explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2452: Aviation Firsts

2021-04-20T04:42:01Z

173.245.52.165: /* Events referenced */ this section says that D.B. Cooper was mentioned in 950: Mystery Solved, which he wasn't, although Amelia Earhart was. I just removed that one reference

{{comic
| number = 2452
| date = April 19, 2021
| title = Aviation Firsts
| image = aviation_firsts.png
| titletext = Mile High Club membership [✓] [ ] Discovery of parts of Amelia Earhart's skeleton [ ] [ ] Mid-flight incident that results in safe landing on the Hudson River [✓] [ ]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by DRONE ON MARS. Put a table detailing all the event of the achievement checklist with an Earth and Mars column. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is made in light of recent events of the [https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1384209173924089863 Ingenuity probe's first flight on Mars]. Now that Ingenuity has completed its first flight, it marks the first controlled powered flight on Mars. The previous categories were completed by the first space probes to reach and then land on Mars, while the remaining have only been completed on Earth, and grow steadily more bizarre and more specific, extending to the title text.

===Events referenced===
* Development of the {{w|Hughes H-4 Hercules}} (the "Spruce Goose"), a wooden airplane and the largest flying boat ever constructed. The Hercules was designed by aviation pioneer (and, laterly, famed recluse) Howard Hughes. The design was intended as a lightweight transoceanic transport for the the military, but the prototype (built out of wood because of aluminum shortages during the 1940s) was not completed until well after the end of the Second World War and only actually flew a single time in 1947
* The 1971 hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines flight 305 by a man who bought a ticket under the pseudonym {{w|D. B. Cooper|"Dan Cooper"}} (but popularly known as D. B. Cooper). Cooper was given a $200,000 ransom and then he jumped out of the plane and was never found. (D. B. Cooper was previously mentioned in [[1400: D.B. Cooper]] and [[1501: Mysteries]].)

The title text refers to the following:
* The {{w|mile high club}} is a slang term which refers to having sex while onboard an airplane.
* {{w|Amelia Earhart}} was a female aviator who went missing in 1937 while attempting a global circumnavigation flight and has never been found. (Amelia Earhart was previously mentioned in [[1501: Mysteries]], [[950: Mystery Solved]], and [[2197: Game Show]].)
* The {{w|US Airways Flight 1549|Miracle on the Hudson}} was a 2009 incident in which a plane struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff and lost power in both its engines. Captain Chesley Sullenberger successfully landed the plane in the Hudson River (in New York) with minimal injuries to the passengers onboard.

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

:            Earth         Mars
:Flight      <big>✓</big>       <big>✓</big>
:Landing <big>✓</big>       <big>✓</big>
:Controlled landing<big>✓</big>       <big>✓</big>
:Controlled powered flight <big>✓</big>       <big>✓</big>
:Loop <big>✓</big>
:In-flight meal <big>✓</big>
:Planetary circumnavigation <big>✓</big>
:Enormous wooden aircraft built by a reclusive billionaire that flies exactly once <big>✓</big>
:Hijacking by someone dubbed "D.B. Cooper" who demands money and then jumps out mid-flight to an unknown fate <big>✓</big>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Mars rovers]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Sex]]

2451: AI Methodology

2021-04-17T12:54:26Z

173.245.52.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2451
| date = April 16, 2021
| title = AI Methodology
| image = ai_methodology.png
| titletext = We've learned that weird spacing and diacritics in the methodology description are apparently the key to good research; luckily, we've developed an AI tool to help us figure out where to add them.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT (91%). TRAINED BY AN ADVERSARIAL AI (72%). If you are knowledgeable about AI, please rewrite at least one paragraph for us. The current content was completely fudged by amateurs. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The joke in this comic is that the people are using AI without understanding how to. That classifier is trained on data that doesn't include the causes of the results, and then not testing it at all, producing a model that is both random and heavily overfitted. Such a model appears perfect but makes random predictions on new data. The flavor text is describing this happening, and how. For an introduction to machine learning, you can visit https://fast.ai/ .

This comic shows Cueball giving a presentation of some description. He is reassuring his audience of the validity of his research's methodology, which he says is "AI-based". There are many issues that can arise from an AI-based methodology, such as lingering influence from its training data or a bad algorithm reducing the quality of the investigation.

Cueball seeks to reassure his audience by quantifying the quality of his methodology. He does this by creating yet another AI to rank methodologies. This would not actually improve the confidence of any audience member, as the AI would still have the same flaws as the methodology AI, due to being created by the same team.

Furthermore, the AI heavily favours the methodology of Cueball's AI, and may be biased. It shows a normal distribution, with a singular outlier to the far right with an arrow above. It can be inferred this data-point represents the AI's methodology. It is a significant outlier, and as such it is probably not an accurate representation of Cueball's AI. Alternatively, this could be taken as AI 'nepotism', where Cueball's methodology AI is more likely to select AI-based approaches over others.

The title text is likely a continuation of Cueball's dialogue, saying that when the classifying AI was shown good research methodology descriptions, the AI identified weird spacing and diacritics as the indicators of a good methodology. Cueball then used his AI to figure out where to put these into his own methodology description to improve his research report. Adding weird symbols into a text doesn't improve the quality of the text {{Citation needed}} and hence Cueball may be doing something very similar to p-hacking, where data is manipulated to decrease the p-number, which represents the likelihood the data is a fluke. P-hacking is mentioned in [[882: Significant]]

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

:[Cueball stands in front of a projection on a screen and points with a stick to a histogram with a bell curve to the left and one bar to the far right marked with an arrow]
:Cueball: Despite our great research results, some have questioned our AI-based methodology.
:Cueball: But we trained a classifier on a collection of good and bad methodology sections, and it says ours is fine.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1418: Horse

2021-04-10T18:46:51Z

173.245.52.165:

{{comic
| number = 1418
| date = September 8, 2014
| title = Horse
| image = horse.png
| titletext = Officer suspended from horse.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has set his browser to auto-replace the word "force" with the word "horse." Some of the humorous resulting news headlines are shown.

*Ukrainian town threatened by pro-Russian horses
**At the time this comic was published, there is civil unrest in Ukraine, mostly framed as pro-European vs pro-Russian. In earlier centuries, the phrase "pro-Russian horses" could refer to the animals riden by Cossacks, or by their enemies, as alliances shifted.
**It should be noted that Randall spelled "Ukrainian" incorrectly, forgetting the first 'i'.
*Governor appoints task horse
**A {{w|Task force}} is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity, which makes it quite comical to picture a horse instead of a unit. A "task horse" would presumably be a horse performing tasks.
*Iraqi Air Horse growing
**The Air ''Force'' of Iraq may indeed be being up-armed, especially in light of the threat, at this time, of ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State forces across swaths of both Iraq and Syria. In mythology, Pegasus was a winged horse that could fly through the air, and might be considered an "air horse". In real life, "Air Horse One" is an airplane equipped for transporting horses.
*Quarks, which are bound together by the strong nuclear horse. There is a real Nuclear horse in a different sense, which is a racehorse born in 2017 and named Nuclear.
**{{w|Quark|Quarks}} are elementary particles. They form bound states e.g. the {{w|proton}} (two up + one down-quark) mediated by the {{w|Strong interaction|strong force}}, similarly as atoms are bound states of {{w|Electron|electrons}} and charged {{w|Nucleon|nucleons}} held together by the {{w|Electromagnetism|electromagnetic horse}}.
**They are also referenced in [[474: Turn-On]], [[1621: Fixion]] and in [[1731: Wrong]].
*Officer suspended from horse (title text)
**Being suspended from a police force (i.e. usually being forced upon mandatory leave pending resolution of the issue at hand; paid, part-paid or unpaid) is a common practice where culpable wrongdoing of sufficiently serious nature is suspected of the individual concerned. A person could literally be suspended from a horse if they fall off the horse but got stuck in the stirrups. Unlike most of these "horse" terms, a police horse is a real thing.

This is probably a parody of the [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-plus/apmlngnhgbnjpajelfkmabhkfapgnoai?hl=en Cloud to Butt Chrome Extension] (since it says ''new'' favorite browser text replacement).

There has been several [[:Category:Substitutions|comics using substitutions]] before and also at least one after this one.

==Transcript==
:[Headlines above the main frame of the comic:]
:New favorite browser text replacement:
:'''Force → Horse'''

:[In the comic frame Cueball is sitting in front of his PC reading the following headlines that are written above him in separate frames:]
:Ukranian towns threatened by pro-Russian horses
:Governor appoints task horse
:Iraqi air horse growing
:Quarks, which are bound together by the strong nuclear horse...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Substitutions]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:1093: Forget

2021-04-08T15:12:27Z

173.245.52.165:

I remember Pluto but nothing before or after that.
Also this is a terrible comment system --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.16|172.68.54.16]] 16:04, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

How far off the top of that list is the death of JFK? [[User:SteveBell|SteveB]] ([[User talk:SteveBell|talk]]) 10:55, 10 August 2012‎ (UTC)
: Looking at the time table, my guess would be around 2000. ~[[User:Jjhuddle|JJ]] ([[User talk:Jjhuddle|talk]]) 11:01, 10 August 2012‎ (UTC)
: Assuming that the median age growed monotonically in the past, that was around '98/'99. [[Special:Contributions/178.15.226.170|178.15.226.170]] 13:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, the seventies. Bell Bottoms. The Bicentennial. The Munich Olympics. The original Star Wars movie. Except for Star Wars, I suppose much of that ''could'' be forgotten. Especially [[1072|Bell Bottoms]].-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 13:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Lorena Bobbitt is misspelled in the comic. It should have two "t's." Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500185_162-4207517.html [Goingtotryscience, 10 Aug 2012] --[[User:Goingtotryscience|Goingtotryscience]] ([[User talk:Goingtotryscience|talk]]) 14:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
Uploaded corrected version. Both still available if you click on the image and view upload history.--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 15:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The cold war was after World War II, not World War I. --[[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 16:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

: He didn't say the cold war was after World War I, he said the Soviet Union began after World War I and was the advesary of the United States during the cold war. --[[User:Enginesoul|Enginesoul]] ([[User talk:Enginesoul|talk]]) 18:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's not forget 2035 when the majority of people will not remember a world berift of XKCD! [[User:Loeb|Loeb]] ([[User talk:Loeb|talk]]) 17:17, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

When Coca-Cola change the formula to New Coke, they kept the name "Coca-Cola" for the reformulated beverage, and discontinued the old formula. Because of the backlash, they reintroduced the old formula as "Coca-Cola Classic" and kept the new formula as "Coca-Cola". After a while, with "Coca-Cola Classic" being by far the biggest seller, the new formula was rebranded "Coke II", and eventually discontinued (I believe). The can I have in front of me is marked simply "Coca-Cola", so I guess "Coca-Cola Classic" was eventually rebranded back to the original name. --[[User:Blaisepascal|Blaise Pascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 17:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
:Coke II was produced and distributed in some Midwestern markets as late as 2002. Supposedly it's still available in the Marshall Islands, or somewhere like that. [[User:Daniel Case|Daniel Case]] ([[User talk:Daniel Case|talk]]) 21:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Am I the only one who thinks that there are some other things needing explaining here? I have no idea what "Forgot About Dre" or "Baby Got Back" are about. (Well, not without a little googling.) And Pluto still exists, even if it's not currently classified as a planet (last I heard, they were considering classifying it and Charon as a twin planet system) so people are unlikely to forget about the name.--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 07:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:Actually, Pluto is still a planet. To say Pluto is not a planet is the same thing as saying little people aren't people, which is incredibly bigoted against little people. Only a true sociopath would say that Pluto isn't a planet. "Dwarf planet" has planet right in the name. Of COURSE a dwarf planet is a planet.[[Special:Contributions/76.29.225.28|76.29.225.28]] 15:07, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
::By that logic, "candy corn" is still corn because it has the word corn right in the name. Call me a sociopath if you want to, but I say Pluto is not (and never was) a planet. There was a brief time in history when we mistakenly THOUGHT it was a planet, until we corrected our mistake. The same thing happened with Ceres. It was initially announced to be a planet, until further measurements showed it to be much smaller than we thought, so we reclassified it as an "asteroid". Nowadays, we correctly recognize that Ceres and Pluto belong in the same category as each other. Both of them are rocks floating in a band of other rocks, albeit unusually large examples of such rocks. This comic refers to the fact that we look back with nostalgia on the time when lists of "the planets" included Pluto. Now, the list does not include Pluto.[[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 15:42, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh and if Chernobyl is considered worthy of explanation, surely so is Challenger? Columbine too. Jeff's initial selection seems a little arbitrary, and while he justifiably never claims to provide a comprehensive explanation, we usually fill in the gaps.--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 07:34, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

:Gaps: Filled. By the way, none of the explanation was actually Jeff's. It's the collaboration of multiple users (feel free to pitch in). For example, I made the {{diff|6133|first revision}} of the article, with a basic explanation, [[Special:Contributions/Jjhuddle|Jjhuddle]] {{diff|6157|added}} information about the title text (which I skipped over, as I wasn't sure about it), [[Special:Contributions/Jilkscom56|Jilkscom56]] {{diff|6190|added}} the bit about Eyjafjallajökull, [[Special:Contributions/IronyChef|IronyChef]] {{diff|6199|added}} eight more years, [[Special:Contributions/MrFlibble|MrFlibble]] {{diff|6218|fixed}} an error in one of the dates, [[Special:Contributions/AHT|AHT]] {{diff|6253|expanded}} the Berlin Wall section, and I {{diff|6256|filled in the rest of the blanks}}. {{User:Omega/sig}} 08:18, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany, not the USSR and it preceded the reunification of Germany. I've sort of fixed it, but it could do with more work. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 10:35, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
: Good. I was just writing a comment about exactly these two points. Although the role of the soviets is not entirely clear, it was the Eastern German (aka German Democratic Republic) Government that decided and (mostly) Eastern German soldiers who built the Wall. And while the "Fall of the Wall" usually refers to the day where suddenly after a very confusing press conference, people could cross the border from east to west, the November 9, 1989, the reunification was a political and formal act in 1990, almost a year later. [[Special:Contributions/178.15.226.170|178.15.226.170]] 10:51, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
: Also, the wall was technically not torn down by anyone and especially not from both sides. After a series of weekly demonstrations in Eastern Germany (by a lot of courageous people in different cities), the Government made a decision to lift the travel restrictions, effectively allowing travelling to the West. On November 9, 1989, they made this official in a press conference which did not even receive a lot of attention at first. In this conference, someone raised the question when these new regulation would take effect, and seemingly unprepared, the speaker said "as far as I can see, it's effective immediately". Although there were so many people up that night in both East and West, and although maybe the mass of people prevented a shooting by the unprepared soldiers at the checkpoint, the revolution was not a spontaneous tearing of the wall, it was the demonstrations in the preceeding weeks by the Eastern German People. [[Special:Contributions/178.15.226.170|178.15.226.170]] 11:30, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems whoever wrote the explanation for 9/11 has already forgotten the other two planes that crashed that day: one into the Pentagon, and one in a field outside of Shanksville, PA (Presumably on its way to crashing into the Capitol Building)
:Well go change it then!

Actually I found the most crucial part, the math, was done poorly: Why do we have a 32 years gap today and a 35 years gap in the future, when the current median age is "around 35"?. I fixed it, but I'm not a native speaker, so I'd be happy if someone could go over the first paragraph (again). [[User:BKA|BKA]] ([[User talk:BKA|talk]]) 13:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

"''He lost all popularity after he controversially boycotted the 1980 Olympics, in Moscow''" Well, this just proves the point of the comic. Anyone old enough to remember the Carter administration would not have written this. The Olympic boycott was actually supported by most of the American people at the time, albeit a little grudgingly. It was, in fact, one of the few things Carter did at that point that ''was'' popular.The explanation would be more accurate if it read "''He lost popularity due to continual high inflation during his administration, failure to resolve the {{w|Iran hostage crisis}}, a {{w|Malaise speech|speech that was interpreted as blaming the American people for his administration's failings}}, and a growing perception that he was in over his head.''" [[User:Daniel Case|Daniel Case]] ([[User talk:Daniel Case|talk]]) 21:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

:I've rewritten that section to include more information. Wikipedia does say that the Olympic boycott was controversial, and my memory concurs. The real error about the boycott was that it wasn't generally a cold-war issue, but rather a direct response to the Afghanistan invasion. Which is why it was so controversial, as such a boycott was purely political when the spirit of the games was intended to overcome such political differences. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 21:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

This comic makes me feel young. The first event I actually remember is 9/11, and I only remember it because it was my first day of kindergarten. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 04:21, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I have extremely vague memories of 9/11 which happened when I was 4, mainly through a dream I had where I built two Lego towers and had them fall on me. I have a few memories of a time before facebook, but I do remember Katrina. I feel so young. Also like. Pokemon's TV show came out when I was born, and I unashamedly still watch it now and then. Literally can't get a show I've watched for a longer period of time than Pokemon haha xD so xkcd makes me feel old and young simultaneously. [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 15:41, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Seems like that Chernobyl thing isn't quite right after all. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.165|173.245.52.165]] 15:12, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Talk:217: e to the pi Minus pi

2021-04-07T05:39:39Z

173.245.52.165:

Asserting that the programmers' algorithms truncated to three decimal digits is an unsupported and unnecessary extrapolation. Most floating-point implementations use binary, not decimal, and 19.999099979 ''looks'' very much like a rounding error in binary floating-point that has accumulated over several operations. [[User:Daddy|Daddy]] ([[User talk:Daddy|talk]]) 12:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
:Fixed. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 22:57, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

The "not good at math" might be too harsh, if they've (tried to) read the floating point spec. Depending on precision and rounding regime and order of operations, I could easily imagine the "equation" to be true ... and therefore a test that you were rounding "properly", even when it wasn't intuitive.

The third bullet-point above needs changing... (9^2+(19^2/22))=97.4090909091 which is close to pi to the fourth power, so it should be (as noted in the text) (9^2+(19^2/22))^1/4 [[User:Squirreltape|Squirreltape]] ([[User talk:Squirreltape|talk]]) 19:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
:Actually, in-case you didn't notice, it says "∜(9² + 19²/22)", not just the sum on its own. I checked the sum on my calculator, and it is equal to what the page is saying. "∜(9² + 19²/22)" means "4th root of (9^2+19^2/22)" (What the title text is saying), or on Windows Calculator, "(9^2+19^2/22) yroot(4)" (Basically what the sum is saying). So, the 3rd bullet point is correct. --[[User:Katavschi|Katavschi]] ([[User talk:Katavschi|talk]]) 22:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

It says above that (π + 20)^i ≈ -i, but this should be (π + 20)^i ≈ -1. Proof: π + 20 ≈ e^π => (π + 20)^i ≈ (e^π)^i = e^(πi) = -1.

The ACM competitions are famous for being under tight time pressure. Making your own team waste time would absolutely get you kicked out (and make enemies) [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 04:40, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

;"If they thought about the mathematics"

hm, are you saying it is obvious that e^ pi - pi is not 20? How would you know without approximating it? The sum of two irrationals is not necessarily irrational. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.194|162.158.34.194]] 01:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
:approximate e^pi using slightly bigger numbers than e and pi (say e: 2.7183 and pi: 3.1416) and subtract a value that is slightly smaller than pi (say 3.1415). The result is less than 20 and a upper limit for e^pi - pi [[Special:Contributions/141.101.93.49|141.101.93.49]] 19:59, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

the title text was close; the real identity is e^(π - 2) = π [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.165|173.245.52.165]] 05:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

2347: Dependency

2020-08-19T21:35:21Z

173.245.52.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2347
| date = August 17, 2020
| title = Dependency
| image = dependency.png
| titletext = Someday ImageMagick will finally break for good and we'll have a long period of scrambling as we try to reassemble civilization from the rubble.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A PROJECT [[User:Dgbrt|SOME RANDOM PERSON]] HAS BEEN THANKLESSLY MAINTAINING SINCE 2013. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Taking code re-usability and modularization to its logical extreme has been a long-time tenet for programmers; programming began as a slow task on very memory-constrained systems, utilizing punch cards and days of delay waiting to discover a bug, such that reuse made things possible that otherwise wouldn't be. Once systems became small, fast, and able to hold a lot of data, the ability to provide higher and higher degrees of automation made reusable libraries a huge engine behind the development of technology. By outsourcing what would seem like basic functions, such as string manipulation, to other libraries, developers waste less time reinventing the wheel, so the philosophy goes, and thus many tiny packages, many of which contained only one function, became popular dependencies. This was especially true in Unix and Linux, where an entire program is commonly used for one small task, and programs exist to tie others together into powerful shell scripts. Node.js (a breed of JavaScript) and Python are two modern ecosystems providing huge stashes of centralized libraries where developers of the world can come together to stand on the shoulders of all the small useful libraries they make for each other, to make new ones that are more and more powerful, and also more and more prone to sudden new unexpected bugs somewhere in the dependency chain. JavaScript was designed to be an easy to use front end scripting language, not a basic and core backend language as users of node.js's {{w|npm (software)|NPM}} package manager have made it be. While in theory, such a system may sound good for developers who would need to write and maintain fewer lines of code, systems which are highly optimized are also highly susceptible to rapid changes. For example, the famous left-pad incident in JavaScript's package manager left many major and minor web services which depended on it unable to build. A disgruntled developer unpublishing 11 lines of code was able to break everybody's build, because everyone was using it. [https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/]

The current model of libraries and open-source development (topics which Randall has addressed extensively in the past) relies heavily on the free and continued dedication of unpaid hobbyists. Though some major projects such as Linux may be able to garner enough attention to build an organization, many smaller projects, which are in turn reused by larger projects, may only be maintained by one person, either the founder or another who has taken the torch. Maintaining libraries requires both extensive knowledge of the library itself as well as any use cases and the broader community around it, which usually is suited for maintainers who have spent years at the task, and thus cannot be easily replaced. Thus, there are many abandoned projects on the internet as people move on to greener pastures. Far from the days of backwards compatibility, that's usually not a problem, unless a project happens to be far up the dependency chain, as illustrated, in which case there may be a crisis down the road for both the developers and the users down the chain.

Technology architecture is often illustrated by a stack diagram [https://www.guru99.com/images/1/102219_1135_TCPIPvsOSIM1.png], in which higher levels of rectangles indicate components that are dependent on components in lower levels. This is analogous to a physical tower of blocks, in which higher blocks rest on lower blocks. The stack in this cartoon bears a striking resemblance to a physical block tower, suggesting the danger that the tower will lose its balance when a critical piece is removed. The concept of balance is not intended to be communicated by a stack diagram, making this a humorously absurd extension of a well-known diagram style.

{{w|ImageMagick}}, mentioned in the title text, is a popular, standalone utility released in 1990 that is used for performing transformations between various graphics file formats, and various other transformations. While there are also numerous libraries and API's for performing these tasks within larger programs, ImageMagick is so popular and easy to use that many programs use its API or just find it easier to {{w|Shell (computing)#Other uses|shell out}} to ImageMagick to perform a necessary transformation. They therefore {{w|Dependency hell|depend}} on ImageMagick, and would break if ImageMagick were to disappear.

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

[A tower of blocks is shown. The upper half consists of many tiny blocks balanced on top of one another to form smaller towers, labeled:]

All modern digital infrastructure

[The blocks rest on larger blocks lower down in the image, finally on a single large block. This is balanced on top of a set of blocks on the left, and on the right, a single tiny block placed on its side. This one is labeled:]

A project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003

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

2347: Dependency

2020-08-19T21:34:36Z

173.245.52.165: The idea that modularity started with npm is ludicrous, but I may have edited some useful bits out responding to that, unsure

{{comic
| number = 2347
| date = August 17, 2020
| title = Dependency
| image = dependency.png
| titletext = Someday ImageMagick will finally break for good and we'll have a long period of scrambling as we try to reassemble civilization from the rubble.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A PROJECT [[User:Dgbrt|SOME RANDOM PERSON]] HAS BEEN THANKLESSLY MAINTAINING SINCE 2013. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Taking ode re-usability and modularization to its logical extreme has been a long-time tenet for programmers; programming began as a slow task on very memory-constrained systems, utilizing punch cards and days of delay waiting to discover a bug, such that reuse made things possible that otherwise wouldn't be. Once systems became small, fast, and able to hold a lot of data, the ability to provide higher and higher degrees of automation made reusable libraries a huge engine behind the development of technology. By outsourcing what would seem like basic functions, such as string manipulation, to other libraries, developers waste less time reinventing the wheel, so the philosophy goes, and thus many tiny packages, many of which contained only one function, became popular dependencies. This was especially true in Unix and Linux, where an entire program is commonly used for one small task, and programs exist to tie others together into powerful shell scripts. Node.js (a breed of JavaScript) and Python are two modern ecosystems providing huge stashes of centralized libraries where developers of the world can come together to stand on the shoulders of all the small useful libraries they make for each other, to make new ones that are more and more powerful, and also more and more prone to sudden new unexpected bugs somewhere in the dependency chain. JavaScript was designed to be an easy to use front end scripting language, not a basic and core backend language as users of node.js's {{w|npm (software)|NPM}} package manager have made it be. While in theory, such a system may sound good for developers who would need to write and maintain fewer lines of code, systems which are highly optimized are also highly susceptible to rapid changes. For example, the famous left-pad incident in JavaScript's package manager left many major and minor web services which depended on it unable to build. A disgruntled developer unpublishing 11 lines of code was able to break everybody's build, because everyone was using it. [https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/]

The current model of libraries and open-source development (topics which Randall has addressed extensively in the past) relies heavily on the free and continued dedication of unpaid hobbyists. Though some major projects such as Linux may be able to garner enough attention to build an organization, many smaller projects, which are in turn reused by larger projects, may only be maintained by one person, either the founder or another who has taken the torch. Maintaining libraries requires both extensive knowledge of the library itself as well as any use cases and the broader community around it, which usually is suited for maintainers who have spent years at the task, and thus cannot be easily replaced. Thus, there are many abandoned projects on the internet as people move on to greener pastures. Far from the days of backwards compatibility, that's usually not a problem, unless a project happens to be far up the dependency chain, as illustrated, in which case there may be a crisis down the road for both the developers and the users down the chain.

Technology architecture is often illustrated by a stack diagram [https://www.guru99.com/images/1/102219_1135_TCPIPvsOSIM1.png], in which higher levels of rectangles indicate components that are dependent on components in lower levels. This is analogous to a physical tower of blocks, in which higher blocks rest on lower blocks. The stack in this cartoon bears a striking resemblance to a physical block tower, suggesting the danger that the tower will lose its balance when a critical piece is removed. The concept of balance is not intended to be communicated by a stack diagram, making this a humorously absurd extension of a well-known diagram style.

{{w|ImageMagick}}, mentioned in the title text, is a popular, standalone utility released in 1990 that is used for performing transformations between various graphics file formats, and various other transformations. While there are also numerous libraries and API's for performing these tasks within larger programs, ImageMagick is so popular and easy to use that many programs use its API or just find it easier to {{w|Shell (computing)#Other uses|shell out}} to ImageMagick to perform a necessary transformation. They therefore {{w|Dependency hell|depend}} on ImageMagick, and would break if ImageMagick were to disappear.

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

[A tower of blocks is shown. The upper half consists of many tiny blocks balanced on top of one another to form smaller towers, labeled:]

All modern digital infrastructure

[The blocks rest on larger blocks lower down in the image, finally on a single large block. This is balanced on top of a set of blocks on the left, and on the right, a single tiny block placed on its side. This one is labeled:]

A project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003

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

2345: Wish on a Shooting Star

2020-08-13T01:03:01Z

173.245.52.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2345
| date = August 12, 2020
| title = Wish on a Shooting Star
| image = wish_on_a_shooting_star.png
| titletext = Congratulations to whoever wished for revenge on a forest near the Tunguska River, a 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill NY, Alabama resident Ann Hodges, every building in Chelyabinsk with glass windows, and the non-avian dinosaurs.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NON-AVIAN DINOSAUR. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
It is a common practice to make a wish when one sees a shooting star, in hopes that the wish comes true. This comic consists of a [[wikipedia:Venn diagram|Venn diagram]] showing what things are commonly wished for upon seeing a shooting star, and what things the shooting star may cause. Shooting stars, as they are actually meteors, can only cause changes to physical phenomena, such as radio noise or the appearance of the sky as they burn up in the upper atmosphere. The only thing that is shared between the potential wish side of the diagram and the shooting star caused side is revenge. This would occur when a shooting star actually hits the planet, becoming a meteorite. This is frequently highly destructive, given the high speed of falling meteors. As such, it would be possible for the meteorite to hit something that someone for some reason or another wished revenge upon. However, given the massive surface area of the planet, the likelihood that someone's revenge would be "granted" by a meteorite would be very low. The title text makes fun of this by detailing several incidents where a meteorite landed and caused damage ranging from a car to the [[wikipedia:Chicxulub impactor|Chicxulub impactor]] (the slayer of non-avian dinosaurs).

On October 9, 1992, a meteorite [https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/meteorite-crashes-into-chevy-malibu damaged a 1980 Malibu].

On June 30, 1908, an {{w|airburst}} almost certainly caused by the {{w|Tunguska Event|breakup of a 100-meter falling meteorite or comet}} with the energy of some 30 megatons of {{w|TNT}} flattened some 80 million trees over 830 square miles of land in central {{w|Siberia}} near the {{w|Podkamennaya Tunguska|Tunguska River}}. Due to the remoteness of the area, no people were confirmed dead in the incident.

On November 30, 1954, a fragment of a meteorite passed through the roof of a house and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylacauga_(meteorite) struck] Ann Hodges. She survived.

On February 15th, 2013, a meteor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor exploded in an airburst] over Chelyabinsk, Russia, creating a shockwave that shattered windows in the area.

Meteorites were also mentioned in [[2328: Space Basketball]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A Venn Diagram is shown. 
Things people wish for:
*Love
*Money
*Fame
*Health
*Luck
*Power
*Success
Things shooting stars can cause:
*Radio Noise
*Dust and ionized gas in the upper atmosphere
*Infrasound
*Cool lights in the sky
Both:
*Revenge
{{comic discussion}}

White Hat

2020-06-20T18:07:09Z

173.245.52.165:

{{Infobox character
| image = white_hat.png
| caption = White hat as seen in [[973: MTV Generation]]
| first_appearance = [[260: The Glass Necklace]]
}}
'''White Hat''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. He is distinguished by his eponymous white hat which appears to be in the shape and style of a {{w|boater}}. His appearance is identical to that of [[Black Hat]] other than the color of their respective hats. Unlike Black Hat, however, White Hat doesn't necessarily represent the same character in each appearance.

Interestingly, the two characters have been depicted together only in [[1000: 1000 Comics]], [[1110: Click and Drag]], [[1708: Dehydration]], [[1756: I'm With Her]], [[1881: Drone Training]], and [[2174: First News Memory]] although they actually speak in the same setting in [[1708]] and [[2174]], and speak to each other in [[1881]], the other three being [[:Category:Large drawings|large comics]] where they do not meet. The same goes for the other white hat guy, [[Beret Guy]]. See more on how little these three interact in xkcd in the explanation for [[:Category:Characters with Hats|Characters with Hats]].

In early comics, White Hat appeared mostly as a rare secondary character. But starting with comic [[915: Connoisseur]], White Hat began appearing more often and developed more of a personality, often playing the role of a philosophically misguided person. In this way, he's a bit of a {{w|straw man}}, making logical fallacies to help advance [[Randall|Randall's]] point (see also [[973: MTV Generation]], [[1215: Insight]], [[1255: Columbus]] and [[1277: Ayn Random]]). Other times, he is simply an alternative to [[Cueball]] or one of the other main characters.

In [[603: Idiocracy]] a character with a white hat appears, but it is a rounded safari hat very unlike White Hat's usual boater. He also has a very different mindset so there is no reason to believe that he is White Hat at all, and the comic has been removed from the list of those with White Hat. The main reason for the initial misunderstanding is that White Hat had already appeared in his normal hat three times before that comic, and Safari Hat guy has never been shown again, except in [[1000: 1000 Comics]].

==His Name==
The name white hat comes from his white hat{{Citation needed}} , but it is worth noting that a white hat is a programmer who tries to hack into a computer as his job (like a devils advocate) to test the strength of the code.

==See also==
*[[:Category:Comics featuring White Hat|Comics featuring White Hat]]

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]

2291: New Sports System

2020-04-10T20:43:47Z

173.245.52.165:

{{comic
| number = 2291
| date = April 8, 2020
| title = New Sports System
| image = new_sports_system.png
| titletext = Under my system, boxing and football suffered, pair figure skating still worked but had to adapt by dropping some moves, and pro wrestling was actually completely unaffected.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VIRTUAL BALL. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 16th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

As communities have been ordered to stay indoors to avoid spreading the virus, this has also affected sports leagues around the world, with many of them suspending their seasons, or cancelling them outright. (see {{w|Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on sports|this Wikipedia article}} for a full list of sports or sporting events impacted) Some leagues have instead promoted e-sports, such as the [https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2020-04-06/patrick-beverley-favorite-to-win-nba-2k-players-tournament NBA holding an ''NBA 2K20'' tournament between active NBA players].

[[Randall]], in this comic, proposes an obviously bad "new sports system" of "virtual sports", in which players play with a virtual ball in separate arenas, and are guided by online viewers. This obviously proves to be challenging, as the ball is virtual but the players are not wearing any virtual reality or augmented reality headsets, and thus they do not know how to interact with it properly. Playing in separate arenas would solve the problem of spreading the virus, as the players do not have any direct interactions with each other.

This would be a similar system to {{w|Twitch Plays Pokémon}}, in which Twitch viewers "play" Pokémon video games in a crowdsourced manner. There are also many games that are intentionally constructed so that some players must accomplish a goal they cannot see or with incomplete information, while they are guided by other players. These include common team-building exercises (often involving blindfolds), and the bomb-disposal themed puzzle game {{w|Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes}}.

The NBA is also planning a similar idea, holding a {{w|Variations_of_basketball#H-O-R-S-E| Horse}} tournament among [https://www.nba.com/article/2020/04/09/nba-air-horse-challenge-espn NBA and WNBA players], which works better than the version of basketball shown in this comic because players don't need to interact with the same ball.

In the title text, Randall claims that boxing and football (unclear if American football or association football) proved to be difficult, with {{w|Pair skating|pairs figure skating}} still possible, and {{w|professional wrestling}} being unaffected. Boxing and any types of football would be impossible to play in these situations; on top of the difficulty of trying to play without knowing where the other players are located, these sports are predicated on contact; a boxer cannot get a knockout without being able to touch the other players, and football players cannot block or tackle even if they mime catching the ball. Pairs figure skating would be possible, excepting "throwing" moves or "lifts", as typically pairs figure skaters skate in unison, replicating the same moves.

Humorously, Randall claims that professional wrestling will be unaffected by his new system. This is in reference to the "open secret" that the matches have predetermined outcomes and are more "entertainment" than actual competition, with much of the 'forced' movement of one competitor being aided or even guided by the 'victim' rather than the 'aggressor' in semi-improvised feats of coordinated athleticism.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Single wide frame representing a basketball court with a basketball goal at each end. There are seven players running around the court, with a virtual ball in the bottom right corner (indicated by being drawn as a dashed circle). Nine off-screen voices of "online viewers" are yelling instructions to the players. A caption is below the frame running nearly the full width of the frame.]

:Viewer One: No!
:Viewer Two: It's on the–
:Viewer Three: Look out!
:[A player with thick hair and a goatee is "air-shooting" into the left-hand basket.]
:Viewer Four: No!
:[A player with thick hair is running to the right.]
:Viewer Five: He's right there. Don’t run into–
:[A player with no hair is air-dribbling to the right.]
:Viewer Six: Riiight!
:Viewer Seven: Go left!
:Viewer Eight: Left!
:[A player with thick hair and a full beard is facing left and jumping, hands raised to intercept a ball.]
:[A player with no hair is facing left and crouching, reaching for a ball.]
:[A player is making an alley-oop motion towards the right-hand basket.]
:Viewer Nine: Stop dunking and find the ball!
:[The virtual ball is slowly moving right, unseen by the players]
:[A player is hanging on the rim of the basket, making a dunking motion.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:No one liked my new sports system, in which each player is in a separate arena sharing a single virtual ball that they can't see while online viewers yell instructions, but it was fun to watch while it lasted.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2291: New Sports System

2020-04-09T14:14:20Z

173.245.52.165:

{{comic
| number = 2291
| date = April 8, 2020
| title = New Sports System
| image = new_sports_system.png
| titletext = Under my system, boxing and football suffered, pair figure skating still worked but had to adapt by dropping some moves, and pro wrestling was actually completely unaffected.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VIRTUAL BALL. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 16th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

As communities have been ordered to stay indoors to avoid spreading the virus, this has also affected sports leagues around the world, with many of them suspending their seasons, or cancelling them outright. (see {{w|Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on sports|this Wikipedia article}} for a full list of sports or sporting events impacted) Some leagues have instead promoted e-sports, such as the [https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2020-04-06/patrick-beverley-favorite-to-win-nba-2k-players-tournament NBA holding an ''NBA 2K20'' tournament between active NBA players].

[[Randall]], in this comic, proposes an obviously bad "new sports system" of "virtual sports", in which players play with a virtual ball in separate arenas, and are guided by online viewers. This obviously proves to be challenging, as the ball is virtual but the players are not wearing any virtual reality or augmented reality headsets, and thus they do not know how to interact with it properly. Playing in separate arenas would solve the problem of spreading the virus, as the players do not have any direct interactions with each other.

This would be a similar system to the {{w|Twitch Plays Pokémon}} experiment from February 2014 on Twitch, in which Twitch viewers "played" Pokémon video games in a crowdsourced manner. There are also many games that are intentionally constructed so that some players must accomplish a goal they cannot see or with incomplete information, while they are guided by other players. These include common team-building exercises (often involving blindfolds), and the bomb-disposal themed puzzle game {{w|Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes}}.

In the title text, Randall claims that boxing and football (unclear if American football or international football) proved to be difficult, with {{w|Pair skating|pairs figure skating}} still possible, and {{w|professional wrestling}} being unaffected. Boxing and any types of football would be difficult to play in these situations, without knowing where the other players are located. Pairs figure skating would be possible, excepting "throwing" moves or "lifts", as typically pairs figure skaters skate in unison, replicating the same moves.

Humorously, Randall claims that professional wrestling will be unaffected by his new system. This is in reference to the "open secret" that the matches have predetermined outcomes and are more "entertainment" than actual competition.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Single wide frame representing a basketball court with a basketball goal at each end. There are seven players running around the court, with a virtual ball in the bottom right corner (indicated by being drawn as a dashed circle). Nine off-screen voices of "online viewers" are yelling instructions to the players. A caption is below the frame running nearly the full width of the frame.]

:Viewer One: No!
:Viewer Two: It's on the–
:Viewer Three: Look out!
:[A player with thick hair and a goatee is "air-shooting" into the left-hand basket.]
:Viewer Four: No!
:[A player with thick hair is running to the right.]
:Viewer Five: He's right there. Don’t run into–
:[A player with no hair is air-dribbling to the right.]
:Viewer Six: Riiight!
:Viewer Seven: Go left!
:Viewer Eight: Left!
:[A player with thick hair and a full beard is facing left and jumping, hands raised to intercept a ball.]
:[A player with no hair is facing left and crouching, reaching for a ball.]
:[A player is making an alley-oop motion towards the right-hand basket.]
:Viewer Nine: Stop dunking and find the ball!
:[The virtual ball is slowly moving right, unseen by the players]
:[A player is hanging on the rim of the basket, making a dunking motion.]

[Caption below the panel:]
:No one liked my new sports system, in which each player is in a separate arena sharing a single virtual ball that they can't see while online viewers yell instructions, but it was fun to watch while it lasted.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:American football]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2243: Star Wars Spoiler Generator

2019-12-19T02:06:59Z

173.245.52.165: unexpexted car wash finales in cinema

{{comic
| number = 2243
| date = December 18, 2019
| title = Star Wars Spoiler Generator
| image = star wars spoiler generator.png
| titletext = The heroes seem to be gaining the upper hand until Darth Juul manages to flip the switch on the car wash control panel from 'REGULAR' to 'PREMIUM.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by DARTH KYLE}}
On December 20, 2019 (2 days after the publication of this comic), the final movie of the "Skywalker saga" of ''Star Wars'' films, ''{{w|Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker}}'', will be released. It received a world premiere in Los Angeles on December 16, so there are lots of spoilers online, and also lots of people who want to avoid spoilers. Randall has created a flowchart that generates "spoilers" to the film, but as Randall probably has not seen the film (or, if he has, he doesn't actually want to spoil us), all of the so-called spoilers are nonsensical.

The formula for each spoiler is as follows: "In this Star Wars movie, our heroes return to take on the First Order and new villain '''[villain name]''' with help from their new friend '''[friend name]'''. Rey builds a new lightsaber with a '''[color]''' blade, and they head out to confront the First Order's new superweapon, the '''[superweapon name]''', a space station capable of '''[evil plan]'''. They unexpectedly join forces with their old enemy '''[character]''' and destroy the superweapon in a battle featuring '''[strange event]'''. P.S. Rey's parents are '''[character]''' and '''[character]'''".

The {{w|First Order (Star Wars)|First Order}} is the main antagonist group in the ''Star Wars'' sequel trilogy series. In ''{{w|Star Wars: The Force Awakens}}'', they use a superweapon in their base, Starkiller Base, to destroy the planetary system housing the headquarters of the New Republic, the democratic government which was formed after the Empire's defeat in ''{{w|Return of the Jedi}}''.

"Building a {{w|lightsaber}}" is one of the rites of passage for becoming a Jedi Knight. In the prequel trilogy, new Jedi build lightsabers as an official part of the journey towards Knighthood, and in the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker builds a lightsaber between ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and ''Return of the Jedi'' as part of his training with Yoda. Rey has used the lightsaber that Anakin Skywalker made and used (which Luke also used when he was a new Jedi) for the first two movies of the sequel trilogy, and so it would be thematically appropriate for her to build her own prior to the trilogy's final entry. Most Jedi's lightsabers are either blue or green, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Mace Windu's purple lightsaber signifies his incredible combat prowess). Kyber crystals are aligned with the Light Side of the Force, so Sith must overpower and "bleed" their crystals before they will function for them, which causes their distinctive red color. Having a lightsaber of a color other than blue, green, or red is often seen in the ''Star Wars'' fandom as a sign of being a "Mary Sue", which is an accusation which has been made of Rey.

Another common plot point in ''Star Wars'' media is the construction, use, and destruction of a superweapon. These are inspired by stories and media of World War II, in which militaries sought to find, attack, and destroy critical elements of their enemies' resources and infrastructure, and meanwhile would construct elaborate defenses for themselves. The attack on the Death Star in particular is inspired by {{w|Operation Chastise}}, the "bouncing bomb" attack on Germany's hydroelectric power plants; Operation Chastise was dramatised in the 1951 book and 1955 film ''The Dam Busters'', which was [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M very thoroughly homaged] by ''A New Hope''. The original trilogy of movies only had two Death Stars, but superweapons quickly became a staple of the Expanded Universe fiction, to the point that one book had Han Solo make fun of the Empire's tendency towards building superweapons, proposing such ridiculous names as "Galaxy Destructor" and "Nostril of Palpatine".

Redemption and making allies of old enemies is also a common plot point in ''Star Wars''. Anakin Skywalker fell to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader, but eventually returned to the Light Side to protect his son, and Han Solo was initially a morally ambiguous character who was eventually convinced to join the Rebellion.

{{w|Rey (Star Wars)|Rey}}, one of the main characters in the sequel trilogy series is an orphan, who was left behind on the planet Jakku as a child. As Rey is Force-sensitive and adept at using a lightsaber, there is much speculation among Star Wars fans as to the identity of her parents. Many major characters in ''Star Wars'' have unexpected heritages of great portent, most famously Luke, who was very distressed to learn that Darth Vader did not ''kill'' his father, as Obi-Wan had told him, but ''is'' his father. In ''{{w|Star Wars: The Last Jedi}}'', villain Kylo Ren tells her that she is the child of "filthy junk traders", but many fans speculate that he was lying to her.

The title text refers to the bottom option of the [strange event in battle] section. Apparently Lord Juul (or Darth Juul) is fighting the heroes in the Sith car wash. It is unclear what "flipping the switch" from Regular to Premium would do, but it seems to be beneficial to Darth Juul. A "premium" car wash usually has more features than a regular car wash, e.g. more cleaning brushes, waxing the car, cleaning the tires, etc.

This is the second false fact generating comic, after [[1930: Calendar Facts]].

==Table==
{| class="wikitable"
! Entry
! Explanation
|-
! colspan="2" | New villain
|-
| Kyle Ren
|Kyle Ren is one letter away from {{w|Kylo Ren|''Kylo'' Ren}}, the adopted "Sith name" of Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia Solo. Kylo is one of the antagonists of the first two movies in the sequel trilogy, and presumably will be so in the third, but there's nobody in the films named "Kyle". (There are a handful of ''Legends'' characters named Kyle, most famously Kyle Katarn, protagonist of the ''Star Wars: Jedi Knight'' video game series.)
|-
| {{w|Malloc}}
| Malloc is a function used in the C programming language to allocate more memory in the running of a program. Malloc may sound similar to {{w|Darth Maul|Maul}}, one of the villains in ''{{w|Star Wars: The Phantom Menace}}'' and in other Star Wars series.
|-
|Darth Sebelius
| {{w|Sebelius}} is the last name of several US people. {{w|Kathleen Sebelius}} is a former state representative and governor of Kansas who was Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Obama. Randall may have chosen this surname as it sounds similar to {{w|Darth Sidious}}, the overarching villain in the first 6 Star Wars films, who is rumored to return in the upcoming film.
|-
|{{w|Theranos}}
|Theranos was a medical technology company founded by {{w|Elizabeth Holmes}} which claimed to have developed revolutionary blood tests that could produce more data from limited volumes of blood than ever before. They were eventually found to have engaged in fraudulent activity, having tricked investors into thinking their technology was performing better than it actually was or ever could, which resulted in fines for Holmes and Theranos president {{w|Ramesh Balwani}} and the bankruptcy of Theranos. Theranos also sounds similar to {{w|Thanos}}, the main villain of the Infinity Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
|-
|Lord Juul
|{{w|Juul}} is a brand of e-cigarettes. In addition to the broader controversy surrounding electronic cigarettes, Juul has been investigated for its sale of flavored additives for their cigarettes, which are alleged to be particularly attractive to minors.
|-
! colspan="2" | New friend
|-
| Kim Spacemeasurer
| May be a parody of the name {{w|Luke Skywalker}}, one of the main characters in the original trilogy of films. Other "Nounverber" names in ''Star Wars'' include Starkiller, Luke's original last name which was later applied to Starkiller Base in ''The Force Awakens'', and Biggs Darklighter, Luke's childhood friend and fellow Rebel pilot who died in the attack on the original Death Star.
|-
|Teen Yoda
|{{w|The Child (Star Wars character)|The Child}}, commonly called "Baby Yoda" by fans and the media, is a breakout character from the Disney+ series ''{{w|The Mandalorian}}''. Randall envisions a "teenage" version of this character teaming up with the main characters.
|-
|Dab Tweetdeck
| A {{w|Dab (dance)|dab}} is a dance move which is many decades old but was made popular by that name in the late 2010's. {{w|TweetDeck}} is an application for managing Twitter accounts. Taken together, "Dab Tweetdeck" could be a character name proposed by clueless Disney executives to attract "the kids" to see ''The Rise of Skywalker'', although one would think that this name would be heavily promoted and thus not a spoiler in that case.
|-
| Yaz Progestin
| Yaz sounds like the first name of {{w|Maz Kanata}}, a supporting protagonist in the sequel trilogy. {{w|Progestin}} is a type of medication which imitates the effects of {{w|progesterone}}, a female sex hormone. They are used for various purposes, including birth control, fertility, and appetite stimulation.
|-
| TI-83
| Droids in the Star Wars universe typically have names with letters and numbers, such as R2D2, C-3PO, BB-8, etc. Randall has created a new character called "TI-83". In real life, the {{w|TI-83}} is a common model of graphing calculator manufactured by Texas Instruments. This mirrors the origin of the name "R2-D2", which was inspired when Lucas was working on ''{{w|American Graffiti}}'' and was asked for Reel 2, Dialog Track 2, which was abbreviated "R-2-D-2". He remarked that it would be a "great name" and included it in his then-in-development script for ''Star Wars''.
|-
! colspan="2" | Lightsaber colors
|-
| [beige/ochre/mauve/aquamarine/taupe]
| These are different colors, none of which is a "traditional" color for a lightsaber. {{w|Beige}} is a pale-grayish yellow. {{w|Ochre}} is a clay earth pigment ranging from yellow to deep orange or brown. {{w|Mauve}} is a pale purple color. A purple color has been used for a lightsaber in the prequel trilogy series, by Jedi Master {{w|Mace Windu}}. {{w|Aquamarine (color)|Aquamarine}} is a blueish green color. {{w|Taupe}} is a dark brown color between brown and gray.
|-
! colspan="2" | Superweapon names
|-
|Sun Obliterator
| There was an Expanded Universe superweapon called the "Sun Crusher", which would infiltrate a star system and shoot a special torpedo into the star to make it go supernova.
|-
|Moonsquisher
| There were no ''Star Wars'' superweapons with the word "Moon" in their title (or "squisher"), but in the no-longer-canon ''New Jedi Order'' series, Chewbacca was squished ''by'' a moon that was intentionally de-orbited by invading Yuuzhan Vong.
|-
|World Eater
| Possibly a reference to {{w|Alduin}}, the main villain of the popular game {{w|The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim}}. In the Expanded Universe, the Empire used World Devastators, massive machines that would strip-mine planets with tractor beams and make weapons and spacecraft from the extracted resources.
|-
|Planet Zester
| A {{w|zester}} is a cooking tool for zesting citrus fruit, that is, scraping off the outer layer of a citrus fruit to obtain the flavorful outer layer of its skin. Zesting a planet would be devastating to anything built or living on its surface.
|-
|Superconducting supercollider
| A {{w|supercollider}}, or particle accelerator, is a machine used to accelerate charged particles to very high speeds, for testing in particle physics. The {{w|Superconducting Super Collider}} was a proposed accelerator which was to be constructed in Texas, but was cancelled partway through construction.
|-
! colspan="2" | Station capabilities
|-
|blowing up a planet with a bunch of beams of energy that combine into one
|This is how the {{w|Death Star}} was depicted in ''{{w|Star Wars: A New Hope}}''. Many beams converged together to form one energy beam. The superweapon was used to destroy the planet Alderaan, as an intimidation tactic against Princess Leia.
|-
|blowing up a bunch of planets with one beam of energy that splits into many
|This is how the superweapon on Starkiller Base was depicted in ''{{w|Star Wars: The Force Awakens}}''. A single energy beam split into several beams, allowing it to attack many planets. The superweapon was used to destroy the planets in the Hosnian system, the headquarters of the New Republic.
|-
|cutting a planet in half and smashing the halves together like two cymbals
|Jango Fett's "seismic charge" weapon, which he used in a dogfight against Obi-Wan Kenobi in ''Attack of the Clones'', produced a plane wave that cut asteroids in half; presumably a larger weapon of this kind could do the same to a planet.
|-
|increasing the CO2 levels in a planet's atmosphere, causing rapid heating
|This seems to have occurred on the planet {{w|Venus}}. Venus is 97% carbon dioxide, and is also the hottest planet in the Solar System, due to a greenhouse effect, preventing the planet from cooling.
|-
|triggering the end credits before the movie is done
|The {{w|closing credits}} or end credits of a film is the list of cast and crew who were involved in the making of the film. It would be quite strange to show the end credits of the film before it has concluded. This entry is considerably less damaging to a planet{{Citation needed}} than the other 4 entries in this section, but if early audiences are left unsatisfied by the movie, they might tell everyone else not to see it, which would put the ''Star Wars'' franchise in a perilous financial situation. This would negatively impact the villains as well as the heroes, but they might consider this a worthwhile trade if it is their best option at harming the heroes.
|-
! colspan="2" | Old enemy/new friend
|-
|{{w|Boba Fett}}
| Boba Fett is a famous bounty hunter introduced in the ''{{w|Star Wars Holiday Special}}'' and made popular by ''{{w|The Empire Strikes Back}}''. On the Empire's orders, he helped capture Han Solo as part of a plot to capture Luke Skywalker. He later tried to prevent Luke from rescuing Han, but was knocked into a sarlacc pit, where he was presumed eaten. In the Expanded Universe, he survived and did eventually join the protagonists against extragalactic invaders; his survival has not been confirmed by Disney's new canon, but he would be a plausible character to bring back in ''The Rise of Skywalker''.
|-
|{{w|Salacious Crumb}}
| Salacious B. Crumb is a Kowakian monkey-lizard who was Jabba the Hutt's jester. He wasn't exactly a major adversary, but he did pull one of C-3PO's eyes out. He was last seen on Jabba the Hutt's sail barge, which was made to explode after Han, Luke, and the rest of the heroes escaped from it, and is presumed dead.
|-
|[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Exogorth The Space Slug]
| In ''The Empire Strikes Back'', Han Solo pilots the Millennium Falcon into a giant cave to evade pursuit and get time to effect repairs. He is interrupted when the cave turns out to be the mouth of a giant space slug, which the Falcon barely escapes. A giant space slug might be a powerful ally in a battle against a giant space station.
|-
|The bottom half of {{w|Darth Maul}}
| Darth Maul was cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi at the end of ''The Phantom Menace''. His "upper half", attached to mechanical legs, has returned as a villain in the ''Clone Wars'' TV series and ''{{w|Solo: A Star Wars Story|Solo}}''. Given that Maul was a Sith and Kenobi a Jedi, who trained Luke, who trained Rey, it would be extremely unexpected for his "bottom half" to join forces with the heroes, although presumably his bottom half would have to be attached to something, which might be better disposed towards Jedi.
|-
|YouTube commenters
| The sequel trilogy has received more mixed reviews from watchers than Disney might like, and many vocal non-fans have taken to commenting on YouTube (via videos and comments) on what they don't like about the new movies and new characters. If ''The Rise of Skywalker'' fully wins the crowd, an alliance between the heroes and their former critics would be extremely powerful.
|-
! colspan="2" | Battle feature
|-
|a bow that shoots little lightsaber-headed arrows
|May be a reference to the [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bowcaster bowcaster], a laser crossbow weapon used by the Wookie {{w|Chewbacca}}. It is unclear if the lightsaber-headed arrows are actually lightsabers in itself, as that would seem difficult to produce.
|-
|X-Wings and TIE fighters dodging the giant letters of the opening crawl
| The {{w|Star Wars opening crawl|"opening crawl"}} is a signature motif used in all the main Star Wars films, to explain the backstory and context of each film. {{w|X-Wing}}s and {{w|TIE fighter}}s are fighter-type spaceships used by the Rebels (and Resistance later on) and the Empire (and First Order), respectively. A dogfight scene during the opening crawl would involve {{w|Fourth wall|breaking the fourth wall}}, as the opening crawl is not presumed to be part of the universe of the films.
|-
|a Sith educational display that uses Force lightning to demonstrate the dielectric breakdown of air
|[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_lightning Force lightning] is a power that Force users can use to generate electric energy from the user's hands. It was first used in ''Return of the Jedi'' by Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious) when Luke Skywalker refuses to give in to the dark side of the Force. Palpatine attempts to kill Luke with Force lightning, but Darth Vader saves Luke by throwing Palpatine down a reactor chute.
|-
|Kylo Ren putting on another helmet over his smaller one
|Kylo Ren is famous for wearing his helmet in ''The Force Awakens'', which he styled after Darth Vader's helmet.
|-
|a Sith car wash where the bristles on the brushes are little lightsabers
| While an unexpected car wash finale scene seems unlikely, it is not without precedent in cinema; ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescence_of_Utena Adolescence of Utena]'' featured the title character unexpectedly entering a car wash and transforming into a car (followed by a segue into a car race sequence).
|-
! colspan="2" | Rey's parent #1
|-
|[Luke/Leia/Han]
|{{w|Luke Skywalker}}, {{w|Princess Leia}} and {{w|Han Solo}} are the main characters of the original Star Wars films. It is unlikely that any of them are Rey's parents as they did not seem to recognize Rey in any of the sequel trilogy films. Leia and Han do have one child who features prominently in the sequel trilogy, Ben Solo, AKA Kylo Ren.
|-
|{{w|Obi-Wan Kenobi|Obi-Wan}}
|Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of the main characters in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. He, along with Qui-Gon Jinn, discovered Anakin Skywalker, who later became Darth Vader. Kenobi dies at the end of ''Star Wars: A New Hope'', sacrificing himself to allow Luke, Leia, and Han to escape the Death Star.
|-
|a random junk trader
|This is who Kylo Ren claims that Rey is descended from: worthless, random junk traders.
|-
! colspan="2" | Rey's parent #2
|-
|{{w|Poe Dameron|Poe}}
|Poe Dameron is one of the main characters of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He is a pilot in the Resistance.
|-
|{{w|BB-8}}
|BB-8 is an astromech droid owned by Poe Dameron. It is unlikely that Rey is descended from a (non-living) droid.
|-
|[ {{w|Amilyn Holdo}} /Laura Dern]
|Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, portrayed by Laura Dern, was a leader in the Resistance. She dies at the end of ''The Last Jedi'', sacrificing herself by jumping to light speed straight into the First Order's pursuing starship.
|-
|a random junk trader
| (see above)
|-
|that one droid from the Jawa Sandcrawler that says ''Gonk''
|This is [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/GNK_power_droid a droid] from ''Star Wars: A New Hope'' that says "Gonk". As in the BB-8 entry, it is unlikely that Rey is descended from a droid.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:<big>Star Wars Spoiler Generator</big>

:[Shown below is a branching flowchart of sorts that begins at the phrase "In this Star Wars movie, our heroes return to take on the First Order and new villain...", then flows through various paths to build up a story.]

:In this Star Wars movie, our heroes return to take on the First Order and new villain...
::Kyle Ren
::Malloc
::Darth Sebelius
::Theranos
::Lord Juul

:...with help from their new friend...
::Kim Spacemeasurer
::Teen Yoda
::Dab Tweetdeck
::Yaz Progestin
::TI-83

:Rey builds a new lightsaber with a...
::beige
::ochre
::mauve
::aquamarine
::taupe

:...blade, and they head out to confront the First Order's new superweapon, the...
::Sun Obliterator
::Moonsquisher
::World Eater
::Planet Zester
::Superconducting Supercollider

:...a space station capable of...
::blowing up a planet with a bunch of beams of energy that combine into one
::blowing up a bunch of planets with one beam of energy that splits into many
::cutting a planet in half and smashing the halves together like two cymbals
::increasing the CO2 levels in a planet's atmosphere, causing rapid heating
::triggering the end credits before the movie is done

:They unexpectedly join forces with their old enemy...
::Boba Fett
::Salacious Crumb
::The Space Slug
::the bottom half of Darth Maul
::Youtube commenters

:...and destroy the superweapon in a battle featuring
::a bow that shoots little lightsaber-headed arrows
::X-Wings and TIE fighters dodging the giant letters of the opening crawl
::a Sith educational display that uses Force Lightning to demonstrate the dielectric breakdown of air
::Kylo Ren putting on another helmet over his smaller one
::a Sith car wash where the bristles on the brushes are little lightsabers

:P.S. Rey's parents are...
::Luke
::Leia
::Han
::Obi-Wan
::a random junk trader

:...and...
::Poe
::BB-8
::Amilyn Holdo
::Laura Dern
::a random junk trader
::that one droid from the Jawa Sandcrawler that says ''Gonk''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Programming]]

149: Sandwich

2015-06-01T05:37:54Z

173.245.52.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 149
| date = August 28, 2006
| title = Sandwich
| image = sandwich.png
| titletext = Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says.
}}

==Explanation==
On a {{w|UNIX}} system, users can be assigned to all kinds of rights, for example ri to access to certain directories and files to execute certain comma. The ''{{w|sudo}}'' p overrides these policies by executi the comm behind it as if the user were an administrator — Sup User, who can a much more of the system thanoru
sandwich, because Cueballall the rights.

On a real UNmachine, to prohibit abuse of the command, the user must be in the ''sudoers'' group, and the user first must type their password before the comm will b

execute
{SimSays}} is achildren's game in which a leader gives various commands which must be followed if and only if ([[1033: Formal L the leader prefthe command with "Sim says". And though UNIX's user rights manage system, w one could refer to as pr user policy, is complex and powerful, people's use of ioften degenerates into merely prepending "sudo" to a fa so that itwill work. For example, sometimes a comma to delete a file "rm -f /path/to/some-syst-file" will fail because the user donot have enough permissions, but the user knows they really want to delete the file, so the simply repeat the command with "sudo": "sudo rm -f /pto/s
ome-system-file".

The title text compares the way the run some commands if they are preceded with "sudo" to the way Simon Says players are supposed to follow orders if they are preceded with "Sim
Alternatively, the title text merely be referring to the similarity be ordering around with "sudo" to the Simon Says game leader orderin other playaround. Wikipedia suggestthe Simon" in the name the game may be the powerful lord Simon de Montfort, or a corruption of Ci whom were politician of their day.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting on a couch, talking to a friend.]
:Cueball: Make me a sandwich.
:Friend: What? Make it yourself.
:Cueball: Sudo make me a sandwich.
:Friend: Okay.

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

Conservation

2015-04-23T21:57:40Z

173.245.52.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| date = June 17, 2009
| title = Conservation
| image = conservation.png
| before = Original blog post on ''Building a Smarter Planet'': http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/06/building-a-smarter-planet-for-squirrels.html
| lappend = asmarterplanet/
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Expand?}}
Two special [[:Category:A Smarter Planet|A Smarter Planet]] comics were created by Randal after a special request from {{w|IBM}}'s blog [http://asmarterplanet.com/ A Smarter Planet]. They are not part of the regular numbered series of comics for xkcd's home site.

It was once said that America's forests were so dense and continuous that "a squirrel could go from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without touching the ground." As this is no longer true, anyone mentioning this today would use the phrase to highlight the fact that deforestation is such a problem that this once common aphorism is anachronistic. Cueball, however, interprets this literally to mean that squirrel's not being able to travel without touching the ground is a problem - rather than the more general problem the aphorism was meant to illustrate. As a result of his misinterpretation, he invents the Aerial Squirrel Transit Pod, which technically solves the problem of squirrel transportation, but does nothing to solve the problem of deforestation. This is yet another instance of people announcing odd things at conferences, a recurring theme in xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[Trees, with a squirrel flying in-between.]
:They say that 400 years ago a squirrel could go from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without touching the ground.

:[Cueball speaking to an audience, under a banner labeled "Conservation Society".]
:Cueball: I dream of bringing back those days.

:Cueball [pointing to a diagram of a helicopter-like device carrying a squirrel]: Which is why I've developed the aerial squirrel transit pod.
:Audience member [Offscreen]: Okay, back up.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:A Smarter Planet]]
[[Category:Extra Comics]]

837: Coupon Code

2015-04-23T06:15:02Z

173.245.52.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 837
| date = December 22, 2010
| title = Coupon Code
| image = coupon_code.png
| titletext = This also guarantees he won't be one of the ones to get a bobcat.
}}

==Explanation==
Some online stores allow you to enter a coupon code in the proper form for a discount on one of their products. Coupon codes are usually a single, simple word. In this comic, Cueball gets the discount by entering a long and detailed blackmail message in the normally short coupon code form, implying that blackmail is a better "coupon" than an actual one. This works so well that Cueball is discounted the full price of the product he's buying. The humor comes from the fact that Cueball's blackmail attempt works as if the online seller was an actual person in real-life, and not an automated computer.

The title text references [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]; it has become a running gag that bobcats are occasionally sent by mail by [[Black Hat]] in various comics.

==Transcript==
:[The panel shows an online shopping form.]
:Shipping: $14.08
:Total: $80.02
:If you have a coupon code, enter it here:
:[An empty form.]
:Check out

:Cueball is looking at his computer.

:[The empty form is now filled in. The rest of the panel shows the same page.]
:Form: In 1987 you quietly took something from the house of a dying woman. You thought nobody knew. You were wrong.

:[Cueball is sitting at his computer.]
:''Click''

:[The form is updated.]
:Shipping: $14.08
:Total: $80.02
:----------------
:Discount
:Applied: -$80.02
:Final price: $0.00
:Thank you
:-Your order has been placed-

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Bobcats]]