explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1779: 2017

2024-06-18T19:55:22Z

172.71.242.176: /* Explanation */

<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2017". For comic #2017, see [[2017: Stargazing 2]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 1779
| date = December 30, 2016
| title = 2017
| image = 2017.png
| titletext = Things are looking good for the eclipse--Nate Silver says Earth will almost definitely still have a moon in August.
}}

==Explanation==
In this [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]], [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] share some of their (or [[Randall|Randall's]]) thoughts about the ending 2016 and the new year 2017 (hence the title). 2016 was a year which many people eagerly awaited the end of because of its increased turmoil (terrorist attacks, controversial political events in numerous countries including the election of [[Donald Trump]] for president in the United States and the United Kingdom {{w|2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|voting for Brexit}}) as well as the deaths of an unusually large number of well-known and beloved celebrities (several of these died in the first few days after Christmas).

Instead of simply condemning 2016 as a terrible year and expecting 2017 to be significantly better, Megan observes that much of what made 2016 bad is the effect that it will have upon future years rather than the actual events themselves (for instance, a divisive {{w|United States presidential election, 2016|U.S. presidential election}} has caused significant controversy in 2016, but President Donald Trump actually took office and began to affect the world as President in 2017). Megan specifically states that ''2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.'' As it is known that Randall is a {{w|Hillary Clinton}} supporter (as shown in the [[1756: I'm With Her]] comic), an additional reading of that line could be that we are headed into 2017 "without" a Hillary Clinton presidency. It can also refer to the many {{w|2016#Deaths|dead celebrities}} passing in 2016, (at least three famous musicians/actors so recent that they died after Christmas Eve), as we would be without all of them in 2017.

Cueball claims that they should still have hope for the future, but Megan states that people had claimed that many of the bad things that did happen in 2016, could not happen (for instance Trump and Brexit). And as these things did happen, she foresees even worse events occurring in 2017, that we did not even think would be possible.

However, Randall also offers a glimpse of hope in the last few panels when Cueball observes that, just as all of the bad things in 2016 were unexpected, good things in 2017 that are unexpected could also happen, which should make us less sure what good may come of 2017. As such, he argues that we should hold on to our hope even though things seem difficult right now.

As the conversation unfolds, Megan and Cueball encounter an uprooted tree and cross it like a balance beam. This is a visual metaphor; the dead tree represents the end of the old year, while the crossing represents the transition into the new year. This is similar to the magical toboggan from {{w|Calvin and Hobbes}} that serves as a metaphor for their conversations, mentioned in [[529: Sledding Discussion]] and [[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]].

In the last panel Cueball mentioned that 2017 will also have a cool {{w|solar eclipse|eclipse}}, going through the central parts of North America. This may also serve as a reminder that the Earth continues to spin on despite all of the human turmoil going on on its surface. This is literally true, as the eclipse Randall is excited about is caused by the orbits of three celestial bodies lining up just right (the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon).

Cueball then also notes that 2017 is a {{w|prime number}} and states that prime-numbered years (prime years) have always been good to him. He thus illustrates the positive attitude that people can choose to take in order to see all that which is good and to spread a little bit more cheerfulness, and Megan is ready to take this positive view, although she may not totally buy in to it. This could also be a pun referencing the saying "being in his prime years".

It should be noted that Cueball is working with a relatively small sample size. If Cueball is roughly the same age as Randall Munroe, prime-numbered years he was alive in would include 1987, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2011. Prime years are always uneven, and therefore never feature US presidential elections, or the Olympic Games (although if the COVID pandemic had occured four years prior, the "2016 Olympics" ''might'' have also actually occured in a prime-numbered year, just as the 2020 Tokyo games were delayed and held in the year 2021, itself only the semiprime of 43x47).

The title text is a reference to [[Nate Silver]] who is well-known (in the United States) as an election polling analyst on {{w|FiveThirtyEight}}. His model allowed for a higher chance that Donald Trump would win the presidency compared to other similar models — though the fact that he still favored a Clinton win may be contributing to getting humor from the idea that he may be "wrong" again, and the Moon could possibly vanish in 2017, making the year definitely worse than 2016. (Earth and Moon are so close in the space order of things, that any event affecting Moon orbit seriously will almost certainly end our civilization too.) This is accentuated by the qualifier "almost definitely", which is of humorously low confidence for presenting a fact as certain as the Moon not somehow disappearing within the next year.

In the background of the first few panels of this comic, we see a fallen tree, but a sapling growing in its place. This may be a subtle message by Randall that there is still hope, and that things will be alright in the end.

Randall previously mentioned his excitement for the {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|2017 eclipse}} exactly three years earlier in [[1302: Year in Review]], where Megan complains about not having seen an aurora during 2013, and she really hopes they don't cancel the 2017 eclipse. So this comic is the second time Randall has expressed concern that he will miss the eclipse. Leading up to and after the eclipse Randall released six more comics on the subject: [[1868: Eclipse Flights]], [[1876: Eclipse Searches]], [[1877: Eclipse Science]], [[1878: Earth Orbital Diagram]], [[1879: Eclipse Birds]], and [[1880: Eclipse Review]].

There have been three previous New Year's comics with only the year used as the title: [[998: 2012]] in 2012, [[1311: 2014]] in 2014 and [[1624: 2016]] in 2016. This is the first odd-numbered year (and thus of course the first prime year) using only the new year as the title.

===Things in 2016 that could be described as bad===
Obviously, anything in this list is controversial so the section title is {{w|Hedge (linguistics)|hedged}}. Also, this was written in 2024, so everything seems not so bad compared to 2020, when the {{w|COVID-19}} pandemic hit.
* The World Health Organization announced an outbreak of the Zika virus.
* An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 struck southern Taiwan, killing 117 people.
* North Korea launched a reconnaissance satellite that was condemned internationally as a long-range ballistic missile test.
* Suicide bombing attacks at Brussels' Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro station kill 35 people and injure 300 more.
* A 7.8 earthquake struck northwestern Ecuador killing 676 people and injuring over 6,000.
* EgyptAir Flight 804 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea en route from Paris to Cairo, killing all 66 people on board.
* Gorilla Harambe was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in an incident involving a child leading to a global meme.
* A gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others.
* The United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the European Union.
* 86 people were killed and more than 400 others injured in a truck attack in Nice, France, during Bastille Day celebrations.
* In Turkey, an unsuccessful coup against resulted in the deaths of at least 240 people.
* A 6.2 earthquake hit central Italy, killing 299 people.
* The government of North Korea conducted its fifth and reportedly biggest nuclear test.
* Global CO2 levels exceeded 400 ppm at the time of year normally associated with minimum levels.
* U.S. intelligence agencies publicly accused the Russian government of using computer hacking to interfere with the U.S. election process.
* The Washington Post released a videotape showing candidate Donald Trump privately bragging about sexual improprieties.
* WikiLeaks released thousands of private emails from inside the political campaign of candidate Hillary Clinton.
* Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States. (Let's not start on this; at least some people consider it bad)
* LaMia Flight 2933 crashed into a mountain, killing 71 of the 77 people on board.
* A Tupolev Tu-154 jetliner crashed into the Black Sea shortly after taking off. All 92 people on board were killed.
* The term ghost kitchen is coined to describe deceptive alternate names for restaurants on food delivery apps to garner more orders.

===Things in 2017 that could be described as good===
A disclaimer that not everyone will consider all of these things as positive.
* Millions of people worldwide join the Women's March becoming the largest single-day protest in American history.
* An annular solar eclipse was visible from Pacific, Chile, Argentina, Atlantic, Africa.
* Nintendo released the Switch worldwide.
* The Eurovision Song Contest took place in Kyiv, Ukraine.
* Montenegro joined NATO as the 29th member.
* The 2017 World Expo opened in Astana, Kazakhstan.
* The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was voted for by 122 states.
* The first observation of a collision of two neutron stars occurred with both gravitational and electromagnetic waves from the event detected.
* The Great American Eclipse was visible within across the entire contiguous United States of America.
* The International Olympic Committee awarded Paris and Los Angeles the right to host the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics, respectively.
* Cassini–Huygens ended its 13-year mission by plunging into Saturn, becoming the first spacecraft to enter the planet's atmosphere.
* A new species of orangutan was identified, becoming the third known species of orangutan and the first great ape discovered in almost a century.
* A paper was published recognizing a high-velocity asteroid as originating from outside the Solar System, the first known interstellar object.
* The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire most of 21st Century Fox.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan walking outdoors]
:Cueball: Can't wait for this stupid year to be over.

:[The two approach a fallen tree]
:Megan: I can. This year made the future scarier. So much of why 2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.

:[Megan has hopped up onto the tree trunk and begins to walk along it]
:Cueball: You gotta have hope, though.
:Megan: You say that, but you also said all this awful stuff couldn't happen, and it did. You're as clueless as the rest of us.

:[Cueball also walks along the tree trunk as Megan stops and turns to look at him]
:Cueball: Well, if we're wrong about which bad things can happen, it's got to make us at least a ''little'' less sure about which good things can't.

:[Closeup of Megan hopping down from the tree]
:Megan: I guess.

:[A distant shot of Megan and Cueball walking along again]
:Cueball: Plus, 2017 has a cool eclipse in it.
:Megan: Ooh, yeah!
:Cueball: And it's prime. Prime years have always been good for me.
:Megan: Sure, I'll take it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Nate Silver]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|2017]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Number theory]]
[[Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017]]
[[Category:Solar eclipses]]

1775: Things You Learn

2024-06-18T19:44:29Z

172.71.242.176: /* Explanation */ On a bicycle, you tend to get used to sharing the road (or other) space with the more 'usual' users. The problem's often that other usual users either don't consider it possible to encounter a bicycle or actively wish they weren't there.

{{comic
| number = 1775
| date = December 21, 2016
| title = Things You Learn
| image = things_you_learn.png
| titletext = Guess who has two thumbs and spent the night in an ER after trying to rescue a kitten that ran under his car at a stoplight and climbed up into the engine compartment? And, thanks to antibiotics, will continue having two thumbs? THIS GUY. (P.S. kitten is safe!)
}}

==Explanation==
This graph shows various items of information plotted by two criteria: a horizontal "How Bad Is It If You Don't Know [THING]" axis and a vertical "How Easy It Is To Grow Up Without Learning [THING]" axis. Specifically, the vertical axis measures roughly how likely the average person is to remain ignorant of a particular item. The horizontal axis measures the likelihood and severity of bad consequences arising from such ignorance.

The title text describes an encounter Randall had where a cat climbed into the engine compartment of his car. It probably serves as an explanation for the seemingly out of place point on the graph about how serious cat bites are. The "two thumbs" is a reference to a well known type of jokes among English speakers. One of the most frequent forms is one person interrupting another mid-speech and asking "what has two thumbs and doesn't give a f*ck? THIS GUY!", before pointing to themselves with their thumbs. The idea is that you only direct the attention to your thumbs so that they can point back to you, though mentioning the thumbs was not actually required except as a topic change. Randall plays on an inversion of this joke as he (presumably) was bitten on the thumb might have {{w|Amputation|lost a thumb}} or perhaps not have been able to make it at all without the intervention of the ER people. So here the "who has two thumbs", is not a deceiving distraction out of a boring conversation, and the thumbs are actually the focus of the phrase.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Badness of ignorance !! difficulty of ignorance !! Information !! Comments
|-
| not bad || (very, very) easy || 100 digits of {{w|pi}} || Most people know pi to only a few digits (3.14 or 3.1415), if they know it at all. Most people never need to directly calculate anything involving pi, and those who do generally have access to tools (such as calculators and computers) that regurgitate/use more places of pi automatically. Digits of pi beyond 3.1415 are never relevant in human-scale art or construction. Memorizing many digits of pi is a hobby.
|-
| not bad || (very) easy || Lyrics to "{{w|We Didn't Start the Fire}}" || "We Didn't Start the Fire" is a 1989 hit song by Billy Joel. Its lyrics include brief, rapid-fire allusions to more than 100 headline events between 1949, the year of Joel's birth, and 1989. While the chorus is memorable, the verses of the song are just a list of people, events, and random things from popular culture. The average person is somewhat more likely to know the lyrics to Billy Joel's 1989 hit song than 100 digits of pi, but not knowing them doesn't really have any serious consequences. The lyrics can be used within the context of learning history, and may therefore be considered slightly more valuable to learn than the lyrics of other popular songs. This song was the pun in the title text of [[1794: Fire]], which was a follow up to comic #4 in [[821: Five-Minute Comics: Part 3]].
|-
| (very) bad || (very) easy || That cat bites are really serious and if bitten you need to wash the bite and call a doctor immediately || Most people assume that a cat bite is just a minor injury. However, cat bites carry a fairly high risk of infection, which can be dangerous if not treated (by cleaning the bite to reduce the risk, and having a doctor examine the bite victim and apply additional treatments such as antibiotics if needed). At the same time, cat bites are quite rare, as cats default to their claws rather than their teeth when they need to attack something (not that cat claws are bacteria-free zones either, quite the opposite), so most people simply don't have to deal with many cat bites.{{actual citation needed}}
|-
| (very, very) bad || (very) easy || The red flags for an abusive relationship || It is fairly easy for someone to fall into a pattern of accepting abuse without realizing it, particularly if the abuser is skilled at emotional manipulation. Failing to recognize signs of abuse in the early stages of a relationship, tend to make people more vulnerable to long-term abuse, with devastating consequences. In many cultures, patterns of abuse are not openly discussed or taught about, making it quite common for people to grow up without the ability to quickly identify abusive behavior.
|-
| (very, very) bad || easy || The {{w|Stroke#Signs_and_symptoms|signs of a stroke}} || The symptoms of a {{w|stroke}} are somewhat variable, including facial drooping, arm weakness, and slurred speech, depending on what areas of the brain are affected. Such symptoms can be mistaken for other conditions, or brushed off as being minor and unimportant. Like most medical diagnoses, people who are not medical professionals aren't generally taught how to identify the symptoms. This can be a problem, because identifying a stroke quickly and seeking treatment can make the difference between life and death, or between full recovery and permanent impairment.
|-
| bad || easy || Cough into your elbow, not your hand || Covering a cough with the inside of your elbow helps prevent spreading airborne germs and is generally recommended by medical organizations. Coughing into your hand deposits them onto your hand, where they are much more likely to be spread to another person (via handshake, food preparation, shared objects, etc). The consensus around coughing into your elbow is relatively recent, so it's easy to have grown up without hearing of it. However, people living post-COVID know this fact extremely well.
|-
| not (too) bad || hard || How to ride a bike || Most children, especially in the United States[http://www.peopleforbikes.org/statistics/category/participation-statistics#youth], learn to ride a bike at a fairly young age. While this is a useful skill to know for both entertainment and transportation, most people live in places where riding bicycles for transportation are actively discouraged in favor of motorized transportation. In the US, using bicycles as a principle form of transport can be difficult, as cars don't always appreciate/anticipate sharing road-space with them. In a few counties, bicycles are a primary form of transportation, and not knowing how to ride one would make life significantly more difficult.
|-
| not bad (at all) || hard || How to escape movie {{w|quicksand}} || Quicksand in movies is a common trope, and while its physics often differ from real quicksand, escaping from it is commonly done using similar methods (e.g., not struggling, which increases the quicksand's viscosity). Knowing how to escape from quicksand is important if you sink into it, which is a situation most people will never encounter in real life. It is much more likely for characters in movies and TV shows, especially in the 1960s, to encounter and become mired in quicksand than for a real individual to do so, as real quicksand is a rare occurrence in most climates on Earth.
|-
| not bad (at all) || (very) hard || Lyrics to "{{w|The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)|12 Days of Christmas}}" || The aforementioned song is a traditional holiday standard in the United States, meaning that most Americans grew up hearing it repeatedly played or sung every December, causing the lyrics to be picked up without conscious effort. However, the consequences of not learning them are minimal: at most, your friends might be [[1769|a bit surprised and dismayed]]. The lyrics come across as arbitrary and have little significance to its singers. It should be noted that, while the early lyrics to the song are very well known, the later ones aren't remembered as much and may vary between version. Failing to know ''all'' the lyrics is common.
|-
| not bad (at all) || (very, very) hard || {{w|Theme music|TV theme songs}} || Most children in developed countries grow up watching at least some television. Traditionally, most TV shows (particularly those designed for children) opened with a catchy theme song, often with lyrics. If you regularly watched a given show, you'd hear the theme song repeatedly, and would likely remember it without conscious effort. Every generation and community grows up with different theme songs.
|-
| bad || hard || That you have to empty the dryer lint trap || A {{w|clothes dryer}} uses a stream of heated air to rapidly dry laundry after it's been washed. Dryers are typically equipped with a "{{w|lint (material)|lint}} trap", which is a removable screen designed to prevent loose fibers from entering (and clogging) the exhaust line. Removing the fibers from this screen is a basic part of operating a dryer, most people learn from example, or from reading the dryer manual, making it mildly hard not to know about. Failing to do so will progressively restrict airflow through the dryer, making the drying process less effective and efficient. In theory, this could eventually start a fire, but such is rare enough that it's considered only mildly 'bad'.
|-
| (very) bad || (very) hard || {{w|Stop, drop and roll}} || This is a technique to extinguish a fire on one's own clothing, and is frequently taught to children at an early age, and reinforced enough that most people know it. Not knowing it (or forgetting it in a panic when the situation arises) allows painful and dangerous burns to progress further.
|-
| (very) bad || (very, very) hard || That you have to pay taxes || Most residents of most countries are legally obligated to pay taxes to their government. Penalties for not doing so often include large fines, and possibly prison sentences. While the process for filing taxes can be quite complex (depending on the country), the basic knowledge that taxes are required is commonplace and frequently referenced, making it difficult not to know about. In the US, employers are generally required to deduct taxes from paychecks before employees receive them, so most people will encounter the reality as soon as they start making money. In [[1971: Personal Data]], [[White Hat]] somehow didn't know about taxes.
|-
|}

==Rankings==

100% not bad: not bad at all . . . 100%>not-badness≥50%: not bad . . . 50%>not-badness≥0%: not too bad

100% very bad: very, very bad . . . 100%>very badness≥50%: very bad . . . 50%>very badness>0%: bad

100% hard: very, very hard . . . 100%>hardness≥50%: very hard . . . 50%>hardness>0%: hard

100% easy: very, very easy . . . 100%>easiness≥50%: very easy . . . 50%>easiness≥0%: easy

==Transcript==
:[A simple X and Y graph, with the X labeled "how bad it is if you don't know {thing}" and ranging from "not bad" to "very bad", and Y labeled "how easy it is to grow up without learning {thing}" and ranging from "easy" to "hard" from top to bottom.]

:[Points on graph from top to bottom on the left side of the Y-axis:]

:100 digits of pi
:Lyrics to ''We Didn't Start the Fire''
:How to ride a bike
:How to escape movie quicksand
:Lyrics to ''12 Days of Christmas''
:TV theme songs

:[Points on graph from top to bottom on the right side of the Y-axis:]

:That cat bites are really serious and if bitten you should wash the bite and call a doctor immediately
:Red flags for an abusive relationship
:Signs for a stroke
:Cough into your elbow, not your hand
:That you have to empty the dryer lint trap
:Stop, drop, and roll
:That you have to pay taxes

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]

2946: 1.2 Kilofives

2024-06-18T19:04:26Z

172.71.242.176: sp.

{{comic
| number = 2946
| date = June 14, 2024
| title = 1.2 Kilofives
| image = 1 2 kilofives 2x.png
| imagesize = 256x342px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Oh yeah? Give me 50 milliscore reasons why I should stop.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 83.333... millidozen BOTS, Y2K reference added by ZC - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Abraham Lincoln's {{w|Gettysburg Address}} features the phrase "four {{wiktionary|score#Noun|score}} and seven"‍ to refer to 87: a "score" is a group of 20, which literally translates as "four-twenties [and] seven". This is because English used to count by twenties (and some modern languages, including French still do). However, this practice has died off and most English speakers nowadays would not use "score" in such a manner. Inspired by this, [[Cueball]] (possibly representing [[Randall]]) decides to use unusual prefixes to state the population of a town.

{{w|Metric prefix}}es can be added to a unit to scale up or down its magnitude. For example, "{{w|kilo-}}" means "multiply by 1000", so a {{w|kilometer}} is as long as 1,000 {{w|meter}}s. These prefixes are added to {{w|List of metric units|various metric units}} but, due to their usefulness, have been adopted and added to other, non-metric units, such as "kilocubic feet per second" (for the flow rate of a liquid, much to Randall's chagrin when researching for his book "XKCD What-If"), "megadeath" (how many millions killed in an estimated nuclear blast), or the "{{w|Helen (unit)|millihelen}}" (the amount of feminine beauty needed to launch a ship). Most potentially confusing might be "kilo-/mega-/giga-/terabyte", which has [[394|competing definitions]]. However, they're not ordinarily added before number words to change their magnitude.

Taking "kilofive" to be a unit meaning 5,000, the population of East Hills, 6,000, can therefore be expressed as 1.2 kilofives. But phrasing a number this way requires the listener to make excess calculations to understand it, so [[White Hat]] would probably get confused or annoyed.

It is somewhat common for metric prefixes to go ''after'' numbers in abbreviations. Well-known examples are "{{w|Y2K}}" for "year 2000", and "{{w|4K resolution}}" for "4,000 [pixels]". The number 5,000 may be abbreviated as "{{w|5K}}" in "{{w|5K resolution}}". However, the 'postfix' (suffix) may be intended to modify the implied but unstated unit, where there is an obvious one, or stand for the unit itself in such cases as the word "kilometer" (often abbreviated to /ˈkeɪ/(s), in common use, in phrases such as "{{w|5K run}}") or "{{wiktionary|kilopixel|kilo''pixel''}}" (in this case referencing the horizontal resolution, as in 5120 × 2880 pixels, rather than prior usages such as the 1080 ''horizontal lines'' in the standard known as {{w|1080p}}, or the total ''area'' pixel count in 'megapixel'/'gigapixel' image sensors), thus making it directly stand for a prefixed unit itself, as an adjunct to the the standard common shortening of "kilos" for, usually, "kilograms". Saying "1.2 5K" could be even more awkward, liable to be misunderstood as "1.25k" (1,250) instead of the value of 6000.

In the title text, Cueball has apparently annoyed White Hat with his confusing expressions of numbers, but he doubles down, now directly including the word "score". He is riffing on the common expression, "give me one reason why..." but instead of simply asking for one reason, he asks for 50 milliscore reasons, or 50 × 1&frasl;1000 × 20, which is equal to 1.

The comic might refer to the village of {{w|East Hills, New York}}. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 7,284, or 1.214 kilosixes.

==Trivia==
In Roman numerals, {{w|Roman_numerals#Large_numbers|symbols can be added to numerals}} to denote orders of magnitude. In this system, 1,000 might be written as "CIↃ". This rough pattern of marks, as typically chisled or impressed into wax by a stylus, would later be refined and expressed in the not dissimilar shape of the "M" as most often seen these days to represent the thousands value in dates/etc. Alternately "I" (nominally '1') could be given a bar above it, as would any other such numerals involve in that expression, to indicate the value being denoted being of the higher order.

For a while, {{w|Long hundred| a hundred actually referred to 120}}.

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

:[Cueball, with his palm raised, is talking to White Hat. There is a sign on the ground in the background.]
:Cueball: It's a pretty small town—the population is just 1.2 kilofives.
:[The sign reads:]
:Welcome to
:East Hills
:Pop. 6,000

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I don't know why Abraham Lincoln should be the only one who gets to come up with weird ways to say normal numbers.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:499: Scantron

2024-05-05T21:21:12Z

172.71.242.176: Recorrected.

I used a 2B pencil for the SAT. Hope I didn't kill anyone. --[[User:Troy0|Troy0]] ([[User talk:Troy0|talk]]) 09:30, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
:I see your dilemma. The test starts and you only have a 2B pencil. Take the risk or fail the test? 2B or not 2B?--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.71|162.158.86.71]] 12:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
::2B. Glory to mankind. [[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 16:16, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

It always bugged me how strictly my teachers would enforce this--[[User:Potato Gunman3|Potato Gunman3]] ([[User talk:Potato Gunman3|talk]]) 02:01, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I find it weird that they point out how an imperfect mark will not register, but they warn against any stray marks or an incompletely erased bubble will. Which is it, one or the other? [[User:RedHatGuy68|RedHatGuy68]] ([[User talk:RedHatGuy68|talk]]) 01:48, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
:Probably because it might register sometimes but not other times? [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 09:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I always thought it strange they always told you to use a #2 pencil even though anything but a #2 pencil is pretty rare for a student to even find.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.10|108.162.221.10]] 22:41, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

"that most modern students have heard" Not true. First of all, I've never even heard of this "Scantron" thing, and second of all, I've never had tests with only multiple choice things. In fact, multiple choice things are very rare, I think I could count all the times I've had a test involving them with only one hand. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.166|162.158.238.166]] 14:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

:Same here. Although I am in England: maybe this is an American thing (i.e. should be "most modern US students")? Particularly considering the use of #2 vs #3 (which I've never encountered) as opposed to HB vs H. -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.179|141.101.99.179]] 20:47, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

My country uses 2B pencils/mechanical pencils for shading, if we used a different shade, for example, 3B, the machine will not be able to detect the darker/lighter shade. Boeing-787lover 13:45, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Ever since I saw kerning, I can’t help but notice the “me ss” is panel two.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.40|172.68.174.40]] 18:55, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

all the machine scanned tests I've done either ask for 2B or HB (the most common type), or a blue or black pen {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.39|07:14, 23 September 2023}}
: 2B or HB..? That is the question! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.185|172.69.79.185]] 22:21, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

2317: Pinouts

2024-05-03T14:20:46Z

172.71.242.176: /* Explanation */ puncs

{{comic
| number = 2317
| date = June 8, 2020
| title = Pinouts
| image = pinouts.png
| titletext = The other side of USB-C is rotationally symmetric except that the 3rd pin from the top is designated FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN.
}}

==Explanation==
Electronics connectors are designed to transport both information and power. A {{w|pinout}} diagram describes the function of each pin such as to communicate data, transport power, physical function (keying), etc. In this comic there is an absurd alternative to the actual pins used in connectors. The pin labels are references to many tech issues and attributes, and not all may be documented correctly here.

Hardware hobbyists might feel excitement at seeing a unified specification for these common connectors, but the comic is of course humorous. The real life diagrams are as follows: [http://unitedtechnologies.com.pk/Nti/image/10ci.png HDMI], [https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/articles/micro-connector-usb-pinout Micro USB], [https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/introduction-to-usb-type-c-which-pins-power-delivery-data-transfer/ USB-C].

=== HDMI ===

{| class="wikitable"
! Label !! Explanation !! Pin No. !! Actual purpose
|-
| +3.3V DC
| 3.3V is a typical voltage in digital electronics. The "+" Indicates a voltage positive with respect to ground.
| 1
| TMDS Data2+
|-
| Data
| Most digital communications cables contain at least one wire that carries data. {{w|Serial communication}} protocols have one data line. Typically there will be a more descriptive name if there are multiple data pins. "Data" and "3.3V" set up the appearance of a normal pinout diagram to experienced readers.
| 2
| TMDS Data2 Shield
|-
| -3.3V DC
| Negative voltages were used more frequently in the past; however, modern systems typically generate any negative voltages they might require internally from the given positive voltages. This could be a reference to frustration specification implementers have to go through when handling hardware quirks: negative voltages are very abnormal, and would require design alteration to meet, but the designers of a ubiquitous plug can do whatever they want.
| 3
| TMDS Data2-
|-
| +5V
| 5V is a typical voltage in digital electronics. The "+" indicates a DC voltage, positive with respect to Ground. V is also the Roman numeral for 5.
| 4
| TMDS Data1+
|-
| Tx
| "Tx" typically refers to pins used to transmit as opposed to "Rx" (receive).
| 5
| TMDS Data1 Shield
|-
| +6VI
| V is usually used to represent volts, but here, VI represents the Roman numeral 6. (See Pin 4) Voltages above 5 are not usually used in micro-circuitry cables. The product VI (Voltage * Current) is equal to Power.
| 6
| TMDS Data1-
|-
| Wx
| "Wx" does not typically exist in the "Tx"/"Rx" scheme. In the weather forecasting community, Wx means "weather".
| 7
| TMDS Data0+
|-
| +7VII
| V is usually used to represent volts, but here, VII represents the Roman numeral 7, continuing the pattern from above.
| 8
| TMDS Data0 Shield
|-
| Rx Only
| "Rx" typically refers to pins used to receive as opposed to "Tx" (transmit). This description might also be related to the fact that most Ethernet devices can exchange the Rx and Tx port automatically, if needed, in order to eliminate the need for crossover cables and the fact that it is possible to insert the USB-C connector rotated by 180°. Additionally, "Rx", standing for the Latin "recipe" is a common abbreviation for {{w|medical prescription}}s. Some medicines are only available by prescription and not over-the-counter, often abbreviated as "Rx Only".
| 9
| TMDS Data0-
|-
| Antidata
| Some ports use differential signaling, where a signal and its inverse are sent over a pair of pins (e.g. D+ and D-). The combined signal is more robust to interference. This mixes that practice with a humorous reference to the notion of matter versus antimatter. Currently there is no such thing as antidata.{{Citation needed}} Antidata pins could be needed in the future as low-entropy or high-entropy source in quantum communication connectors to securely dispose of data.
| 10
| TMDS Clock+
|-
| Unknown
| Occasionally extra pins will be included for future use; however they will typically be labeled "reserved" to point out that their usage is not yet defined. The use of "unknown" suggests that this pinout is based on an incomplete reverse-engineering of the HDMI format, instead of on the official documentation, or maybe the official documentation doesn't explain it and this pin's function is being kept as a secret by the ones who designed it.
| 11
| TMDS Clock Shield
|-
| Water
| Labs and hospitals often have ports connecting to common sources of various supplies (oxygen, water, “medical air”, pressurized air, natural gas, vacuum). It may also refer to the [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/21b3ob/walking_through_my_local_electronic_store_i_found/ HDMI to garden hose meme].
| 12
| TMDS Clock-
|-
| +240V DC
| This is a reference to heavy-duty home and commercial appliances, which use 240V AC for power. Additionally, many cable specifications try to provide a way to power devices over them (PS/2, USB, Power over Ethernet,) but these small communication cables usually carry only DC and not AC electricity.
High voltage power is only sometimes used in small communications connectors. It might help to keep the current of power lines low to avoid generating excess heat. With +240V DC inside the HDMI cable, monitors would not need any longer a separate power plug. This is similar to Power-over-Ethernet, which does not exceed 60V, or ISDN, which goes up to 110V depending on country, and helps surveillance cameras or telephones to work with one connecting cable only. But with this much voltage on such a small cable, a short could lead more likely to melting the insulation and wiring in a sudden burst of toxic smoke. The produced thermal power through a short with resistance R_short that is building up is U²/R_short, increasing with the square of the voltage (also the breakdown voltage of the isolation is more easily reached). However, a high voltage reduces the chance of a peripheral drawing too much current, which could cause a fire on thin wires otherwise: The current through the cable for a device, needing a given power of P, is I = P_dev/U, the thermal power of the cables with resistance R is P_cables = R_cables*I² = R_cables*P_dev²/U², so it is reduced by the square of the voltage.
| 13
| CEC
|-
| Vacuum
| Labs often have ports connecting to common sources of various supplies (oxygen, water, fuel, vacuum).
| 14
| Reserved (1.0-1.3a), Utility (1.4+, optional)
|-
| 5V AC
| Pins often supply low voltage direct current to devices. This pin supplies 5V {{w|alternating current}}, which is not typically supplied. AC is used in {{w|Electric power transmission|electrical transmission}} because it can be stepped up to high voltage to minimize transmission losses, then stepped down to more useful voltages right before loads. DC power is required for logic circuitry like in computers. Conversion between the two kinds of power everywhere would make for transformers being embedded in most modern devices, taking extra materials to manufacture and losing a significant percentage of all electricity in the conversion. Having both is not entirely unheard of: the Commodore 64 power supply provides both DC, for the logic of the motherboard; and AC, for powering the tape drive.
| 15
| SCL (I²C serial clock for DDC)
|-
| Amazon Copyright Pin
| HDMI can optionally be restricted by a {{w|digital rights management|digital restrictions management}} (DRM) scheme, known as {{w|High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection|HDCP}}. This pin humorously implies the presence of a different DRM scheme specific to {{w|Amazon (company)|Amazon}} the company, as well as poking fun at the fact that copyright is an explicit part of the HDMI protocol (although it is not assigned to a specific pin). This is likely a reference to how chips and cables and specifications often have specific strange additions or functionality in them to meet the requests of various bodies invested in the design process: additionally after reverse engineering many strange things have been found laying around in the functionality of hardware that do unexpected special things.
| 16
| SDA (I²C serial data for DDC)
|-
| GND
| GND typically refers to "ground" on pinout diagrams. Remarkably, this is correct.
| 17
| DDC/CEC Ground
|-
| Decorative
| Decorative elements are pieces of an assembly that serve only an aesthetic purpose without any technical function. This would not be particularly useful inside a connector, as almost no one will ever see it--however, in HDMI, pin 14 was reserved for future use in versions 1.0–1.3a (and was only assigned an official use in 1.4). A decorative pin is also a popular piece of jewelry. In electronics unneeded pins are often marked NC (Not Connected).
| 18
| +5V
|-
| Ground
| Compared to Pin 17 ("GND"), this appears to be the same ground pin. However, the presence of both GND and Ground seems to imply that GND represents something other than the standard "ground" pin. Alternatively, this pin could supply "Ground" as in soil (like the "soup" electrical outlet from [[1293: Job Interview|1293]]). Some systems have different grounds for analog and digital sections, but they would typically be disambiguated by terms like AGND. Many pinouts have multiple grounds or DC supplies with no apparent explanation, seen more prominently on Randall's USB connector.
| 19
| Hot Plug Detect
|}

The {{w|HDMI}} interface uses four pairs of shielded twisted-pair connectors, along with seven other connectors. ({{w|Twisted pair}} means a wire is wrapped with the other wire that returns the current to the original device, thus minimizing electromagnetic noise. Shielding refers to wrapping a cable with a conductor to absorb the energy of noise.) Three of these pairs are for data (TMDS Data0, Data1, and Data2) and the other is a clock. These pairs take up three pins as one of them is a ground pin for the shielding wrapped around each pair. TMDS stands for "{{w|Transition-minimized differential signaling}}" and is also used in the DVI standard.

DDC stands for "Display Data Channel" and is based on the {{w|I²C}} serial standard. It is used to allow the transmitting device to learn what formats of data the receiving device can accept.

CEC stands for "Consumer Electronics Control" and is supposed to allow a single remote control to control multiple devices.

"Hot Plug Detect" refers to hot-plugging, where a cable is connected to a device already turned on. The device should then ideally detect that the cable has been plugged in and respond appropriately.

=== Micro USB ===

{| class="wikitable"
! Label !! Explanation !! Pin No. !! Actual Purpose
|-
| GND
| A ground pin
| 1
| +5 V
|-
| GND
| A second ground pin
| 2
| Data- (Differential signalling)
|-
| GND
| A third ground pin
| 3
| Data+
|-
| USB
| Apparently the only data pin in this connector. This could be a play on how the USB specification tries to squeeze all data onto a single channel as if it is a software protocol rather than specializing the structure of a physical cable to provide for rapidly carrying the information likely to flow over it. USB is an external packet network similar to Ethernet, but uses a totally new design without any reuse of prior similar specification. Ironically, in the real Micro- and Mini-USB standards, this pin is not connected to a wire in the cable.
| 4
| On-The-Go ID, does not have a wire in the cable.
|-
| GND
| A fourth ground pin. A real micro USB only has one ground pin, in addition to the metal plug housing. This is the location of the actual ground pin.
| 5
| Ground.
|}

A ground pin is commonly found on USB and other pin connectors. At least one ground is necessary to complete the circuit, and some cables use multiple ground lines to distribute current or to support {{w|twisted pair}}s. However, there is no purpose served by having many more ground pins than data pins. Therefore, it seems rather silly for the micro USB to have 4 ground pins and only 1 functional "USB" pin. It also does not give much information about what the "USB" pin would do, as opposed to a standard pinout diagram. This diagram also leaves out the +5V power pin that is present in the real micro USB connector, which would render most USB peripherals unable to function.

The ordering and count of the pins may be an allusion to {{w|Monty Python}}'s {{w|Spam (Monty Python)|"Spam"}} sketch, in which one of the many Spam-related menu items is "Spam, Spam, Spam, egg, and Spam".

=== USB-C ===
{| class="wikitable"
! Label !! Explanation !! Pin No. !! Actual Purpose
|-
| +5V DC
| A common electronics supply voltage.
| A12
| Ground
|-
| +3.3V DC
| Another common electronics supply voltage. This pin is not present on USB type C, mostly because the voltage is too low to supply useful levels of power at the current limit of the pins.
| A11
| Rx2+ (Differential Signalling for Superspeed or alternate modes)
|-
| +120V AC
| Residential supply voltage in the United States; its use on an electronics connector would be very unusual, as it would burn out any unguarded transistor-logic electronics, letting out the {{w|magic smoke}} and melting the metal together such that the cable likely couldn't be removed. This high a voltage might be an allusion to the high voltages USB-C screens and similar devices can request in order to get enough energy without exceeding the cable's current limit.
| A10
| Rx2-
|-
| Boobytrap Pin (Pure solder)
| {{w|Solder}} is a metal alloy with a low melting temperature (typically around 360°C, but in special cases melting points between 90°C and 450°C or above are available), used to bond electronic components together permanently. Most solder materials are quite ductile so it might be too easy for the forces a connector is subject to to permanently change their shape. Along with the fact that the resistance of solder is typically way higher than that for copper the pin under heavy electrical stress could overheat and melt, thus bonding the connector to its receptacle, and thereby "trapping" the receptacle. Additionally putting a pin that might slightly change their shape directly next to a high voltage pin means risking accidentally connecting two power rails with entirely different voltages together (causing an overvoltage in the lower-voltage rail that is likely to break the circuit, as has happened with some Apple devices). In this case the +120V AC pin might be able to deliver enough power to actually fuse the solder-only pin. This could also be a reference to increasing publicity around the fields of electronics security: hobby reverse engineers have been finding ways for some time now to evade the blown fuses in microcircuitry preventing them from being reprogrammed, using glitching techniques.

Another issue is that the heat required for anyone to solder a wire to the cable-side of that pin would cause the entire pin to melt and coagulate, triggering the boobytrap, and causing the pin to disappear and possibly make a mess next to the other pins.
| A9
| VBUS (+5V)
|-
| Mechanical
| All connectors include portions whose job is to ensure a solid connection between the cable and the port. This is typically not the job of the pins, however. In real USB type C connectors, this task is performed by the center tongue of the female connector. It could also imply transmission of energy or signal through a mechanical principle, such as torque or reciprocating motion.
| A8
| SBU1 (Sideband Use)
|-
| +3.3eV/C
| {{w|Electron-volts}} per {{w|coulomb}} would be a very unusual unit to see in a pinout. These units are used in particle physics, but the appearance is very similar to the common 3.3V supply. It would be a unit of electric potential equivalent to approximately 1.60217662 × 10-19 volts. Thus 3.3eV/C would be 5.287183 × 10-19 volts, or slightly more than 1/2 attovolts. It would be extremely difficult for most consumer electronics equipment to determine the difference between this and 0 volts. It could also be read as +3.3 eV/c (per {{w|speed of light}}), in which case it is equivalent to a momentum of 5.3 × 10-28 kg m/s, In high-energy physics, the momentum of particles is sometimes expressed in MeV/c or GeV/c units.
| A7
| D- (USB 2.0 Data)
|-
| Candlepin
| Randall is making a pun on the word ''pin'', which refers to a electrical connector pin as well as a thing to knock down in bowling. {{w|Candlepin bowling}} is a form of bowling.
| A6
| D+
|-
| Facebook use
| This would imply that Facebook had a hand in specifying USB type C, and had a pin dedicated to their use. This could be seen as strange given Facebook's primary business is web technology and would have little need for a dedicated pin in the USB standard, but a lot of back doors have been found in electronics.
| A5
| CC1 (Configuration Channel)
|-
| +5V (Positrons)
| {{w|Positron}}s are the antimatter counterparts to electrons. So this pin is supplying +5V, but does so by sourcing positrons into the device rather than sinking electrons out. Positrons cannot be conducted through normal matter conductors as they would annihilate the electrons.
| A4
| VBUS (+5V)
|-
| Pin Roulette
| Presumably in the same vein as "{{w|Chatroulette}}", this pin's purpose is not rigidly defined and is instead left to chance. According to the title text, this pin's counterpart on the other side of the connector is the "FireWire Tribute Pin", so this cable would only be truly rotationally symmetric (which is the whole point of the USB-C connector) when the pin roulette ball lands on that same function.
| A3
| Tx1- (Differential Signalling for Superspeed or alternate modes)
|-
| GND
| Ground pin. Typically denoted as "GND".
| A2
| Tx1+
|-
| SKY
| Reference to the ground pin, which refers to the common grounding on the larger metal body. There is no corresponding "sky" pin, although sky is often thought as the opposite of ground.
| A1
| GND
|-
| FireWire Tribute Pin
| ''In title text:'' {{w|FireWire}} is Apple's version of IEEE 1394 which is a 6 pin connector that has a ground pin, a power pin and two pairs of data pins. It was something of a competitor to USB, and had faster data rates than USB 2.0, but is much less popular now, and has essentially been replaced by {{w|Thunderbolt (interface)|Thunderbolt}}. Presumably the writers of the USB-C standard (which far outpaces its data rates) wished to memorialize it somehow, although it's not clear how the pin actually works for that purpose.
| B3
| Tx2-
|}
The two sides of a USB C connector are labeled "A" and "B". These are rotationally symmetric, mostly. For example, B10 and B11 are Rx1, a separate twisted-pair for receiving information in Superspeed mode compared to A10 and A11's Rx2. This gives two Rx/Tx pairs for Superspeed use. CC1 and SBU1 are mirrored to CC2 and SBU2. However, the D, VBUS, and GND pins are perfectly mirrored.

The fact that only half of the USB-C pins are documented might hint to an alternative way to manufacture connectors that can be inserted rotated by 180°: Make the receiver use only the right side of the pins and make the sender connect both the left and the right side so all Pins that might match a function are connected correctly no matter if the cable is rotated by 180°. However, doing this would result in only having one Rx/Tx pair for Superspeed use.

=== Coax ===

A {{w|RF connector|coaxial RF connector}} has two contacts - one pin, and the shield; typically the whole connector is labeled with whatever function/signal is carried by the pair. The joke here is that the label is ''technically'' correct (the best kind of correct),{{Citation needed}} but not very useful to the end user, as it does not specify the voltage rating, impedance, connector size, or other useful information about the cable. Some serial data transmission systems, such as {{w|Ethernet|Ethernet}}, used coaxial cable early on as a low cost, widely available solution, however most of these have largely become obsolete. A common coaxial cable still widely in use is {{w|RG-6|RG-6}}, which is typically used to deliver satellite television, cable television, and cable Internet services in the United States and Canada.

==Transcript==

:[Caption at top]
:Pinouts
:Quick Reference Guide

:[Four common connectors are depicted - vertically, rather than the usual horizontal orientation.]

:[The first connector is a 19-pin HDMI connector.]
:[The nine pins on the left are labeled:]
:*Data
:*+5V
:*+6VI
:*+7VII
:*Antidata
:*Water
:*Vacuum
:*Amazon Copyright Pin
:*Decorative
:[The ten pins on the right are labeled:]
:*+3.3V DC
:*-3.3V DC
:*Tx
:*Wx
:*Rx Only
:*Unknown
:*+240V DC
:*5V AC
:*GND
:*Ground

:[The second connector is a 5-pin Micro USB connector.]
:[The five pins are labeled:]
:*GND
:*GND
:*GND
:*USB
:*GND

:[The third connector is a 24-pin USB-C connector, with only the right side labeled.]
:[The twelve pins on the right are labeled:]
:*+5V DC
:*+3.3V DC
:*+120V AC
:*Boobytrap Pin (Pure Solder)
:*Mechanical
:*+3.3eV/C
:*Candlepin
:*Facebook Use
:*+5V (Positrons)
:*Pin Roulette
:*GND
:*SKY

:[The fourth and final connector is a 1-pin COAX connector.]
:[The one pin in the center is labeled:]
:*Pin

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

2922: Pub Trivia

2024-04-23T20:29:58Z

172.71.242.176: /* Explanation */ nicer wikilink.

{{comic
| number = 2922
| date = April 19, 2024
| title = Pub Trivia
| image = pub_trivia_2x.png
| imagesize = 422x666px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Bonus question: Where is London located? (a) The British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) The UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A BOT ASKING BAD TRIVIA QUESTIONS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Many pubs have {{w|pub trivia|trivia nights}}, where patrons form teams and compete to answer questions about a range of topics. The typical goal for trivia games is that they be challenging, yet possible, and so questions with answers that are too difficult or too easy generally make for a poor game. In addition, it's usually preferable that questions are clearly worded with a single, objective answer, so as to avoid disputes about which answers are correct.

Cueball has apparently been hired by one bar to infiltrate ''other'' bars' quiz nights and ask particularly bad questions. The implication is that this will make the games unpleasant, in the hopes that people will leave, and possibly go to the bar that hired Cueball.

Cueball uses a variety of strategies to write bad questions, including questions that are trivial (where the answer is painfully obvious), unanswerable (either because there is no answer or because the answer is unknown), ambiguously worded or arguable.

Many of his questions could be altered slightly to make them more reasonable for such a game, but that would defeat Cueball's purpose.

It is possible the intention of this pub quiz is to identify the issues with each question as is done here, accepting these as the answers. As Cueball was hired by a rival pub, they could then take these corrections back to that rival place.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Question !! Problem with the Question !! Explanation !! More Reasonable Alternative(s)
|-
|1. Which member of {{w|BTS}} has a birthday this year?||Multiple correct answers||All people have birthdays every year{{Citation needed}} (other than pedantic exceptions due to calendar issues or timezone alterations, or someone dying before their birthday, or being born on a leap day, none of which apply in this case). Therefore, all seven members of BTS have birthdays in 2024.||Which member of BTS has a birthday today/this week/this month? Which member of BTS turns [a specific age] this year?
|-
|2. How many sides does a {{w|platonic solid}} have?||Multiple answers, ambiguous language||There are five {{w|Platonic solids}}, with 4, 6, 8, 12 or 20 faces (colloquially called sides) in {{w|Euclid|Euclidean}} {{w|Euclidean geometry|3-space}}. The solids have, respectively, 6, 12, 12, 30 and 30 edges (also occasionally called sides colloquially). A more devious quizmaster might actually include this as a trick question with the correct answer being 'zero', since strictly speaking solids do not have 'sides'.||How many Platonic solids are there? What is the highest number of faces on a Platonic solid? How many faces does a [specific Platonic solid] have? How many faces (or edges, or vertices) do ''all'' the Platonic solids have (i.e., added together)? What is the number of vertices, minus the number of edges, plus the number of faces equal to for a platonic solid (i.e., the {{w|Euler characteristic}})?
|-
|3. What is the smallest lake in the world?||Arguable, potentially unknowable||While the largest lakes are relatively straightforward to categorize, smaller bodies of water range in size down to individual puddles. There is no clear, definitional line at which a body goes from being a lake to a pond, for example. In addition, the size of small lakes will fluctuate due to variability in precipitation, and other weather effects, and some lakes only exist for brief periods (intermittent lakes). Hence, which small bodies of water are "lakes" and which is the smallest can't be clearly answered, without specifying a whole list of parameters and standards.

This question is related to the Tom Scott video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEGzvZ85dgs What counts as the world's shortest river?]
||What lake has the largest surface area in the world? What is the world's deepest lake? What lake is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's smallest? (Benxi Lake in China).
|-
|4. Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks, {{w|Jaws (movie)|Jaws (1975)}} or {{w|Lincoln (movie)|Lincoln (2012)}}?||Trivial||''Jaws'' is a famous movie about a killer shark, and features at least five fatal shark attacks. Lincoln is a movie about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, containing zero shark attacks.{{Citation needed}} Anyone with even a passing familiarity with American popular culture should be able to get this one right, and someone with no knowledge could likely guess the answer from the titles alone. This might be mistaken for a silly trick question, as ''Lincoln'' is a much less famous movie.||How many times is a shark seen on screen in "Jaws"? Which film won more {{w|Academy Awards}}? How many fatal shark attacks occur in "Jaws"? Which movie in the "Jaws" franchise has the most shark attacks?
|-
|5. How many planets were there originally?||Ambiguous||The question doesn't specify a time frame or culture, which is necessary to understand both the word 'planet' and the word 'originally'. It could be referring to the {{w|classical planets|original meaning of the word planet}}, which in antiquity referred to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (total of 7 planets). It could be referring to the planets originally known to the quiz master, which (assuming Cueball is between 18 and 96 years old) would be after the reclassification of Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno to asteroids, and after the discovery of Pluto, but prior to the reclassification of Pluto to dwarf planet (total of 9 planets). It could conceivably be referring to the first official definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, which would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (total of 8 planets). It could be referring to the process of planetary formation, in which case another layer of ambiguity is added, as it could be referring to the number of protoplanetary bodies in the {{w|protoplanetary disk}} (which is unknown since some of them were destroyed like {{w|Theia (planet)|Theia}}), or the number of planets that accreted from the disk before some were likely ejected (which is also unknown), or how many planets existed when the sun or the universe was formed (which is 0). It also doesn't specify that it's referring to planets in our solar system alone (in the galaxy there are almost certainly trillions of planets). Additionally, it asks how many "were there", as opposed to how many planets "were known" (the number which we know of being far smaller than the true number of planets in the universe). ||How many planets were known to Ancient Greece? How many planets were known to science prior to the invention of the telescope? How many planets were recognized in our Solar System at the end of the 20th century?
|-
|6. What {{w|NFL}} player has scored the most points outside of a game?||Ambiguous, unknowable||The term "scored the most points" generally only applies within the context of a game, making it very unclear what kind of "points" the question is referring to. Does it mean points in non-NFL games? Points in games other than football? Points outside the context of any game at all (such as 'making a point' in conversation)? Even if this were clarified, points scored in official games in professional sports leagues are meticulously recorded and published, points scored in any other context are not, so the question is likely impossible to answer. Arguably, {{w|Brian Jordan}} would be an answer, with 121 Minor League and 755 MLB runs scored (points).||Which NFL player scored the most points in a game/season/career?
|-
|7. The {{w|Wright brothers}} built the first airplane. Who built the last one?||Unknowable||Orville and Wilbur Wright are widely credited with designing and building the first airplane (in the sense that they invented wingflaps, and discounting everybody flying before them without wingflaps). In modern times, design and construction of airplanes has become a huge, international industry, with many airplanes of widely varying sizings being built each year. Since airplanes are built continuously, which one was made most recently depends on when the question is asked (and would be very difficult for the average person to know -- and not trivial for even a member of the aerospace industry to know). If it's asking about the last airplane ''ever'', that's impossible to know, since that plane hasn't been built yet{{Citation needed}} (and hopefully won't for a very long time).||Who built the first airplane '''after''' the Wright brothers? When was the final Wright Model B aircraft built?
|-
|8. Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?||Unknown, possibly unknowable||This is a famous, centuries-old {{w|open question}} in math known as {{w|Goldbach's conjecture}}. Mathematicians widely believe that it is true, and it has held true for every number checked up to 4 ⋅ 1018, but since it's impossible to check every number, we can't assume it's universally true. No mathematical proof of its veracity exists at this point. Since it is {{w|Gödel's incompleteness theorems|known}} that something can be true but impossible to prove (and, being true, impossible to disprove), this may be the situation forever.||According to which mathematical conjecture is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
|-
|9. Not counting {{w|Canberra}}, what city is the capital of {{w|Australia}}?||No answer exists||Australia has only one capital (unlike some countries, which divide the legislative and administrative capitals, for example {{w|Bolivia}} with {{w|Le Paz}} and {{w|Sucre}}), and that capital is Canberra. Hence, by definition, there is no national capital "not counting Canberra". Though each constituent state also has its state capital, this would still leave us with an ambiguous choice. Before 1927, the answer could be Melbourne, as that was where the Parliament sat at that time. This may be a joke about how other cities, such as Melbourne and Sydney, are often mistaken for the capital of Australia due to Canberra's comparatively small population (roughly 500,000 in the greater metropolitan area, compared to Melbourne and Sydney's roughly 5,000,000 each). It also alludes to the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne as each claims to be the true capital. ||What city is the capital of Australia? What is currently the largest city in Australia? What is the smallest state capital in Australia? What city was the most recently founded state capital of Australia? What city was the capital city before Canberra?
|-
|10. Who played the drums?||Trivial, yet unknowable without context||As worded, the question could be answered with anyone who's ever played the drums, in any context, whether professional or not, in all of history. This would include a huge number of people, most of whom would not be well-known. Most people would be able to offer a technically correct answer, and almost none of them would be interesting. Or maybe the host is wondering who it was that played drums that night, as part of the bar's live music.||Who played the drums for some specific band/album/track/concert/tour/time/place?
|-
|(Title text) Where is {{w|London}} located? (a) the {{w|British Isles}} (b) {{w|Great Britain}} and {{w|Northern Ireland}} (c) the {{w|United Kingdom|UK}} (d) {{w|Europe}} (or 'the {{w|European Union|EU}}') (e) {{w|Greater London}}||Multiple answers||All choices are technically correct as they are various geographical areas that include the city of London, England. Also note that the City of London is different from the city ''named'' London, as the latter includes a large region around the former, hence (e) as an answer. Answer (d) is both correct and incorrect, as it conflates a geographic region, Europe, and a political body, the European Union. The United Kingdom (and therefore London) {{w|Brexit|left the EU}} in 2020, but is still geographically included in Europe. In addition, answer (b) is not a single geographical designation, but two combined together. Meanwhile, answer (c) is short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but as well as Northern Ireland and Great Britain (the largest of the British Isles), it includes many other (though not all) surrounding islands, despite these not being mentioned in its full official name. Nonetheless, 'Great Britain' is often used as synecdoche for all of the UK except Northern Ireland (as well as for the UK as a whole), which could make answers (b) and (c), in a loose sense, equivalent. (Answer (a) is a different thing again, including islands that are neither Great Britain, nor part of the UK.) This often confusing {{w|File:British_Isles_Venn_Diagram-en_(3).png|overlapping map}} of definitions and nomenclatures provides fertile ground for tricky quiz questions. This also does not get into {{w|London (disambiguation)|cities named London}} outside of the UK, so for example "Ontario" or "Canada" could also be possible answers if the test designer were truly evil, thus making none of the answers correct. ||What is the capital of the United Kingdom? (answer: London) Where is London, England '''not''' located? (a) the British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) the UK (d) Europe (e) the EU (answer: (e))
|}

==Transcript==
:[The top half of Cueball is shown beneath the list of questions he is reading aloud. He is holding a wireless microphone in his right hand and a pencil and notebook in his left, reading from the notebook and speaking into the microphone. The list is shown on the notebook as well, but just as unreadable lines.]:
:Cueball: Welcome to pub trivia! Round one is 10 questions:
:# Which member of BTS has a birthday this year?
:# How many sides does a platonic solid have?
:# What is the smallest lake in the world?
:# Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks - ''Jaws'' (1975) or ''Lincoln'' (2012)?
:# How many planets were there originally?
:# What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game?
:# The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one?
:# Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
:# Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia?
:# Who played the drums?

:[Caption below the panel]:
:A local pub trivia place hired me to run bad quizzes at competing bars.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Sharks]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:American football]]

2919: Sitting in a Tree

2024-04-14T18:35:19Z

172.71.242.176: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2919
| date = April 12, 2024
| title = Sitting in a Tree
| image = sitting_in_a_tree_2x.png
| imagesize = 591x320px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = First comes blood / Then we perish / Then comes Death in his Eternity Carriage.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PAIR OF BOTS SITTING IN A TREE E-D-I-T-I-N-G - ♫First come comments, ♫Then these made neat, ♫But ONLY when it's accurate, then should you the tag delete!♫}}

“[Name] and [name], sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” (or some other seven-letter verb spelled aloud, almost always ending in “ing”) is a common taunt among young children in the US, perhaps in the context of a {{w|counting-out game}}, in which they make fun of others' (alleged/suggested) playground romances (which are often seen as “gross” at that age). The children taunted are expected to respond that they don't like each other that way, which, of course, means the taunt bothers them and encourages the taunters to continue just to see their reaction every time.

This comic takes the variety of things which could be chanted to an unrealistic extreme, starting with relatively mundane ones such as “hugging” and “reading” and progressing through to increasingly atypical or disturbing concepts. For example, in the last frame, Cueball and Megan would be molting, also known as shedding, which, according to [[Randall]], would be "very alarming". Each frame has the last of its noted possibilities pictured – kissing, ironing and smiting, respectively.

Normal:
:'''Reading'''
:'''Singing'''
:'''Playing'''
:'''Sharing'''
:'''Hugging'''
:'''Kissing'''

Slightly worrying:
:'''Sobbing''' is an act of crying or weeping, e.g. due to a setback in one's relationship.
:'''Itching''' is feeling a sensation on one's skin that makes one want to scratch or rub it, and may happen due to mosquito bites or other bugs.
:'''Pruning''' is cutting off the branches of a tree, which is very dangerous if one is sitting on said branch.{{Citation needed}}
:'''Banking''' is conducting financial business with a bank.
:'''Posting''' is to publish posts on social media, which is probably what most teens do when they're together nowadays.{{Citation needed}}
:'''Ironing''' is smoothing their clothes with an iron and ironing board. This is the activity illustrated in the panel.

Very alarming:
:'''Molting''' is shedding one's skin.
:'''Whaling''' is hunting whales, which has been outlawed since the 1980s. Whales aren't usually found in trees.[''{{w|List of cetaceans|cetacean needed}}'']
:'''E-filing''', not to be confused with defiling, is doing one's tax returns online. This comic was published a few days before the US tax deadline.
:'''Melting''' is turning from a solid state to a liquid state, which is usually fatal.{{Citation needed}}
:'''X-raying''' is emitting or receiving {{w|X-ray}} radiation. With enough radiation, the X-rays could be fatal.
:'''Smiting''' is striking down their enemies with the divine power called from a god. This is the activity illustrated in the panel.

The title text parodies a traditional {{w|Children's song#Game songs|continuation of the chant}}, which is normally something like
"...first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage" (which reflects the common social expectations that any kissers might follow the path of), but instead appears to be a more dark prophecy about death that therefore probably befits the last frame's focus. The last line may be an allusion to the Emily Dickinson poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death".

==Transcript==
:[Three children are singing. A kid with a bowl cut and a young Hairy are pointing with their fingers, while Jill stands in the middle. A pair of connected eighth notes and a detached eighth note are shown.]
:Kid with a bowl cut, Jill and Hairy: [Name] and [Name], sitting in a tree...

:[Label above the panel:]
:Normal
:[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a tree branch holding hands and kissing, with a heart above them.]
:R-E-A-D-I-N-G
:S-I-N-G-I-N-G
:P-L-A-Y-I-N-G
:S-H-A-R-I-N-G
:H-U-G-G-I-N-G
:K-I-S-S-I-N-G

:[Label above the panel:]
:Slightly worrying
:[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a tree branch each ironing a cloth on an ironing board, with steam arising from the irons.]
:S-O-B-B-I-N-G
:I-T-C-H-I-N-G
:P-R-U-N-I-N-G
:B-A-N-K-I-N-G
:P-O-S-T-I-N-G
:I-R-O-N-I-N-G

:[Label above the panel:]
:Very alarming
:[Cueball and Megan, her hair being {{tvtropes|MadnessMakeover|uncharacteristically wild}}, sitting on a tree branch smiting with glowing hands, with two falling fireballs and fire below them. Cueball's hands are raised up, while Megan has her left hand up and her right hand pointing to her right.]
:M-O-L-T-I-N-G
:W-H-A-L-I-N-G
:E-F-I-L-I-N-G
:M-E-L-T-I-N-G
:X-R-A-Y-I-N-G
:S-M-I-T-I-N-G

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Kids]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Songs]]

Talk:2903: Earth/Venus Venn Diagram

2024-03-07T14:55:51Z

172.71.242.176:

See also [[2721: Euler Diagrams]] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.49|108.162.245.49]] 07:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Isn't this also a sexual innuendo? I mean... shock waves producing ejecta? Venus? anyone? {{unsigned ip|162.158.189.33}}
:Sure, as always it is only mentioned, whenever there is not a sexual innuendo by scientists, as collisions and planets and diagrams turn them on. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.65|172.68.110.65]] 11:56, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
::That is really funny. But no there is no sexual reference in a collision between planets. What is in the middle is what would happen in the collision zone. Venus is the name of a planet here... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:57, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
:::All a matter of perspective - depends how Earthy your interpretation is.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.176|172.71.242.176]] 14:55, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Rename the "Venus" circle to "Theia" and you get [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis The Giant-impact hypothesis] for the creation of the Moon. [[User:Meteo|Meteo]] ([[User talk:Meteo|talk]]) 13:11, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

961: Eternal Flame

2024-02-23T10:08:29Z

172.71.242.176: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 961
| date = October 6, 2011
| title = Eternal Flame
| image = eternal_flame.gif
| titletext = There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Steve Jobs]] died on October 5, 2011, the day before this comic was posted. He was the {{w|CEO}} and one of the founders of {{w|Apple, Inc}}. He was the head of Apple for the introduction of {{w|OS X}}, the default operating system used on all modern {{w|Macintosh}} computers. In {{w|OS X}} when there is a significant slowdown, the Cursor becomes the symbol seen in the comic. It may appear when an application is not responding, or if the computer is busy. This symbol is infamous among {{w|OS X}} users, and is nicknamed "the beachball of death". It appears during a lag, and can take a very long time to disappear, thus seeming endless. The title and rotating cursor above a fixture in the ground seems to be referencing the {{w|John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame}}, suggesting that the rotating cursor above the fixture is, in fact, a monument to Steve Jobs. A similar [[:Category:Tribute|tribute comic]] was also dedicated to {{w|Terry Pratchett}}, the day after he died, in [[1498: Terry Pratchett]], to {{w|Gary Gygax}}, three days after he died, in [[393: Ultimate Game]], and to {{w|John Horton Conway}}, two days after he died, in [[2293: RIP John Conway]].

The title text refers to the fact that when an application is not responding on the Mac, the application sometimes recovers and the system comes back; other times, however, the damage is irrevocable, a {{w|Kernel Panic}} happens and the system needs a restart.

==Transcript==
:[Two people before a memorial with an eternally spinning wait cursor. They contemplate silently on an influential life.]

Goodbye, Steve.

==Trivia==
This comic was [[:Category:Thursday comics|released on a Thursday]], the day after Steve Jobs died.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with animation]]
[[Category:Tribute]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Steve Jobs]]
[[Category:Cancer]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]

Talk:1335: Now

2024-02-22T00:10:58Z

172.71.242.176:

[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now.png| Link to comic] Link has been fixed. Was pointing to an incorrect url. 14:21, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
This doesn't work. Maybe if we added *.xkcd.com/* to the (external) image whitelist or something? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.121|108.162.231.121]] 07:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
:A fine suggestion. I'm probably going to shoot for full archival like we did with [[time]], but this is an ample good solution in the meantime. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:30, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
:Hold on, having wee issues, will resolve soon. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Here is a scaled animation of every image. The full size version was too big for me to upload.
[[User:Ti84p|Ti84p]] ([[User talk:Ti84p|talk]]) 07:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
:(Removed the broken link mentioned here above --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:43, 17 May 2015 (UTC))

For Australia and New Zealand, at least, the clock shows local time with summer time factored in. I bet that it undergoes some changes in March and April as various jurisdictions go on or off daylight saving. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.224|108.162.249.224]] 09:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: Good point! I added this to the explanation. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 13:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

:: There's also British Summer Time and all the ''other'' national seasonal adjustments(1)... could you perhaps de-specify the "move the list of North American cities and regions for Daylight-Saving Time (which is the same thing as Summer Time)" statement to remove the inadvertent US-centrism? Maybe "...of northern-latitudes cities for Daylight-Saving Time or equivalent Summer Time designation"..? (Definitely could be better phrased than I just put, though.)
:: (1) Note, they don't even all switch at the same time, necessarily. If Randall is going to change the basic map template (pre-rotation) for any Summer/non-Summer transition, he's probably going to have to do it multiple times each spring/autumn, as various regions jiggle about. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.41|141.101.99.41]] 13:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

::: Exactly, they don't all switch at the same time. North America isn't mentioned to be US-centric, it's mentioned because the change happens there first. Sure, we could bring up BST and all the rest, but there's no need to make the discussion longer than necessary. (The original wording also was not US-centric, privileging the non-US term "Summer Time" that's used where it's currently being observed, but somebody changed that.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
::::I made that change just to use the same title as the Wikipedia page to which we are linking. I don't feel strongly about it. --[[User:BlueMoonlet|BlueMoonlet]] ([[User talk:BlueMoonlet|talk]]) 18:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

As for the map itself, I think the title text should provide the exact time for the location under the cursor, by doing calculations for the mouseover event and updating the t.t. accordingly. I imagine it is doable for Randall. For accuracy's sake, the Antarctic region could be excluded. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.225|141.101.89.225]] 12:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
: Or maybe someone'll fancy doing it as a userscript. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.225|141.101.89.225]] 12:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I made a version that the user can rotate themselves. It only loads a single image. http://c0la.s3.amazonaws.com/xkcd1335.html {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.182}}

The gif image is very good to understand this comic. However it would be very nice if it rotated a little slower. Instead of one turn every ten seconds it could be one every minute. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.84|173.245.50.84]] 14:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: When I look a little off-centre, it always seems that South America is about to catch up with Antarctica, but it never does! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

He used an Azimuthal equidistant projection?!?!? ;_; [[User:Swhouseworth|Swhouseworth]] ([[User talk:Swhouseworth|talk]]) 16:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: Yeah, should have been equal area! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

:: On the Transcript for this comic the last line erroneously describes the innermost circle as "the Earth as seen from the south pole", when as Swhouseworth correctly points out, this is an Azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the south pole. —[[User:Andrewpost|Andrewpost]] ([[User talk:Andrewpost|talk]]) 14:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Question: If there are 24 Hours in a day, why in the description does it go from hour 0 to hour 21? That's only 22 hours. Where are the other 2 hours? Even if it isn't listed on the comic (I think it's the time zones in the Atlantic between Eastern Brazil and the UK - basically UTC-1hr and UTC-2hr), shouldn't there be spaces in the charts showing those hours? I don't think any of the islands in that region use those time zones (opting instead to use GMT - like Iceland for example), but I think those hours should still be included since they ''are'' on the static part of the map. Also, it makes sense to me that the center of the words ''NOON'' and ''MIDNIGHT'' are edges of segments themselves, making 24 segments in total. Randall just couldn't draw those discrete segments and also easily have the words written for our convenience. --[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 16:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: Every time zone is used somewhere in international waters (well, every one that's a whole number of hours off of Universal Time), so they certainly should all be included. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
: Added South Georgia as UTC-2 and Cape Verde as UTC-1. According to Wikipedia, coastal Brazil and Greenland are both UTC-2 during the summer, but Brazil just ended summer time last Sunday (Feb. 23), and Greenland won't start until late March. There are approximately no permanently inhabited places that use UTC-2 all year, so I just went with South Georgia because it's historically significant. [[User:Fryhole|Fryhole]] ([[User talk:Fryhole|talk]]) 20:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Randall's continent naming scheme is interesting. The most commonly taught model in the U.S. has seven continents, but the purple continent is Australia rather than Oceania. The name Oceania is common in Spanish-speaking countries, but those places generally have a six-continent model with the Americas merged. Is Randall's model standard anywhere? [[User:Fryhole|Fryhole]] ([[User talk:Fryhole|talk]]) 20:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: FIBA and, before 2006, FIFA. (In 2006 FIFA moved Australia from Oceania to Asia). As a further parallel neither the sporting bodies nor the comic actually mention Antarctica. Note that the comic does not say these are continents. Oceania has some distinct characteristics, so it often shows up as a "region of the world".
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.59|108.162.218.59]] 19:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
distinoften shows up as a "region of the world". It has some distinct characteristics, which is why FIFA, FIBA and others treat it as a region.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.59|108.162.218.59]] 19:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Kamchatka is probably a reference to 850: https://xkcd.com/850/ [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.48|108.162.216.48]] 20:22, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Hey, I'd just like to note that GIMP "Optimize for GIF" reduced the GIF size to 7.1MiB from current 9.3MiB. If I reduced the colours to 32, which still looked "good enough" in my opinion, the GIF was only 3.5MiB.
http://m8y.org/tmp/temp.gif (optimize)
http://m8y.org/tmp/temp2.gif (optimize + colour reduction)

It might be worth replacing to improve load times.
You might want to make your own since I didn't check frame times or anything, I just ran "index" and "optimize" and then exported{{unsigned ip|108.162.219.77}}
:You are right, but that picture should be less then 1MB. I will do some tests, and if it does work I will talk about this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
::m'k - well. Using 20 colours and scaling it down 50% resulted in 1.1MiB... http://m8y.org/tmp/temp3.gif
:::I'm now at the time frame at "Rude to call", but nevertheless the PNG files have to be optimized to a GIF, after that an animated GIF should be much smaller. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 01:03, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
::::I'm guessing an indexed APNG could be smaller (due to more efficient compression) than a GIF, but unfortunately I don't thing apngasm is as efficient as GIMP's optimize for gif feature.

Does anybody know what clock Randall is using? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.75|199.27.128.75]]EvanJM42

Randall no doubt knows about the Time Zone Database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database) so he may well have coded this page to incorporate seasonal time changes from that database. We'll have to watch what happens.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.15|108.162.219.15]] 12:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Any idea of a way of using this image as a wallpaper for OSX in a way that updates every 30 minutes? Yes, n00b question, but I cannot think of an easily implemented solution. {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.77}}
::Hey. I don't know too much about how OSX does wallpapers, but under Linux, the desktop wallpaper will automatically update if the image is modified. This means you could make a simple shell script that copies (or possibly updates a symlink) to wallpaper.png based upon the current time. The file for the copy or symlink could be referenced as... H=$(date -u +%H); M=$(date -u +%M); FILE="${H}h${M}m.png" I use a similar approach for automatically rotating the image in http://m8y.org/images/sandy_1280_1024_stripped.svg in a cronjob using sed. The sed modification of the svg automatically updates the background. With any luck, you can do the same thing in OSX once you've pointed your wallpaper at a location. {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.56}}

Hello, to the guy asking for a OSX wallpaper, I didn't found a way to do it but I got something pretty close to that. You don't need any scripting skills or anything fancy, just download Geektool[http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/] from the internet and add an Image Geeklet. In the image URL use the one on the top of this comment section (http://c.xkcd.com/redirect/comic/now) and in the refresh interval select your desired time (I used 900 s roughly 15 minutes, 1800 should work for every 30 minutes). Now, there is a problem but it's beyond my control. The image is not synced with the current time in my country. Just yesterday we changed our clocks because of time savings but apparently the page has not bring forward its clock yet. I don't know who did the awesome job of setting up a page for us to access it but I hope he/she can update it accordingly so we can enjoy an awesome page or if someone else in the community could help. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.91}}

Hi, I'm the same guy of the above comment. I just checked and it turns out that the page http://c.xkcd.com/redirect/comic/now is synced with xkcd.com/now. so apparently Randall does not change his clock during daylight saving time (he's a well now hater of it isn't he?). So the clock is going to be 1 hour behind until the next daylight saving time change. As a last note regarding the OSX implementation, it's a online version, I'm not really skilled in programming and I haven't tried an offline version yet but if I manage to get an offline version I'll post it here as well. In other comment I have the implementation for windows and it's also 1 hour behind just FYI. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.67}}

;Implementations
Hi, I'm new and a tad confused by how this discussion page editing works, but: I made a time zone converter based on this XKCD comic, over here: http://www.xkcdnow.com - I think it could be fitting to add a link to it somewhere to this article, but I don't wanna come across as spammy, and couldn't find any other explainxkcd articles with an external links section (wikipedia style)... Any thoughts? - wauter
: This is a great site! Maybe we could insert an "Implementations" category into the article. If we do so, I could provide another cool one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.phillab.xkcd_now which is a widget for Android - including tribute to explainxkcd -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.146|173.245.53.146]] 16:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
:That sounds good to me. The latest release for my version can be found at https://github.com/BruceJohnJennerLawso/xkcd-Now/releases/tag/1.02 on my Github page. By the way, I like your timezones idea, would you mind if I tried to implement that in mine at some point? [[User:BruceJohnJennerLawso|BruceJohnJennerLawso]] ([[User talk:BruceJohnJennerLawso|talk]]) 15:29, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
: I would also like the implementation section. If you use a Windows PC, you can use the script found at http://github.com/leipert/xkcd-now-clock to automatically set your Wallpaper to the current status of xkcd now. It also gives you the possibility to add some an digital clock, an analog clock or fix the image to your time zone. [http://github.com/leipert leipert] 18:02, 6 March 2014 (UTC){{unsigned ip|108.162.254.68}}
: I would love to see an implementation that updates more than once every 15 minutes. I've been trying to find an application that can take two images, and automatically generate the in-between images, i.e. generate 15 images between 00h00m.png and 00h15m.png [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.154|162.158.78.154]] 14:01, 21 September 2017 (UTC) Henry151
:: Spruced up the Implementations section a bit. A quick tip: if you want to make your link work by clicking on the blue text, add a space after the link in the square brackets, & type in the text, ie [link.com This takes you to link.com!!!] {{unsigned|BruceJohnJennerLawso}}
:: Hi there, I'm Henry151 who made the Linux implementation, I want to make an iPhone app for family and friends, does anybody have any experience with that and want to help me out?

As the US has now hit Daylight Savings, I think we can assume the comic won't be updating for it. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.90|173.245.50.90]] 02:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

;WEB links
*Who the hell does register an entire domain [http://xkcdnow.com/] for only this comic?
*The JavaScript at the other link doesn't work well for me — but who needs this?
My 0.2 cents. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:57, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Moscow time has been wrong on the map for years now. For 2011-2014, including when this comic was published, Russia had essentially permanent DST and Moscow was at 2014 UTC+4. But on 26 October 2014, they ended that and have since been permanently at UTC+3. Moscow should be at the same spot as Iraq, slightly ahead of Iran, instead of behind it. Something to add to the technical notes section, perhaps? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.197|162.158.183.197]] 15:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
:Someone just moved the 'Moscow' entry from +4 to +3, which of course is technically correct right now. But the comic (and the live xkcd version, and the Android app version I use that is inspired by it) still places it at a +4 position. I [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1335:_Now&diff=335494&oldid=335477 reverted it, with modification] to directly explain this issue (I should have said "a couple of years", will go back and change that again, 'twas a slip)... Without checking, I'm wondering if there are other differences, over the last eightish years. Perhaps people could check for other possible 'now wrong' entries. If not shuffle the image-text around in an (auxilliary) updated version on fan-platforms such as this. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.176|172.71.242.176]] 00:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Who made it spin so much faster?! [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 10:23, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

'''Timed Links Fix'''

I've just condensed the raw link dump into a table, each hour gets its own two cells with a label cell and another cell with the four image links related to that hour inside it. (unable to sign properly, ISP is using IPv4 proxy.)[[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.250|172.69.69.250]] 02:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
:Looks nice. But was a bit too wide. Overflowed the usual page style (at least for me, YMMV). Possibly three row-sets of eight hours would fit, but it was easier (marginally) to trivially splice out into 4x6hr chunkettes and that definitely isn't too wide nor (IMO) too lengthy.
:I hope you approve. (And I'm 'not signing properly' because I've got nothing else to sign with, whoever you are. ;). ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 05:21, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

2893: Sphere Tastiness

2024-02-13T12:06:31Z

172.71.242.176: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2893
| date = February 12, 2024
| title = Sphere Tastiness
| image = sphere_tastiness_2x.png
| imagesize = 388x392px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Baseballs do present a challenge to this theory, but I'm convinced we just haven't found the right seasoning.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STRANGELY TASTY MOON MADE OF RUSSIAN PELMENI - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic graphs the tastiness vs size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}}, and {{w|Moon|the Moon}}. Melons and grapes are, in this context, small and very tasty to most people, but the Earth and Moon are large and [https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/formation-earth-and-moon-explained made of rocks and metals], which are not usually considered very tasty. The Earth is a bit higher on the tasty scale than the Moon, probably due to the fact that some things on Earth are tasty. The comic takes these four data points and makes a regression with them. Randall interpolates from this line that there must be a medium-sized sphere that "tastes okay". (It is unknown what the line would be like if [[Randall]] included [[388: Fuck Grapefruit|grapefruit]].)

The title text points out that {{w|baseball (ball)|baseballs}} seem to refute this theory since they're not usually thought of as tasty, but they're between the sizes of grapes and melons. Although most baseballs may not be immediately lethal to consume, they are not likely to be very delicious to eat by the sheer nature of the taste of the materials that make them. Baseballs are balls used in the sport {{w|baseball}}, usually made out of a combination of a rubber or cork centre wrapped in yarn, and covered either by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. However, Randall suggests that if the right seasonings were found, they would be as tasty. It seems unlikely that any seasoning (at least in reasonable quantities) would really be able to mask the unpleasant underlying flavour.

This is the second comic in a row to feature fruit, graphs and predictions, after [[2892: Banana Prices]], and continues the theme of a logarithmic axial scale to facilitate plotting a linear regression. Here the line is interpolated between known data, rather than extrapolated beyond it. This would ordinarily be far more accurate than extrapolating outside the range of known data.{{Actual citation needed}} However, Randall's analysis is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there are only four data points, which is insufficient to extrapolate from. Secondly, they are tightly clustered, effectively reducing it still further to two data points. Thirdly, these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object - fruit and astronomical bodies - while other subclasses are not represented at all (as the title text makes reference to). Also, it should be noted that edible things are not manufactured in 800-meter (½-mile) spheres, as that may be hard to prepare and consume.{{citation needed}} The 800-meter wide sphere could also be a small asteroid or other celestial object, but would not be very tasty, as they are made of rocks and metals, just like the Earth and the Moon. If this is true, Randall’s interpolation on the graph would probably be incorrect. Or perhaps the problem is just seasoning, just like a baseball. However, it is hard to believe that sauce is the solution to making rocks tasty.

The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since four data points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes.{{Actual citation needed}} Plotting data on a logarithmic plot and then drawing a line through it, is a common way to visualize data. It makes the exponential relationship of the data more comprehensible. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter_law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (a logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency resulting in a fairly straight line.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating tastiness from "Not Tasty" to "Tasty" and X axis labelled "Sphere Diameter (meters)" with a logarithmic scale running from 10-5 to around 108 (with 10-3, 100, 103 and 106 labelled).]

:[The graph contains two points for "Grapes" and "Melons" at the "Tasty" end of the Y axis, between 10-2 and 10-1 meters, and two points for "The Earth" and "The Moon" at the "Not Tasty" end, both around 107 meters. A straight dashed line shows a linear interpolation between the points. There's a circle with a question mark about halfway between them.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
: My research suggests the existence of an 800-meter sphere that tastes okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Baseball]]

Talk:2835: Factorial Numbers

2023-10-05T08:14:29Z

172.71.242.176:

Number systems aren't real math, at least not serious math. They're an affectation. 99.9% of math is number-system-independent, so nobody should care about them. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.108|172.70.46.108]] 22:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

: Of course it's "real math." There aren't that many applications, but so what? Math isn't about applications. Besides, there are some. Maybe not specifically for factorial base, but for some place systems. The only thing "dirty" about decimal is the arbitrariness of ten. Considering place systems in general is just considering special kinds of sums. Certainly, "serious" mathematicians are interested in proving numbers normal in specific bases, or in every base. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 01:55, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

: A great deal of interesting maths can be found in and around the various arrangements of digits in numbers systems, surely. AzureArmageddon 07:54, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I thought this was a complete joke, until coming here. The "factorial number system" exists?! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.249|162.158.90.249]] 22:38, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
:Yup, complete news to me too... What's REALLY weird: the night before this comic I was tutoring a friend's daughter in math, and I happened to teach her what factorials are! (News to me there's a number system, though)... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I wanted to add a link to a converter, but the one I found is https://www.dcode.fr/factorial-base which is quite ugly with lots of adds and a bit counter-intuitive.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 23:42, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

This needs simplifying a bit. Came here because I had no idea what was going on, and after a quick scroll through the prose, the main thing I learned was "it's 'cause you're dumb". May be true but I still don't get what Randall's factorial system is....[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 01:25, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Factorial base also allows to finitely represent all rational numbers - no constant base is capable of that! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.238.76|172.68.238.76]] 01:55, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
: Unless you use a division sign. But yes, only radix numerals of a variable base with infinite series of factors of every prime can even theoretically finitely represent arbitrary rationals without invoking existential quantifiers. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.26|172.71.147.26]] 06:43, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I feel like Michael when Oscar is trying to explain what a “surplus” is.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.241|162.158.186.241]] 04:12, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

== The warning is complete nonsense, just remove it ==

bots cant be escorted out of somewhere just remove the stupid warning [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.109|162.158.203.109]] 04:28, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

: you must be new here - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.143|108.162.216.143]] 15:51, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

: The nonsense is part of the fun. AzureArmageddon 07:52, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

::im deleting it {{unsigned ip|162.158.203.80|11:16, 30 September 2023}}‎

:::Premature elision. Still has a purpose (as does signing your contributions here). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.208|172.71.178.208]] 14:58, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
:::<nowiki>*</nowiki>sigh* As has been stated, you MUST be new here. The "incomplete" tag goes on new comics while their descriptions are still in flux. When the bot creates the empty description page, it does so with the Incomplete warning, labelled with its name. On the first edit, someone ALWAYS changes the name to some silly gag that's related to the comic, often pretending it's the name of the bot that created the page for us. In this case the comic shows Cueball being escorted out, so the joke is the bot is being escorted out. If you're not going to have a sense of humour, why are you here? Just leave the editing to others in the meantime. :) (Oh, and as the user above noted, make sure to end your comments with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> (4 tildes), like it says at the top of the editing text box you type in). :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:13, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
:Okay, now the Incomplete warning needs to stay up forever. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:13, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

:In case you weren’t aware, this wiki has a tradition of humor. This is one of its examples. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.134|172.68.58.134]] 12:56, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

== The "adic" part of factor-adic numbers ==

It's not explicitly mentioned in the comic but the "adic" in the name "Factor''adic''™" implies that the number system extends the factorial number system by being in some way "adic" as discussed in [https://youtube.com/watch?v=tRaq4aYPzCc this YouTube video on the Veritasium channel] and so negative numbers would have a truly wacky representation that violates the intent of the title text's pronouncement by requiring an infinitely long representation requiring infinite digits (1, 2, 3, 4, ..., 9, A, B, C, ..., ''infinite digits''). AzureArmageddon 08:00, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

: The "adic" in factoradic doesn't actually relate to p-adic numbers of any kind. Rather, both factoradic and p-adic numbers use the suffix -adic to refer to the concept of adicity, which is "The number of arguments or operands a function or operation takes" according to Wiktionary. Each place value of a p-adic number had p possibilities, and each place value in the factoradic system has a number of possible arguments determined by the factorial of the place. Factoradic would be better called "factorary" since it's more similar to ordinary n-ary number systems, but I guess it just isn't. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.205.130|172.69.205.130]] 20:43, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

:: Ah, today I learned. AzureArmageddon 15:35, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

== Title text ==
The title text references that 10! = 3,628,800 (base 10), and so for numbers greater than or equal to that, you would have to add a tenth digit in order to display them in this system. The question is asking whether you would then proceed to using letters of the alphabet such as one does in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal hexadecimal] to which the reply is that numbers above this amount are simply illegal. The trouble comes when you try to write down the number 10 * 10! = 36,288,000 (base 10) in this system. For 10!, the notation is 1000000000 , so 9 * 10! would be 9000000000, and then to get 10 * 10!, you would have to write A000000000 because 10 * 10! < 11!. In fact, since this is the first "illegal" number, you could "legally" allow up to 10 * 10! - 1 = 36,287,999 (base 10) in the system (which would be written as 9987654321 = 9 * 10! + 9 * 9! + 8 * 8! + ... + 2 * 1! + 1 * 1!) without the need to introduce any letters. I also want to point out that the reference in the comic to 9 being reserved for big numbers is due to no number needing a 9 to write it down in this system until 9 * 9! = 3265920 which is written 900000000. Since numbers above 10! are not allowed, this means that only the 9! digit is legally allowed to hold a 9, and it only applies to numbers in that high range of 3265920 to 3628799.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.230|172.71.166.230]] 15:01, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
:I feel the current in-Explanation explanation about that already covers this, with the addition of the validity that the digit that could need to be >9 could still be any digit 0..9 without needing to invoke the 11th digit. (Maybe a few tweaks, but not sure what you're trying to add here.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.148|172.70.86.148]] 15:13, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

== Radix Economy ==
Someone got in there just before I did, about (from a quick scan of what's been added) "economical" use of Factorial-based variable radices. (I was planning both the test code and the explanation for this, whilst travelling.) My short way of putting it is that (apart from values of zero or one, which represent identically in Factorial-based notation to any other notation in base of 2+) the Factorialised method initially is using up 'places' quicker until the point at which it has reached a 'magnitude' equal to its base-normal 'original' (i.e. only when there are N glyphs made available under Factoradic notation does it not rush through the 'magnitude' quicker than the base-N number). And ''then'', it needs to work up into the more 'efficient' higher-order digits in order to pull back the disadvantages of its lower-order ones and equal, then be shorter than, any given value's respective base-N form. 
Now, I've done some very rough calculations (started hitting numbers for which I really need to convert everything into high-precision large-number data types, which needs me to rewrite one or two elements of my existing code) and looked at the successive changes of magnitude, in each base, and checked the calculated Factoradic length (with the assumption that there are enough extended glyphs to represent every digit singly, unlike the comic Title Text speculation). 
By my reckoning, Base-2 is more efficient at 20fact (compare with 1002, =410); Base-3 breaks better at
3111fact (100003, =81); Base-4: 540220fact (10000004, =4096); Base-5: 533340021fact (10000000005, =1953125); Base-6: 90967344000fact(1000000000006, =362797056); Base-7: 7ABAA086002001fact(1000000000000007, =678223072849); Base-8: D73A256860540220fact(100000000000000008, =281474976710656); Base-9: B1HEA65678836651220fact(100000000000000008119, =1350851717672992000) ...but at this point, the conversion of decimal to its base-9 form (and that powers of 9 should ''never'' have trailing zeros!) shows I may very well have hit a limit to normal large-number precision, so I really can't trust the subsequently derived base-10 values. 
But, in case anyone wants it, the following is my (Perl, but should be easily convertible into most medium-to-high level code dialevts) en-Factoriadialising function.
sub factadic { my ($n,$place)=(@_,1);
return () unless $place;
if ($n>=fact($place+1)) { return factadic($n,++$place) }
my $digit=0; my $base=fact($place);
while ($n>=$base) { $digit++; $n-=$base; }
my @return=($digit,factadic($n,$place-1));
return @return;
}
You call it as <code>factadic(''<value>'')</code>. Or <code>factadic(''<value>'',''<minimum_digits>'')</code> to start with the assumption of at least a minimum number of digits, but it'll start by shifting the default minimum of 1 into the <script>$place</script> variable if you don't give it that (there are other ways that you can/must do that, of course), and it will still always expand that to the degree necessary in the first phase of 'diving in' as far as it needs to in order to agree with the <code>fact()</code> function (factorial calculator, a trivial coding issue that I only use here like this because I alreadu set it up for another bit of code). 
It returns an array (@-variable, in Perl) of digits, in standard most-to-least-significance order, that you can convert to a glyphwise notation in any way that you wish (or do a string conversion within the function, at each stage of building it up). ...and I'm presenting a ''slightly'' less optimised version of it here (some of the Perl-tricks I originally used don't translate well into some non-Perl) and, yes, the <code>while ($n>=$base)</code> loop could be done using modulus and integer-division, but it's a fairly trivial part of the looping process. 
If you have any ''real'' problems with it, it's probably going to be if you're hitting any recursion-depth limits (especially as it uses roughly twice as many recursive calls as the eventual notation-length it produces). I also have a 'stack-based' version (loops round as it shifts in enough 'slots', then works back down again assigning the place-values) which avoids such trouble, but that's coded in a slightly esoteric Perlish way that I'm not sure most of you'd appreciate. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.77|141.101.76.77]] 20:25, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
: Probably a double precision floating point accuracy limitation, you can only get up to 2^53 = 9007199254740992 before many modern programs start getting numerically fuzzy. But what weirds me out is you seem to have gotten 1350851717672992900 out of what should have been 9^19 = 1350851717672992089, instead of a nearby float of 1350851717672992768 or 1350851717672993024. What is it with things rounding to decimal like that? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.84|172.71.147.84]] 11:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
::One 'solution' is to <code>use Math::BigFloat</code> (or similar), in the Perl, and make hold such sensitive and large-tending values. Alternately, implement an array of digits in a raw manner (can be of entirely arbitrary base, explicitly, plus arbitrarily long; well, as long as one doesn't hit ''other'' data limits!) and make your own long-division/etc algorithms. Or pack bitwise/bytewise data as a 'string', with suitable overloaded/replacement mathematical functions. But it all adds extra coding effort, of course. And I rarely share my various hacked-together bits of Perl, because they either work but look horrible or they don't work (and probably look strange, even to me - hence why I've failed to discover why they don't work!). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.87|172.71.98.87]] 19:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
: Just analyzed the growth rate; For base x, the length can be estimated by 1/2+e*x-e-1.487*ln(x). Maybe a more sniped nerd can get more precision, or even an exact solution; but this is within a digit of the result up to around base 10^13, and then I start running into precision problems in general, so I'm just putting this here as a good enough guess. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.129|172.71.146.129]] 13:20, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Factorial numbers is new to me... It sounds more like a coding system than a number system, LOL! "The door code is 4503 in factorial! Figure it out!" (I'd write this on the bottom of the comments as usual, but I don't want to get mixed up with that ill-thought out and unsigned coding sample Algorithm and table that I KNOW must be mangled when published because the wiki refuses to honour single Newlines. Clearly the author didn't take a peek at what it looks like when published EDIT: Correction, wow, the wiki spotted the code and marked it as such automatically (for now), wow!) :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

All the stuff about economy / efficiency doesn't seem to really have any direct relation to the comic, so I'd suggest it doesn't really belong in the explanation, but should be confined to the comments, or at least to a trivia section. Not least because it dives off into a lot of technical stuff that ''itself'' requires explanation for a significant part of the readership. As it is, it's doing more to confuse than to explain.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.218|172.70.85.218]] 09:02, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
:I sort of agree, in that I had planned something similar about 'notation economy' as a Trivia-like addendum, before others got there before me. But there could at least be something to be said that by reserving higher-digits(/dissalowing them in lower values), Cueball/Randall is sacrificing conciseness for (one idea of) aestheticism. (And that's without going into 'how much storage it takes to store each digit', which I wasn't going into. So rather than the idealised radix being base-'e', I would have said the idealised base was whatever base-number exceeded the highest value, so it was just one (different) single squiggle for ''everything''. Obviously, there's necessary entropy in the choice of differentiatable squiggles/encoding, though, which is why I also appreciate the current Explanation's blurb.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.52|172.70.90.52]] 10:15, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

NiceGuy1 the wiki uses standard markdown, if you preface with 6 spaces, it will automatically recognize it as a code snippit. I appologize if my contribution was ill-thought out, though i have gone back and signed it. [[User:Drinkcoffeeandcode|Drinkcoffeeandcode]] ([[User talk:Drinkcoffeeandcode|talk]]) 20:06, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

== Factoradic Algorithms ==

there are several ways to compute the factoradic of a base 10 number, depending on the choice of language
the length of the program will be demonstrably bigger. Dynamically typed languages, like perl can likely
perform this in one or two lines, where as a language like c++ will be longer.

The simplest algorithm is to generate the digits from right to left one at time by dividing the number by a per-iteration-incrementing radix starting from 2 (because 1 is simply '0', we start from 2), taking the result and repeating until the quotient reaches zero:

#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;
int factoradic(int num) {
string digits;
int radix = 2;
while (num != 0) {
digits.push_back(((num % radix)-'0'));
num /= radix++;
}
reverse(digits.begin(), digits.end());
return atoi(digits.c_str());
}

Using Randall's values we can confirm it is correct:

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
for (int i = 21; i < 26; i++)
cout<<i<<" - "<<factoradic(i)<<endl;
for (int i = 5038; i < 5042; i++)
cout<<i<<" - "<<factoradic(i)<<endl;
for (int i = 999998; i < 1000002; i++)
cout<<i<<" - "<<factoradic(i)<<endl;
return 0;
}

max@laptop:~/$ ./factoradic
21 - 311
22 - 320
23 - 321
24 - 1000
25 - 1001
5038 - 654320
5039 - 654321
5040 - 1000000
5041 - 1000001
999998 - 266251210
999999 - 266251211
1000000 - 266251220
1000001 - 266251221

Came back to sign code sample after seeing NiceGuy1's comment. [[User:Drinkcoffeeandcode|Drinkcoffeeandcode]] ([[User talk:Drinkcoffeeandcode|talk]]) 20:02, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

I would love to have some kind of explanation as to why this number system exists/what it's used for in the real world. (Even if that explanation is just "there's no practical purpose, mathematicians just love doing this stuff".) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.87|172.70.134.87]] 14:55, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Would it be too much of a fandom crossover to edit / annotate the last word of the explanation (at time of commenting, the word "senary") to "seximal"? Or, given that we are discussing intentionally silly base systems, just the '''right''' amount of a fandom crossover? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.176|172.71.242.176]] 08:14, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

1104: Feathers

2023-08-16T10:43:18Z

172.71.242.176: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 1104
| date = September 05, 2012
| title = Feathers
| image = feathers.png
| titletext = Click to see a video of a modern bird using stability flapping during predatory behavior. It all fits! Also, apparently Microraptor had *four* wings? The past keeps getting cooler! (And there's more of it every day!)
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Dinosaur}}s have been a fascinating topic in popular science and have captivated children's interest since the first fossils were discovered in modern times, around the 1700s; prior discoveries in China and elsewhere were thought to be the bones of dragons or other mythical creatures. The success of the ''{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}'' movies perpetuated an erroneous understanding of the physical characteristics of dinosaurs. Since the first movie of that series, scientific evidence has emerged suggesting that {{w|Dromaeosauridae}}, or "[[:Category:Velociraptors|raptors]]", the main antagonists of that movie, looked quite different from their animatronic and CGI versions. In particular, they are now known to have been much smaller, and are believed to have had feathers and even wings, as evidenced by quill nobs observed on the arms of raptors.

[http://denverfowler.com/ Denver W. Fowler] is among the scientists who support this hypothesis. (incidentally, a "{{w|Fowler}}" is a hunter of wildfowl/birds) The comic refers to [http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0028964 a publication by him and his colleagues] ("{{Wiktionary|et al.}}"), in the ''{{w|PLoS ONE}}'', an online scientific journal ("PLoS" stands for "Public Library of Science").

[[Megan]] believes this new model of the appearance of raptors makes them much less cool, but the way in which [[Jill]] reformulates the facts to make them seem like even more vicious predators re-ignites her interest and makes the new raptors seem like at least as good a candidate for a good action thriller movie like the original version, if not better. Thus, the phrase "the past keeps getting cooler". (Or that Megan, like Randall, has an irrational fear of raptors and is updating her knowledge of them.)

Clicking on the original cartoon links to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJKBPyavWlI&t=87s a YouTube video] of a bird of prey (in this case a {{w|Secretarybird}}) using its wings for stability while standing on top of a struggling prey, from which one can easily envision instead a raptor upon its prey—especially in case of some kind of "raptorphobia", as for [[Randall]] (see [[87: Velociraptors]] and [[135: Substitute]]). {{w|Microraptor}} was a small raptor with four wings, which lets you imagine even scarier scenes.

The same idea is later explored from a different perspective in [[1527: Humans]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is walking up to Jill with a bow in her hair bun. Jill has a stack of three books in front of her, is reading another book and a fifth book lies behind her on the floor.]
:Megan: What are you reading about?
:Jill: Dinosaurs!
:Megan: Oh, yeah.

:[Zoom out of the same scene, with Megan standing and Jill looking up at her.]
:Megan: They've gotten all weird since when I was a kid.
:Megan: They used to be awesome, but now they all have dorky feathers, right?
:Jill: Yup!

:[Same scene in a frame-less panel. Jill looks down and below the two characters there is a footnote.]
:Jill: This says they now think raptors used their wings for stability, flapping to stay on top of their prey while hanging on with their hooked claws and eating it alive.
:*Fowler et. al., PLoS ONE 6(12), 2011

:[Zoom in on the same scene, the book on the floor is outside the panel. Megan just stands staring at Jill who reads on. Beat panel.]

:[Megan is now on the floor next to Jill flipping through the top book she has taken from the pile.]

==Trivia==
*In the comic it says "et. al." instead of the correct "et al.", this is a common mistake.

{{comic discussion}}

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