explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1760: TV Problems

2016-11-16T19:53:30Z

173.245.48.80: I think?

Since his computer is broken maybe he's using the TV as a monitor to help download the CD? [[User:SparklyDingo|SparklyDingo]] ([[User talk:SparklyDingo|talk]]) 16:18, 16 November 2016 (UTC)--

Could we explain what his technical problem or current set up is more clearly? I still don't understand what he is attempting to do or why he needs his phone, a CD, and his TV to get his computer running. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.227|162.158.142.227]]

Do we even want to see the news any more? [[User:Hutchy01|Hutchy01]] ([[User talk:Hutchy01|talk]]) 15:45, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the millennial comment is necessary. It really encourages a stereotype more than anything, and there is nothing whatsoever in the actual comic to suggest that cueball is trying to control the television with the smartphone. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.221|162.158.126.221]] 15:50, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Possibly he uses a television as his monitor, but the HDMI (or VGA if it's old enough) connection isn't working (and if he's like me, he might not own an antenna to allow him to use his television normally). If I plug a second monitor into my laptop, I have to specifically tell my laptop to change the display. If his operating system is messed up, he probably can't even do that. He could be downloading a OS CD so that he can reformat, then he may have to deal with the follow-up of reinstalling all relevant drivers. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.196|108.162.210.196]] 16:26, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Many computers these days don't come with optical drives so, rather than a "Rescue CD" you need to use a "Rescue USB". But how do you download that rescue image if your computer's broken? Use the browser in your phone. As a bonus, Android phones (at least) can masquerade as USB drives (see DriveDroid) so that the PC can boot from the image downloaded on the phone. It might also be worth referencing the trope of "Turn on the news" -> TV turns on just as something relevant to the plot is being announced. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.168|141.101.98.168]] 16:37, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
:I think this is what he is trying to do actually. His computer doesn't have a CD slot, so he is downloading the image from the DC to his phone to use as a USB to reimage his computer, but somehow his computer is so messed up, reimaging it will not be enough and he needs to use the TV as a monitor so that he can debug [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.80|173.245.48.80]] 19:53, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Are we sure this is about Cueball having done something exotic to cause the problem, as opposed to the increasing level of technology (and therefore delicacy) in the modern home? I've heard reports of a smart TV that crashed because someone came into its range with a phone that had an SSID with an emoji in it; I've seen many PCs end up inoperable because of standard updates, and I've certainly downloaded drivers with my phone. Even if the PC isn't being used to show the news, the TV could be in need of a firmware upgrade that may require the PC to be working (for example if the PC is running network routing). Cueball could understand how the electronics industry got itself into a position where the devices were interdependent and even eventually know how to fix them without actually having done anything himself to cause a breakage; my ISP similarly "upgraded" my email in several steps that made it utterly unusable for me while presumably believing they were improving it. Cueball may be guilty of nothing more than being an early-adopter, since a more elderly TV would likely just work. Disclaimer: I work in the tech industry, and there's a reason there's old stuff in my house; a friend with a set-up like Cueball's took twenty minutes to play a CD when I handed it to him.[[User:Fluppeteer|Fluppeteer]] ([[User talk:Fluppeteer|talk]]) 17:01, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

The comment that the "real" TV remote is better than a cellphone is really badly wrong. If you ever have to "type" a search for a movie title into a smart-TV (or in my case, a Roku) using the arrow and "OK" buttons on a remote - you'll REALLY appreciate being able to use the phone's touch screen keyboard to type with. I also have problems in my media room with getting a good line of sight to the TV's IR receiver - and because the "phone remote" uses WiFi, that's also not a problem. Then, I can use my "phone remote" to talk to any of the TV's in the house - which is really good if I went into another room and left the TV on by mistake. My phone can turn it off from anywhere that's within WiFi range. So, no - it's NOT the case that a TV remote is obviously "better" than using a phone app to control it.

Of course, knowing CueBall, he's probably running his TV remote 'app' in an Android emulator that's running on a hacked Nest Thermostat that he has to plug in out in the back yard in order to keep it cold enough to prevent it from switching his heating off - which matters because his WiFi router gets it's power from the +5v lines of the furnace's controller after he lost the "wall wart" supply for it. Since the furnace controller is running Impala (aka Windows Embedded v4.0), it needs to be upgraded to 4.17 because it was installed with a south-american daylight savings time zone in order that CueBall could use the Patagonian variant of the DVORJAK keyboard which (as I'm sure you know) was the only one left in the house that still works after the LAST time this happened! Since the controller thinks it's in Patagonia, it will soon automatically turn off the heat as "summertime" arrives - thereby killing the WiFi router and preventing him from getting online to fix it all. Which (of course) is why he needs to download the upgrade CD onto his phone rather urgently! Sorry if you didn't find this sufficiently obvious from reading between the lines in the cartoon - but that's why this website exists! :-) [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 17:57, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Guys, I think you have missed something. A few days ago, the PS4 pro problems connecting to 4k monitors were in the news. Of course this was due to the new version of HDCP required that had issues. I assume the author read that and remembered previous problems with HDCP (e.g. I could not get my HD DVDs playing on non HDCP monitors or with non HDCP video cards, unless I used some hacks etc). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.203|141.101.98.203]] 18:33, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Hutchy01 has a point: this comic is political, as were 1756 & 1759. Cueball is doing everything that he can not to watch the news; even after he fixes his computer, he still won't be able to watch it. White Hat misinterprets him, asking about his computer science degree to imply he ought to be able to take care of a simple thing like this. Cueball replies that no, this is not the case - much as his computer science degree allows him to diagnose computer problems, being well educated does not help him to perform anything more than a postmortem on how wrong election forecasts were. The title text might be implying that being authoritative on a topic has nothing to do with determining how events actually transpire. [[User:Usbcord|Usbcord]] ([[User talk:Usbcord|talk]]) 19:26, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

505: A Bunch of Rocks

2015-06-08T01:45:56Z

173.245.48.80: /* Graphs */

{{comic
| number = 505
| date = November 17, 2008
| title = A Bunch of Rocks
| image = a_bunch_of_rocks.png
| titletext = I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, including {{w|quantum mechanics}} and {{w|general relativity}}. Next Cueball creates a computer that can process any possible function, out of rocks and rules for the interaction between rocks. He then simulates a particle followed by the interactions between particles, followed by the entire universe. The amount of time it takes to simulate the change in the universe from one instant to the next ({{w|Planck time}}) takes an extremely long time as the time it takes to update just one row of rocks can be measured in eons.

Cueball then apologizes for any flaws we see in the simulation. This implies that the audience is living in Cueball's simulation, making Cueball essentially God.

The final frame cuts to a classroom where a bored student stares at his hands waiting for class to end. Cueball admonishes the student for thinking that class is lasting forever. The joke being that the boredom felt in a classroom is nothing compared to the boredom that inspires Cueball to spend his time toiling to keep the universe moving.

The title text suggests that {{w|Rule 34 (Internet meme)|Rule 34}} should be called on {{w|Elementary cellular automaton#Random initial state|Wolfram's Rule 34}}. Rule 34 (see [[305: Rule 34]]) is a humorous rule of the Internet which states "If you can imagine it, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Wolfram's Rule 34 is a cellular automaton. Therefore the title text says that someone should make pornography featuring the cellular automaton in question.

===Graphs===
The three diagrams in the "Physics, too. I worked out the kinks..." panel are, from left to right:
# The {{w|Normal distribution}} of the {{w|Gaussian curve}} marking the points that represent a standard deviation of σ and 2σ. This is one of the fundamental building blocks of statistics. In quantum mechanics particles are viewed as inherently random, therefore the time at which a particle will decay, the position of a particle and its velocity are all calculated using similar curves. A deviation of at least σ occurs 32% of the time where a deviation of 2σ or more occurs about 5% of the time.
# The {{w|Inclined plane#History|Epitaph of Stevinus}}, an explanation of the mechanical advantage of using an {{w|inclined plane}}. The inclined plane is one of the six classical {{w|simple machine}}s, one of the fundamental building blocks of mechanical and civil engineering.
# The last graph is unknown. It may represent coupled pendulums, {{w|length contraction}}, or a hypothetical solution to something we haven't derived yet.

The graph that represents particle interaction is a {{w|Feynman Diagram}}. This shows the interaction of subatomic particles that collide and exchange some momentum via a photon. The slope of the middle line represents the distance moved and the time lost/gained during the interaction.

===Notes===
The Swiss patent office line refers to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, who was employed as a Swiss patent clerk while coming up with his theory of special relativity. This joke is also referenced in [[1067|1067: Pressures]]. Also, there is a standing joke that very few important inventions have come from Switzerland, since the country hadn't been involved in the world wars, and thus has not been part of the weapons race, nor was it a driving force in the preceding Industrial Revolution.

In the center of the comic, the binary numbers pointing to the particle are both 42. This is a reference to the comedic answer to the ''Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything'' from the ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' series.

Cueball mentions that if we see an artifact flutter in and out of reality he must have made a mistake in the last "billions and billions of millennia." This implies that the small period of time the artifact is present in his time is much longer than our universe has existed. That is a ''very'' long time.

===Cellular Automaton===
Cueball uses the rocks to build a {{w|cellular automaton}}, a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are {{w|Turing-complete}}, which means that they can be used to represent any conceivable algorithm if expanded infinitely. He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's {{w|Rule 110}}, which is capable of universal computation.
When using Rule 110 for universal computation, one builds a background pattern, which can be seen in the comic as the pattern of smaller triangles, and then performs computation by sending out "rockets" to collide and interact with each other.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in a desert with lots of rocks lying around. He is narrating his own situation. The first panel spans the entire width of the comic. The first line of text is written to the left of him, the second line to the right.]
:So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity.
:I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.

:[The next four panels take up the second line of the comic.]
:[Cueball stand in the desert.]
:I never feel hungry or thirsty.

:[Cueball walks in the desert.]
:I just walk.

:[Zooming out while Cueball continues to walk in the desert.]
:Sand and rocks

:[Zooming far out as Cueball again just stands in the desert. First line of text, above him, is a continuation of the text in the previous panel. The second line is below him.]
:stretch to infinity.
:As best as I can tell.

:[The next three panels take up the third line of the comic. The last takes up half the width.]
:[Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position. First line of text above him the second below.]
:There's plenty of time for thinking out here.
:An eternity really.

:[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand. First line of text above him the second below.]
:I've rederived modern math in the sand
:and then some.

:[Three different graph types are depicted. First line of text above them the second below.]
:Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity.
:Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.

:[The next eight panels take up the fourth and fifth line of the comic. All pictures are the same size.]
:[Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks on a line. Four has been deployed, he is laying down the fifth and has a sixth in his other hand.]
:One day I started laying down rows of rocks.

:[Cueball with a rock in his hand, continues to deploy rocks 16, in a more intricate pattern. There are grid-lines in the sand (5 rows, 6 columns), with each intersection either empty of filled with a rock. No rocks lay anywhere but at an intersection on the grid.]
:Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.

:[Zooming out showing even more laid out rocks. Cueball is seen directly from above, and we see his shadow falling on the grid of rocks (7 rows, 14 columns).]
:With the right set of rules and enough space,

:[Continues to zoom further out showing clear triangular patterns (with no rocks) in the laid out grid of rocks. Cueball is not seen. (8 rows, 42 columns). First line of text above the grid, the second line below.]
:I was able to build a computer.
:Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.

:[Zooming far out (no Cueball) with rows intersected by five clear V lines on top of them. The V's are drawn inside each other, with the smallest V at the top right, and the other V's starting just to the right of the previous one, and then continuing the same distance past the previous V, as the total length of the first V. The "*" in the first line of text above this grid, references to the footnote below written in a smaller font.]
:Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing. Just slower.
:<nowiki>*Turing-complete</nowiki>

:[Cueball stands in contemplative pose (on a clean white background - i.e. no dessert).]
:After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.

:[A black panel with white drawings and text. A small white dot (a particle) is labeled by two arrows coming of two binary strings.]
:Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones.
:00101010
:00101010

:[A Feynman diagram showing two particles interacting. Two arrows going in and out with a snaking line between them.]
:With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.

:[The next two panels take up the sixth line of the comic. The second panel takes up three quarter of the width.]
:[Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert, with his programmed lines of rock stretching to infinity.]
:But I have <u>infinite</u> time and space.

:[A black panel with white drawings and text. Depiction of two large galaxies, one with four jets coming out of it's center, the other a flat disc. Several smaller galaxies and/or stars are shown around them.]
:So I decided to simulate a universe.

:[The next four panels take up the seventh line of the comic. They are of similar widths.]
:[Cueball is walking by his grid of rocks, lines indicate he has just thrown another rock down in it's place. It falls so hard it thinks into the sand that splashes out around it. The 14 rocks above him lies on the grid, four other below this grid, have not been used yet.]
:The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.

:[Zoom far far out to show multiple rows of rocks. It is not very clear that there are several triangular patterns (with no rocks) in different sizes in the laid out grid of rocks. There are about 50 rows and 90 columns. There are six large triangles on top of each other at the left edge. To the right there are three even larger triangles from top to bottom, the one in the middle further to the left than the one above, but further right than the bottom one.]
:The rows blur past to compute a single step.

:[Shows the placement of two particles in the simulation.]
:And in the simulation...

:[The two particles have moved just long enough as to not overlap with their the previous position which are shown as an after-image with faint gray lines. The text continues directly the one from the previous panel.]
:another instant ticks by.

:[The next two panels take up the eight line of the comic. They each take up half the width.]
:[A Cueball like person (you) observes a mote of dust vanish.]
:So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something

:[Cueball is standing between two rocks on the ground, while holding two rocks, one lifted up to his head. The first line of text is above him. It is a direct continuation of the text in the previous panel. The second line stands below to the right of him.]
:I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock
:sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.

:[Cueball stands in the "clean" part of his infinite desert, in front of the vastness of his infinity of infinite lines or rocks.]
:Oh and...

:[A Cueball like student sitting in a classroom with his head in his hands, Megan sits behind him and a teacher points to the blackboard; A clock shows the time at five minutes to ten.]
:If you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time to pass for <u>''you''</u>...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Programming]]