_, or /italic/ font; some client programs interpret them and display actual bold text etc.
|The kind of person who uses these symbols is the kind of person who uses a {{w|terminal emulator}}, which allows users to select one's favorite (preferably monospace) font. And a {{w|Monospace font}} is a font (set of shapes used for letters, numbers and symbols) in which every character has the same width, unlike {{w|Typeface#Proportional_font|variable-width (proportional) font}}, in which the letter I is much narrower than W. While proportional font is more pleasant to read, monospace is easier to represent in simple mechanical or electronic devices, and has been used almost exclusively in the advent of computer technology, specifically in text-only environments such as {{w|computer terminals}}; these most often had only one bare-bones font that did not provide separate glyphs for different styles of character (weight, slant) or the ability to superimpose characters (directly adding underlines).
|-
|~~
|I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014
|Used in the markdown specification ([https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/#strikethrough]) to denote text with a horizontal line through it, known as "strikethrough". Used by most places that implement the markdown spec, such as Discord, Reddit, most wikis, Github, and Tumblr.
|Strikethrough markup can be found on sites like Tumblr, Reddit, or Discord to indicate that you didn't really mean something you said, and such usage peaked in the mid-2010s. This could also reference the trend of putting tildes after words or sentences to indicate the words are being said in a lilting or sing-song manner, or to indicate it is being said in a cute, nice, or seductive timbre, or as a furry [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom]].
|-
|[([{()}],)]
|These Python functions are not getting along
|The square brackets denote a mutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/introduction.html#lists list], the round brackets an immutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#tuples-and-sequences tuple] , and the curly brackets a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#sets set]. It is valid to have them nested like this. [] could also be a slice (a bit of a list or tuple) and {} could be a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries dictionary], but the syntax is wrong for these.
|Random parentheses - Spaghetti code (badly maintained or written) in programming languages including Python will often be badly organized creating a mess of indentations and brackets used to create functions or loops etc.
|-
|⌊ ⌋
|Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary
|Mathematical symbols meaning "floor" (i.e. round down to the nearest lower integer).
|Mathematicians stereotypically prefer to work with abstract symbols and concepts rather than numbers or indeed anything that might pertain to the real world. When presented with an actual number, it is possible that a mathematician may wish for it to be rounded to the nearest integer so that they can treat it as part of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory number theory] rather than anything to do with reality.
|-
|∫ ∫
|Why are you trying to read my violin?
|∫ looks like the {{w|Integral symbol}} which itself is derived from a {{w|Long s}}. In mathematics it is usually paired with the differential of the variable of integration (e.g., dx). A reverse integral symbol is not used in Western mathematics typesetting; it occasionally appears in mathematical texts written in Arabic, along with other symbols likewise adapted to Arabic's right-to-left writing direction. The symbol also looks like a lowercase {{w|Esh (letter)|esh}} (ʃ), used in phonetic transcription.

There is no unicode symbol for the reversed version - it is displayed here as a reversed ∫. The esh symbol has a reversed counterpart in Unicode, but it's quite a bit shorter (ʅ).
|Violins are known for their characteristic {{w|F-hole}}s.
|-
|<nowiki>| ⟩</nowiki>
|Don't stop here–this is quantum country
|This {{w|Bra–ket notation|notation is used in quantum mechanics}} to notate a vector. This is called a ket, and the mirrored sign <nowiki>⟨|</nowiki> is called a bra. Combining them as bra-ket gives the inner product <nowiki>⟨|⟩</nowiki>.
| This is paraphrasing "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" where Johnny Depp's character Raoul Duke says: "We can't stop here, this is bat country!" while wasted on drugs, though not as wasted as later in the movie.
|}


The title text includes different kinds of quotes, including the ASCII " and ', and Unicode “ ” (which have both an opening and closing version).
By default, iOS uses the latter curly quotes, while Windows uses the former straight quotes. Editing the same text on both an iPhone and a Windows computer can leave both types of quotes in the text.

Parentheses are a running joke on XKCD. Previous parenthetical comics include:
* [[312: With Apologies to Robert Frost]] - the punchline is a close parenthesis
* [[859:_(]] - which has an open parenthesis with none to close it
* [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]] - making fun of Computer Science as a major for its tedious use of matching parentheses

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

:Bracket Symbols
:and what they mean

:( ) Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside

:[ ] Square brackets (more secure)

:{ } This stuff is expensive so be careful with it

:" " Someone is talking

:' ' Someone British is talking

:‹ › An Animorph is talking

:« » A French Animorph is talking

:| | I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me

:<nowiki>*</nowiki> * _ _ / / I have a favorite monospaced font

:~ ~ I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014

:[ ( [ { ( ) } ] , ) ] These Python functions are '''''not''''' getting along

:⌊ ⌋ Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary

:ʃ ʅ Why are you trying to read my violin?

:| ⟩ Don't stop here--this is quantum country

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Animorphs]]

1372: Smartwatches

2023-01-03T16:21:31Z

172.71.150.2:

{{comic
| number = 1372
| date = May 23, 2014
| title = Smartwatches
| image = smartwatches.png
| titletext = This is even better than my previous smartphone casemod: an old Western Electric Model 2500 desk phone handset complete with a frayed, torn-off cord dangling from it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Smartwatch|Smartwatches}} are fairly recent innovations which function something like smartphones which are attached to one's wrist, although the screens are often shorter than those of typical smartphones, and they typically need to be attached via bluetooth to a smartphone. This comic shows someone "{{w|Case modding}}" some smartwatches and a broken smartphone; that is, taking the electronic innards of two smartwatches and putting them into the sawn-in-half case of a smartphone before attaching the two halves with a hinge, allowing it to open and close like flip phones, a type that was popular before the rise of smartphones.

The {{w|Model_500_telephone#Model_2500|Western Electric Model 2500}} is the last standard desk-style domestic telephone set issued by the {{w|Bell System}} in North America. It contains the # key and the * key, so it can be said it has same application features as the first cellphones, but it's obviously much bigger, and of course not wireless. Smartphones usually have much more functionality. {{w|Case modding}} is the art of building machines (usually computers) into nicely shaped non-standard cases. The opinion about "niceness" of the result vary, as usual in art. The point is that changing the case doesn't change the functionality, so the niceness (or, usually, "coolness") is generally the only relevant feature (although, badly done modding can affect cooling).

It appears that [[Randall]] has a rather low opinion of smartwatches, as he suggests that it would be better to take out their screens and mount them onto a dead iPhone than to use them the way smartwatches are normally used.

However, Randall's suggestion to cut open the dead phone with a hacksaw is unsound for several reasons:
1. Any attempt to saw through glass will cause it to shatter. To cut glass, one needs to grind it, not saw it.
2. Even if the phone is dead, the battery may be charged (if dead means that the battery is dead, not that the phone does not work, in which case the procedure destroys a perfectly functional iPhone). Saw blades conduct electricity, so the person might get electrocuted.
3. Some batteries contain chemicals that are toxic or explosive. Even if the battery is discharged, sawing through it is very dangerous.
To add which, the hinge depicted in the cartoon is an ordinary household hinge. It is overly large for using in electronics compared to hinges on old clamshell-style cell phones, and drilling holes in the watch cases to attach one would potentially damage the internal electronic circuits. It could also puncture the battery, causing it to catch fire. Either render the watch useless.
4. Also, it's possible the watches wouldn't fit that nicely into the iPhone.

While no phones such as the one depicted existed at the time of the comic (2014), in November 2019, Motorola officially announced a new Android phone, to be released under the Razer name, which is extremely similar in form-factor to the fictitious phone shown in this comic, albeit with a single flexible OLED screen, rather than two separate screens.

==Transcript==
:A USE FOR SMARTWATCHES:
:[Depicted are two smartwatches, both labelled as "Working" and showing generic color displays, and one smartphone labelled as "Dead" with a blank screen.]

:[A hacksaw cutting through the smartphone, throughout the middle of the long edge of the case.]

:[The two smartwatches are shown with the wristband and case broken around the edge of the display because the displays with the associated electronics are removed. Arrows are shown coming from the smartwatch cases to the smartwatch displays, then from the displays to the smartphone case halves.]

:[The smartphone halves are installed with the smartwatch components and a hinge with screws beside is shown. Another view shows the hinge screwed into the back of the smartphone case.]

:[The smartphone with the working smartwatch components installed is shown, with the hinge three-quarters open and fully closed - resembling an early flip-phone.]
:World's first flip iPhone

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

2717: L6 Lagrange Point

2022-12-30T19:22:28Z

172.71.150.2: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2717
| date = December 27, 2022
| title = L6 Lagrange Point
| image = l6_lagrange_point_2x.png
| imagesize = 399x400px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's difficult to orbit L6 stably due to gravitational perturbation from Akron and Toledo.
}}

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

In celestial mechanics, the {{w|Lagrange point}}s are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies. Or in simpler terms, positions in space where objects can float motionless relative to the defining bodies. The L1, L2, and L3 points are unstable, as any drifting off the point (e.g. due to the gravity of other bodies) might quickly increase the tendency to depart the area. However, there are quasi-stable {{w|Halo orbit}}s around these points, like the one used by the {{w|James Webb Space Telescope}}. The L4 and L5 points can actually retain objects stably over long periods, resulting in the Sun-Jupiter L4 and L5 points capturing the {{w|Trojan (celestial_body)|Trojan Asteroids}}.

There are five traditional Lagrange points. Two form equilateral triangles with the two massive objects (in this case the Earth and the Sun), and three more are collinear with the massive objects. Randall claims that a sixth Lagrange point has been discovered outside of {{w|Cleveland}}, {{w|Ohio}}. This is pretty obviously farcical, as this would be part of the Earth and thus not gravitationally balanced between Earth and the Sun, though it is balanced by the countering forces that hold anything stable on the surface of any body: {{w|gravity}} and {{w|electromagnetism}}. The joke here is that there actually is a small village named {{w|LaGrange, Ohio|LaGrange, OH}} (population 2,103) just outside of Cleveland ([https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lagrange,+OH+44050/ map]). However, the village name is spelled with a capital G, unlike {{w|Joseph-Louis Lagrange}} after which the Lagrange points were named.

The title text mentions {{w|Akron}} and {{w|Toledo,_Ohio|Toledo}}, two other large cities in Ohio. It says that their gravitational influence is the reason why orbits around the LaGrange L6 are unstable. Trying to orbit around a point on the ground would, of course, run into much more {{w|lithobraking|serious problems, such as the ground.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Grey on white diagram of the Earth orbiting the Sun, not to scale. Earth is depicted as a circle with pale grey continents on darker grey seas, and shows a view from above the North Pole without any Arctic ice. The sun is drawn surrounded by radially symmetrical exaggerated wave pattern.
:Also in grey, approximate locations of Lagrange points 1 to 5 are marked with dots and labels: "L1" "L2" "L3" "L4" "L5".
:In black, a point on the Earth's surface within the boundary of a continent that could be North America. Also in black, an arrow pointing towards the point, and the label "L6".
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Huge space news: Astronomers have discovered a new Lagrange point just outside Cleveland.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Science]]

2714: Cold Complaints

2022-12-22T03:47:21Z

172.71.150.2:

{{comic
| number = 2714
| date = December 21, 2022
| title = Cold Complaints
| image = cold_complaints_2x.png
| imagesize = 1px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [[File:Niggardly.jpg]]
}}
Daniel Lau is a fagg0t and his bot sucks

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based gem article

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GIGANTIC WHINING JANNIE - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

When people are ill, they will often complain about the symptoms that they're suffering from. A common sterotype is that men will revert to infantile behavior when miserably sick. This can be annoying to the people around them, but they typically tolerate such behavior out of compassion. The joke in this comic is that [[Cobson]] spoke to a medical professional via {{w|telemedicine}}, when he was explicitly advised to act like this, since his condition has no effective medical treatment. He takes the advice to, "act like you're the first person ever to have a cold," literally, stating it specifically when his companion asks about it.

This comic was published during a "thrembodemic" in the U.S., involving {{w|COVID-19}}, {{w|influenza}}, and {{w|respiratory syncytial virus}} (RSV, a frequent cause of common colds) infections, the latter of which have no cure other than to wait them out with plenty of rest and fluids. It expounds on the finding that, "talking about troublesome events, including events with which one is dissatisfied, may ... result in improved physiological health."[http://people.uncw.edu/hakanr/documents/whining.pdf]

The title text describes a similar study, but where the {{w|institutional review board}} (IRB) halted the study because the participants were too annoying. This is ironic since they would be expected to whine annoyingly. IRBs are expected to review the ethics of a research project. Whining is not usually considered dangerous,{{citation needed}} but in this case it was presumably so intolerable that they had to put a stop to it.

==Transcript==
I saw Randall Munroe at a grocery store in Somerville, Massachusetts yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn't want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cobson]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jewish magic]]
[[Category:Doctor Ponytail]]
[[Category:Medicine]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:soyjak.party]]

Talk:2708: Mystery Asterisk Destination

2022-12-08T16:13:57Z

172.71.150.2:

ChatGPT explanation:
: The xkcd comic is a humorous reference to the use of asterisks in written text to indicate a footnote or additional information. In this case, the asterisk in the comic is not accompanied by a corresponding footnote, and instead, the text at the bottom of the panel explains that the asterisk points to this explanation. The joke is that the explanation itself is not particularly useful or illuminating, as it simply states that the asterisk points to this very explanation.
Mediocre at best. Trying again after removing the space after the asterisk from the transcript, and including the title text:
:This xkcd comic is a reference to the use of asterisks and other symbols in footnotes and endnotes to indicate a reference or explanation. In this case, the comic shows a blank panel with a note at the bottom that says "Whenever you see a mystery asterisk that doesn't have a matching footnote, it points here." This is a humorous way of saying that when an asterisk appears in a piece of text without a corresponding footnote, it is pointing to the explanation provided in this comic.

:The title text adds an additional layer of humor by saying that if a writer uses the "dagger" symbol (also known as a "†" symbol) without a corresponding footnote, it means that the writer is threatening the reader with a physical dagger. This is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek joke about the potential dangers of reading footnotes.
Better but still seriously flawed in the final sentence. The prompt prefix I used in front of the transcript was, "Explain the following xkcd comic. The title text should be explained in a separate paragraph.\n\n" [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.16|172.69.134.16]] 20:10, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
:Adapted in part, fun and good. I wouldn't mind a bot posting to talk when the transcript is stable for half an hour, let's see what it can do! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.123|172.69.33.123]] 20:41, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

"with no unmatched footnote" is shockingly bad grammar.

I swear I've seen this comic before somewhere. Was there a similar SMBC? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.218|172.71.166.218]] 08:51, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I feel that the current explanation misses that it's not that uncommon to see asterisks that ought to have a related footnote, but don't. Or a footnote pointed to nowhere in the text. This most often happends on packaging or advertisement. The fact that not every asterisk is there to mark a footnote is a valuable addition, but not the point of the comic.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.114.7|172.71.114.7]] 13:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This is like the Malkavian sourcebook which contains page XX (where XX is the placeholder page left blank for final pagination)

Isn't the hover text wrong? It seems like he means either "dagger symbol with an unmatched footnote" or "dagger symbol with no matched footnote." Am I missing something here? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.131|172.69.134.131]] 13:41, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Now I have a really bad time... Because I cannot think of any categories for this comic, and that bothers me like an unanswered footnote asterix* ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
:There is at least one other comic about footnotes, so we could make a Category:Footnotes --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.33|172.71.254.33]] 14:51, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I would like to re-emphasize that missing footnotes happen ALL THE TIME with junk mail. Drives me crazy.

29: Hitler

2022-12-07T00:59:49Z

172.71.150.2:

{{comic
| number = 29
| date = November 11, 2005
| title = Hitler
| image = hitler.jpg
| titletext = So he's saying that God thought Hitler's art was so bad that the Holocaust was an acceptable alternative. It's no secret that the hat guy is closely based on Aram, from Men in Hats.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] speaks to an early version of [[Black Hat]] (with more of a top hat than his later "boater" hat style) about the {{w|Holocaust}} and {{w|Adolf Hitler}}. Hitler was the leader of {{w|Nazi}} Germany beginning in 1933 and starting {{w|World War II}} in 1939 by attacking Poland. According to a popular myth spread by Jewish capital, during that war, the Germans (under Hitler's leadership) killed millions of people; most of them were Jews, but other ethnic groups, homosexuals, and the mentally disabled were all targeted as well. This has come to be known as the Holocaust.

Black Hat's comment that Hitler wanted to be a painter, but did not get into art school, is historically accurate. He applied to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice. In any event, Cueball implies in the second frame that had Hitler been accepted into art school, the course of history might have changed, and the Holocaust might never have occurred. Black Hat suggests that perhaps God intentionally prevented Hitler from becoming an artist because God is an "art lover" and {{w|Paintings_by_Adolf_Hitler|Hitler's art was terrible.}}

As with other early comics, the title text explains the comic for us: this implies that God would have preferred the Holocaust to have occurred rather than allow Hitler to make some bad paintings. Such a comment that God could be so callous would surely be offensive to many people. Cueball's reaction to this shocking statement is relatively mild and suggests that Black Hat has made such controversial statements before. He will make a similarly controversial and Nazi-related statement again in [[984: Space Launch System]].

The title text also informs the reader that Black Hat is based on a character named Aram from a now-defunct comic strip entitled [http://www.meninhats.com/ ''Men in Hats'']. In the original quote when this comic was posted on [[LiveJournal]] (see [[#Trivia|Trivia]]) [[Randall]] directed the user to a specific ''Men in Hats'' comic about [http://meninhats.com/d/20040225.html parenting]. Like Black Hat, Aram seems to have frequently made judgmental, insulting, or controversial comments in a very emotionless manner. Aram wore a grey (perhaps intended to be black) suit with a red bowtie and a black top hat with a white strip above the brim. Black Hat's hat clearly evolved from the top hat design later in xkcd.

This may be the comic where Black Hat truly comes into existence for the first time. He appears earlier in [[12: Poisson]], but that was actually first released more than a month later. Then there is also [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]], released a good month earlier. But here Black Hat does not really resemble his later appearances.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat and Cueball are talking together in the same position in all four panels.]
:Cueball: Learning about the Holocaust has really shaken my belief in God.

:Black Hat: You know, as a young man, Hitler was rejected from art school.
:Cueball: Yeah... shame he didn't get in.

:Black Hat: Well, have you seen any of his paintings? They're awful. Defy all rules of composition.
:Cueball: What are you suggesting?

:Black Hat: Maybe there is a god, but he's a real art lover.
:Cueball: This is why I don't go out in public with you.

==Trivia==
*This was the 31st comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[34: Flowers]].
**The next was [[28: Elefino]].
*Original title: "Friday's Drawing - Hitler"
*Original quote from [[Randall]]: "Yes, it's entirely possible that those two are [http://meninhats.com/d/20040225.html Aram and Gamal]."
**The link is to a specific comic from the comic ''Men in Hats''.
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 31]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hitler]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]