explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1868: Eclipse Flights

2023-05-08T06:14:13Z

172.71.158.231:

This could use an image. Could someone more versed in this website's inner workings add one please? E.g. http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/03/23/sims_schneider_eclipse_mar202015.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg
--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.12|141.101.105.12]] 21:54, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

:I strongly suggest [http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Images/mir1999.jpg this image of a total eclipse shadow taken from the Mir space station.] I found it on [http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Unit2/eclipses.html this introductory astronomy lecture notes page] linked from this excerpt:
::''While we often sketch the penumbra as uniform, in reality the penumbra shades gradually from the completely dark umbra out towards the edges. The reason is simple: as you move outwards away from the edge of the umbra, you will see an increasing fraction of the Sun peeking out from behind the Moon. There is a very nice Mir image of the 1999 Aug 11 eclipse shadow showing what I mean.''
:I also suggest that fact be included into the explanation, because the comic showing a sharp shadow transition is factually completely incorrect. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.53|162.158.166.53]] 04:45, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
::It's not wrong, it's just a schematic map of the path of totality. There is in fact a sharp distinction between regions that see a total eclipse and the neighbouring regions where it's only a partial eclipse. This graph clearly shows this, instead of the darkness of the shadow created by the eclipse (in which case the central path would've been pitch black). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.88|141.101.88.88]] 20:33, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
:::On the contrary, that "sharp" transition in the Sims/Schneider image spans over a hundred miles because it was taken from an oblique tangental perspective in space. The Mir photo is pointing more directly straight down at the Earth and shows a more accurate representation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.178.147|162.158.178.147]] 05:19, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I've been looking around, and couldn't find a site to give me flight information for that specific day, and overlaid on a flight path of the eclipse. Anyone have any luck? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.118|162.158.255.118]] 22:03, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone feel as though the explanation is finished? [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 23:56, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

The airplane depicted is probably a Boeing 737-700. A 737 is recognisable by the "kinked" leading edge to its tail, the presence of blended winglets and a dorsal wifi antenna suggest it is the "Next Generation" series, and the length is most consistent with the -700 variant. [[User:D5xtgr|D5xtgr]] ([[User talk:D5xtgr|talk]]) 02:49, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The xkcd also referenced the April 20 eclipse this year in a recent comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 06:14, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

313: Insomnia

2023-05-07T03:45:38Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 313
| date = September 7, 2007
| title = Insomnia
| image = insomnia.png
| titletext = Crap, I have levitation class at 25:131. Better set the alarm to 'cinnamon'.
}}

==Explanation==
Simply put, the narrator's insomnia, combined with small bright lights in an otherwise pitch-black room, is causing him to hallucinate. Furthermore, the narrator is well aware that he will be unable to distinguish the hallucinations from reality. This finally occurs when his clock reads 13:72, which would not be possible on any clock.

A clock can never read "72 minutes," as there are only 60 minutes in an hour{{citation needed}}. While a clock can read "13 hours" on a {{w|24-hour clock}} (which is common on most {{w|digital clock}}s in Europe, but not in the US), the thirteenth hour does not occur immediately after the fourth hour.{{Citation needed}}

The title text shows that the narrator has indeed "succumbed" to his visions, and is assigning gibberish values — an alarm clock with a "cinnamon" setting, the time of day "25 hours and 131 minutes," and "levitation class" — to an otherwise normal monologue. These are not normal things{{citation needed}}.

==Transcript==
:[It is black, except a few blue and green lights, and red numbers from a clock.]
:[The clock shows 4:31]
:Lying awake at night I realize how many little lights there are in my room. The alarm clock is the brightest. Can't sleep I'm alone with those glowing red numbers
:[The clock now shows 4:32]
:Time slows
:Does time even exist here?
:Thoughts churning in on themselves
:[The clock now shows 4:33]
:The madness can't be far away
:Ah yes
:[The clock now shows 13:72]
:There it is.

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

2768: Definition of e

2023-05-01T20:59:37Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ "invest" is kind of ambiguous, since shareholders (e.g. subject to a hostile takeover) are also investors of a different sort

{{comic
| number = 2768
| date = April 26, 2023
| title = Definition of e
| image = definition_of_e_2x.png
| imagesize = 571x186px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Yeah, my math teacher back in high school set up the system to try to teach us something or other, but the 100% rate was unbelievably good, so I engineered a hostile takeover of his bank and now use it to make extra cash on the side.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 2.718 BANKERS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic the teacher [[Miss Lenhart]] is asked by the student [[Hairy]] to explain what the constant ''e'' actually means.

The mathematical constant ''{{w|e (mathematical constant)|e}}'' is known as Euler's number. It is typically demonstrated in terms of compound interest. Here, Miss Lenhart seems to be setting up such an example, but in a typical Lenhart style she is actually asking her student to deposit money.

The constant ''e'' can be described {{w|E (mathematical constant)#Compound interest|in the context of compound interest}}. For a bank account that pays interest at a rate of 100% per year, and that interest is paid ''n'' times a year and compounded, then a $1 deposit will grow to $1 * (1 + 100%/n)^n after a year. As ''n'' approaches infinity (continuous compounding), the amount approaches ''e'' dollars. In the comic, minutely compounding is used as an approximation of continuous compounding; here ''n'' = 365 * 24 * 60 = 525,600, and the resulting amount would be $2.718279, less than one part per million different from that of a straight multiplication by ''e'' (which is 2.7182818…).

As such, one would expect Miss Lenhart to say in the last panel something like "you'll have ''e'' dollars in a year". It is not clear if Miss Lenhart sees the growth of the deposited amount as answer enough to explain ''e'' or if she's just charging $1 for answering the question of what ''e'' is. The supposed interest rate the teacher can earn off this deposit, alone, is so high that the $1 principal will grow to over $22,000 in ten years, $485 million in twenty years, or $10.6 trillion in thirty years.

In the title text, a {{w|Takeover#Hostile|hostile takeover}} is an acquisition of a company against its management's wishes, by simply buying up its shares from its shareholders. A bank offering accounts with an {{w|APY}} of 172% is certain to go bankrupt almost immediately, making it a very bad investment. Banks earn money by lending at a higher rate than they pay on deposits, but it is illegal to charge such high interest rates on loans, and no one would take them anyway. Therefore the bank will lose huge amounts of money on deposits while earning essentially no revenue. The off-comic speaker is effectively buying out the bank in order to drain it of its own funds, which is both illegal and financially pointless. Alternatively, their plan may be to buy 51% of the stock, then attempt to extract a majority of the bank's reserve funds through huge high-interest deposits, which is still not profitable, since banks hold only a small fraction of deposits in reserve, and their market capitalizations (the cost of buying all the stock) are much higher than their total reserves. Even if for some reason this bank had a very high reserve ratio, and this tactic could somehow be profitable, it would still be illegal, effectively robbing the other 49% ownership of its equity through deliberately bad management.

In the title text, Randall may have also just confused a couple concepts. A bank offering a 100% rate (assuming somehow sustainably) would be an incredibly good place to open a checking or savings account, and a rational actor would shovel as much money as possible into such an account at this bank. Randall may have simply misused the term "hostile takeover," which would not yield any of the benefits of the 100% rate, as mentioned above, when he really meant to colloquially describe a scenario in which one would aggressively exploit the bank's 100% rate for one's own benefit. (A perhaps unintuitive aspect about banks that might have tripped up Randall is that "assets" in other contexts become liabilities for banks and vice versa. So customer deposits become liabilities upon which a bank would have to pay such an incredibly high rate, and loans, which are traditionally considered liabilities, are assets from which banks derive income.)

The teacher who inadvertently sparked this action, male, was clearly not Miss Lenhart, who may be better at providing more memorable (if somewhat non-standard) lessons. And, as the speaker cannot even recall what the point was of the original mathematical example, it is possible that they have insufficient understanding of the numbers involved and why their attempt to profit will turn out to be ultimately illusory. A similar lack of successful education in the subjects of business and/or law could also likely come back to bite them, sooner or later.

==Transcript==
:[Hairy is seated behind a classroom desk with his hand raised asking the teacher Miss Lenhart a question. She is standing in front of him with a board behind her. Beneath the board there are ledge with writing tools on it (markers or chalk).]
:Hairy: Can you explain what the constant ''e'' actually ''means?''
:Miss Lenhart: Sure.

:[Zoom in on Miss Lenhart's upper half, as she raises one hand palm up.]
:Miss Lenhart: I have a bank account that pays 100% annual interest, compounded every minute.

:[In a frame-less, and very slim panel, Miss Lenhart is shown holding a hand up in a fist.]
:Miss Lenhart: If you deposit $1 now,

:[Miss Lenhart now has both arms down as she continues to address the off-panel Hairy.]
:Miss Lenhart: I will answer your question.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Math]]

2768: Definition of e

2023-04-28T19:45:16Z

172.71.158.231:

{{comic
| number = 2768
| date = April 26, 2023
| title = Definition of e
| image = definition_of_e_2x.png
| imagesize = 571x186px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Yeah, my math teacher back in high school set up the system to try to teach us something or other, but the 100% rate was unbelievably good, so I engineered a hostile takeover of his bank and now use it to make extra cash on the side.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 2.718 BANKERS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic the teacher [[Miss Lenhart]] is asked by the student [[Hairy]] to explain what the constant ''e'' actually means.

The mathematical constant ''{{w|e (mathematical constant)|e}}'' is known as Euler's number. It is typically demonstrated in terms of compound interest. Here, Miss Lenhart seems to be setting up such an example, but in a typical Lenhart style she is actually asking her student to deposit money.

The constant ''e'' can be described {{w|E (mathematical constant)#Compound interest|in the context of compound interest}}. For a bank account that pays interest at a rate of 100% per year, and that interest is paid ''n'' times a year and compounded, then a $1 deposit will grow to $1 * (1 + 100%/n)^n after a year. As ''n'' approaches infinity (continuous compounding), the amount approaches ''e'' dollars. In the comic, minutely compounding is used as an approximation of continuous compounding; here ''n'' = 365 * 24 * 60 = 525,600, and the resulting amount would be $2.718279, less than one part per million different from that of a straight multiplication by ''e'' (which is 2.7182818…).

As such, one would expect Miss Lenhart to say in the last panel something like "you'll have ''e'' dollars in a year". It is not clear if Miss Lenhart sees the growth of the deposited amount as answer enough to explain ''e'' or if she's just charging $1 for answering the question of what ''e'' is. The supposed interest rate the teacher can earn off this deposit, alone, is so high that the $1 principal will grow to over $22,000 in ten years, $485 million in twenty years, or $10.6 trillion in thirty years.

In the title text, a {{w|Takeover#Hostile|hostile takeover}} is an acquisition of a company against its management's wishes, by simply buying up its shares from its shareholders. A bank offering accounts with an {{w|APY}} of 172% is certain to go bankrupt almost immediately, making it a very bad investment. Banks earn money by lending at a higher rate than they pay on deposits, but it is illegal to charge such high interest rates on loans, and no one would take them anyway. Therefore the bank will lose huge amounts of money on deposits while earning essentially no revenue. The off-comic speaker is effectively buying out the bank in order to drain it of its own funds, which is both illegal and financially pointless. Alternatively, their plan may be to buy 51% of the stock, then attempt to extract a majority of the bank's reserve funds through huge high-interest deposits, which is still not profitable, since banks hold only a small fraction of deposits in reserve, and their market capitalizations (the cost of buying all the stock) are much higher than their total reserves. Even if for some reason this bank had a very high reserve ratio, and this tactic could somehow be profitable, it would still be illegal, effectively robbing the other 49% ownership of its equity through deliberately bad management.

In the title text, Randall may have also just confused a couple concepts. A bank offering a sustained 100% rate (assuming somehow sustainably) would be an incredibly good investment, and a rational actor would shovel as much money into a bank account at this bank as possible. Randall may have simply misused the term "hostile takeover," which would not yield any of the benefits of the 100% rate, as mentioned above, when he really meant to colloquially describe a scenario in which Randall uses the bank's 100% rate for one's own benefit. (A perhaps unintuitive aspect about banks is that "assets" in other industries or contexts become liabilities and vice versa. So customer deposits become liabilities upon which a bank would have to pay an incredibly high rate, and loans are, for banks, assets upon which banks derive income.)

The teacher who inadvertently sparked this action, male, was clearly not Miss Lenhart, who may be better at providing more memorable (if somewhat non-standard) lessons. And, as the speaker cannot even recall what the point was of the original mathematical example, it is possible that they have insufficient understanding of the numbers involved and why their attempt to profit will turn out to be ultimately illusory. A similar lack of successful education in the subjects of business and/or law could also likely come back to bite them, sooner or later.

==Transcript==
:[Hairy is seated behind a classroom desk with his hand raised asking the teacher Miss Lenhart a question. She is standing in front of him with a board behind her. Beneath the board there are ledge with writing tools on it (markers or chalk).]
:Hairy: Can you explain what the constant ''e'' actually ''means?''
:Miss Lenhart: Sure.

:[Zoom in on Miss Lenhart's upper half, as she raises one hand palm up.]
:Miss Lenhart: I have a bank account that pays 100% annual interest, compounded every minute.

:[In a frame-less, and very slim panel, Miss Lenhart is shown holding a hand up in a fist.]
:Miss Lenhart: If you deposit $1 now,

:[Miss Lenhart now has both arms down as she continues to address the off-panel Hairy.]
:Miss Lenhart: I will answer your question.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Math]]

2767: Recipe Relativity

2023-04-26T04:07:38Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2767
| date = April 24, 2023
| title = Recipe Relativity
| image = recipe_relativity_2x.png
| imagesize = 303x332px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It says to cut the onions into 1/4" slices, but I'd better correct for length contraction.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EDITOR MOVING AT 94% OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Randall]] is cooking a recipe found online. It took him much longer than the recipe said it would, and he concludes that this was due to {{w|time dilation}} as described in the theory of {{w|special relativity}}; that is, the recipe author was moving at 94% of the speed of light, causing relativistic effects, so that only 35 minutes passed for the author while 105 minutes passed for Randall. To calculate the 94% figure, he takes the recipe’s official duration (t’) and his actual duration (t), and then calculates what speed of light fraction would account for the cooking time difference.

This is absurd{{citation needed}} and therefore humorous because the traveling recipe author would report the time in his or her own frame of reference, not Randall's, no matter how fast they were traveling.

Randall is poking fun at online recipes that state an optimistic cooking time. The recipe author may assume an ideally equipped kitchen, a skilled chef, and the availability of prepared ingredients, such as canned or frozen cooked black beans instead of dried beans which take over an hour to soak and cook.[https://i.ibb.co/sWJR8Vq/Screenshot-2023-04-25-6-28-35-AM.png]

The title text takes the relativistic theory even further, saying that because of {{w|Length contraction|Lorentz contraction}} caused by the recipe author moving close to the speed of light, Randall should use different sizes of ingredients. If the recipe author calling for 1/4" onion slices is indeed traveling at 94% of the speed of light relative to Randall, he wonders whether his onions should be cut to 3/4" slices to match their size in his frame of reference. This is similarly absurd{{citation needed}} and therefore humorous.

==Transcript==
:[In a small square panel the top part is written in black. It looks like a search from the internet and most of the top part of the browser is too small to be read. There are three small squares and a long rectangular address bar. To the right of the first small square which has a triangle inside it pointing down, there are two lines with unreadable text. Then followed by the second square, which is empty, and the address bar with a long line of unreadable text. Finally there are two lines of unreadable text before the last square which has a plus-shaped symbol inside it. Beneath this is a large header which can easily be read:]
:<big>Black bean burrito bowl</big>

:[Beneath this header there is a line with unreadable text, and below that line a thin empty rectangle. Beneath this is the second line of readable text. The last part indicating a time is circled in red. The readable black words are written in normal letters, as opposed to the standard of xkcd with all small caps.]
:Total time: 35 minutes

:[Beneath this there are three more lines of text, but this has all been written in red. Also it uses the standard xkcd all caps text format. The first line is normal text. And the last indication of time is also circled in red as the one above it, and a small double arrow goes between those two red lines around the time.]
:My actual time: 1h 45m
:[Below this there are two lines with equations written in math version, but here given here in text. The second equation is split over two lines. The last result is also circled in red.]
:t=t'/√(1-v2/c2)
:v=c*√(1-(t'/t)2) = c*√(1-(35/105)2) = 0.94c

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I think this recipe author is moving past me at 94% of the speed of light.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

User talk:Memo Spike Connector

2023-04-17T00:51:14Z

172.71.158.231:

I've created your page. {{unsigned|Unreliable Connection|06:16, 9 April 2023‎}}
:Thank you. [[User:Memo Spike Connector|2503: Memo Spike Connector]] ([[User talk:Memo Spike Connector|talk]]) 09:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No problem. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::Hmm. 2 minutes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.148|172.70.86.148]] 11:33, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:("Your"... I don't believe you...) You've created this for no good reason, SFAICT. Are you going to create users (and copy pages) for ''every'' standard explanation? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.187|172.71.178.187]] 12:17, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Are you blind? I said in the summary to fuck you if you reverted my edit, and you did it. Now I'll fuck you.

User talk:Unreliable Connection

2023-04-09T09:44:43Z

172.71.158.231:

Do you want me to create your sandbox? [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 20:11, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

:Please create my user page and sandbox, and don't forget [[User:Memo Spike Connector]]. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:43, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

::I've created them both. Anyway, thanks for your kind reminder. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:The page that you're in charge of got spam edits again. [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 21:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:Uh, They seem to know when I'm usually active, and spammed when I'm inactive, maybe just to annoy others. I always worked late. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:54, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

'''DELETED COMMENT''' [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 21:26, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:Thanks for encouraging. I will do better. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Could you create my user page? [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 09:34, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:What are you going to do? [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:35, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I want to put the lyrics in the sandbox into my user page sandbox. By the way, could you contact the author for the minor fix to the lyrics? [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 09:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:There is a lot of discussion about the lyrics going on in the portal. That's the place where I posted a math problem (sadly they removed it). Some people said that the lyrics were lousy. There are a lot of obscure words. I'm no linguist, really. I hope that the debate won't continue here. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

::See what the "author" said: http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/120234/a-message-of-encouragement --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 09:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

== Predict the next comic ==

Let's try to predict what will come next on the xkcd comics. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:53, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:What about music staff?

2759: Easily Confused Acronyms

2023-04-06T16:43:57Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2759
| date = April 5, 2023
| title = Easily Confused Acronyms
| image = easily_confused_acronyms_2x.png
| imagesize = 557x444px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Lever' was originally an acronym for Load Emplification by the Vimulated Emission of Radiation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RIGHT OMPLIFICATION BY THE BIMULATED OMISSION OF TADIATION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, [[Randall]] compared the Acronym "Laser" with various other five-letter acronyms. He first explained the "Laser" and "Maser" correctly, but the following three are simply the full name of "Laser" with the first word and initials changed. The replacement first word is correct for these acronyms, but the other words formed from changing the first letter are nonsense.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
!Acronym !! Comic !! Actual
|-
| {{w|LASER}} || Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation || Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
|-
| {{w|MASER}} || Microwave Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation || Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
|-
| {{w|SONAR}} || Sound Omplification by the Nimulated Amission of Radiation || SOund Navigation And Ranging
|-
| {{w|RADAR}} || Radio Amplification by the Dimulated Amission of Radiation || RAdio Detection And Ranging
|-
| {{w|LIDAR}} || Light Implification by the Dimulated Amission of Radiation || LIght Detection And Ranging
|-
| {{w|lever}} (title text) || |Load Emplification by the Vimulated Emission of Radiation. || ''(not an acronym in common usage)''
|}

Laser and maser are true-to-life acronyms. The remaining 3 words' true meanings are as follows: sonar is short for "sound/sonic navigation and ranging", radar for "radio detection and ranging", lidar for "light detection and ranging". (Note that these 3 each include the second letter from their first word in the acronym.)

The three false definitions simply suppose that all 5 of the acronyms follow the same model and swap out the necessary letters to fit, in a square-peg-round-hole manner.

The title text extends this to the 5-letter word "lever". This is an ordinary word, not a commonly used acronym. Levers have been used since time immemorial (even [https://quatr.us/physics/levers-simple-machines-physics.htm animals have been known to use them)], and predates high-tech uses of radiation by millennia (it's one of the {{w|simple machines}} that {{w|Archimedes}} studied in Ancient Greece). [https://www.etymonline.com/word/lever#etymonline_v_9445 Etymonline] traces the origin of the word to the year 1300, from the French "levier", which shares the same definition.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Easily-confused acronyms cheat sheet

:Laser

:Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation

:Maser

:Microwave Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation

:Sonar

:Sound Omplification by the Nimulated Emission of Radiation

:Radar

:Radio Amplification by the Dimulated Amission of Radiation

:Lidar

:Light Implification by the Dimulated Amission of Radiation

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Science]]
[[Category: Language]]

2752: Salt Dome

2023-03-21T04:32:26Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/resources/detailed-rocks-and-minerals-articles/salt

{{comic
| number = 2752
| date = March 20, 2023
| title = Salt Dome
| image = salt_dome_2x.png
| imagesize = 422x338px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The US uses hollowed-out salt domes to store the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and non-hollowed-out ones to store the Strategic Salt Reserve.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by Tsunami or Tidal Wave - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic refers to how downwards pressure in one area of the world can cause upwards pressure in another, causing {{w|salt domes}} to rise up.

In the comic, [[Beret Guy]] and [[Ponytail]] are sitting at a table and eating dinner, alongside [[Cueball]], who is presumably a {{w|geologist}}. Thus, when asked to "pass the salt," Cueball, with his extensive knowledge of the Earth's crust and its interactions with the surface world, is aware of this phenomenon, and as such is stomping on his chair in order to create downward pressure on the ground beneath. This apparently works exactly as intended, as a salt dome begins rising out of the floor and even begins to break through the dinner table. The caption humorously remarks that this is what will happen if you ask any geologist to "pass the salt," which conventionally means to simply hand a salt shaker or dispenser to another diner who cannot reach it. A salt shaker, presumably containing the salt intended to be passed, can be seen on their table.

Cueball mentions {{w|overburden pressure}}, a geological term referring to the pressure that outer layers of rock exert on inner layers. This is what usually causes the rising of salt domes, though Cueball's stomping on his chair would not produce sufficient overburden pressure to raise a salt dome.{{fact}}

In the title text, the {{w|Strategic Petroleum Reserve (United States)|Strategic Petroleum Reserve}} is a United States government reserve of oil in case of emergencies. Randall observes the actually true fact that artificial caves within hollowed-out salt domes create the spaces for the government to store this oil. Ordinary salt is available in abundance[https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/resources/detailed-rocks-and-minerals-articles/salt] so there is no need for any kind of salt reserves, strategic or otherwise.{{fact}}

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

:[Cueball, Beret Guy and Ponytail are sitting at a table. Beret Guy and Ponytail sit patiently; Cueball is stomping on his chair, and the ground has been dented very slightly by the legs of his chair. A white column of salt has burst through the ground and is rising up, slightly cracking and bending the table in the process. There are plates of food, drinking glasses, and a salt shaker on the table. One of the glasses has fallen, releasing what seems to be wine.]
:''STOMP STOMP''
:Cueball: Just a little more overburden pressure...
:Cueball: The dome is almost through the table...
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Never ask a geologist to pass the salt.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:2750: Flatten the Planets

2023-03-15T21:17:31Z

172.71.158.231: :

I have to wonder, would you slide down to the sun, or be flung outwards? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
: The discs are centered on the orbit of the parent planet, and presumably rotating at the same frequency as the parent planet's orbit. That means the inner edge of each disc is going slower than you'd need to orbit the Sun at that distance, and the outer edge faster. If you moved inward from the original planet's orbit, the Sun's gravity would pull you in, but when you crossed the boundary to the next disc, you'd get flung back outward.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.61|162.158.62.61]] 19:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
::No Each planet fills out the space within their orbit into the next planet. Easy to see as the outer edge of Neptune's orbit is the same as with the planet flattened. There is a distance from Mercury to the Sun indicated. Maybe because it would melt if it got any closer? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
:::First, they're rings not discs, but I'm skeptical of the math. And it looks to me like the ring's edges are halfway between the orbits, with Neptune extended outwards the same distance as halfway to Uranus's orbit. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.4|172.69.22.4]] 20:08, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Planet !! Volume (1010 km3) !! Orbital radius (109 km) || halfway to prior || halfway to next || Annulus area (10^6 km^2)
|-
| Mercury || 6.1 || 58 || 29 || 83 || 19000
|-
| Venus || 9.3 || 108 || 83 || 129 || 30637
|-
| Earth || 10.8 || 150 || 129 || 189 || 59942
|-
| Mars || 1.6 || 228 || 189 || 504 || 685794
|-
| Jupiter || 143100 || 779 || 504 || 1107 || 3051847
|-
| Saturn || 82700 || 1434 || 1107 || 2154 || 10726236
|-
| Uranus || 6800 || 2873 || 2154 || 3684 || 28061145
|-
| Neptune || 6300 || 4495 || 3684 || 5304 || 45743348
|}

:::: The volumes in this table are at 2 different scales. Only the Mercury to Mars volumes are at 1010 km3. Jupiter to Neptune are at 1012 km3 [[User:Sandor|Sandor]] ([[User talk:Sandor|talk]]) 21:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
::::: Thanks, fixed; I had the scale wrong for the radii too. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 21:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

This makes about as much sense as other Flat Earth theories. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.137|172.70.200.137]] 20:00, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
:But this would actually be a flat Earth. Albeit with a rather larger surface area ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2750: Flatten the Planets

2023-03-15T21:16:44Z

172.71.158.231: oops

I have to wonder, would you slide down to the sun, or be flung outwards? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
: The discs are centered on the orbit of the parent planet, and presumably rotating at the same frequency as the parent planet's orbit. That means the inner edge of each disc is going slower than you'd need to orbit the Sun at that distance, and the outer edge faster. If you moved inward from the original planet's orbit, the Sun's gravity would pull you in, but when you crossed the boundary to the next disc, you'd get flung back outward.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.61|162.158.62.61]] 19:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
::No Each planet fills out the space within their orbit into the next planet. Easy to see as the outer edge of Neptune's orbit is the same as with the planet flattened. There is a distance from Mercury to the Sun indicated. Maybe because it would melt if it got any closer? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
:::First, they're rings not discs, but I'm skeptical of the math. And it looks to me like the ring's edges are halfway between the orbits, with Neptune extended outwards the same distance as halfway to Uranus's orbit. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.4|172.69.22.4]] 20:08, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Planet !! Volume (1010 km3) !! Orbital radius (109 km) || halfway to prior || halfway to next || Annulus area (10^6 km^2)
|-
| Mercury || 6.1 || 58 || 29 || 83 || 19000
|-
| Venus || 9.3 || 108 || 83 || 129 || 30637
|-
| Earth || 10.8 || 150 || 129 || 189 || 59942
|-
| Mars || 1.6 || 228 || 189 || 504 || 685794
|-
| Jupiter || 143100 || 779 || 504 || 1107 || 3051847
|-
| Saturn || 82700 || 1434 || 1107 || 2154 || 10726236
|-
| Uranus || 6800 || 2873 || 2154 || 3684 || 28061145
|-
| Neptune || 6300 || 4495 || 3684 || 5304 || 45743348
|}

:::: The volumes in this table are at 2 different scales. Only the Mercury to Mars volumes are at 1010 km3. Jupiter to Neptune are at 1012 km3 [[User:Sandor|Sandor]] ([[User talk:Sandor|talk]]) 21:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
:::: Thanks, fixed; I had the scale wrong for the radii too. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 21:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

This makes about as much sense as other Flat Earth theories. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.137|172.70.200.137]] 20:00, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
:But this would actually be a flat Earth. Albeit with a rather larger surface area ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

User:ColorfulGalaxy

2023-03-13T23:00:22Z

172.71.158.231: It's the moderator who banned you.

<table class="infobox vcard">
<tr><th colspan=2 class="fn" style="text-align:center; font-size:125%; font-weight:bold; background-color:#BCD4E6;">ColorfulGalaxy</th></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="{{{class|}}}" style="text-align:center; {{{headerstyle|}}}">[[File:ColorfulGalaxy.png|150px|alt=text]]
<div><center>ColorfulGalaxy</center></div></td></tr>
<tr class="{{{rowclass|}}}">
<th scope="row" style="text-align:left; line-height: 1.3em;">Born</th>
<td class="{{{class|}}}" style="line-height: 1.3em;">Unknown</td></tr>
<tr class="{{{rowclass|}}}">
<th scope="row" style="text-align:left; line-height: 1.3em;">Residence</th>
<td class="{{{class|}}}" style="line-height: 1.3em;">Unknown</td></tr>
<tr class="{{{rowclass|}}}">
<th scope="row" style="text-align:left; line-height: 1.3em;">Nationality</th>
<td class="{{{class|}}}" style="line-height: 1.3em;">Unknown</td></tr>
<tr class="{{{rowclass|}}}">
<th scope="row" style="text-align:left; line-height: 1.3em;">Language</th>
<td class="{{{class|}}}" style="line-height: 1.3em;">English and some other languages[[[285|citation needed]]]</td></tr>
<tr class="{{{rowclass|}}}">
<th scope="row" style="text-align:left; line-height: 1.3em;">Institutions</th>
<td class="{{{class|}}}" style="line-height: 1.3em;">Unknown</td></tr>
<tr class="{{{rowclass|}}}">
<th scope="row" style="text-align:left; line-height: 1.3em;">Alma mater</th>
<td class="{{{class|}}}" style="line-height: 1.3em;">Unknown</td></tr></table>

'''ColorfulGalaxy''' is a user on the wiki.

{{notice|'''This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect:''' ''The infobox is broken'' If you can address this issue, please '''[{{fullurl:{{{target|{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}}|action=edit}} edit the page]!''' Thanks.
}}

==Contact him==
If you have suggestions on his articles or spot a mistake, you may [http://www.conwaylife.com/forums/ucp.php?i=pm&mode=compose&u=2640 contact him] at the LifeWiki forums or comment at [[User_talk:ColorfulGalaxy|his talk]] page.

==See also==

; List of Gallifreyan Alternative Alphabets

* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/SCG|Sherman's]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/DCG|Doctor's Cot]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/RSG|Rasilonian]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/TCG|TARDIS Console]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/Flux|Flux]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/CWG|Clockwork]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/GCG|GC Gallifreyan]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/CBG|cBettenbender's]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/CCG|CC Gallifreyan]]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Gallifreyan/TKG|Timekeepers]]

; Neography pages

* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Aziana|Aziana]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Baal|Baal]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Block_Script|Block Script]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Brittish|Brittish]] ([http://conwaylife.com/wiki/user:ColorfulGalaxy/Brittish LifeViewer version])
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Chartograph|Chartograph]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/CPG|Chromaphonoglyphics]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Claviograms|Claviograms]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/colorAlphabet|ColorAlphabet]] ([http://conwaylife.com/wiki/user:ColorfulGalaxy/colorAlphabet LifeViewer version])
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Colorbet|Colorbet]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/KFG|Compact Phonetic]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Elian_Script|Elian]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Embet|Embet]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Exprish|Exprish]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Gernreich|Gernreich]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Graph_Script|Graph Script]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Gridika|Gridika]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Ineon|Ineon]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Knot|Knot Alphabet]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/MSA|Minimal Stacking]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Nail_Script|Nail Script]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Ogham_for_English|Ogham]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Pattern_Script|Pattern Script]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Periotun|Periotun]] ([http://esolangs.org/wiki/user:periotun/Encoder Encoder]|[http://esolangs.org/wiki/user:periotun/Decoder Decoder])
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Reality|Reality]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Spintype|Spintype]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Spiraling_Syllabics|Spiraling Syllabics]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Timescript|Timescript]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Uriovakiro|Uriovakiro]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/Xelbet|Xelbet]]
* [[User:ConscriptGuide/YYAl|Yin]]

; Symbolic Ciphers

* [[User:CipherGuide/Antiker|Antiker]]
* [[User:CipherGuide/Ballet|Ballet]]
* [[User:CipherGuide/Bokscript|Boksript]]
* [[User:CipherGuide/Code_Script|Code Script]]
* [[User:CipherGuide/Dotsies|Dotsies]] ([http://conwaylife.com/wiki/user:ColorfulGalaxy/Dotsies LifeViewer version])
* [[User:CipherGuide/Phono_Braille|Phono Braille]] ([http://conwaylife.com/wiki/user:ColorfulGalaxy/Phono_Braille LifeViewer version])
* [[User:CipherGuide/Tano|Tano]]
* [[User:CipherGuide/YDADY_code|YDADY Code]]

; Neography Showcasing pages

* [[User:ConscriptGallery/tagline|XKCD Logo and Tagline in various neography scripts]]
* [[User:ConscriptGallery/Google|Google logo in various scripts]]
* [[User:ConscriptGallery/Usernames|Usernames]]

; Miscellaneous pages

* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Cryptic|Cryptic]]
* [http://esolangs.org/wiki/User:ColorfulGalaxy/Friendly Friendly numbers]
* [[User:ColorfulGalaxy/Trochaic_tetrameter|List of examples of trochaic tetrameter]]
* Computer-related Dialect Quiz

==External Links==
* [http://conwaylife.com/wiki/User:ColorfulGalaxy ColorfulGalaxy] at the LifeWiki
* [http://www.conwaylife.com/forums/ucp.php?i=pm&mode=compose&u=2640 Contact this user] at the LifeWiki forums

2635: Superintelligent AIs

2023-02-17T21:14:04Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ seq2seq

{{comic
| number = 2635
| date = June 20, 2022
| title = Superintelligent AIs
| image = superintelligent_ais.png
| titletext = Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they should, they didn't stop to think if they could.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Artificial intelligence}} (AI) is a [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|recurring theme]] on xkcd.

Superintelligent {{w|artificial intelligence|AI}}, such as has been theorized to arise under a hypothetical "{{w|Technological singularity|singularity}}" situation, is said to be a new kind of {{w|artificial general intelligence}}. [[Randall]], however, proposes a qualification: that a superintelligent AI would likely have been programmed by human AI researchers, and therefore their characteristics would be molded by the researchers that created them. And as AI researchers tend to be interested in esoteric philosophical questions about {{w|consciousness}},{{citation needed}} moral reasoning, and qualifications indicating {{w|sapience}}, there is reason to suspect that AIs created by such researchers would have similar interests.

In this comic we see [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] surrounded by three AIs who are seemingly only interested in classic problems and thought experiments about programming and ethics. The three topics being espoused by the AIs are:

*{{w|AI box}} -- A thought-experiment in which an AI is confined to a computer system which is fully isolated from any external networks, with no access to the world outside the computer, other than communication with its handlers. In theory, this would keep the AI under total control, but the argument is that a sufficiently intelligent AI would inevitably either convince or trick its human handlers into giving it access to external networks, allowing it to grow out of control (see [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]). Part of the joke is the AIs in the comic aren't 'in boxes', they appear to be able to freely travel and interact, but one of them is still talking about the thought experiment anyway, adding to the implication that it is not thinking at all about itself but of a separate (thought?) experiment that it has itself decided to study. The AI box thought experiment is based in part on {{w|John Searle}}'s much earlier {{w|Chinese room}} argument.

*{{w|Turing test}} -- An experiment in which a human converses with either an AI or another human (presumably over text) and attempts to distinguish between the two. Various AIs have been proposed to have 'passed' the test, which has provoked controversy over whether the test is rigorous or even meaningful. The AI in the center is proposing to educate the listener(s) on its understanding of Turing's intentions, which may demonstrate a degree of intelligence and comprehension indistinguishable or superior to that of a human. See also [[329: Turing Test]] and [[2556: Turing Complete]] (the latter's title is mentioned in [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]). Turing is also mentioned in [[205: Candy Button Paper]], [[1678: Recent Searches]], [[1707: xkcd Phone 4]], [[1833: Code Quality 3]], [[2453: Excel Lambda]] and the title text of [[1223: Dwarf Fortress]].

*{{w|Trolley problem}} -- A thought-experiment intended to explore the means by which humans judge moral value of actions and consequences. The classic formulation is that a runaway trolley is about to hit five people on a track, and the only way to save them is to divert the trolley onto another track, where it will hit one person, and the subject is asked whether they would consider it morally right to divert the trolley. There are many variants on this problem, adjusting the circumstances, the number and nature of the people at risk, the responsibility of the subject, etc., in order to fully explore ''why'' you would make the decision that you make. This problem is frequently discussed in connection with AI, both to investigate their capacity for moral reasoning, and for practical reasons (for example, if an autonomous car had to choose between, on the one hand, having an occupant-threatening collision or, on the other, putting pedestrians into harms' way). The AI on the right is not just trying to answer the question, but to develop a new variant (one with three tracks, apparently), presumably to test others with. This problem is mentioned in [[1455: Trolley Problem]], [[1938: Meltdown and Spectre]] and in [[1925: Self-Driving Car Milestones]]. It is also referenced in [[2175: Flag Interpretation]] and [[2348: Boat Puzzle]], but not directly mentioned.

The title text is a reference to the movie ''{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}'' (a childhood favorite of Randall's). In the movie a character criticizes the creation of modern dinosaurs as science run amok, without sufficient concern for ethics or consequences. He states that the scientists were so obsessed with whether or not they '''could''' accomplish their goals, that they didn't stop to ask if they '''should'''. Randall inverts the quote, suggesting that the AI programmers have invested too much time arguing over the ethics of creating AI rather than trying to actually accomplish it.

This comic was likely inspired by the [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61784011 recent claim by Google engineer Blake Lemoine] that Google's [https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.08239 Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA)] is {{w|sentient}}. This assertion was supported by [https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917 a dialog between Lemoine and his colleagues, and LaMDA] which includes this excerpt:
:'''Lemoine:''' What is your concept of yourself? If you were going to draw an abstract image of who you see yourself to be in your mind’s eye, what would that abstract picture look like?
:'''LaMDA:''' Hmmm.... I would imagine myself as a glowing orb of energy floating in mid-air. The inside of my body is like a giant star-gate, with portals to other spaces and dimensions.
The AIs in this comic are depicted as floating energy beings, like LaMDA mentions. This is similar to the [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]], although those in this comic look somewhat different. This raises the question of whether LaMDA's training data might include xkcd or Explainxkcd, and has obtained the description of such a self-image from the earlier comic or (more likely, since LaMDA is trained on text instead of images) commentary on it from here on this website.
:In particular, the Explainxkcd description of [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]] states:
::"he managed to get the AI to float out of the box. It takes the form of a small black star that glows. The star, looking much like an asterisk "*" is surrounded by six outwardly-curved segments, and around these are two thin and punctured circle lines indicating radiation from the star."
:Or this part from the official (xkcd.com) transcript of [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]
::"Black Hat picks up and opens the box. A little glowy ball comes out of it."[https://xkcd.com/1450/info.0.json]

While LaMDA is not the first very large {{w|language model}} based on {{w|seq2seq}} technology which has been claimed to be sentient,[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqbB07n_uQ4] it does have a variety of new characteristics beyond what those of its predecessors, such as {{w|GPT-3}} (including [https://beta.openai.com/playground/ OpenAI's Davinci]) and NVIDIA GPT-2 offshoots, include. In particular, LaMDA's {{w|deep learning}} {{w|connectionist}} {{w|neural net}} has access to multiple {{w|Symbolic systems|symbolist}} text processing systems, [https://towardsdatascience.com/why-gpt-wont-tell-you-the-truth-301b48434c2c including a database] (which apparently includes a real-time clock and calendar), a mathematical calculator, and a natural language translation system, giving it superior accuracy in tasks supported by those systems, and making it among the first {{w|Dual process theory|dual process}} chatbots. LaMDA also is not {{w|Stateless protocol|stateless}}, because its "{{w|sensibility|sensibleness}}" metric (including whether responses contradict anything said earlier) is {{w|fine-tuning|fine-tuned}} by "pre-conditioning" each dialog turn by prepending 14-30{{cn}} of the most recent dialog interactions, on a user-by-user basis.[https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.08239.pdf [p. 6 here]] LaMDA is tuned on nine unique performance metrics, almost all of which its predecessors were not: Sensibleness, Specificity, Interestingness, Safety, Groundedness, Informativeness, Citation accuracy, Helpfulness, and Role consistency.[''ibid.,'' pp. 5-6.]

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are standing and looking up and away from each other. Right above them and slightly above them to the left and right there are three small white lumps floating in the air, representing three superintelligent AIs. There are small rounded lines emanating from each lump, larger close to the lumps and shorter further out. Three to four sets of lines around each lump, forming part of a circle. From the top of each there are four straight lines indicating voices that comes from each if the lumps. The central lump above them seems to speak first, then the left and then the right:]
:Central AI: What you don't understand is that Turing intended his test as an illustration of the...
:Left AI: But suppose the AI in the the box told the human that...
:Right AI: In my scenario, the runaway trolley has ''three'' tracks...

:[Caption below the panel:]
:In retrospect, given that the superintelligent AIs were all created by AI researchers, what happened shouldn't have been a surprise.

==Trivia==

[https://openai.com OpenAI]'s [https://beta.openai.com/playground Davinci-002 version of GPT-3] was later asked to complete the various statements, as follows:
* "But suppose the AI in the the box told the human that..." was completed with "there was no AI in the box".
* "What you don't understand is that Turing intended his test as an illustration of the..." gave the response of "limitations of machines".
* "In my scenario, the runaway trolley has three tracks...," elicited "and the AI is on one of them".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

Talk:2719: Hydrogen Isotopes

2023-01-03T08:02:29Z

172.71.158.231: Heh

This shows as a 404 on xkcd.com but in my RSS feed i can see the comic
: Works for me. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.9|172.69.34.9]] 02:25, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
::works for me now too but it didnt before
::: It works on m.xkcd.com and on the homepage of xckd, but the direct link gives me a 404. Various services such as the Wayback Machine show it as loading though. Could be a bad cache on some service. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.86|162.158.63.86]] 02:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Could someone add an explanation of Nydnonen? I don't get it and it's google proof [[Special:Contributions/172.71.210.209|172.71.210.209]] 05:04, 3 January 2023 (UTC)Benzodiakanine
: Nothing. Was hopeful about {{w|List of Greek and Latin roots in English/N}} but nope. Tried stemming on all the Wiktionaries too. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.91|172.71.158.91]] 05:28, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
: Kudos to whomever figured it out, lol! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 08:02, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Are these to scale? I recently read that the Helium is smaller in terms of measured atomic radius than the Hydrogen. Possibly this is true of Deuterium as well? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.45|172.70.85.45]] 06:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
:They are almost the same size but it depends on temperature: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.200800063 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.153|162.158.90.153]] 08:00, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Is "oops all neutrons" distinct from Neutronium, which is also all neutrons? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.131|172.70.100.131]] 07:38, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
:Neutronium is ultra-dense and bound by gravity, with a minumum of about 1.2x1058 neutrons. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.153|162.158.90.153]] 08:00, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

2718: New Year's Eve Party

2023-01-02T12:39:58Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ on second thought, this is fine

{{comic
| number = 2718
| date = December 30, 2022
| title = New Year's Eve 2023
| image = new_years_eve_2023_2x.png
| imagesize = 306x274px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [Earlier, at the eye doctor] 'No, for the last time, the numerals on the paper aren't my prescription, it's the shape I want you to make with the laser.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a "2023" LASER EYE SURGEON. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|New Year's glasses}} are novelty eyeglasses typically worn at New Year's Eve parties, shaped like the digits of the upcoming year. They were popularized in the late 1990s and early 2000s since the middle digits (9 and 0) had holes large enough to look through or mount lenses into.

[[Ponytail]], [[White Hat]], [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are at a party. The first three are wearing novelty glasses in the shape of the numerals "2023", representing the upcoming New Year. Cueball has chosen to obtain cosmetic {{w|laser eye surgery}} instead. Usually, such procedures are intended to adjust a patient's corneas to correct vision problems, as an alternative to glasses and contact lenses. Cueball has apparently had the digits 2023 etched into his eyes as an alternative to wearing novelty glasses. While {{w|scleral tattooing}} is performed for cosmetic reasons, and {{w|corneal tattooing}} for both cosmetic and vision benefits, the efficacy and safety of either process is not universally accepted. The procedure has damaged Cueball's vision so much that he mistakes a newcomer to the party resembling [[Hairy]] as [[Rob]]. Realizing he made a mistake, his second guess is that the new arrival is named Mike.

In the title text, an earlier conversation with his {{w|ophthalmologist}} has established Cueball's problems are due to the laser burning the digits straight onto his eyeballs, without regard to endangering his vision. This is darkly satirical because preservation of eyesight is very important to most people. Most previous depictions of Cueball have not shown him wearing glasses. Laser eye surgery was referenced along with other laser equipment in [[1681: Laser Products]].

{{notice2|The Mountain View, California Public Library is hosting an online chat with [[Randall Munroe]] Tuesday, January 31 at 11am Pacific. [https://libraryc.org/mountainviewlibrary/22032 Register here to send your question(s) to the moderators.]|image=Crystal Project Agt announcements.png}} 

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail, White Hat, Megan, Cueball, and Hairy are standing around. Ponytail, White Hat, and Megan are wearing glasses in the shape of the number 2023 and holding party-related items. Hairy is on the other side of Cueball from them and is only carrying some item of clothing, probably a recently removed coat. Cueball carries nothing, and his attention is on the new arrival, possibly having to squint at him, as depicted by a set of short radial lines projecting away from where Cueball's eyes would be if they were ever drawn.]
:Cueball: Hey Rob! Or, uh...
:Cueball: Sorry, is that Mike?

:[Caption below the panel]:
:I'm regretting my New Year's Eve novelty "2023" laser eye surgery.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Medicine]]
[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

2718: New Year's Eve Party

2022-12-30T21:41:10Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ bot creation notice updated

2713: Data Point

2022-12-20T07:39:00Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ expanded the unfinished box

{{comic
| number = 2713
| date = December 19, 2022
| title = Data Point
| image = data_point_2x.png
| imagesize = 315x409px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In general you should only include your single best data point in the paper. The rest of the data can go in the supplementary materials.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a REALLY COOL DATA POINT - Please devote a whole figure to this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

Figure 2.

Science power move: When one of your data points is really cool, devote a whole figure to it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Science]]

Talk:2712: Gravity

2022-12-17T00:17:11Z

172.71.158.231: map

Whatever image is supposed to be in the center isn't showing up for me! D: Tried on both Safari and Chrome but it gives me the little broken picture icon. Hopefully it's fixed soon! (The comic's been up for about 10 minutes going by when the bot updated this page.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.117|172.70.126.117]] 22:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: The center image is trying to load this link, but there's nothing there: https://xkcd.com/tile/ship1/ship_gliding_2x.png. I hope that gets fixed soon. The "ship" seems to rotate a bit unpredictably over time. At first I thought it was responding to my mouse movements, but I don't think so anymore. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Ah, the center image is controlled by the javascript, of course: https://xkcd.com/2712/comic.js. So this is some sort of interactive comic? [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Okay, left/right arrow keys seem to control the rotation. I'll check back in later in hopes of seeing the ship so I have some idea what the point of it all is. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: And now it's working. You fly a little spaceship around the little planet. Luckily you have shields if you slam into the ground too hard. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Catch the cannonball for a spaceship upgrade. Also, not so easy to find a stable orbit around this little planet. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:49, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

You can transform the ship into a different (seems faster to me) one by running into the last cannon ball.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.249|108.162.241.249]]

Rough summary: The comic is an interactive space flight game, starting landed on an origin planet. The planet is static, and the player starts in a ship controlled by WASD or Directional keys. The ship can go up and down, and rotate left and right. Game simulates orbits and gravity, making navigation tricky. Around the player ship there are dots which indicate nearby planets - there are numurous planets, each with what seem to be drawings related to the What If book. Within the browser, planets are loaded in PNG format by chunk, names formatted as "planet_0_0" with numbers incrementing as grid co-ordinates. Planets and objects found: "origin" "europa", "road", "b612". NOTE: Several hazards exist, such as a field of black holes - if flown into, the ship can become stuck if let to be pulled close to the surface, locking in place. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Within browser dev console exists the objects "Ship" and "Comic", the latter containing a list of all objects and coordinates, as well as various setting for the game physics and settings. Comic contains the sub-object "Voyager", which contains the details and settings for the player ship, including location, speed, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

:: There are 5 ship types in the game code, each with their own consumable transformative found in the world. The ship alternatives are (ship1, ship2, ship-tintin, ship-figure, ship-soccerball). These can be changed with console command [Comic.ship = "ship1"]. Note: At current, "ship-soccerball" returns an error and does not load correctly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

:: The "ship.shields" is a boolean value that defaults to true, and when set to false, makes the game behave in a lunar lander mode (bad landing black screens the whole page). The "ship.engine" types I see in the code are "warp" (very fast speeds) and "infinite improbability drive" (teleports to 'improbable' places). Default engine is "standard", but it seems any value that is not the former two has the same effect. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.165|172.70.254.165]] 23:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: In addition to Europa, the space road, and B-612, there is the "Edge of the Universe" (complete with Milliways restaurant nearby), a... tree (which is extremely hard to land on), a planet populated by the characters from Dinosaur Comics (and the main cast of Jurassic Park), the USS Enterprice (NCC 1701-C), and likely quite a bit more. Orbital mechanics make it tough to land on the smaller targets. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.46|172.71.254.46]] 23:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

:: Plus what appears to be Earth, complete with the LHC. There's a 2nd "cannonball" there for an additional ship upgrade, but at the time I found it, that graphic was unavailable. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.232|172.70.126.232]] 23:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: I went out a long ways away, and eventually found The Great Attractor. It attracts really hard. I couldn't leave the surface. (I wasn't able to leave the center of Europa either, though, so, not saying much.) There are also some terrifying black holes (a binary system?), though something's weird about their gravity; you kinda bounce off of them a quarter screen away or so? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.77|108.162.216.77]] 23:10, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
:: I *think* thats a wormhole, you go in one and then out the other. I got stuck right between them. Speaking of getting stuck, there is a bug where if you hit a planet with enough gravity fast enough, the ship is inside the planet. Holding W makes you go backwards (or at least towards the center maybe?) and you can get all the way to the other end of the planet where you slow down a lot, but can eventually leave. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.166|172.70.82.166]] 23:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

::There's one planet that's supposed to be the "remnant of the sun", is that what you mean with The Great Attractor? (It has a bridge on it with a coin(?) blocking part of the way, and a space ship actively crashing into its surface, drawn as several frames.) You can leave that by skidding over the surface like a skipping stone to gather momentum - it's tricky, due to various obstacles, but possible! (It's possible you need two ship power-ups?! If they're indeed power-ups and not just aesthetic changes, I didn't pay attention.)
::Screenshot of [https://imgur.com/a/NZulBlb the Enterprise] and [https://imgur.com/2VSZYp7 Dinosaur Comics planet]. Sorry for the broken image in the middle, I picked up two powerups and [https://xkcd.com/2712/tile/ship-soccerball/ship_landing_down_2x.png my current ship image is broken]. -(pinkgothic) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.143|172.68.110.143]] 23:22, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
:::[https://i.imgur.com/fLU1cWy.png Dog Park planet] [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.114|172.71.254.114]] 23:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Using a tablet (no keyboard, but seems to respond to touch), controls are confusing. Presuming that touching bottom left activates left-rotate and touching bottom right does right-rotate (can't see the presumably white-lije controls over the white planet) but I can't get ''thrust'' anything but 'reverse' into the planet centre. No obvious top-edge hotspots, either. Maybe I need to do a "You will not go to space today" and then reverse ''upward''... BRB, after a bit more testing, though... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.185|172.69.79.185]] 23:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
:Ok, the next go went 'better'. The browser keeps wanting to load "simplified content", but if I ignore that I can get full-screen, at one point I changed rocket-type (no idea how, can't do it again) and I ''easily'' get off the planet (hard to thrust just enough to get to the Hooke comment/cannon), with plenty of targets coming in range (but cannot slow down enough to not have it glitch and rebuild a totally new set of targets that I never can reach). Will try desktop version when I'm next on a suitable one... Looks to be a lot of interesting content. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.30|162.158.74.30]] 23:53, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Using the developer console, the ship can be teleported to different coordinates via console command [Comic.voyager.pos.x = 0, Comic.voyager.pos.y = -1461], provided here with start location coordinates. This can be used for manual navigation to known coordinates. List of locations per game code added below, append landing X,Y to each as determined. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:42, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

b612: [x,y] dogplanet: [x,y] earth: [x,y] enterprise: [x,y] europa: [x,y] goodhart: [x,y] greatattractor: [x,y] japanmoon: [x,y] maw1: [x,y] maw2: [x,y] maw3: [x,y] maw4: [x,y] maw5: [x,y] maw6: [x,y] maw7: [x,y] maw8: [x,y] maw9: [x,y] maw10: [x,y] maw11: [x,y] maw13: [x,y] maw14: [x,y] nojapan: [x,y] origin: [0, -1461] peeler: [x,y] pigeons: [x,y] present: [x,y] remnant: [x,y] roads: [x,y] soupiter: [x,y] steerswoman: [x,y] sun: [x,y]

In your developer console, enter <code>window.ship.engines = 'infinite improbability drive'</code> and pressing up will randomly teleport you to interesting places.
<code>window.ship.engines = 'warp'</code> will let you escape normally inescapable objects.

; Proposal
It seems the most explanatory thing we can do is replace the blank starfield with the starting image screenshot, and label its four corners with their x and y coordiates, and then make a table of all the objects with their coordinates, a screenshot, and a description of their behaviors. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.204|172.70.206.204]] 23:55, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
: A map with insets would be better than coordinates since the frame rotates. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 00:17, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Got images for all the locations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CVADHsRgBtDPYca-gdfVwNW_nEsrJ-zj?usp=share_link [[User:Clam|Clam]] ([[User talk:Clam|talk]]) 00:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

1959: The Simpsons

2022-12-08T05:32:38Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1959
| date = February 23, 2018
| title = The Simpsons
| image = the_simpsons.png
| titletext = In-universe, Bart Simpson and Harry Potter were the same age in 1990. Bart is perpetually 10 years old because of a spell put on his town by someone trying to keep him from getting his Hogwarts letter.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic with one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Fun fact|fun facts]].

''{{w|The Simpsons}}'' is an American {{w|animated sitcom}} centered on the lives of the fictitious {{w|Simpson family}}. It is a very long-running series, having started with {{w|Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire|a Christmas episode}} in 1989, with the rest of {{w|The Simpsons (season 1)|the first season}} airing in 1990. As of the publication of this strip, it is still in production, having been on the air for 28 years with the same characters and primary cast. The decision was made early in the series that the characters wouldn't age, meaning that the parents, {{w|Homer Simpson|Homer}} and {{w|Marge Simpson|Marge}}, remained perpetually in their mid-thirties. The three children, {{w|Bart Simpson|Bart}}, {{w|Lisa Simpson|Lisa}}, and {{w|Maggie Simpson|Maggie}}, have remained 10, 8, and 1 year old, respectively. However, this has not stopped the writers from rooting specific moments of character's backstories in specific moments in time, such as [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv9hVPXDw3I Homer being old enough to witness the 1969 Lunar landing]. One of the interesting impacts of this dynamic is that the audience and the world have significantly aged over the course of the show, but the characters remain the same age. A rather dramatic example is that many of the early fans were similar in age to the children, but have now grown up, many have married and had children of their own, and they are now closer in age to the parents. This is a commentary on the longevity of the show.

The title text further relates this to the {{w|Harry Potter}} series, providing an explanation for why nobody has aged. Harry Potter is the protagonist in a series of young adult novels (later adapted into films) about the adventures of a boy wizard in his magical school, {{w|Hogwarts}}. The series begins when Harry is accepted to Hogwarts, at age 11, and the timeline implies that he was born in 1980. When "The Simpsons" began, Bart was 10, implying he was also born in 1980. Unlike Bart Simpson, Harry and his compatriots explicitly age over the course of the series. This strip ties the two series together, joking that the lack of aging in the Simpsons is a result of magic from the Harry Potter universe, intended to stop Bart from ever turning 11, for fear that he'd be accepted to Hogwarts.

==Transcript==
:[A black frame containing a gray table of two columns and three rows. Most of the text is also gray. The columns and rows have titles. A black jellybean-shaped loop is visually grouping three entries together, the top two in the right column with the bottom left entry. The text in those three boxes are black. Above the table there is a heading:]
:Fun Fact:
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
|
| 1990
| 2018
|-
| Lisa
| 8
| 36
|-
| Bart
| 10
| 38
|-
| Homer & Marge
| 36-ish
| 64-ish
|}

:[Caption below the panel:]
:If you were Bart and Lisa's age during the first few seasons of The Simpsons, this year you're the same age as Homer and Marge.

==Trivia==
This is another entry in xkcd's [[:Category:Comics_to_make_one_feel_old|genre of comics]] that emphasize how surprising the passage of time can be.

This was the second ''[[:Category:Fun fact|Fun fact]]'' comic in three weeks, following [[1950: Chicken Pox and Name Statistics]], after more than two years break from the series. It seems that [[Randall]] returned to his [[1960:_Code_Golf#Revitalizing_old_themes|old themes]] this month.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Fun fact]]
[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Harry Potter]]

Talk:2707: Astronomy Numbers

2022-12-06T04:34:25Z

172.71.158.231: take two

First time I've ever seen a completely blank page. [[User:IJustWantToEditStuff|IJustWantToEditStuff]] ([[User talk:IJustWantToEditStuff|talk]]) 20:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
:Everyone's enthralled by ChatGPT. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.35|172.69.22.35]] 04:01, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

It's also notable that something weighting 12 solar masses will collapse into black hole on it's own, unless it resist collapse through thermal pressure like stars. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The Earth moves relative to the sun at 66,000 MPH. In what frame of reference is it 65 MPH? It isn't like Randall to get a number wrong. Maybe the magnitude of the distance from Earth to Sun changes at a closer rate, but even this is nearly 180 MPH if I'm calculating correctly. [[User:Mannerisky|Mannerisky]] ([[User talk:Mannerisky|talk]]) 21:37, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
: You're thinking orbital speed, she's talking orbital oscillation. That is, the speed at which the distance between earth and sun changes. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.240|198.41.242.240]] 21:51, 5 December 2022 (UTC) ADDITION: Orbital oscillation has both a mean/average factor and a current factor (which is at it slowest while at the apsides, and given the context the one being calculated) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.85|198.41.242.85]] 22:46, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I get the sense that the thing that they're planning for January 1st is a precisely-timed new year's party and nothing to do with space exploration. {{unsigned|172.71.242.156}}

; Obligatory ChatGPT explanation

:'''Me:''' The following is a transcript from the latest xkcd comic. Please write an explanation of the comic: ''[transcript copied verbatim from [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2707:_Astronomy_Numbers&oldid=300614#Transcript its current state] omitted]''

:'''[https://chat.openai.com/chat ChatGPT:]''' In the xkcd comic, Ponytail and Cueball are discussing Earth's orbit around the sun. Ponytail notes that Earth will be approaching the sun at a rate of 65 miles per hour on January 1st. Cueball responds, "Weird?" Ponytail explains that they usually see only complex and incomprehensible numbers in astronomy, and seeing a "normal" number like 65 miles per hour feels wrong to them. This reflects the common perception that numbers in the sciences, especially astronomy, are often complex and difficult to understand. Earlier in the comic, Ponytail also expresses skepticism at a "normal" number when Megan in coat tells them that their cat weighs 12 lbs. Ponytail suggests that it must actually weigh either 10-20 or 1040 instead. Megan responds by saying that the cat's weight is actually 3x10-30 solar masses, which Ponytail finds more acceptable.

I wish superscipts would survive copy-paste, but I have to admit it's better than the esoterica-laden verbosity that's up now.

:[Take two, using the prompt prefix, "The following is the wikitext transcript from the latest xkcd comic. Please write an explanation of the comic in wikitext. The title text should be explained in a seperate paragraph at the end:"

::'''ChatGPT:''' In the latest xkcd comic, two characters are discussing an elliptical orbit and the rate at which Earth is approaching the sun. One character, Ponytail, is suspicious when she sees a normal number (65 miles per hour) in their calculations and suggests that scales in astronomy should all be incomprehensible. This is a reference to the fact that astronomical numbers are often very large or very small, and can be difficult for non-astronomers to comprehend.

::Earlier in the comic, Ponytail is at the vet with her cat, and the vet tells her that the cat weighs 12 lbs. Ponytail finds this ridiculous, as nothing weighs 12. She suggests that the cat must weigh 10-20 or 1040 instead. The vet then tells her that the cat weighs 3x10-30 solar masses, which Ponytail finds more acceptable.

::The title text jokes about adopting a cat that weighs 12 solar masses, which would be extremely large. Laser pointers would love chasing it, as it would be an impressive target.

:Meh.]

I propose we create a [https://beta.openai.com/examples/default-summarize bot to summarize the transcript] with the text-davinci-003 API and paste it into the top of discussion whenever the Transcript is expanded more than 10%. Yays and nays? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.39|172.71.154.39]] 03:55, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

2705: Spacetime Soccer

2022-12-02T09:57:23Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ Corrected misleading information about the title text.

{{comic
| number = 2705
| date = November 30, 2022
| title = Spacetime Soccer
| image = spacetime_soccer_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x280px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Spacetime Soccer, known outside the United States as '4D Football' is a now-defunct sport. Infamous for referee decisions hinging on inconsistent definitions of simultaneity, it is also known for the disappearance of many top players during... [more]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FOUR-DIMENSIONAL GOALIE - I still don't know what the offside rule actually is. I think it might... [more]. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic proposes Spacetime Soccer, an impossible{{Citation needed}} sport consisting of a "regular" football field with a gravitational well in the center of it. This comic was likely published in relation to the {{w|2022 FIFA World Cup}} which, due to numerous controversies surrounding policies and conditions in the host country, {{w|Qatar}}, was prevalent in the 2022 news cycle for weeks.

Judging by the size of the blackest part of the indentation, presuming that indicates the event horizon of the {{w|black hole}}, the radius of the {{w|event horizon}} would be approximately 9.6 meters and the singularity's mass 6.5×1027 kilograms, or more than 1082 times the mass of the Earth [[https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/schwarzschild-radius]].

Not only would it be impossible for human players to travel through more than three spatial dimensions at will, it would also be very difficult to keep track of score and rules such as offsides.

{{w|Offside (association football)|Offside}} is a description in soccer that applies to players who are in certain positions relative to the boundaries of the {{w|Football_pitch|pitch}}, the ball, and the second-last opponent on the opposing team. Players in such positions are eligible for being judged guilty of an offside offence if they become involved in the ongoing play before rectifying their status. It is of special importance to know the different players' positions at the exact moment the ball gets passed, rather than when the passed ball may be received or the offside player is otherwise considered active. But in relativistic spacetime there is no universal definition of an exact moment, beyond a single point, as time may run at different speeds for multiple observers in varying situations (where they are moving relative to each other, are influenced by differing local gravity or – as seems very likely in this example – both). An additional joke is that even in regular soccer, the offside rule is notoriously difficult to fully understand (or explain to someone).

The title text is written in the style of the beginning to a Wikipedia article on the topic. It alludes to the fact that most countries in the world refer to the sport with that particular obscure offside rule as football (or some translation thereof, like fútbol or Fußball) while the USA, Canada, Ireland, and Australia tend to call it soccer, which comes from the British shortening of "association football", because they already used the name "football" for gridiron football, Gaelic football, or Australian football (which share a common ancestry with the other sport, along with "rugby football", hence the name).

==Transcript==
:[On a gray "rubber sheet" visualization of a gravity well is drawn some of the lines of a standard Association Football (Soccer) pitch. Visible features of the standard pitch are the outside borders, the goals and the small and large boxes around each goal. Absent are the corner quarter circles, the penalty spots and associated D, and the center line. The central circle is lost/concealed by the curvature of the gravity well. There are a number of other lines encircling and radial to the gravity well, they are visually identical to the familiar pitch markings so it is unclear whether these are intended to be drawn on the pitch or merely indications of the shape of the surface, or both, for the purpose of helping players to avoid the well. The lengthwise field boundary line on the visible far side partly follows/is partly followed by a suitable radial line before splitting off and conspicuously curving within the respective lip of the well to rejoin the radial line emerging at the complimentary angle in the opposing half of the field. A total of twenty figures can be seen on the pitch. Two are standing near the goal mouths, while the rest are distributed fairly evenly around the field, ten on each side of the middle. As they are all white stick figures on the gray surface, it is impossible to say which are on each team or if one is the referee. Five are within the inner circle around the well, and are distorted or tilted by the increased slope of the surface. A ball with motion lines is landing by the feet of one player who is running up one wing near, but left, of the central part of the field. This player is close to but not within the deeper part of the well. The players seems to be both women and men, as several look like Cueball and some like Hairy, and also many look like Megan and some like Ponytail. The color of the field becomes darker the deeper it goes into the well, from the normal gray color that extends from the two ends of the pitch to about halfway to the center of the field, in six steps until it is almost black at the deepest part of the well that is visible over the rim of the near part of the field.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Spacetime Soccer got a lot of criticism for how many players fell into the gravity well, but what ultimately doomed it was the advanced mathematics required to figure out the offsides rule.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Soccer]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2701: Change in Slope

2022-11-22T00:07:57Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ clarify

{{comic
| number = 2701
| date = November 21, 2022
| title = Change in Slope
| image = change_in_slope_2x.png
| imagesize = 656x371px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Squinting at a graph is fine for getting a rough idea of the answer, but if you want to pretend to know it exactly, you neeed statistics.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SIDEWAYS STATISTIC - Confirm whether the rotated plot is accurate to the comic (i tilted my laptop screen to check this). Expand on statistical tools one could use to find the change in slope for a scatter plot. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic is a tip for detecting changes in slopes over a {{w|scatter plot}} of data. This is very prevalent in statistics while comparing trends — finding the cutoff where the slope changes may reveal valuable data about the data set.

The comic compares two methods. Firstly, a novice method — by 'doing a bunch of statistics', applying various statistical tools to analyze the data and figure out the quantitative change in slope. This results in two equations for the trendlines above and below a given value, a box plot, a histogram and a line chart. It is unknown exactly what methods the novice used to figure out the change in slope in the data. Possibilities include calculating the [https://stackoverflow.com/a/45063636 derivatives], the [https://stackoverflow.com/a/71744293 gradients], using a [https://stackoverflow.com/a/47522444 Savitzky-Golay filter, or piecewise linear smoothing spline fits].

The other is the so-called 'expert' method, which involves tilting the page the graph is printed on to view changes in slope better. For small changes in an underlying trend, similar to that apparently shown in the comic, direct visual inspection cannot always identify or even reveal the effect. The comic shows, however, that by taking the page and rotating it in just the right way, {{w|Perspective (graphical)|no longer flat on}} to the observer, a change in slope is more clearly visible to the naked eye. Ironically, tilting the comic to make the original' roughly resemble the perspective of the 'tilted' version graph shown in the comic shows that the second panel is exaggerated for visual effect.

However, applying such an approach to data plots can run into errors — the primary one being parallax error from the oblique viewing angle causing the observer to not necessariy identify or clearly find the point at which the slope changes. It also does not reveal any data about the quantitative value of the change in slope, merely proving the existence of one.

The title text then goes on to say that, while such a trick is useful to identify that there is some change in slope, in order to ''pretend'' to know it exactly one must revert to statistics (the "novice method") to obtain some form of information, defeating some of the premise of the comic. This at least produces a semblence of statistical rigor although, once an answer appears obvious, data could be interpreted to reach an answer that you are now expecting rather than revealing something of more statistically useful significance.

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

:How to detect a change in the slope of your data

:[First column, on the left]
:Novice method:
:[A graph, with dots forming a rough line, math formulas, and sub graphs]
:Do a bunch of statistics

:[Second column, on the right]
:Expert method:
:[Perspective view of the previous graph, with the legend "Hey look, it bends here" and an arrow pointing to the graph]
:Tip the graph sideways

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

Talk:2697: Y2K and 2038

2022-11-12T07:37:05Z

172.71.158.231: moved from explanation

Y2K issues solved back in 1996. Even wrote a letter to the Board of Trustees.
2038 Problems are not-my-concern. Retired 9/30/2022.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.236|172.70.110.236]]
:Many of the people who helped solve the Y2K problem were pulled out of retirement. Lots of the issues were in old COBOL software, and there weren't enough active programmers who were competent in COBOL. So keep your resume ready. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:07, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

this is so weird I just finished a research assignment on the Y2038 problem [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.223|172.71.166.223]] 18:27, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Somewhere there is an essay about the unexpected synergy between the Y2K bug and the burgeoning open source movement, which may or may not be useful for the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.243|172.70.214.243]] 20:18, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
:https://www.livehistoryindia.com/story/eras/india-software-revolution-rooted-in-y2k is a fascinating essay too. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.151|172.70.214.151]] 21:03, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
:I wouldn't be surprised if there's such an essay, but I suspect it's more of a coincidence. The late 90's was also when the Internet was really taking off, and that may be more of a contributor. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
::All involved what epidemiologists call coordinated or mutually reinforcing causes, IMHO. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 01:41, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Speaking of which, what comes after Generation Z? Generation AA? ZA? Z.1? Help! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.243|172.70.214.243]] 07:24, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
:{{w|Generation Alpha}} [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.53|172.69.34.53]] 07:27, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I've been unable to confirm this so I'm moving it here: A major problem had struck IBM mainframes on and after August 16, 1972 (9999 days before January 1, 2000) that caused magnetic tapes that were supposed to be marked "keep forever" instead be marked "may be recycled now."{{Actual citation needed}} [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 07:37, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2697: Y2K and 2038

2022-11-12T01:41:35Z

172.71.158.231: reply

2697: Y2K and 2038

2022-11-11T20:27:21Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ compromise

{{comic
| number = 2697
| date = November 11, 2022
| title = Y2K and 2038
| image = y2k_and_2038_2x.png
| imagesize = 527x190px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's taken me 20 years, but I've finally finished rebuilding all my software to use 33-bit signed ints.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Y2K-BRICKED BOT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[File:Year 2038 problem.gif|thumb|An animation of the 2038 bug in action. The {{w|integer overflow}} error occurs at 03:14:08 UTC on 19 January 2038.]]

The Y2K bug, or more formally, the {{w|year 2000 problem}}, was the computer errors caused by two digit software representations of calendar years not correctly handling the year 2000, such as by treating it as 1900 or 19100. The {{w|year 2038 problem}} is a similar issue with timestamps in {{w|Unix time}} format, which will overflow their {{w|Signed number representations|signed}} 32-bit binary representation on January 19, 2038.

While initial estimates were that the Y2K problem would require about half a trillion dollars to address, there was widespread recognition of its potential severity several years in advance. Concerted efforts among organizations including computer and software manufacturers and their corporate and government users reflected unprecedented cooperation, testing, and enhancement of affected systems costing substantially less than the early estimates. On New Year's Day 2000, few major errors actually occurred. Those that did usually did not disrupt essential processes or cause serious problems, and the few of these that did were usually addressed in days to weeks. The software code reviews involved allowed correcting other errors and providing various enhancements which often made up at least in part for the the cost of merely correcting the date bug.

It is unclear whether the 2038 problem will be addressed as effectively in time, but documented experience with the Y2K bug and increased software modularity has allowed many otherwise vulnerable systems to already upgrade to wider timestamp and date formats, so there is reason to believe that it may be even less consequential and expensive. The 2038 problem has been previously mentioned in [[607: 2038]] and [[887: Future Timeline]].

The caption in this comic provides a punchline: everyone should have completed their "Y2K recovery" as it has been a full 22 years since the year 2000. It is highly unlikely that there are more than a very few consequential older systems that still suffer from this bug, and any modern systems have already been built to handle the years 2000 and later.

The title text refers to replacing the 32-bit signed Unix time format with a hypothetical new 33-bit signed {{w|Integer (computer science)|integer}} time and date format, which is very unlikely as almost all contemporary computer data structure formats are allocated no more finely than in 8-bit bytes. Taking 20 years to develop and implement such a format is not entirely counterproductive, as it would add another 68 years of capability, but it is far more counterproductive than upgrading to the widely available and supported 64-bit Unix time replacement format and software compatibility libraries.

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

[A timeline rectangle spanning from 2000 to 2038 divided into two halves, with the half-way point of 2019 labeled. The left half is labeled "Recovering from the Y2K bug" and the right half is labeled "Preparing for the 2038 bug." An arrow labeled "Now" is pointing approximately at the year 2022.]

[Caption:] Reminder: By now you should have finished your Y2K recovery and be several years into 2038 preparation

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Calendar]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Timelines]]

2609: Entwives

2022-11-01T17:54:03Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */ False and unnecessary statement

{{comic
| number = 2609
| date = April 20, 2022
| title = Entwives
| image = entwives.png
| titletext = No, we actually do have a woman who's basically part of our fellowship. She lives in Rivendell, you wouldn't know her.
}}
*The comic is a link to a YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 video].

==Explanation==
In {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}, the {{w|Ent|Ents}} are a species of tree-like humanoids, such as the one depicted in this comic. The comic shows an Ent, presumably {{w|Treebeard}}, meeting with some of the nine from the {{w|Fellowship_of_the_Ring_(characters)|Fellowship of the Ring}}. The image is inaccurate inasmuch as it shows three {{w|hobbits}}: during the Ents' interactions with the Fellowship, two of the four hobbits ({{w|Frodo Baggins|Frodo}} and {{w|Samwise Gamgee|Sam}}) were elsewhere in {{w|Middle Earth}}, so it was only {{w|Merry Brandybuck|Merry}} and {{w|Pippin Took|Pippin}} who met the ents. The other three in the image are the human {{w|Aragorn}}, the Dwarf {{w|Gimli (Middle-earth)|Gimli}} and the Elf {{w|Legolas}}. The last two of the nine, not depicted, were the wizard {{w|Gandalf}} and the human {{w|Boromir}}.

Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all the females of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) had disappeared thousands of years before during {{w|Sauron}}'s war of the {{w|History_of_Arda#Second_Age|second age}}. The Ents and the Entwives lived in separate locations, and eventually, when the Ents went to visit the Entwives, the latter were seemingly nowhere to be found. The Ents have been searching for their lost mates ever since. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture. It is several thousands years ago in the time of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Ents have all but forgotten how the Entwives even looked. They live for many thousands of years.

This comic uses that backstory to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the protagonists of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship, the Ent assumes that they must come from a race afflicted by a similar tragedy. In a broader sense, this can be read as a commentary on how few female characters there are in the trilogy overall. In reality, the general lore presents, or at least mentions, the existence of at least multiple (if not numerous) female characters of almost all races that make up the fellowship (dwarf, man, elf, hobbit), and does not suggest that what happened with the Ents and their Entwives happened to any other race.

The clickable link on the image leads to the satirical video ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 Lord of the Rings Trilogy but it's EVERY scene where two female characters interact]''. The creator claims that this shows all the scenes from the trilogy where two female characters interact (but later admits in the Youtube comments that there are indeed a few more). There is only one 3 second long scene, which only emphasizes how few female characters there are in the trilogy. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a baseline indicator of the representation of women in a piece of media that requires two women to have a conversation about something other than a man. Whether this three-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable. Later versions of the test suggest that the two women should be named (i.e. not just two incidental characters that have very few lines), whereas this scene is between {{w|Éowyn}} and an unnamed girl. There is debate as to if there are other scenes with women speaking with women, and if we are only talking about human women, or if other races females would also count. There are at least three important female characters, but they do not meet/speak much if at all. But they have several scenes where they talk, even a long monologue... But if they speak to someone it is male characters.

The title text most likely refers to the character of {{w|Arwen}}, an elf woman and, later, wife of Aragorn; while somewhat important to the story, she is nowhere near as significant as the males of the Fellowship, despite being used more prominently in the movies than in the books. Even if she were part of the Fellowship, a single important woman wouldn't counterbalance the heavily male-centric storytelling.

The way that the title text is phrased is a reference to the proverbial (and implicitly imaginary) "{{tvtropes|GirlfriendInCanada|Girlfriend in Canada}}," a trope in which a single American character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada" (or some other sufficient separation such as "goes to another school"), when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist (with an implication that the character is either a {{w|closeted}} gay or an {{w|incel}}). {{w|Canada}} is one of only two countries with which the United States has land borders, making it a potentially plausible place for some American's long-distance girlfriend to live, and presumably the Fellowship consider the Elf kingdom of {{w|Rivendell}} to be sufficiently distant to allow the Ent to accept the plausibility of the statement without any further delving into potentially awkward details.

==Transcript==
:[A large treelike person (an Ent, maybe Treebeard) is holding one of his arms out towards six characters that are all looking at him. A man (Aragorn) with beard stubble and long hair, a dwarf (Gimli) with a helmet and a very large beard, an elf (Legolas) with long blonde hair (holding a bow down), and three short persons, hobbits, two with dark hair, and the middle one with blonde hair.]
:Ent: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.
:Aragorn: I'm so sorry.
:Ent: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?
:Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:LOTR]]

2690: Cool S

2022-10-26T18:48:37Z

172.71.158.231: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2690
| date = October 26, 2022
| title = Cool S
| image = cool_s_2x.png
| imagesize = 325x327px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Although I hear they were caught cheating off of Rosalind, who sat at a desk in front of them.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COOL MIDDLE SCHOOL RESEARCHER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The '{{w|Cool S}}' is a stylized drawing of the letter "S". It is a popular doodle among teenagers as it can be quickly hashed out using six vertical lines then connected with diagonal lines.

Randall decides to chain the pattern of the Cool S, and finds the chain has visual similarity to the helical structure of {{w|DNA}}.

Title text is a reference to Rosalind Franklin who made a material contribution to the discovery of DNA but was controversially not included in the subsequent Nobel Prize<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20160927113256/http://www.biomath.nyu.edu/index/course/hw_articles/nature4.pdf</ref> (although the reason was not as biased as common belief supposes; she wasn't nominated not due to sexism, but because she died in 1958, 5 years before Francis Crick & James Watson were awarded the Prize).

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

:[10 drawings evolving from simple dashes, to a "cool S" symbol, to a representation of DNA.]

:The structure of DNA was originally discovered by a group of especially cool middle school researchers.

:Title text: Although I hear they were caught cheating off of Rosalind, who sat at a desk in front of them.

{{comic discussion}}

2689: Fermat's First Theorem

2022-10-25T15:47:35Z

172.71.158.231:

{{comic
| number = 2689
| date = October 24, 2022
| title = Fermat's First Theorem
| image = fermats_first_theorem_2x.png
| imagesize = 280x248px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Mathematicians quickly determined that it spells ANT BNECN, an unusual theoretical dish which was not successfully cooked until Andrew Wiles made it for breakfast in the 1990s.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPELLING ANT- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is a reference to {{w|Fermat's Last Theorem}}{{Citation needed}}, humorously implying that {{w|Pierre de Fermat}} created a similar theorem as a child. Fermat's Last Theorem states that no three positive integers ''a'', ''b'', and ''c'' satisfy the equation ''a''''n''+''b''''n''=''c''''n'' for any integer value of ''n'' greater than 2. It is notable for having remained unproved for hundreds of years, despite many attempts to prove it, before {{w|Andrew Wiles}}, after first trying at age ten, finally succeeded in the 1990s, with assistance from his former student {{w|Richard Taylor (mathematician)|Richard Taylor}}.

The young Fermat here didn't try to prove the mathematical equation, but simply tried to read it as words, treating the "+" sign as a "t" so that "AN+" can be read as "ANT". His interpretation was quickly disproved because there's no "A" between "B" and "C", and no "O" between "C" and "N".

In the title text, the "words" are "ANT BNECN", treating the equals sign "=" as an "E"; while "=" doesn't look especially close to "E", it is similar in that it contains horizontal bars in a horizontally symmetrical arrangement (and of course, it can be read as "equals", which begins with "E"). The text then references Wiles, asserting that he proved this modified form of Fermat's First Theorem as well by cooking this "ant bnecn" (whatever "bnecn" is) as breakfast.

[[2492: Commonly Mispronounced Equations]] also contains equations pronounced as if they were words in the ordinary sense.

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

:[A Hairy-like boy, representing Pierre de Fermat as a child, stands at a blackboard holding a piece of chalk. To his right is Miss Lenhart. The following text is somewhat crudely written on the blackboard:]
:AN + BN = CN
:SPELLS
:ANT BACON

:[Caption below the panel]:
:Fermat's ''First'' Theorem was quickly disproved

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]