explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1756: I'm With Her

2016-11-07T23:07:24Z

198.41.238.32: Bernie would have got my vote. If I'd had one.

The "I'm with her" and H with an arrow are CLEARLY the respective campaign slogan and campaign logo for Hillary Clinton, not some vagueness having to do with bringing a significant other. {{unsigned ip|173.245.48.78}}
:I see it more as him endorsing voting regardless of who you vote for (as evidenced by half the comic is about "Here's how you vote" without any mention of candidates or issues) and the endorsing Clinton part is an add-on as if to say "This is how I'm voting; vote for her if you agree with me." [[User:Jeudi Violist|Jeudi Violist]] ([[User talk:Jeudi Violist|talk]]) 18:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Has Randall endorsed a presidential candidate before? --[[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 17:14, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:He supported Obama on his blog in '08, not in the comic though. {{unsigned ip|162.158.214.230}}

He could have said any number of clever things about the election, and all he did was put up a campaign sign. Disappointing. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 17:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

what a cuck --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.63|172.68.51.63]] 17:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:: leaving aside the most ridiculous slur of the past few years, I don't know what else did you expect from Randall. I guess you must have stumbled upon this wiki by chance and have never heard of xkcd before.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 17:59, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:: AHAHAHAHA. *Ahem.* Hooray for pejorative misappropriation of a kink. /s [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.55|108.162.246.55]] 19:07, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

This is the first time I still don't get the joke even after reading the explainxkcd page [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.123|108.162.219.123]] 18:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:It isn't a joke. [[Randall]] is simply encouraging people to vote. [[User:GizmoDude|GizmoDude]] ([[User talk:GizmoDude|talk]]) 20:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
;Bit disappointing...

I was hoping for a comic today. oh well. Interesting to see how he's planning to vote, though - it's a shame that there are no candidates this year in favor of strong encryption. {{unsigned ip|172.68.55.80}}

Funny how females outdo males in this 'comic' but in terms of frequency and of elevation. Oh well. xkcd has long been overrepresenting females, it was to be expected. <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>{{unsigned ip|162.158.201.90}}
:Seriously? You're whinging 'what about the men?' in a geek web comic?! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.212|108.162.215.212]] 18:21, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
::And there are 11 characters and they are split 5 to 6, and if Blondie represents Clinton then there are 5 to 5 M vs W supporters. ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:58, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

The only disappointing this are comments like those two above. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.201.96|162.158.201.96]] 18:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
: Females being overrepresented in comics like xkcd (but also other ones) with respect to their controlled interest in science in reality is a fact. Therefore, you are calling facts disappointing. How geeky of you. <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>{{unsigned ip|162.158.201.90}}
:: So, your real problem is that Randall likes using female stick figures, yes? Also, why are you afraid to "un-nowiki" your signature...? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.201.96|162.158.201.96]] 19:15, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
::: No. Allow me to repeat my point as you had apparently misunderstood: 'females being overrepresented'. This is something else than 'females being represented'. The more you know, the less chance there is for you to accidentally twist another person's words as misogyny/sexism. Also, identity is not relevant to discussion. <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>{{unsigned ip|162.158.201.90}}
:::: I understood you perfectly fine. My point still stands: You don't like Randall's preference for female stick figures. I never said you're being misogynic/sexist, so please don't imply I did. Thing with your "hidden" identity is that it's plain visible in the history of this page, so there's really no need to nowiki the signature, that's all. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.201.96|162.158.201.96]] 20:42, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
::::: You are extremely skilled at saying things that are false and asserting that they're true. First you confused objecting to female overrepresentation (over-presence) with objecting to female representation (presence) ('your real problem is that Randall likes using female stick figures'). Then you moved to confusing objecting to female overrepresentation with objecting to *Randall's* female overrepresentation. My objection does not pertain to who is doing overrepresenting, but to the mere fact of it. I would have objected identically to any other writer. Also, your attributing of opposition to female presence in comics (after doing which which you proceeded to asserting my being personally hostile to Randall) is accusing of sexism/misogyny by definition. Also, I am obviously aware of edit history; my use my signature constitutes a reminder that identity is, as I said, irrelevant in discussion. It does not serve to obscure anything. You have a remarkable record of falsehoods. <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>{{unsigned ip|162.158.201.90}}

A little disappointing to have a normally lighthearted comic dive seriously into politics, if even for one strip. Not really a fan of either candidate, but would like to see stuff like this stay above the fray. {{unsigned ip|162.158.69.100}}
:Completely agreed. [[User:SeanAhern|SeanAhern]] ([[User talk:SeanAhern|talk]]) 18:27, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:Completely agreed 2. At first I though it's some kind of a romance statement ("be with her"). And from explainxkcd I have learnt that it's an US campaign ad. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.150|162.158.202.150]] 22:19, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

This is a first... comics 500 and 1130 (possibly 1131 too) were related to the election, but didn't endorse a candidate. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.89|108.162.219.89]] 18:41, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:I think Randall is pretty much just saying '''OH GOD PLEASE DONT VOTE FOR TRUMP''' [[User:GizmoDude|GizmoDude]] ([[User talk:GizmoDude|talk]]) 20:59, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:: If Randall was saying that, he'd also be bringing up third party candidates (honestly surprised he didn't endorse Jill Stein considering she's more pro-science than Hillary. And before anyone says "anti-vax", check snopes. Jill Stein is so pro-vax [she's volunteered time vaccinated children and is on record saying she wants to increase vaccination rates], pro-addressing-climate[she's green party who has that as a primary platform], and wants to replace the people with business degrees on the panels of the FDA with people with science degrees. Jill is so pro-science and that it makes Hillary look like a flat-earther.) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.42|108.162.246.42]] 21:30, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

I came here to see what the tone of the comments were going to be. I was half expecting to find an all-out flamewar in progress. I was happy to see that the comments have not devolved into the kind of attacks that one would expect to find pretty much anywhere else on the Internet. Geeks are the best people. :) [[User:Mwburden|mwburden]] ([[User talk:Mwburden|talk]]) 18:47, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm very dissappointed. Randall never took sides before and - be it as it may - this comic is not a comic but plain out political campaign. Up until now I held xkcd in EXTREMELY high esteem - this comic put a serious dent in that opinion..
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.60|162.158.91.60]] 18:56, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
: I'm really torn about this one. On the one hand I feel that you HAVE to take sides in this one, if your only other option is Donald Trump... on the other hand, I never liked when web comics express political opinions. It will always end in a flame war and almost never have anything to do with the web comic itself. Randall should've just put up a "go vote becaues it's important" sign without taking sides. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.201.96|162.158.201.96]] 19:17, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
: Don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm sure there are other comics out there that would agree with your ideology. [[User:Sturmovik|Sturmovik]] ([[User talk:Sturmovik|talk]]) 19:25, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:Randall should do whatever Randall thinks he should do. Should he put up "go read about global warming" comics instead of take the side of AGW? If you think this example is an inappropriate one to use in contrasting this comic with the current political election cycle then you've completely ignored the stances of the two popular candidates. But back to the original point: if you don't like XKCD anymore because of this one comic then go find another comic or start your own. All of art is an expression of the person. Randall knew not everyone would like his beliefs when he pushed this out to the world and is obviously prepared to deal with any consequences of taking a stand on his website. I, for one, applaud him for doing so {{unsigned ip|162.158.69.19}}
:: Randall did a comic about global warming a while back, which was very interesting. Because I heard the "earth has warmed up before" argument before and even used it myself at least once. The difference about the global warming comic is that he backed it up with scientific facts, which is well within the scope of this comic. Political opinions aren't (or did the slogan change to ''A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language and politics''?). Yes, of course he can do with his web comic whatever he wants to. But readers can express their opinions about what he does with it. It's called "freedom of speech", you know?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.201.96|162.158.201.96]] 20:47, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:::[[1357|There's a comic for that.]] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.230|162.158.214.230]] 21:19, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Can you help list all the characters in the transcript? From left to right; they're Joanna (ponytail with EMP cannon) from [[322]]; Black Hat; unknown with kite; White Hat; possibly Miss Lenhart (but his hair is somewhat different from [[1519]]); unknown possibly Megan; cueball; unknown woman with glasses; Hairbun; Beret Guy; Cueball with toy sword from [[303]]. [[User:B jonas|B jonas]] ([[User talk:B jonas|talk]]) 19:10, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Good for Randal. I had been noticing how many Hillary leaning artists had been pulling their punches this election, likely out of fear of trolling or loss of revenue. You want to know what courage looks like? This is is. [[User:Sturmovik|Sturmovik]] ([[User talk:Sturmovik|talk]]) 19:25, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Title text hasn't been explained yet. Is it a reference to the German chancellor Angela Merkel's phrase "Wir schaffen das!'? Don't know if Clinton has a slogan like Obama's "Yes, we can!". {{unsigned ip|162.158.91.36}}

I find (linking to )this civicinnovation website rather questionable. They want to audit peoples address books based on who the names in there might vote for? That sounds like Erich Mielkes wildest dreams come true. Even German newspapers (where i'm from), which are 100% anti-Trump, have in the last days noted concern about the methods of Clintons supporters bullying the other side, and this is a disquieting new piece in that picture. I'll hope this is just a ploy to step up with Trump on the ''bad manners'' side. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.160|162.158.91.160]] 19:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

;Not all comics have to be humorous

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics#Etymology]
:The English term ''comics'' derives from the humorous (or "[[wikt:comic|comic]]") work which predominated in early American newspaper comic strips; usage of the term has become standard for non-humorous works as well. {{unsigned ip|162.158.69.57}}

:The problem is that this isn't a comic, this is a campaign ad. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.38|162.158.238.38]] 20:32, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

;Could we please just NOT get politics involved in the comments, guys?

Just... please? [[User:Papayaman1000|Papayaman1000]] ([[User talk:Papayaman1000|talk]]) 20:34, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:Are you serious. What had you expected :-) This is the most loaded comic of all time. It will even take down [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], even though [[388:_Fuck_Grapefruit#Controversy|it beat his blog]] about his Obama endorsement. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:58, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Randall has taken a side in a political Argument before: Not counting the near-invisible easter egg, comic 1005 consists solely of Randall taking a stance on something political and providing links to show how you can help. That wasn't too long ago, but no one freaked out about a serious, political strip back then.
[[User:CJB42|CJB42]] ([[User talk:CJB42|talk]]) 20:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:Policy to candidates is not an apples to apples comparison. People get much more up in arms when the topic is either a candidate or policy that goes against religious text or teachings. SOPA and PIPA were neither (well, unless you count GNU as some kind of internet religion). [[User:Zernin|Zernin]] ([[User talk:Zernin|talk]]) 21:22, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

It's sad to see a guy who is so smart in some areas, yet can not see Hillary Clinton for the terrible president she would be. (Granted, part of the reason we only have a few other choices is because of our messed up voting system.) {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.177}}

Instead of comic, post contained a political statement. I am not amused. I want a refund. I don't vote, and I don't even live anywhere near USA. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.102|141.101.96.102]] 18:40, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:A refund? For what? You pay to read this comic? [[User:Zorlax the Mighty|Zorlax the Mighty'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:Zorlax the Mighty|talk]]) 21:53, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Darn right you better be with her. If you say anything else, you will "commit suicide". Just ask Vince Foster or Seth Rich if you think I'm crazy.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.77|173.245.48.77]] 21:46, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

What, Randy does not say "Bernie or Bust"? I feel cheated now. :P --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.228|162.158.150.228]] 22:54, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:Poor Bernie. Poor America. Poor world. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 23:07, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Just good luck America (and the rest of the world where I belong), whatever happens tomorrow. But I'm hoping Randall can help his candidate win! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:58, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1714: Volcano Types

2016-08-01T22:57:26Z

198.41.238.32: Dumb description.

Actual antlions, not to be confused with the antlions from Half-Life 2. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.62|173.245.52.62]] 15:08, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I think pedant's bane actually has them labelled correctly. It's just that the picture is upside down and you've reversed the figure and the ground in your mind. Were it right-side-up, you'd see It's actually a drawing of a teeny pool of underground magma at the bottom of an antlion's trap, spouting up a fountain of lava. {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.107}}
:I can't tell if you're joking or not. A pedant is someone who cares (maybe too much) about being technically correct. The bane of a volcano pedant would be people who mix up lava and magma. This is why the labels are reversed in the figure. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.62|173.245.52.62]] 16:27, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
::Exactly. But what's the description going on about? "''Pedant's Bane is therefore impossible by definition but if it were possible, then a pedant correcting someone's description of it would be wrong.''" What is all that rubbish supposed to mean? The explanation is not supposed to require explaining! If the terms refer to the same material but in different situations then they're wrong in the two situations illustrated, and thus should be corrected, especially by a pedant. Where does "impossible by definition" come into it? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 22:57, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Who here was hoping for Harry Potter???? [RedstoneIngot] [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.60|173.245.56.60]] 20:07, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1711: Snapchat

2016-07-25T11:43:52Z

198.41.238.32: Huh?

"No, it's because I'm ignorant." Is Snapchat the one where photos last ten seconds only, then they're gone? And the Pulitzer prize is some American thing, right? (As opposed to Pulletzer prize, some chicken thing.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 11:43, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

1704: Gnome Ann

2016-07-10T00:47:52Z

198.41.238.32: Nothing like made up stuff and nonsense.

{{comic
| number = 1704
| date = July 8, 2016
| title = Gnome Ann
| image = gnome_ann.png
| titletext = In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want Gnome Ann to be in the way of the bullet.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic presents a series of images depicting a female {{w|gnome}} who is known as "Gnome Ann". The humor derives from the fact that the name "Gnome Ann" and the compound noun "no man" are {{w|homophone}}s, meaning they sound alike but have different meanings and spellings.
(Users of the {{w|GNOME|Gnome desktop system}} may have difficulties understanding this since they pronounce Gnome with a hard "g", reflecting its {{w|GNU}} ties.)

[[Randall]] presents the reader with six images (and a title text) captioned with quotations from a wide range of sources, each featuring an instance of the compound noun "no man" being replaced by "Gnome Ann" (and featuring a drawing that reflects this change). There is one proverb, two Biblical quotations, two literary quotations (the {{w|Miguel de Cervantes|Cervantes}} quote is from ''{{w|Don Quixote}}'', the other one is from {{w|Lord of the Rings}}, the line {{w|Éowyn}} said to the {{w|Witch-king_of_Angmar|Witch-king of Angmar}} before killing him), one quotation from the opening of a television show (''{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}''), and a quotation from a piece of historical rhetoric in the title text.

The third panel, in which Gnome Ann pushes the groom aside and approaches the bride, may suggest that Gnome Ann is attracted to her and perhaps intends to marry her in his stead. According to {{w|Joseph Smith}}, Gnome Ann shall have but one wife. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Latter_Day_Saint_polygamy] (And, incidentally, [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/King_Follett_Discourse#A_Call_to_Repentance knows his history].)

The process by which "no man" becomes "nom an" (and hence Gnome Ann) is known as {{w|false splitting}}, and is a familiar process of word formation in English and other languages; examples include {{w|Vipera_berus#Etymologies|"an adder" from "a nadder"}} and "lone" from "(all) one".

===Table of quotes===
{| class="wikitable"
| '''Modified quote'''
| '''Original quote'''
| '''Origin'''
| '''Explanation'''
|-
| "Time and tide wait for Gnome Ann."
| "Time and tide wait for no man."
| Proverb
| [[89: Gravitational Mass|Normally]] it is not possible for anyone to influence time or tides. However in this case it would appear that Gnome Ann is able to stop time, and tides.
|-
| "The wicked flee when Gnome Ann pursueth."
| "The wicked flee when no man pursueth."
| Bible: [http://biblehub.com/proverbs/28-1.htm Proverbs 28:1]
| This (out of context) biblical reference normally implies the wicked are a cowardly and/or paranoid lot, jumping at shadows and eager to flee at simply the pretense of danger or pursuit. However in this case it would imply that wicked people run away from Gnome Ann specifically.
|-
| "What therefore God hath joined together, let Gnome Ann put asunder."
| "What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
| Bible: [http://biblehub.com/mark/10-9.htm Mark 10:9]
| In the Bible, Jesus is asked about whether people should be allowed to divorce, and Jesus responds with this quote. It is known to appear in wedding vows, hence the fact that the man and woman in the panel are dressed for a wedding. However, in the comic, the quote becomes a command to Gnome Ann to break apart what God has joined.
|-
| "Time ripens all things; Gnome Ann is born wise
| "Time ripens all things; no man is born wise."
| The novel {{w|Don Quixote}} by {{w|Miguel De Cervantes}}
| This states that nobody is wise to begin with, and it takes time to become wise. However it now states that Gnome Ann is wise to begin with, suggesting she is not part of the order of things within time.
|-
| "Our Mission: To boldly go where Gnome Ann has gone before."
| "Our Mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before."
| Intro at {{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}
| Originally this was meant to emphasize that they would be going to completely unexplored territory, which would be a potentially risky venture. However in this case , it means that they will be following Gnome Ann, which is not exploration. Though depending on where Gnome Ann has gone, these may still be risky ventures: "(Gnome Ann) goes to battle to be killed." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_and_Cleopatra_%28play%29]
|-
| Witch-king of Angmar: "Fool! No man can kill me." Gnome Ann: "I Am Gnome Ann!"
| Witch-king of Angmar: "Fool! No man can kill me." Éowyn: "I Am no man!"
| {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}
| The Witch-king of Angmar was given a prophecy that he would never be bested in combat by the hand of man, and he boasted "no man" could kill him. Both in ''Lord of the Rings'' and this comic, he is defeated by a woman. Gnome Ann is simply that good.
|-
| "In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want Gnome Ann to be in the way of the bullet."
| "In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet."
| {{w|Andrew Johnson}}, 17th President of the United States
| '''Title text''': The intent of this statement originally was that Andrew Johnson would rather be killed, than have somebody else be killed trying to save his life. However in this case it would appear that Andrew Johnson would really prefer Gnome Ann to be shot instead of himself, perhaps because he knows that "(Gnome Ann) lives forever." [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne]
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panels.]
:The <big>Legend</big> of <big>Gnome Ann</big>

:[At the beach, between a clock hanging in the air, showing 10 past 10 and the shoreline, Gnome Ann, a woman with curly hair and a black triangular hat, stands with her arms outstretched towards the clock and the sea. For each of the first five panels a text is written within a frame above the drawings.]
:Time and tide wait for Gnome Ann.

:[Gnome Ann running in from the left frame with her arms out chases three Cueball like men running from her towards right. The one closest to her looks over his shoulder at her, the next runs forward "normally" and the last in front throws up his arms in the air.]
:The wicked flee when Gnome Ann pursueth.
:-Proverbs 28:1

:[Gnome Ann takes the groom's place in a wedding, shoving him to the side. The groom, Hairy with a bow tie, falls while throwing his arms out. The bride stands to the left, in full wedding dress, showing no reaction.]
:What therefore God hath joined together, let Gnome Ann put asunder.
:-Mark 10:9

:[Gnome Ann sits in a yoga position meditating on a big rock in a desolate area with small rocks on the ground around the big rock.]
:Time ripens all things; Gnome Ann is born wise.
:-Miguel De Cervantes

:[The starship Enterprise from Star Trek is seen from behind as it flies to the right, chasing a smaller craft. In this panel the frame with text is shown to emanate from Enterprise with a zig zag arrow pointing to the starship.]
:Enterprise: Our Mission: To boldly go where Gnome Ann has gone before.

:[The Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, from the Lord of the Rings sits on his knees (below the frame) to the left of Gnome Ann, who is preparing to stab him with a sword pointing at his head. She is also holding her other arm out towards him. The Witch-king has a black cloak covering his head and body with a kind of crown with six small spikes shown around his head and one large spike in front. It also goes down on each side of his head showing a gaping hole instead of a face. In this panel the text is spoken by the two characters.]
:Witch-king: Fool! No man can kill me.
:Gnome Ann: '''''I Am Gnome Ann!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]

Talk:1704: Gnome Ann

2016-07-09T08:47:05Z

198.41.238.32: Write-up is wrong.

The lotr reference is about the Witch King of Angmar instead of Sauron
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-king_of_Angmar

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.196.143|162.158.196.143]] 05:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Dege

I'm surprised there's no reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphemus Polyphemus] from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer Homer's] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey Odyssey]. Or is there one that I haven't seen?

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.165|162.158.85.165]] 08:00, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I saw the first panel, and honestly thought the pun was between Gnome Ann and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomon gnomon] of a sundial. The rest made pretty clear of what's up, though.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.5|108.162.219.5]] 10:01, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Between the trenches: Gnome Ann's land. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.10.34|172.68.10.34]] 11:29, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Great comic. I really like this one. The idea is old but is put into new perspective with the drawings. Guess this can be made in different languages. Have seen one in Danish where a person was named ''Ingens'' = no one. So if something was owned by no one it was his... Must admit I did not get it until the Star Trek reference but I'm not native English and had to try it out to hear the no man in gnome ann where I would also pronounce the g hard although not for the reason mentioned in the explanation but because the Danish word Gnom is pronounced like that and not like nome. We need a Star Trek category I would say! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
:[[:Category:Star Trek|Done]]! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:42, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

It might still be considered a 'literary quotation' but, strictly speaking, the line "I am no man" is from the movie. The original dialogue in the book isn't quite that simple, and the "Gnome Ann" joke probably wouldn't work. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.220|162.158.214.220]] 14:28, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
:Given that it depicts the scene from the movie that is a perfect quote for this comic. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:42, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=26686 Language Log] has more of these. [[User:.42|.42]] ([[User talk:.42|talk]]) 15:34, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Gnome Ann is an island. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.211|108.162.237.211]] 16:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
:[https://zgrep.org/draw/island.png I could not resist.] {{User:Grep/signature|18:31, 08 July 2016}}

Do you think Gnome Ann does double crit damage? She is no man, and she is Gnome Ann. {{unsigned ip|162.158.214.149}}

Re: The last paragraph of the explanation, is this false splitting, which seems to involve historical changes in words by dividing in the wrong place, or is this a [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen mondegreen]? The example which came first to mind is Jimi Hendrix, from Purple Haze : "Excuse me while I kiss (this guy / the sky)." I'm not nearly enough of a grammarian to be sure about the distinction. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 02:25, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

"Gnome Ann mistakenly thinks that 'no man' is actually a reference to her own name." Citation needed. I see no reason to think that she is mistaken about anything. She's not a man; she's not even human. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 08:47, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

802: Online Communities 2

2016-03-19T22:42:19Z

198.41.238.32: /* MMO Isle */ Fixes to inordinately stupid MMO section

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.
}}
A [http://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.
{{TOC}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Not all of the regions are fully explained. Many labels aren't even mentioned outside of the transcript. Some towns need to be added for example.}}
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities.

This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."

The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.

At the title text [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative overly-narrow superlative.]

===Facebook Region===
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.

'''{{w|Facebook}}''' is a social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated; most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!

*'''{{w|FarmVille}}''' and '''{{w|Farm Town}}''' are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.

*'''People You Can't Unfriend''' refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.

*'''Blatherskite River''' refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.

*'''Data Mines''' refer to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.

*'''Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions''' refer to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.

*'''524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes''' refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2; 524287 is the 7th known Mersenne prime.

*'''Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"''' refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.

*'''"Old Facebook" Resistance''' refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.

*'''Privacy Controls''' is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.
*'''Niche Market Mountains''' refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.
*'''Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks''' refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).
*In the Charred Wasteland stands '''{{w|Ozymandias}}''', the titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.
*In the north are the '''Duckface Mountains''' and the '''Red Cup Mountains'''."Duckface" refers to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.
*In the south is '''Buzzword Bay'''. {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention; again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.

While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.

*Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") is '''{{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}''', a fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.
*'''{{w|StudiVZ}}''' is a German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.
*'''{{w|XING}}''' is a German-speaking social platform similar to LinkedIn.
*'''{{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}''' is a service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.
*'''{{w|Taringa!}}''' is a Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.
*Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf is '''{{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}''', a French-speaking social network.
*'''{{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}''' is a German-social network somewhat like MySpace.
*'''{{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}''' or NK, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.
*'''{{w|Badoo}}''' is a social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.
*'''{{w|Classmates.com}}''' is a service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [http://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])
*'''{{w|Myspace}}''' is a social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network, many people using the website; however, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.
*'''{{w|LinkedIn}}''' is a social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjancent to '''Corporate Bay'''.
*'''{{w|Orkut}}''' was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.
*'''{{w|Hi5}}''' is a social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.
*'''{{w|Renren}}''' ('''「人人」''', "people" in Chinese) is "a Chinese copy of Facebook."
*'''{{w|Bebo}}''' was a social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.
*'''{{w|Friendster}}''' - One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.
*'''{{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}''' or VK, is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.
*'''{{w|Netlog}}''' is a Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.
*'''{{w|Mixi}}''' is an online Japanese social networking service.
*'''{{w|Qzone}}''' is a social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.
*'''{{w|Tuenti}}''' is a Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."
*'''{{w|Cloob}}''' is a Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.
*'''{{w|Kaixin001}}''' is a social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.
*'''{{w|Piczo}}''' was a privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.
*'''{{w|Odnoklassniki}}''' is a social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.
*'''{{w|Adult FriendFinder}}''' is a pornographic dating site.
*'''{{w|Match.com}}''' is a dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.
*'''{{w|Ok Cupid}}''' is another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.
*'''{{w|PlentyofFish}}''' is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.
*'''{{w|Sulawesi}}''' is a real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.

===MMO Isle===
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.

*'''[https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]''' is a website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.
*'''[http://www.clubpenguin.com/ Club Penguin]''' is [http://disney.com/ Disney's] MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children.
*'''[http://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]''' is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.
*'''[http://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]''', while not an MMO, is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.
*'''[http://www.ign.com/ IGN]''' (full: '''Imagine Games Network'''), while also not an MMO, is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.
*'''[http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]''' (full: '''Final Fantasy XI''') is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.
*'''[http://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]''' is an older MMO.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]''' is a realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]''' (full: '''World of Warcraft''') is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.
*'''[http://secondlife.com/ Second Life]''' is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.
*'''[http://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]''' is a text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.
*'''[http://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]''' describes itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well.
*'''[http://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]''' (full: '''Kingdom of Loathing''') is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.
*'''{{w|CDC Games}}''' is a Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.
*'''{{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}''' is a science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.
*'''{{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}''' or Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama.
*'''{{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}''' or City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.

Other notable regions include:
*The '''Mountains of Steam''', referring to the game distribution service [http://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [http://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.
*'''River Grind''' refers to "grinding." In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."
*'''Spawn Camp''' refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.
*'''Gulf of Lag''' refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.
*'''[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]''' refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).

===YouTube Region===
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.

'''[https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]''' is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.

Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:
*'''Viral Shores''' refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.
*'''Britney''' likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].
*'''Maru Gulf''' refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].
*'''Prairie Dog Habitat''' likely refers to the viral video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).
*'''Rick Rolling Hills''' references, well, {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video.
*'''Lunar Landing Soundstage''' is, of course, a reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.
*'''{{w|OK Go}} Bay''' refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.

The '''HTML5 swamp''' refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.

Other counties of the YouTube region include:
*'''[https://vimeo.com/ vimeo]''', a website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.

Snob Sound:
*'''[https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]''', a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
*'''[http://fotolog.com Fotolog]''', a photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.
*'''[http://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]''', a music website that is notable of its "scrobbling" feature.
*'''[http://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]''', the largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.

*'''[https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]''', a website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.
*'''[http://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]''' is a website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.
*'''{{w|Brickshelf}}''' is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.
*'''[https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]''', where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (where people fight against racism, sexism, and other forms of negative discrimination). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)
*'''{{w|b3ta}}''' is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.

The '''Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics''' is a joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.
The '''Snob Sound''' could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art). '''The Iraq''' is a reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.

===Twitter Region===
*'''Bieber Bay''' is a reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.
*'''{{w|Google Buzz}}''' is a former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.
*'''Bit.Ly Mountains''' is a reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.
*'''Kanye's Isle of Sadness''' is a reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [http://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].
*'''Sarah Palin USA''' is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.
*'''Clueless Politician Coast''' is a reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.
*'''Desert of Food Updates''' is a reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.
*'''Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge''' is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.
*'''SHAQ''' is a reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.
*'''{{w|identi.ca}}''' is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.
*''' Breaking! Waves''' is a pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.
*'''Web 3.0''' refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.
*'''Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you''' refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.

===Geotagged Bay===
*'''{{w|Yelp}}''' is a website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).
*'''{{w|Geocaching}}''' is a worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.
*'''{{w|Foursquare}}''' is a location-based social network.
*'''Latitude''' refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.

===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===
*'''{{w|Reddit}}''' is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
*'''{{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}''' refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors discuss how to improve articles.
*'''{{w|Wikia}}''' is a 3rd party wiki software, used in the making of the user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter.
*'''{{w|StumbleUpon}}''' is a website-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}''' is a bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Digg}}''' is a former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories.
*'''{{w|Slashdot}}''', labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.
*'''{{w|Fark}}''' is a community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.
*'''{{w|YTMND}}''' is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).

===Skype Region===
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.

*'''{{w|Skype}}''' is, according to Randall, the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.
*'''{{w|AIM}}''' or AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.
*'''GG''' is {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} and instant messenger client popular in Poland.
*'''{{w|Yahoo Messenger}}''' is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.
*'''{{w|Google Talk}}''' is a voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.
*'''{{w|ICQ}}''' is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).
*'''{{w|Windows Live Messenger}}''', or "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.
*'''{{w|UseNet}}''' was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.
*'''{{w|IRC}} Isles''' refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (per 2014, notably in getting help from users4. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].

===Bay of Drama===
*'''{{w|FanFiction.net}}''' is a website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.
*'''{{w|Xanga}}''' is a blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...
*'''{{w|LiveJournal}}''' was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.
*'''ONYD''' - Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.
*'''{{w|Dreamwidth}}''' is a LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.

===Blogosphere===
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.
*'''{{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}''' are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.
*'''Diary Blogs''' are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.
*'''Bay of Grammar Pedantry''' deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.
*'''Fandom Blogs''' are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.
*'''Sea of Zero (0) Comments''' refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.
*'''SpamBlog Straits''' references spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.
*'''OffTopic.com''' is a general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."
*Many more straightforward blogs, including:
**'''Writing/Poetry'''
**'''Gossip Blogs'''
**'''Political Blogs'''
**'''Music Blogs'''
**'''Tech Blogs'''
**'''Business Blogs'''
**'''Corporate Blogs'''
**'''Religious Blogs'''
**'''Miscellaneous Blogs'''
*'''Blog Blogs''' - These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.

===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
Gossip Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.
*'''{{w|Jezebel}}''' is a liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.
*'''{{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}''' is an online entertainment news magazine.
*'''{{w|TMZ}}''' is a celebrity news website.
*'''{{w|Gawker}}''' is a blog that is the host of other blogs.
*'''LJ Oh No They Didn't''' - LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.
*'''Doucheblog''' refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.
*'''Isle of Mockery''' is a reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.

Liberal Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.
*'''{{w|Huffington Post}}''' is a news blog.
*'''{{w|Paul Krugman}}''' is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.
*'''{{w|Daily Beast}}''' is a news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.
*'''{{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}''' is a political journal run by Josh Marshall.
*'''{{w|Ezra Klein}}''' used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].
*'''{{w|Think Progress}}''' is a political news blog.
*'''{{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}''' is another political blog.

Bay of Flame:
*'''{{w|Politics Daily}}''' is a political journalism website launched by AOL.
*'''CNN Political Ticker''' is CNN's political blog.
*'''{{w|Mediaite}}''' is a news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.
*'''{{w|NY Times}}''' is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.
*'''{{w|The Talk}}''' is a talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."
*Libertarian Isle (shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}})

Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.
*'''{{w|Pajamas Media}}''' is a media company and operator of conservative news.
*'''{{w|Michelle Malkin}}''' is a conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.
*'''{{w|Hot Air}}''' is a news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.
*'''{{w|RedState|Red State}}''' is a political blog.
*'''{{w|American Thinker}}''' is a daily online magazine focused on politics.
*'''{{w|Townhall}}''' is a web publication and print magazine.

Tech Blogs:
*'''{{w|Boy Genius Report}}''' is a weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.
*'''{{w|Gizmodo}}''' is a news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.
*'''{{w|Engadget}}''' is another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.
*'''Crunchgear''' is a blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.
*'''{{w|Techcrunch}}''' is an online publisher of technology industry news.
*'''{{w|Joystiq}}''' is a news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.
*'''{{w|Kotaku}}''' is another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference beig that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.

Assorted:
*'''{{w|BoingBoing}}''' is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.
*'''{{w|Lifehacker}}''' is another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.
*'''{{w|Deadspin}}''' is a sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch.
*'''Meatorama''' is a blog that talks about cooking meat.

===QQ Region===
*'''Baidu Baike''' (「百度百科」, "Baidu Encyclopedia") and '''Hudong''' (「互动百科」, "Interactive Encyclopedia" ) are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.
* The '''Ma Le Ge Bi''' and the '''Grass Mud Horse Bay''' could refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.
* The '''Location of Jia Junpeng''' refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.
*'''{{w|Tencent QQ}}''' is a Chinese instant messaging program.
*In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions:
**An {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes.
**A synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''.
**These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".
*The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China"). The '''Great Firewall''' refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. However, either a VPN or remote access to a computer in a "freer" country can circumvent the Firewall. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone.

===Forums Islands===
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss.

While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.

*'''[http://www.2ch.net 2channel]''' is a Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.
*'''[http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]''' is a classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence the '''The Former Site of Adult Services'''.

In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:
*'''[https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]''' is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is shaped like a penis.
*'''420chan''' and '''7chan''', other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them; hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.
*'''Encyclopedia Dramatica''', labeled '''ED''' on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).
*'''Tunnel to Habbo''' is a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.
*'''{{w|Catbus}} Route''' is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.
*'''[http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]''' is a media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.
*The gulf labelled '''{{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}''' is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.

To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is
* '''Storm 2K''' is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.
* '''Skyscraper city''' is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.
* An island containing two websites related to women, namely
** '''Wizaz.pl''' is a Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.
** '''Baby and bump''' is a self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community."
An island contaning
** '''ForoCoches''' is a very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.
** '''Bodybuilding.com''' is(as you can hopefully tell) a website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.
** '''Bokt.nl''' calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.
** '''Cruise Critic''' is a website with a large forum about cruises in general.
* '''Lay it low''' is a website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.
* '''Two plus two'''
* An island containing:
** '''Fan forum'''
** '''Face the jury'''
** A smaller nearby island is '''Datalounge'''
* An island containing gaming-related sites
** '''D2JSP'''
** '''EA UK'''
** '''Gametrailers'''
* Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are
** '''Steam powered'''
** '''World of players'''
** '''Nedgaf'''
** '''Overclock'''
* A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:
** '''[http://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]''', a British media and entertainment news service
** '''[http://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]''', a Belarusian digital technology forum
** Zona Ford
** '''[http://lowyat.net/ lowyat]''', a large Malaysian technology forum
** exbil
** '''[http://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]''', an Apple news and discussion site
** Adjacent to this, an island labelled '''[http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]''', a large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.
* An island made up of several European forums:
** '''[http://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]'''
** '''[http://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]''', a Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands
** '''[http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]''', a British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students
** '''[http://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]''' "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site
** '''[http://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]''', a Croatian forum
** '''rus-chat''', possibly a reference to [http://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]
* The largest single-site island is [http://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [http://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [http://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

Talk:1633: Possible Undiscovered Planets

2016-01-23T03:08:23Z

198.41.238.32: Here we go again.

Why is it late? — ''[[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 16:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)''
:No idea but it's weird. [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 18:08, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Why is Earth's "Distance from me" 10000km? -- ''19:26, 22 January 2016 (UTC)''
:The diameter of Earth is ~12000km and distances are measured from the center of the object (that why there is a "Planet ruled out because I would be inside them" zone). I suppose Earth should be placed at a distance of 6000km instead of 12000k (as it is the radius, not the diameter that matter here). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.66.11|141.101.66.11]] 19:43, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
::Earth's distance seems to be to the left of the 10Mm marker on the distance line, to me, although it's hard to tell without a straightedge. Remember the plot is diameter to distance. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.71|108.162.238.71]] 19:52, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

This comic bothers me because the diagonal line with Earth on it cannot possibly represent what it claims. Zero cannot be plotted on the X-axis with this log scale. The entire "I would be inside of them" region is bogus. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.106.83|188.114.106.83]] 19:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
:Not if you're measuring to the center of the planet. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.71|108.162.238.71]] 19:52, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
:Also, please sign your comments. I had to sign this one for you. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.71|108.162.238.71]] 19:54, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
:OK, it does make sense if you take the normal convention of arrival and turn it into total core penetration. Sorry about the signing thing. I never use this and wondered where the input for it was. I see now from googling around that you just put it at the end. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.106.83|188.114.106.83]] 20:00, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Planets ruled out because we could see them during the day = Stars? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.56.5|162.158.56.5]] 21:10, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
: Only stars that are close enough to see during the day. Actually, there's one star that ''is'' close enough that we can see it during the day, although for some reason Randall did not mark it on the chart: our Sun. (Every other star is so far away that it's off the chart.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 21:34, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
::I added the stars statement before reading your comment. Feel free to edit it.
::And I agree that it's strange that Randall didn't mark the Sun. Furthermore, the Sun fits the Greek definition of planet. In fact, it fits any definition of planet better than birds or planes.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 21:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

: No not stars, this is just about planets -- you can see the moon in the day when in the right position compared to the sun. You would be able to see any planet during the day if the circular surface was sufficiently big, and with a planetary body that is a function of the size over the distance squared -- the moon is just so close that it does not have to that big [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.109|162.158.255.109]] 22:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

:: So shouldn't the "during the day" section be sloped, and include the moon? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.252.227|162.158.252.227]] 23:41, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I think Randall means "TENTH planet". 22:58, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
: Yawn. I think you're trolling. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 03:08, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

The subtitling of planes as "Fool's Planets" is clearly intended to be analogous to "Fool's Gold", the mineral that looks a lot like gold to the (non-expert) eye. That is, if there's a bright spot of light in the sky (usually just before dusk or just after dawn) then it might be mistaken for a planet like Venus, but instead just be the glimmer of near-horizontal sunlight off of a wing-front or body-edge of plane too high to discern a shape/silhouette against the sky, too far away to see coloured navigation lights and just happens not to be leaving a contrail. At a glance, you might assume it was something astronomical. Only by keeping an eye on it could you be sure to discern relatively rapid (perhaps non-ecliptic) movement and other details that would at least suggest it was no higher than a satellite. (Of course, it would be techncally be a UFO, leastways until you actually identified it sufficiently.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.89|162.158.152.89]] 00:24, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, note the implication that Randall would keep Giant Bugs at least 100m away from him, at all times. Doubtless by running away. (Or else by closing the doors and windows of his 100m-radius house and hiding himself away under blankets in its centre???) 00:29, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the three lower planet dots are from left to right, Venus, Mars, Mercury based on their diameters which (unlike their distances from Randall) are invariant. [[User:Co149|Co149]] ([[User talk:Co149|talk]]) 02:22, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1631: Longer Than Usual

2016-01-18T11:11:49Z

198.41.238.32: Well, it's been a long day!

Can we keep this as the explanation? [[User:Untothebreach|Untothebreach]] ([[User talk:Untothebreach|talk]]) 08:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

the "orgasm" part of the interpretation feel really shaky, i don't believe it to be what the strip is about; Gmail and firefox are not exclusive user of those specific messages, i am not sure whether an extended or complete list would help[[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.161|108.162.228.161]] 09:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
:Eh, it seems right to me unless "maybe we should just go to bed" is a quote from something. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.131|108.162.241.131]] 10:27, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Understanding this comic seems to be taking longer than usual... oh, yes, OK, two responses to a single observation made in quite different situations. I think I'll just go to bed. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 11:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1623: 2016 Conversation Guide

2015-12-30T07:23:20Z

198.41.238.32: Not impressed with the tech snobbery.

In response to the title text, "You know, it's such a beautiful day that I think I'll walk." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Such_a_Beautiful_Day. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 07:23, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

1621: Fixion

2015-12-29T01:36:14Z

198.41.238.32: /* Table of Phenomena */

{{comic
| number = 1621
| date = December 25, 2015
| title = Fixion
| image = fixion.png
| titletext = My theory predicts that, at high enough energies, FRBs and perytons become indistinguishable because the detector burns out.
}}

==Explanation==
The second [[:Category:Christmas|Christmas comic]] in a row, the first being [[1620: Christmas Settings]].

This comic was released on {{w|Christmas}} day as a present from [[Randall]] to all {{w|physicists}}. It introduces a new particle, the ''Fixion'', which explains everything. The word "Fixion" can be read as a pun: Either it can mean something like "fix-i-on," with "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-on#Suffix -on]" being a suffix for many particles, and this particle being able to "fix" things; or it means "fiction" (in English, the pronunciations of "-xion" and "-ction" are indistinguishable). Alternately, "Fixion" could be a portmanteau of "fix" and "ion", implying that the particle is not subatomic but is a different type of ion.

In physics, there are still many {{w|List of unsolved problems in physics|big questions and mysteries}}. There are many phenomena which don't seem to fit, and we don't know how to explain yet. The "Fixion" is satirically presented as a particle which acts as a {{w|Deus ex machina}}, (see also [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina tvtropes]), which solves all of these mysteries without any serious fundamental reasons.

The style of the chart suggests a {{w|Feynman diagram}} - an easy way of drawing particle interactions. Every time there is an interaction, the main central Fixion-line changes direction. Typically, {{w|fermions}} (the "solid" particles like {{w|electrons}} and {{w|quarks}}) are shown with solid lines, {{w|photons}} (and generally the weak-force-carrying {{w|bosons}}) are shown with wavy lines, {{w|gluons}} with spiraling lines and other mediating particles (such as {{w|pions}} in the {{w|nuclear force}}, or the {{w|Higgs boson}}) with a dotted line. Randall obeys these rules only very loosely, which makes sense - many of the things involved in this Feynman diagram are either so theoretical that they have no widely used standard representation, or would never appear in a sensible diagram (spacecrafts, for instance). All mentioned types of lines - and even more types - are presented in the diagram. All that the Fixion does is described in the [[#Table of Phenomena|table below]].

The title text is a continuation of one of the jokes already mentioned in the main comic (fourth phrase from the top to the left) about {{w|Fast radio burst}}s (FRBs) and {{w|Peryton (astronomy)|perytons}}. See explanation in the last entry in the [[#Table of Phenomena|table below]].

===Table of Phenomena===
{{Incomplete|Please remove personal views and parts where the fiction is assumed to be real}}
*Below, all the phenomena mentioned in the comic (and in the title text) have been listed and described.
*The order is the top left phenomenon first, and then alternating between right and left down to the bottom and then the title text at the end.
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
|'''Phenomenon''' || '''In the comic''' || '''Description''' || '''Solved?'''
|-
| Main component of dark matter
|| An arrow points to the very first part of the main line.
|| Our best measurements of the universe predict that visible matter is only about one-sixth of the matter in the universe; the remaining matter is "{{w|dark matter}}" that cannot be seen. The leading candidates for dark matter are {{w|weakly interacting massive particles}} (WIMPs). These would be new, undiscovered forms of matter which barely interact except through gravity and thus give off little or no light. Some of the dark matter is likely made up of {{w|Massive compact halo objects}} (MACHOs); effectively dead stars too dim to see. MACHOs are probably only a minority of the dark matter, however. Studies of two colliding galaxy clusters suggest that dark matter can pass through other matter without slowing down, unlike ordinary matter. Moreover, calculations of the elements produced during the {{w|big bang}} - which match the observed distribution of elements in the universe very precisely - don't leave room for enough additional {{w|protons}} and {{w|neutrons}} to form the dark matter.
|| No. Proving the nature of dark matter will most likely win someone a {{w|Nobel Prize}}.
|-
| Confines quarks and gluons
|| An arrow points to the very first part of the main line.
|| {{w|Quark confinement}} means that we never see particles with {{w|colour charge|color charge}} (i.e. {{w|quark}}s and {{w|gluon}}s) on their own. They only exist in groups that cancel out the color charge. Try to separate the groups, and the energy you add will instead cause new particles to pop into existence.
|| The basic facts of confinement are well understood, but some of the details are too complicated to tease out.
|-
| Neutralizes monopoles
|| An arrow points to the first solid line into the main line, from left and upwards. This is thus a solid particle merging with the Fixion.
|| {{w|Magnetic monopoles}} (e.g., a north charge without a south charge) should exist, according to many {{w|Grand Unified Theory|grand unified theories}} (GUTs) and {{w|String theory|string theories}}, but none have ever been seen.
|| No! Despite claims that pop up in the news every year, creating a monopole-like state in the magnetic spins of a crystal is not the same as creating a real monopole.
|-
| Suppresses antimatter in early universe
|| No arrow.
|| The universe today is made almost entirely of matter. {{w|Antimatter}} and matter are identical, except that the charges are opposite. Antimatter and matter "{{w|Annihilation|annihilate}}" when they come into contact. So why is the universe made of matter? Why didn't the universe have equal amounts of both, and if it did, why didn't it annihilate itself immediately? This is a big question in physics today. Of course, the Fixion explains this by its ability to suppress the formation of antimatter in the early universe.
|| Lots of theories, no conclusive evidence for any yet. The most notable theories revolve around the {{w|weak interaction}}, which has been shown to treat matter and antimatter asymmetrically. Now that the {{w|Higgs boson}} has been found, the biggest project for the {{w|Large Hadron Collider}} experiments is to try to crack this.
|-
| Spontaneously emits dark energy
|| Two arrows points to two dotted lines going out left and downwards below the first solid line. It is thus two mediating particles that go out from the Fixon.
|| Prior to the 1990s, most {{w|cosmologists}} expected that the universe's expansion after the Big Bang would either slow down or stay constant. In 1998, cosmologists discovered that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Under {{w|Einstein|Einstein's}} theory of {{w|general relativity}}, the observed acceleration predicts that ordinary matter and dark matter make up about 30% of the universe's total energy, with the rest coming in the form of "{{w|dark energy}}." The nature of dark energy is not certain. However, the leading candidate is that space itself has intrinsic energy (either constant or variable), and so as space expands, the energy of the universe increases.
|| Again, Nobel Prize territory.
|-
| Mediates proton decay, but then hides it.
|| An arrow points to three lines going to and from the main line. The outer line does not connect with the main line. The three lines probably represent the 3 quarks a proton is made of, and how a proton is usually drawn in Feynman diagrams (see for example [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay#/media/File:Beta_Negative_Decay.svg Beta Negative Decay]). The diagram represents a proton decaying, mediated by the fixion, however then recombining. Presumably the hypothetical fixion causes protons to decay all the time, however according to the diagram the quarks recombine again which makes the process impossible to detect.
|| Many GUTs predict that {{w|proton decay|protons will decay}}, but experiments have shown the proton to have a half-life of at least 1033 years very much longer than the {{w|age of the universe}} (1.38x1010 years).
|| It's not ''necessarily'' a problem. All theories predict that proton decay is a very slow process (1032+ seconds), which is consistent with the current data.
|-
| Introduces dispersion in perytons from kitchen microwaves, explaining fast radio bursts
|| Two arrows point to four wavy lines. The waves of the lines have different wave length. The one line coming out left is of the same at wavelength as the top of the three coming out right. The two below each decrease in wavelength compared to the one before them. Maybe this is not meant to represent photon-like particles, but are just different frequencies of microwaves from the microwave oven – thus relating to the subject.
|| {{w|Fast radio burst}}s (FRBs) are unexplained bursts of radio-frequency energy from space, they could even be extragalactic signals, with speculations that they might be signs of {{w|extraterrestrial intelligence}}. {{w|Peryton (astronomy)|Perytons}} are things that ''look like'' FRBs, but come from Earth (specifically, from the {{w|microwave oven}} at {{w|Parkes Observatory}}). Randall's Fixion makes some perytons change frequency distribution so they appear to come from space; thus in fact all FRBs come from microwave ovens.
|| No, but it's probably something very big - a star collapsing to a {{w|black hole}} or (as now looks likely) a {{w|magnetar}} (magnetic neutron star)
|-
| Broken symmetry causes ϴ=0, explaining unobserved neutron dipole moment
|| An arrow points to the part of the main line just before the first wavy line.
|| The {{w|neutron electric dipole moment}} is a measure of how balanced electric charge is inside the neutron. ϴ (theta) is a number in {{w|quantum chromodynamics}} (QCD) which quantifies the breaking of a type of symmetry called {{w|CP violation|CP symmetry}}. If ϴ is not 0, one result of this should be a neutron dipole moment. {{w|Symmetry breaking}} is a common explanation of effects in some areas of theoretical physics (for instance, it's an important part of {{w|Peter Higgs|Higgs'}} theory about why particles have mass), but normally it explains why a value is ''not'' zero. Presumably the Fixion breaks CP symmetry independently of QCD, which means that ϴ can be 0 while preserving observed CP-breaking effects.
|| Again, it's not (yet) a problem - the predicted dipole moment is tiny, and we're only just reaching the point when we can measure it that accurately.
|-
| Causes alpha effect
|| No arrow.
|| Ther {{w|alpha effect}} is a weird effect from chemistry, where putting an "alpha" atom with a {{w|lone pair}} of electrons close to a molecule makes the molecule more likely to give up its electrons. The Fixion is the reason for this effect.
|| Lots of competing explanations.
|-
| Covers naked singularities
|| No arrow – but the text is situated next to the middle of the three wavy lines going right.
|| A {{w|naked singularity}} is like a black hole without an {{w|event horizon}}. So far no naked singularity has been observed (except, arguably, the big bang) and the {{w|cosmic censorship hypothesis}} suggests they can't exist, although some people have suggested ways of making them. Of course if any did exist then the Fixion will cover it, so it won’t become embarrassed by its nudity. Randall has mentioned these in his latest [[what if?]]: [http://what-if.xkcd.com/140/ Proton Earth, Electron Moon].
|| Not necessarily something that needs explaining - none have been seen, and most theories say they don't exist. If support grows for {{w|loop quantum gravity}}, then we might have to start really searching.
|-
| Intercepts certain gravitational waves before they're observed.
|| An arrow points to a spiraling line going upwards to the left, so this is drawn like a gluon.
|| If {{w|gravity}} behaves like {{w|Fundamental interaction|the other forces}}, it must be conveyed by waves. Our best detector, {{w|LIGO}} has yet to detect any {{w|gravitational waves}}, though this is probably just due to the low probability of events that would be detectable. Only extreme events like {{w|binary black hole}} mergers are detectable with the current setup. The proposed {{w|LISA Pathfinder}} spacecraft will be able to see things like orbiting black holes and {{w|neutron stars}}. Since the Fixion intercepts gravity waves before they are observed we should not get our hopes up too high about observing any even with LISA.
|| Let's wait for the LISA data before jumping to conclusions.
|-
| Causes coronal heating
|| No arrow – but the text is situated next to the middle of the three wavy lines going right.
|| For some reason the outer layer of the {{w|sun}} (the {{w|corona}}) is hotter than most reasonable theories predict. This is for instance mentioned in Randall’s new book ''[[Thing Explainer]]'' in the entry about the sun. This can also be seen on the [[Thing_Explainer#Preview Pages |back cover of the book]]. The phenomenon is explained by the Fixion…
|| It's a mystery, but it possibly has something to do with waves in the corona (for example, the {{w|High Resolution Coronal Imager}} has seen "braids" in the corona that whip around and unravel themselves).
|-
| Higgs-ish
|| As this is just a property of the Fixion there is no arrow.
|| The {{w|Higgs boson}} is a manifestation of the Higgs field... but many supersymmetry and string theories predict multiple Higgs-like particles. It's almost a prerequisite of any new theory that it has a Higgs-ish element. So the Fixion blends in with this.
|| N/A
|-
| Superluminally smooths anisotropies in early universe (but adds faint polarization for BICEP3 to find)
|| An arrow points to the point of the main line just below the bottom space probe.
|| The {{w|Cosmic Microwave Background}} (CMB) is incredibly uniform. In fact it is so uniform that the conclusion is that these areas must have been in contact at some time in the early universe. But with the universe being infinite, and the speed of light being finite, most parts of the universe will never be able to interact (any more at least). The explanation usually given for the uniformity is that the universe expanded really fast in the beginning during what is called the {{w|Inflationary epoch}}. {{w|BICEP_and_Keck_Array#BICEP2|BICEP2}} is a {{w|radio telescope}} at the South Pole whose operators claim to have seen polarization in the CMB indicative of inflation. (See [[1365: Inflation]] that references BICEP2's results). The Fixion fixes the problem since it allowed {{w|Faster-than-light|superluminally}} smoothing of the early anisotropies to explain the smoothness observed today. The Fixion adds just enough signal that the new {{w|BICEP_and_Keck_Array#BICEP3|BICEP3}} telescope will be able to find it.
|| As stated, {{w|Inflation (cosmology)|inflation}} is the standard explanation and it holds up fairly well. Other studies haven't seen the polarization that BICEP2 has - the {{w|Planck (spacecraft)|Planck space telescope}} also suggests that the BICEP2 team were looking at an unusually dusty bit of space, which could cause polarization. Hopefully this will improve with the BICEP3 data that should be published in 2016.
|-
| Accelerates certain spacecraft during flybys
|| Two arrows point to two solid lines going away from the main line (left and right). At the end of each line there is a space craft with satellite dish and solar panels, representing the items that the Fixion interacts with.
|| This refers to the {{w|flyby anomaly}} which is sometimes (but not always) seen when spacecraft fly close to planets and pick up more speed than expected. It's not always seen – for instance the {{w|Rosetta (spacecraft)|Rosetta space probe}} had no flyby anomaly when it swooped extremely close to Mars. Another anomaly for spacecraft’s (a deceleration this time) has been mentioned in the title text of [[502: Dark Flow]].
|| It could be an unpredicted quirk of gravity and relativity... or it could be experimental error.
|-
| Triggers Siberian sinkholes
|| No arrow, but it is right next to the solid line with an arrow going into the main line just before the first hole where the main line disappears and becomes dotted. Thus it could be a reference also to these holes.
|| Recently, (2014), several {{w|sinkholes}} opened up in {{w|Yamal_Peninsula#Yamal_craters |remote parts}} of Siberia. The explanation is currently unknown, except of course we now know that it was the Fixion that caused it.
|| While there are lots of weird theories, there's a good chance they were caused by {{w|Arctic methane release}} due to melting {{w|permafrost}} which is probably caused by {{w|global warming}}. See ([http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mystery-of-the-siberian-holes-at-the-end-of-the-world-solved-scientists-offer-explanation-9642988.html Mystery of the Siberian holes… solved]).
|-
| Melts ice in "Snowball Earth" scenario
|| No arrow.
|| {{w|Snowball Earth}} is the theory that the whole planet was covered in ice at some point. To melt all that ice by the {{w|greenhouse effect}} would require far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than seems plausible. However, if volcanoes were to deposit black soot on the surface of the ice, it would start absorbing heat more efficiently (in scientific terms, the Earth's {{w|albedo}} would decrease) and that would also make the planet heat up. Of course it was the Fixion was the cause of the melting ice.
|| There are {{w|Snowball_Earth#Scientific_dispute|scientific dispute}} regarding the theory for a Snowball Earth. There is no conclusive evidence that it ever occurred, but those in favor have presented lots of {{w|Snowball_Earth#Evidence|evidence}}…
|-
| Transports neutrinos faster than light, but only on certain days through one area of France
|| An arrow points to the part of the main line that becomes dotted between the two “{{w|wormholes}}”. This is where the neutrinos move faster than light…
|| Refers to the {{w|faster-than-light neutrino anomaly}}, where it seemed that a neutrino beam from {{w|CERN}} on the France/Switzerland border to the {{w|OPERA experiment}} in Italy traveled faster than light. Scientists were not able to reproduce the result. Of course it was because of the Fixion. This Neutrino experiment was also mentioned in [[955: Neutrinos]], where there are more explanation on the subject.
|| In the end, there was no mystery, just a [http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112551696/cern-confirms-neutrinos-not-faster-than-light/ defective cable causing a measurement error].
|-
| Suppresses sigma in experiments
|| No arrow but the last solid line, with an arrow pointing left, that is going away from the main line, point almost directly at it.
|| Sigma (σ) refers to the {{w|standard deviation}} - a mathematical measure of how much an observed value differs from the expected value. For a formal scientific discovery in particle physics, the standard is 5 sigma which means that there is about a 1 in 3.5 million chance that the results were caused by random errors (of course, they could be caused by ''systematic'' errors, such as measurement problems). Some tantalizing experiments have found interesting results at 3 or 4 sigma but either can't reach 5 sigma or {{w|Oops-Leon|are subsequently dis-proven}}. The question is, if the way the Fixion works here in this comic pushes the sigma value one way or the other? Does it suppress the value so it goes below or above the level of significance? Is it artificially pushed in the direction so a result seems like it is significant when it is not (see for instance [[882: Significant]]), or if it is the other way so some experiments, which could have found what the experimenters wanted to find, did not because the sigma has been artificially lowered below the proof threshold. Either way it is a very annoying fact of the Fixion, but it would explain a lot, and probably also make it very hard to find the Fixion because of this intrinsic behavior.|| N/A
|-
| My theory predicts that, at high enough energies, FRBs and perytons become indistinguishable because the detector burns out.
|| From the title text.
|| This is a continuation of the joke already mentioned above regarding Fast radio bursts (FRBs) and perytons. GUTs normally predict that all the forces we see are the different low-energy versions of a single force which can only be seen at extremely high energies (much higher than any Earth-based collider could produce). A high-energy FRB would be a {{w|gamma ray burst}} and if it came from a close enough object, would obliterate all life on Earth. It would also wreck the sensitive electronics at Parkes Observatory. This "high energy unification" is stated in a way reminiscent of the unification of electromagnetic and weak forces at high energies; but unlike the latter, it involves two things only "appearing" (or, in this case, not appearing) to be the same, not actually becoming the same.
|| N/A
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:A Christmas gift for physicists:
:The '''Fixion'''
:A new particle that explains everything

:[A chart resembling a Feynman diagram is shown. It begins with a solid line coming down at the top, going a little to the left. The line continues downwards all the time, but changes direction 16 times before exiting at the bottom almost straight under the starting point. At every point where it changes direction, there is some kind of “interaction” with something outside this line. There are 19 phrases, 10 on the left and 9 on the right. 11 of these are distinct labels for points on the line as 14 gray curved arrows points between these 11 phrases to specific points on the line. Three of the phrases on the left has two arrows pointing to two different, but close, parts of the line. The main central line is solid all the way, except at the very bottom, where it “disappears” inside a hole only to “reappear” later from a similar hole. Between these two holes the line is dotted. The lines going away (or to) the main line can be straight and solid, straight and dotted, wavy lines (with different waviness), even looking like a spiral. Two straight solid lines ends up at two space probes, and finally the last two straight solid lines coming in (and out) on either side of the “hole” in the line has arrow pointing in and out. Below the phrases will be listed in reading order, taking one on each side alternatingly. Above each is described if there are any arrow and, if there are, what they points at.]

:[Left: Arrow pointing to the very first part of the main line:]
::Main component of dark matter

:[Right: Arrow pointing to the very first part of the main line, but below the previous arrow:]
::Confines quarks and gluons

:[Left: Arrow points to the first solid line going left and upwards:]
::Neutralizes monopoles

:[Right: No arrow:]
::Suppresses antimatter in early universe

:[Left: Two arrows points to two dotted lines going out left and downwards below the first solid line:]
::Spontaneously emits dark energy

:[Right: Arrow pointing to several lines going almost parallel with the main line. The first line closest to the arrow is not connected with the main line. It bends closer to the other lines in the middle. The next line is connected to the main line, and is thus actually two lines going in to the main line. The same goes for the inner line, where there is some distance between the entry and exit, as the middle of these three lines connect to the main line in between. In principle there are four lines going in/out and one not connected, but it looks like three lines:]
::Mediates proton decay but then hides it

:[Left: One arrow points to the first wavy line (7 peaks) coming out and up towards the dotted lines above. A second arrow points further down the main line where there are three more wavy lines coming out, but to the right, they are all of the same length and go almost straight right, only a little down. The first has as short a wave length as the line above to the left, but as it is shorter it only has 6 peaks. Then the wavelength decreases to a very long one for the last, 5 peaks and then 3 peaks. The arrow points almost where the middle wavy line exits the main line:]
::Introduces dispersion in perytons from kitchen microwaves, explaining fast radio bursts

:[Right: An arrow point to the part of the main line between the three parallel lines and the first wavy line:]
::Broken symmetry causes ϴ=0, explaining unobserved neutron dipole moment

:[Left: No arrow:]
::Causes alpha effect

:[Right: No arrow, but right next to the middle of the three wavy line:]
::Covers naked singularities

:[Left: An arrow points to a spiraling line going upwards to the left:]
::Intercepts certain gravitational waves before they're observed.

:[Right: No arrow, but right next to the bottom of the three wavy line:]
::Causes coronal heating

:[Left: No arrow:]
::Higgs-ish

:[Right: A long arrow point to the point of the main line just below the line pointing to the bottom (and left) of the space probes:]
::Superluminally smooths anisotropies in early universe (but adds faint polarization for BICEP3 to find)

:[Left: One arrows point towards the point on the main lines where a solid line goes to the right and up and another arrow points on another solid line going away from the main line towards left and down. At the end of both lines are drawn spacecrafts with satellite dish and solar panels:]
::Accelerates certain spacecraft during flybys

:[Right: No arrow, but right next to the solid line with an arrow going into the main line just before the first hole where the main line disappears and becomes dotted:]
::Triggers Siberian sinkholes

:[Left: No arrow:]
::Melts ice in "Snowball Earth" scenario

:[Right: Arrow points to the dotted part of the main line between the two holes:]
::Transports neutrinos faster than light, but only on certain days through one area of France

:[Left: No arrow but the last solid line, with an arrow pointing left, that is going away from the main line, point almost directly at it:]
::Suppresses sigma in experiments

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

1620: Christmas Settings

2015-12-24T06:56:49Z

198.41.238.32: Ironic typo in a section analysing a spelling orrer.

{{comic
| number = 1620
| date = December 23, 2015
| title = Christmas Settings
| image = christmas_settings.png
| titletext = SOUND DOGS MAKE: [BARKING] [HISSING] [LIGHTSABER NOISES] [FLUENT ENGLISH] [SWEARING]
}}

==Explanation==
[[Ponytail]] is showing [[Megan]] around in her facility, and as the comic begins they enter a new room (''over here we have'') where she has the ''Universe Control Panel''.

A "Universe Control Panel" would be a set of dials to control the universe, and anyone having access to a room with these controls would from our point of view be in a God like position. If such a room did exist it would most likely be situated outside our universe (a dimension outside, and not necessarily in another universe). Since this comic was released just before {{w|Christmas}}, looking at it from a {{w|Christian}} point of view, this would be {{w|God|God's}} domicile and his control room for the universe would probably be located in {{w|Heaven}}.

Seen from a physicist's point of view, the typical panels for such a control room would be with dials to control the specific size of {{w|Physical constant|fundamental constants}} of the universe such as the {{w|speed of light in vacuum}}, {{w|Planck constant}} and the {{w|fine-structure constant}} to mention a few - see more under the trivia section [[#Physical constants control panel|Physical constants control panel]].

But the first control panel they reach includes the dials that control {{w|Christmas}}. So these control panels are either much more detailed than just physics constants (or do not consider these underlying constants at all). That we see this option as the first is, of course, because this is a [[:Category:Christmas|Christmas comic]] released on the 23rd of December.

From Ponytail's comment it is clear that this is just one of several panels with dials, and on the panel for Christmas there is more than one dial. We only see one of these up close (to get an idea of how they work, and for the sake of the joke).

In the second panel, Megan and Ponytail have not reached the control panel yet, so it is the reader, and not them, who sees the dial, which controls how {{w|Santa Claus}} enters people’s houses: The ''Santa enters houses through''-dial, has [[#Options for Santa|ten different possible settings]]. The one it's set to at this point of the comic is the traditional ''chimney''. Among the other nine there is the more logical option ''open window'', but surprisingly there is no option called ''the door''. But the other eight are increasingly weird or even impossible (though of course not for Santa, who can deliver a billion packets in one night and fly in a sleigh drawn by flying reindeer…). These options ranging from the ”feasible” like ''mail slot'', ''heating vents'' or ''cat flap'' to the impossible/ridiculous (some even disgusting) as ''kitchen faucet'', ''shower drain'' or ''toilet'' over the truly magical ''bathroom mirror '' and to the downright unpleasant - ''pores of your skin''. (See [[555: Two Mirrors]] regarding the mirror version).

As Megan and Ponytail are on their way to the next stop on the tour of these facilities Megan trips and catches herself on the Santa dial, messing it up by clicking it twice. Ponytail is disturbed by this and holds up her hand to her mouth. The reason for this is obvious when Megan asks what it was set to before so as to undo the mishap, because Ponytail tells that she has forgotten. So they cannot put it back right. This kind of proves that Ponytail is just a guide, and not the creator of the control panels.

As so often seen with human behaviors (if they are indeed human beings at all?), Megan says she will simply take a wild guess and hope she get it right. As the only thing she really knows is that it is not on the right setting now, there is only 1/9 that she will get it right assuming she will at least change it away from the setting she ended up on.

As we can see in the comic the dial clicks twice, implying it has moved two positions; Megan has thus most likely changed the dial to either "kitchen faucet" or "mail slot." As we do not know which of these she will now change away from, It is impossible to guess from the comic where she end up putting it, all ten options are possible. 
Since this comic was released on the 23rd of December, we are likely to find out in less than two days, if Santa comes out of the pores on our skin, or just through the mail slot... Only the first of these options will for certain be detected by someone…

As it is Ponytail who are showing Megan around, it is thus the first time Megan even hears about these dials, and she has no idea about where the Santa dial was pointing before. The reason why Ponytail cannot remember to which option the dial was set before is most likely because she is not part of our universe, and also not the creator of the control panel. If this is a control room outside of our universe these settings will not affect the two girls but they also have no need to know about Christmas on Earth. Anyone with access to these control room, might not particularly care for what happens on Earth, which is just one of a multitude of planet and stars that needs to be controlled from this control room.

An alternative explanation for the reason why Ponytail has forgotten, is that the universe immediately updated its settings to the latest selection, once Megan released the dial, changing all previously existing folklore and memories in existence to match (this will only make sense if the two girls are part of the universe that they are in control of). Where previously it was widely known that Santa Claus entered through the chimney, it is now widely known that he enters through kitchen faucets or mail slots (depending on Megan's selection). This makes it impossible to remember what the original setting was. Considering that Megan asks what the original setting was, we can reasonably assume that she remembers the action of changing the dial and thus knows that the lore she currently considers to be correct, is not the original setting.

The title text continues this by showing another ad-lib dial: ''[[#Options for dogs|Sound dogs make]]'' ranging from the norm (barking) to cat sounds (hissing), very embarrassing for a dog) over "lightsaber noises" and speech to swearing. This is a dial, most likely on another control panel for animal sounds (but it could of course specifically be the sound a dog would make in response to Santa's entry, by whatever method?)- It would thus give the same option of changing the expected vocal response of the dog away from (our norm of) barking, as the other dial with the way Santa enters the house. In popular culture, talking dogs are a commonly used trope; in contrast, swearing "dogs" are few, the most famous being {{w|Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog}}, a puppet created by {{w|Conan O'Brien}} and {{w|Robert Smigel}} and performed by the latter.

The comic might also be a joke on real-life controls often having no clear "default" value - which, by the way, is sometimes the case for virtual controls as well.

==Options for Santa==
*Below is a table with the ten possible settings for ''Santa enters houses through...''; starting with the originally chosen standard option and going clockwise through the rest:
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5
|'''Option''' || '''Normal Entry/Exit for...'''
|-
|{{w|Chimney}} || {{W|Santa Claus}} typically comes in this way (see him here in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I-b_GJ4ltk victorian roof-top song and dance number]. Also {{w|The_Three_Little_Pigs|big bad wolves}} uses this entrance in Disney’s cartoon.
|-
|{{w|Shower#Drainage|Shower drain}} || Dirty shower water.
|-
|{{w|Mail slot}} || Letters, post cards and small presents delivers by the mailman.
|-
|{{w|Duct (flow)|Heating vents}} || Hot air used for {{w|central heating}}.
|-
|{{w|Bathroom}} {{w|mirror}} || See {{w|Candyman (film)|Candyman}}, or {{w|Bloody Mary (folklore)|Bloody Mary}} (the latter has been used in [[555: Two Mirrors]]).
|-
|{{w|Skin pore|Pores of your skin}} || {{w|Sweat}} leaving the body.
|-
|{{w|Toilet}} || {{w|Human waste}} and {{w|The_Shawshank_Redemption|life-term prisoners}} (at least through the sewer).
|-
|{{w|Cat flap}} || Domesticated cats and dogs.
|-
|{{w|Sink|Kitchen faucet}} || Water.
|-
|{{w|Window|Open window}} || {{w|Burglars}} and other criminals. Also often used as an exit by teenagers in movies and other film media, or by people who have locked themselves out of their own house.
|}

==Options for dogs==
*Below is a table with the five possible settings for ''Sound dogs make''; starting with the current and continuing with the order in the title text:
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5
|'''Option''' || '''Normal sound for...'''
|-
|{{w|Bark (sound)|Barking}} || {{w|Dogs}} current standard sound in our universe...
|-
|[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hissing Hissing] || Typically a {{w|List of animal sounds|sound contributed}} to {{w|snakes}}, but also something {{w|cats}} are [http://www.animalplanet.com/pets/why-do-cats-hiss/ said to hiss], for instance as a reaction against a barking dog. It would thus be very frustrating for dogs if their noise was changed into that or their arch enemies.
|-
|{{w|Lightsaber|Lightsaber noises}} || A lightsaber makes a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kpHK4YIwY4 very unique sound], and as they are one of the most known props from the {{w|Star Wars}} universe, it is very relevant as the newest Star Wars movie {{w|Star Wars: The Force Awakens}} was released a week before this comic. Star Wars was also the main theme a month ago in the comic [[1608: Hoverboard]], the coin collecting game that celebrated [[Randall|Randall's]] new book.
|-
|{{w|Fluency#Speech|Fluent}} {{w|English language|English}} || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRcUcxtaX-Q Speaking dogs] are a common trope as are {{w|talking animals}} in general. A person who is native to a country where they speak English will usually be fluent in speaking English. But a person may not usually be described as being fluent in their {{w|Native tongue}}. But a person from a country who does not speak English as their first language, but who speaks it very well would speak fluent English.
|-
|{{w|Profanity|Swearing}} || It would be unpleasant for people who dislike swearing, and a big problems for movies such as {{w|Lassie}} where most of the soundtrack would have to be replaced by {{w|Bleep censor|bleeps}}. Swearing "dogs" are few, the most famous being {{w|Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog}}, a puppet created by {{w|Conan O'Brien}} and {{w|Robert Smigel}} and performed by the latter.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Ponytail are walking over to a console, Ponytail points towards it. They are drawn in a panel that is only half the width of the next panel below]
:Ponytail: Over here we have the universe control panel.
:Ponytail: These dials, for example, control Christmas.

:[A dial is shown. There is a label at the top and then there are ten settings, five symmetrically on the left and right side, but no setting straight up or down. It looks allot like the dial on a washing machine with different programs. The dial points towards the top left setting. All settings are labeled and there is a small line going to the point on the dial connected with each setting. The line at 3 and 9 o'clock are straight the other 8 are divided in two, where the first part goes horizontally and then bends either up or down, to end in the right position. Here the labele at the top and then the setting labels clockwise from top right, thus ending with the one the dial is set to:]
:'''Santa enters houses through...'''
:Shower Drain
:Mail Slot
:Heating Vents
:Bathroom Mirror
:Pores of Your Skin
:Toilet
:Cat Flap
:Kitchen Faucet
:Open Window
:Chimney

:[Ponytail is passing by this control panel looking back at Megan who trips and falls towards the console.]
:Megan: Whoops!
:Megans legs: Trip

:[Megan catches herself on the dial of the control panel and accidentally turns the dial. Ponytail has taken her hands to her mouth.]
:Dial: Click Click

:[Megan is standing in front of the console looking at the dial, Ponytail is standing behind it.]
:Megan: What was the Santa dial set to before?
:Ponytail: I forget.
:Megan: I'll just guess

==Trivia==
*In the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/7/73/20151223160450!christmas_settings.png original version] of the comic Ponytail erroneously said: ''These dials, for example, '''controls''' Christmas.''
**This was soon changed to the current (and grammatically correct) version with out the "s" at the end of controls ''These dials, for example, control Christmas.''
**Thus proving that it was intended that there were more than one dial, we just see the one that Megan later changed by mistake for the sake of the joke of the comic.

===Physical constants control panel===
*Below is a table with ten of the most likely dials to find on a Universe Control Panel for {{w|Physical constant|physical constants}}.
**(Please feel free to reorder or change out constants, if there are some “more important” constants left out, or reorder the list if that would feel more appropriate), and add more explanation.
**If just one of these constant had a slightly different value, life as we know it (or even star formation) might not have been possible, (see the {{w|anthropic principle}}). So it was good that it was only the Santa setting Megan screwed-on (up).
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5
|'''Dial label''' || '''Value''' || '''Constant governs…/what would happen if it changed etc.'''
|-
|{{w|Planck constant}} || h = 6.626 069 57 × 10−34 J·s ||
|-
|{{w|Speed of light}} || c = 299 792 458 m·s−1 || A low speed of light would delay the imagery one sees, as well as dramatically increase Redshift effect [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift] and potentially allow Faster-than-Light travel. Of course, FTL wouldn't be as beneficial if C was lessened.
''However'', it is likely that light (unfettered, i.e. in a vacuum) travels at the speed of light not because it is specifically the speed of light, but because it is the speed limit of all things. Changing 'c' would then no more allow FTL travel than raising it might make light outpace the likes of gravity wave effects.
|-
|{{w|Gravitational constant}} || G = 6.67384 × 10−11 m3·kg−1·s−2 || This setting would make things heavier or lighter, and cause orbits to change, potentially causing either collapse of orbital systems, or objects to escape.
|-
|{{w|Fine-structure constant}} || α = 1⁄137.036 || Someone must have turned the dial just a little away from 1/137…
|-
|{{w|Boltzmann constant}} || k = 1.380 6488 × 10−23 J·K−1 ||
|-
|{{w|Elementary charge}} || e = 1.602 176 565 × 10−19 C ||
|-
|{{w|Bohr radius}} || a0 = 5.291 772 1092 × 10−11 m ||
|-
|{{w|electron|Electron mass}} || me = 9.109 382 91 × 10−31 kg ||
|-
|{{w| proton|Proton mass }} || mp = 1.672 621 777 × 10−27 kg ||
|-
|{{w|Absolute zero|Temperature at absolute zero}} || T = 0 K = −273.15°C = −459.67°F ||
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:1614: Kites

2015-12-10T06:24:29Z

198.41.238.32: Meh.

"If you didn't get it right away, and had to read this explanation, I would recommend finding a small dog and trying to fly it like a kite." This explanation made me laugh, kudos to whoever wrote it. [[User:NotLock|NotLock]] ([[User talk:NotLock|talk]]) 06:42, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

(When editing the main article, guys, remember not to overwrite tags. When Transcript text was put in someone squashed both the Incomplete tag and the one for this Discussion... anyway...) Note that it appears the dog isn't 'floating', as described in at least one place, but flying by flapping his (not particularly large) ears. If it were a wagging tail, I wouldn't be so sure (remember the robot dog from Battle Of The Planets?), but ears don't tend to noticably flap like that (when the rest of the body isn't in motion/sitting in a car, poking its head out the window). Of course full Dumbo Ears are far more overscale than these, so maybe the dog has ''some'' floating skills, the ears are merely attitude controls. - (And I can't believe I'm now discussing the precise nature of the airworthiness of a dog. Thank you Randall!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.227|162.158.152.227]] 09:52, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
: That's definitely a wagging tail. Note that in the fourth panel the dog is facing downwards, and in the last panel it is facing to the left. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.35|173.245.54.35]] 16:47, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

there is "it's" abuse here. para 3: "it's mouth." and para 4: "it's title." --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.233|141.101.106.233]] 12:56, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

At first I read "kitties" instead of "kites", maybe because I'm not a native speaker and the first word is more familiar to me. So... I was not really surprised to see a dog, here. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 13:42, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

My original interpretation of the title text was that the "string" in the dog's mouth was the line connecting the dialog to the characters, e.g. the two lines connecting Megan and Beret Guy's dialog to their characters in the second panel. So the voice drifting down from the sky was literally the words "Kites are fun!" being pulled (perhaps uttered?) by the dog. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.8|108.162.216.8]] 14:37, 9 December 2015 (UTC)Pat

Is there any direct implication that these objects ("kite" and the dog) are really in the sky? Maybe it was draw like this to trick the readers but instead it is a forced 2D perspective and the dog is just fighting with the Beret Guy? I guess we can also assume that while Beret Guy says "I'll go get mine, once I finish walking my dog!" he actually means it (walking - not flying/floating).
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.102.220|162.158.102.220]] 01:15, 10 December 2015 (UTC)Tom3k007

''"That is until the dog comes back with Beret Guy as a kite..."''
But it's not clear that the dog did come back with Beret Guy. The dog might have been chasing him. The title text does not say the dog has the ''bottom'' end of a string (ie, the kite string) in its mouth. Anyway, I don't understand the comic. I don't know what the dog is doing. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 06:24, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1610: Fire Ants

2015-11-30T22:59:58Z

198.41.238.32: Pardon me, your bias is showing.

misinterpreting a question as an invitation to talk about one's pet obsession is symptomatic of autistic spectrum disorder. although not necessarily so. as, i suppose, is wanting to do science in academe. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.223|108.162.210.223]] 13:12, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

i don't think she was misinterpreting the question,she probably is so obsessed about ants that she tries to talk about them every chance she gets. {{unsigned ip|173.245.62.29}}

Theoretically, there's a hidden analogy in that a colony of rather simplistic and specialist individuals can ensure their own survival in the face of adverse environmental conditions by keeping themselves all in one location so that they can continue to perpetuate themselves in the future. And as it is with those heading off to Grad School, so it may also be with ants. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.75.185|141.101.75.185]] 13:29, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I've just joined, so please forgive the new boy. Perhaps the joke is really to do with biblical references and metaphors, as I have suggested in my contribution to the main article. (User:Paw 42)

There is absolutely no reason to junk up this explanation with biblical references. Please correct, or I will do so. --[[User:BobTheMad|BobTheMad]] ([[User talk:BobTheMad|talk]]) 14:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
:Ooh, scary threat. The biblical reference is completely justified. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 22:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Really?? Life of Brian is the most popular? Sorry, that's either crazy inaccurate or needs a citation. I'm pretty confident the Biblical reference was more accurate as a phase origin, though I can't say I feel it adds much to the explanation. Google likes "Consider the lobster" and "Consider the source" better than either when I search for it. When I search for it adding the keyword "phrase," it gives the Biblical reference, but still not as a first result. The Life of Brian doesn't show up in any front page results. [[User:Ancientt|Ancientt]] ([[User talk:Ancientt|talk]]) 15:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

During an initial read through I assumed that he was speaking to a career adviser. Thus, the "consider the fire ant" statement was a take off from the Biblical "consider the ant" statement found in Proverbs 6:6-8. For those who don't know, that particular Proverb is a reprimand to lazy people to consider the diligence and foresight of ants who prepare for the future without being told to do so. Where, lazy people typically have to be micro-managed to get any results from them. So, you assume that hair bun girl is calling cueball lazy because he is rethinking grad school (in this view he is sacrificing diligence and future planning for the now). However, she takes the statement in such a radical direction it loses this meaning - it becomes a rant about how cool fire ants are. Which seems odd until you read the title text and you discover he is in the entomology department (study of insects). Unless cueball regularly visits the entomology department for career advice you can assume that his grad school is about the study of insects. Thus in conclusion, her weird rant about ants really IS meant as a parallel to Proverbs; however, instead of contrasting his behavior to that of ants she is encouraging him to continue his study of insects because of how cool they are. Thus, the joke of using the statement "consider the ant" as a means to get someone to live more responsibly is still being used exactly for that purpose. That's my understanding of it.--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 17:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
:I like this explanation much better. And even if you use Life of Brian this is still a reference to the bible (as the whole film spoofs Jesus). Hope someone will change to incorporate these bible verses. I do not know them so will stay out of this ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:17, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Here's my interpretation. I don't think hair bun girl is making an analogy whatsoever. She is simply expressing her obsession/love of ants. By doing so in response to cue ball's plea for advice, she illustrates (knowingly or unknowingly) why she herself attended grad school (I'm assuming she is a professor of entomology - which I think is reasonable given her comment and the title text). She is so obsessed with ants that she attended grad school (a very large undertaking) in order to study them further. Then she proceeded to pursue a career in Academia to continue to study ants. To her, the very idea of having second thoughts of pursuing graduate school to further her studies is probably ridiculous. She probably never had them. Hence she demonstrates all that she needed to know to pursue graduate school - she is big on ants. A little background on me since it informs my interpretation: I spent a lot of time trying to answer this question for myself: "Should I pursue graduate school?" I saw a common thread amongst my professors, leading graduate students, etc. They all wanted nothing more than to learn more about their field of study. The very fact that I was having doubts ended up being a sign to myself that I did not really want to go to graduate school to study, I wanted to go for other reasons that would have made grad school unfulfilling. [[User:Supersixfour|Supersixfour]] ([[User talk:Supersixfour|talk]]) 20:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe Cueball meant to go to the Etymology Dept, not the Entomology Dept.

Talk:1609: Food Combinations

2015-11-28T08:02:27Z

198.41.238.32: {Cough.} No, really.

I tried this on a friend and after three tries she said, you just mentioned all my favorite food items. So... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:27, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

You know what's really good? Ice cream on pizza. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 15:23, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
:That's a popular summer snack in Tasmania. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 08:02, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Joey agrees with that - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFgDZJVYbo [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.139|162.158.34.139]] 15:40, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
:Thanks I was just thinking of that episode when seeing this comic. Think it deserves a place in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:06, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, I made a first-hack attempt, with terrible grammar and no appropriate citations. Please don't be too harsh! [[Special:Contributions/199.27.129.83|199.27.129.83]] 16:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Most of the combinations involving the dairy items are disgusting. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.9|108.162.216.9]] 19:29, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

If you think sour cream and pancakes is not a traditional combination, you've never been to Russia. We put sour cream in a lot of things, really, but pancakes especially. That applies almost as well to sour cream and ketchup (though that is just a pair of commonly combined condiments, not a food item in itself). I do, however, agree with the commentor above (even regarding sour cream). Incidentally, I had to google "relish" - apparently it's a general term for a big variety of chopped-vegetable items. The Russian name for one particularly common type literally translates as "eggplant caviar". Goes nicely with ham, is applied to pancakes occasionally. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.180.191|162.158.180.191]] 20:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

It will be interesting to see if all items will be checked of eventually when people from many different countries comes by? I checked of pancakes and ice cream. I put ice in almost every time I make sweet pancakes. Yummy. But we also have "food" pancakes (not sweat) with meat in them. And I'm note talking about tortillas or burrito pancakes. Made exactly like normal sweet pancakes without sugar and with salt. In The Netherlands they have pancake houses where the toppings is more like that of a pizza, and then after wards they drop on some kind of syrup... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:06, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Avocado and ice cream is traditional? Really? I mean, the novelty ice cream places (bacon ice cream, beer ice cream, Tabasco ice cream, you know the drill), sure, but where is that a traditional pairing? ... However, I'm putting in another vote for sour cream with pancakes. Especially if you consider crêpes and associated acts as in the pancake category, so there's the whole world of savory pancakes out there. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.7|108.162.221.7]] 04:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)MR

Talk:416: Zealous Autoconfig

2015-11-27T11:22:20Z

198.41.238.32: Acquired.

I have my network autoconfig set up to run a rainbow table attack if there's a password on the network. Wifi everywhere is great. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 15:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

But how would the school know about the Lenhart children if Mrs. Roberts deleted the students table? {{unsigned ip|184.11.73.88}}}
:I say it'd be a liveware attack. A voice-call from the application, with in-built speech-synthisis and speech-recognition capabilities, requesting information from the school secretary him/herself. Probably a Black Hat construction. Or Hartigan (/whoever) from the Leverage series... ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.107.249.215|178.107.249.215]] 23:43, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I think Miss Lenhart must be the Lenhart children's paternal aunt. Their mother is most probably Mrs. Lenhart. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 02:20, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

When I saw "Ctrl + C" my first thought was "copy." It's the dumb thing about windows and every implementation that uses that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.217|108.162.245.217]] 14:02, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

It gets worse! I regularly use Konsole, where ctrl-c cancels things; ctrl-shift-c copies, but then I start using ctrl-shift-c in Chrome and end up debugging web pages instead of copying text. GAH! {{unsigned ip|141.101.70.157}}

A similar concept to [[538: Security]]. [[User:Shanek|Shanek]] ([[User talk:Shanek|talk]]) 12:29, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Believe it or not, you can use ctrl-insert to copy on almost any linux or windows program. Shift-delete is cut and shift-insert is paste. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 13:13, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

XKCD 1479 right here.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.124|108.162.237.124]] 17:49, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I think there's also a pun on "acquired". A network address can be acquired, but when children are acquired it means something quite different. (However, in context they are both required to connect.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 11:22, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1608: Hoverboard

2015-11-26T05:27:28Z

198.41.238.32: Then again, it didn't die in lava.

Well, this will be the next incomplete explanation for a while. -[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.165|162.158.90.165]] 21:58, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, one thing to note is how to get the hell out of the cave near the volcano [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.159|108.162.249.159]] 22:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The image is made up of small images with addresses of the form http://xkcd.com/1608/XXXX:-YYYY+s.png (although not every coordinate inside the bounds has an image associated). A script could probably dump out all the images and paste them together. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.6|108.162.216.6]] 22:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

West -- Under Lava Pools -- Elon Musk's Secret Volcano Base (not as enjoyable as you might expect).

The Starship out east contains, among other things, Darth Vader, apparently explaining Steven Universe to a subordinate. (Steven and the Crystal Gems can be found a the west end of the ship, near an ice cream cooler.) The same ship contains an elaborate homage to the original Prince of Persia. {{unsigned ip|162.158.56.5}}

There, have at thee an image! [[User:Arch-TK|Arch-TK]] ([[User talk:Arch-TK|talk]]) 22:58, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

There are 168 coins spread throughout the map according to the source code [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.53|173.245.54.53]] 23:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

When using a device, instead of saying "use arrow keys to move", it says "tilt to move, tap to jump". It's also a lot harder to control. {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.159}}

It's actually 169 coins (t.length). --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.129|188.114.111.129]] 23:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I got 153 coins!! :D There's two starships, one's a star destroyer with an expansive maze dropping regular torpedoes on the other. May be noteworthy that there are various references to Star Wars and Steven Universe throughout. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.13|108.162.221.13]] 23:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The second starship is the TantiveIV, Leia's ship at the beginning of episode 4. Note directly below the Tantive, the terrain seems to be sand dunes. Also there are two more space ships by the volcano; an X-wing at a gas station and an Apollo Command Module. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.24}}

https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js - Looks like there's an easier to read version of the code there. Maybe that'll help someone with extracting all the images. {{unsigned ip|

I've got all the images downloaded. Zipping/uploading now. Should I post a link here when complete or what's the best way to share these? I'm also working on setting up a zoomable map. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.53|173.245.54.53]] 23:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The collision detection is glitchy. I keep landing/bumping against platforms I'm far away from. Is getting stuck against walls normal? --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.234|199.27.130.234]] 00:01, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Tiles are located here in a zip: https://up1.ca/#Gi51KPFyPRELe0T1D6q9Mw All I did was iterate over http://xkcd.com/1608/X:-Y+s.png from X=[916...1116] and Y=[916...1116]. I'm working on putting a zoomable map together. If anyone has interest in helping we could hop on IRC? [[User:Jcox|Jcox]] ([[User talk:Jcox|talk]]) 00:15, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I've written a zsh script to iterate over all possible tiles (does anyone know the height limits? the source only gives the left and right limits) and glue them together into one giant file. I'll upload the results as soon as it's finished. [[User:Arch-TK|Arch-TK]] ([[User talk:Arch-TK|talk]]) 00:17, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's limited vertically at all. I found a zoomable map on the reddit topic http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ (by kyledavide) [[User:Miraries|Miraries]] ([[User talk:Miraries|talk]]) 00:21, 25 November 2015 (UTC)Miraries

Here's a zoomed out map of all the game area: https://i.imgur.com/rNU9ZgN.png. From ''luke_in_the_sky'' at Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxc1245]. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.129|188.114.111.129]] 00:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Alright, the full png of the entire map is almost finished, I should have used white tiles as blank tiles but I guess I can fix that up in gimp, and I'm not sure how to account for the 1 pixel overlap with just imagemagick convert. The last step is to merge allthe layer images into one giant image, wish my laptop the best of luck! [[User:Arch-TK|Arch-TK]] ([[User talk:Arch-TK|talk]]) 01:00, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Someone beat you to it, but keep on it: that one doesn't have right limit tiles. https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxc0p8x --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.129|188.114.111.129]] 01:19, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we can change the screenshot at the top to this? It's a quickly hacked overview of the entire map: http://imgur.com/Mz9arHz [[Special:Contributions/199.27.129.167|199.27.129.167]] 01:27, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
: I think it might make more sense to just add it as another image, mediawiki supports this after all. The syntax should be: <nowiki>[[File:filename.png|thumb|Subtitle|alt=alt]]</nowiki> [[User:Arch-TK|Arch-TK]] ([[User talk:Arch-TK|talk]]) 01:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

[http://files.mckaysalisbury.com/xkcd/hoverboard.html] This one loads all of the images quickly (From the xkcd site), and uses browser zooming. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.47|173.245.54.47]] 01:29, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

:The impassible backgrounds are RGB(0,0,0), and the passable ones are RGB(1,1,1). <code>#explore > :first-child {filter:brightness(30);-webkit-filter:brightness(30);-moz-filter:brightness(30);-o-filter:brightness(30);-ms-filter:brightness(30);}</code> ... See https://twitter.com/BadPhysics/status/669354631869304832 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.155|108.162.249.155]] 03:40, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Here are all the secret passages marked I could find: http://imgur.com/a/fKE1Q --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.220|162.158.91.220]] 00:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I wrote a tampermonkey script that shows you your coordinates and lets you teleport; will make coordinate sharing a lot easier. You do need tampermonkey installed for this to work. [https://github.com/minerguy31/xkcd-hoverboard-mod/raw/master/XKCD%20Hoverboard%20Mod.user.js Click to install] [[User:Minerguy31|Minerguy31]] ([[User talk:Minerguy31|talk]]) 04:17, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I got 159 coins without the map. If you guys are still wondering how to escape the volcano, move to the right for as long as you think you can, then start spamming the up key while switching between holding the left and right keys. It worked for me on my first try.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.252.119|162.158.252.119]] 07:06, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Didn't take down the coordinates, but the layout to the first level of the original Prince of Persia is in there, including the guard standing by with his scimitar! I found it in the ship atop the pyramid east of the play area. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.245|108.162.218.245]] 06:24, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Just thought this was interesting, when you "complete" the game by dropping coins, the following line of javascript is run, which sends your result to the server (L is number of coins, z is seconds used):
(new Image).src = "//xkcd.com/events.gif?coins=" + L + "&seconds=" + z;
Don't be tricked by the .gif extension, it doesn't show an image when opened, and the server probably handles this request by logging it to somewhere. {{unsigned ip|141.101.80.87}}
: It actually returns a 1 by 1 pixel white GIF. [[User:Arch-TK|Arch-TK]] ([[User talk:Arch-TK|talk]]) 13:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Is there a way that we can merge the "game" part of this comic with the map of [[1110: Click and Drag]]? Allowing us to explore that one in a similar way? [[User:Bon|Bon]] ([[User talk:Bon|talk]]) 11:03, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Well I managed to find (nearly) everything, except the floating rock island, and 162 coins without the map, but even with looking at several maps, I didn't pass any graveyard nor found the way to the grey ocean, which I assume is underneath the "continent". Does anyone know where the entrance is? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.218|162.158.90.218]] 11:54, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Just thought I should say; the comic supports some alternative movement controls, there's the arrow keys, WASD, and also the vi keys (hjkl), and the numpad (8426). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.125|108.162.242.125]] 13:29, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I was not able to get to some points because they were surrounded by text, people or other objects. Is that normal, or are there tricks to get to every coin without using cheats (console)? It would be nice if this could be mention / explained in the article. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.135.35|162.158.135.35]] 13:31, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
:In some cases you can come in from the side as opposed to trying to come down through or up through something. Example: at the X-Wing "gas station", to get that coin, land on the ground to the left of the X-Wing and move to the right on the ground towards the gas station. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:45, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

The list of "areas" in the map would be much easier to read, and much easier to correlate with the map, if the origin were set to the starting area (that is, if the coordinates of the starting area were set to x:0, y:0). What is the reason for the very large numbers? --[[User:BlueMoonlet|BlueMoonlet]] ([[User talk:BlueMoonlet|talk]]) 15:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

The starting area is in no way related to pac-man. The lines are not all right angles, there is a timer, there's gravity, there are no aggressors, you're collecting coins instead of pellets.... Not every line maze is pac-man. This is an erroneous reference that should be removed. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.167|198.41.235.167]] 17:16, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

The source code found at https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js does not seem to be complete. I would personally work on de-obfuscating the full source code using the fragment found there but technically the source is covered by implicit copyright laws and that means that if I published a derived work I would be breaking those laws. Should I just change the line from "The source code can be found at ..." to "The full (obfuscated) source code can be found at ...tigl.min.js and a deobfuscated piece of the source code can be found at ...tigl.js". [[User:Arch-TK|Arch-TK]] ([[User talk:Arch-TK|talk]]) 18:28, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I added quick coordinate / teleport access on right-click to the quick hack map. [[User:Kyledavide|Kyledavide]] ([[User talk:Kyledavide|talk]]) 20:45, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Can't be bothered working out how to edit the page, but the explanation contains the phrase "People holding anchor lines to a Star Destroyer" - they're holding anchor lines to a CR90 Corvette, specifically the Tantive IV, commonly referred to as the "Rebel Blockade Runner", which in turn is being *attacked by* a Star Destroyer. I'll get my coat. {{unsigned ip|162.158.153.47}}

That's no 'Children's Swimming Pool', it's a ball pit! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.222|162.158.2.222]] 23:46, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I slightly improved the "direction to next coin"-code by displaying a compas. Code can be found here http://pastebin.com/PL6fv5XK . I'm new to this wiki and don't want to mess up the page, so I didn't put the code in there myself ... --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.209|162.158.90.209]] 00:01, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Haven't read all the comments above so maybe someone has written about it?
If you click up it seems to count how many times. So it will just show white and then when you release again, it will take longer to hit the ground the longer you have pushed up. Tried with 100 clicks (9-10 seconds) and 200 clicks (20 seconds).
I got about 163 coins in about 15886 seconds. (4 hours and 24 minutes.) That was with breaks. It was written so shortly on the screen I did not manage to take it down for certain. But after that I read here about the 169 and found that there where at least three in the volcano I had not noticed at first. And it seems likely that there would be three more I have missed. But really fun to explore. I wrote a lot of the transcript along the way (not from the very start though) This I have now posted without any real order in the [[1608: Hoverboard/Transcript]] page. Hope fully a full and useful transcript can emerge from this. I hope my text can be used if not used as it is written at the moment.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 02:05, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I thought Atreyu's horse was Artax, not Artex. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 05:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1607: Supreme Court

2015-11-23T21:05:58Z

198.41.238.32: Or is it a board?

Made some additions, since I'm the first person up at this ungodly hour. Well, it's ungodly in my time zone, anyway. (Why is it that the time changes depending on where you live, but the months don't?) I am a first-time editor, so please correct any mistakes in formatting. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.5|05:32, 23 November 2015‎}}
:I'm awake, it's 11:26 PM. PS, you forgot to sign, but IDK how to fix. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 05:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
::I do - I've added a signature. --[[User:Sophira|Sophira]] ([[User talk:Sophira|talk]]) 06:11, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
He just might be... THE LAW! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.41|108.162.221.41]] 06:17, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Isn't the joke that xkcd people are stick men, so the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_(constellation)#History_and_mythology libra] could just be a man with a tiny head carrying two buckets..? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.159|162.158.91.159]] 10:00, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Currently there's nothing in the explanation of the titletext that addresses that Justice X is claiming to be ''either'' of two individuals, not even trying to properly impersonate a specific individual. Of course, logically, if they claimed to be a specific person then this specific person they claimed to be could so easily counter-claim. So that approach shouldn't work. But being vague would ''also'' be strange. Unlike a game of Mafia, when there might (occasionally) be reasons to be vague in this manner about one's role (and yet accept that this can look utterly Scummy, if this approach is directed at the Townies) to try to offset targetting by the opposing camp, this should ''still'' not work in a group where everyone already knows each other. So who knows how 'relatively illogical' the two approaches are, to each other... ;) But can anyone explain this better than me? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.5|162.158.152.5]] 11:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Although there are nine justices, 10 votes were counted... it is possible that the mysterious tenth person voted along with the majority, and one of the original justices has voted against. The supreme court rarely votes unanimously on anything regardless of how reasonable the majority seems.[[User:Swordsmith|Swordsmith]] ([[User talk:Swordsmith|talk]]) 11:50, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
:Not sure where you're getting your information. For the 2014 term, fully 2/3 of the decisions decided were unanimous 9-0 decisions. The most common splits are 9-0 and 5-4. Most unanimous decisions are on smaller, less widely important matters. Larger more important and notable decisions are more likely to be concerned with a disagreement of law or interpretation and therefore to not be unanimous. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.48|108.162.216.48]] 14:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Just a guess, but it could be in reference to [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/20/obama-administration-appeals-immigration-ruling-supreme-court/76103084/ this article], where the nine represents the actual justices and the single is the President. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:35, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, "this guy" is the picture in the background. It looks like an emoticon with eyes/eyelids, eyebrows, and a nose. It seems to have two sides in balance, which could explain the Alito/Ginsburg reference.
[[User:Tlane|Tlane]] ([[User talk:Tlane|talk]]) 20:20, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

This is slightly funnier knowing there should be only nine on the panel. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 21:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1605: DNA

2015-11-19T00:57:07Z

198.41.238.32: More ignorance. Sigh.

The source for Google.com can be found at `<nowiki>view-source:https://www.google.com/</nowiki>` for Firefox and Chrome. Also [http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=u8SMf7G6 here]. —[[User:Artyer|Artyer]] <big>([[User Talk:Artyer|talk]]<big>'''|'''</big>[[Special:Contributions/Artyer|ctb]])</big> 16:06, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:Should there be a link to the code in the explain. I do not understand these links or the source code, and would not like to place these links in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I really like this comic. IMHO, just another good example of intelligent design. Google's dev had to design, plan and carefully code. If that is seemingly simple compared to DNA and biology then how much more intelligence and thought was needed for the coding of all living things?--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 17:18, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:With all the stupid things going on in our bodies (rendered useless by natural selection but staying put anyway like the {{w|Appendix (anatomy)|Appendix}} or our {{w|tailbone}}) then it is to me just a clear example that there has been no intelligence behind our genome, but just trial and error, and then 4 billion years to get it right enough that it works but not smart. And don't get me started on how our air and food/drink has to go in the same way with the risk of being (nearly) killed by a pretzel...([http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-94567/I-feel-great-President-Bush-declares-pretzel-incident.html even if you are the president of the US] ;-) That is just plain stupid design. But few enough dies from this, that it was necessary for nature to change it once it was working. Humans and the genes survived long enough to reproduce. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
::Without an appendix how would our gut immune system develop properly? Without a tail bone how would we stand upright? It's a fallacy to think that just because we don't understand something it must have no purpose. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 00:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Apologies, when I saved my comments it blitzed someone else's that must have been being written at the same time :'-( [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:Yeah it was my two comments above? I have now moved the one right her above back in place from the bottom where Davidy22 had placed it when he tried to fix it. No harms done but as he says: ''Read error messages, I know mediawiki gives them to you''. You can always see in the history what you have changed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:08, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
::I, for my part read the edit conflict (with Kynde, 18:43) like a good little boy, re-edited in light of that, resubmitted and... forgot to answer the security question. For completeness I wrote the following. If it's still helpful...
Had the same thought. Although I just use "View | Source" from the menu or right-click and "View Page Source", or whatever that browser tends to want to give me. And, having had that same thought: For reference, in case anybody wants it, the source of the google.co.uk main page (assumed not far off google.com in its nature) is 51 lines. But that's 51 ''long'' lines of mostly javascript, with much of the unnecessary whitespace (including line-feeds) taken out of it, overwhelmingly single-character variable names, over 150 'if' statements (including 'else if' ones, in continuation to a prior one) and perhaps 56 'for' loops, at first glance. Whether 'optimised' or obfuscated, it certainly could be a challenge to fully understand.
:: HTH, HAND [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.161|141.101.106.161]] 21:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

IMHO DNA with its redundant sections for things not currently used and the bodges in biological design are a good example of unintelligent design. For example the blood supply to the retina is between the iris and the retina, so it is in the way. An intelligent designer would do an eye mark II. But this has nothing to do with the comic. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
: Sigh. Another of the "I could do a better job" brigade. Go ahead. Try it. Post back here after you learn enough about the existing eye design that you recognise just how incredible it is. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 00:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

White Hat is showing the hubris often seen by people who think their (often limited) knowledge in one field can be used as an anology for something very different. Megan only manages to showchim his error by showing that a "simple" web page, which has only been evolving for a few years is more complex than he thinks, and the role of any one line/command in the page is probably far from clear without deep analysis [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

The evolution of life is composed exclusively of copy-paste programming on top of legacy code, global variables, and hacks on hacks on hacks at every level, from telomeres and DNA looping, to the structure of the human hip (childbirth), to our breathing tract, optic nerve, and brain structure and cognition. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.234|199.27.130.234]] 21:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
: That's what you get when you hack the universe together with perl.

Talk:1605: DNA

2015-11-19T00:53:07Z

198.41.238.32: Ignorance. Sigh.

The source for Google.com can be found at `<nowiki>view-source:https://www.google.com/</nowiki>` for Firefox and Chrome. Also [http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=u8SMf7G6 here]. —[[User:Artyer|Artyer]] <big>([[User Talk:Artyer|talk]]<big>'''|'''</big>[[Special:Contributions/Artyer|ctb]])</big> 16:06, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:Should there be a link to the code in the explain. I do not understand these links or the source code, and would not like to place these links in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I really like this comic. IMHO, just another good example of intelligent design. Google's dev had to design, plan and carefully code. If that is seemingly simple compared to DNA and biology then how much more intelligence and thought was needed for the coding of all living things?--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 17:18, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:With all the stupid things going on in our bodies (rendered useless by natural selection but staying put anyway like the {{w|Appendix (anatomy)|Appendix}} or our {{w|tailbone}}) then it is to me just a clear example that there has been no intelligence behind our genome, but just trial and error, and then 4 billion years to get it right enough that it works but not smart. And don't get me started on how our air and food/drink has to go in the same way with the risk of being (nearly) killed by a pretzel...([http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-94567/I-feel-great-President-Bush-declares-pretzel-incident.html even if you are the president of the US] ;-) That is just plain stupid design. But few enough dies from this, that it was necessary for nature to change it once it was working. Humans and the genes survived long enough to reproduce. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
::Without an appendix how would our gut immune system develop properly? Without a tail bone how would we stand upright? It's a fallacy to think that just because we don't understand something it must have no purpose. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 00:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Apologies, when I saved my comments it blitzed someone else's that must have been being written at the same time :'-( [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:Yeah it was my two comments above? I have now moved the one right her above back in place from the bottom where Davidy22 had placed it when he tried to fix it. No harms done but as he says: ''Read error messages, I know mediawiki gives them to you''. You can always see in the history what you have changed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:08, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
::I, for my part read the edit conflict (with Kynde, 18:43) like a good little boy, re-edited in light of that, resubmitted and... forgot to answer the security question. For completeness I wrote the following. If it's still helpful...
Had the same thought. Although I just use "View | Source" from the menu or right-click and "View Page Source", or whatever that browser tends to want to give me. And, having had that same thought: For reference, in case anybody wants it, the source of the google.co.uk main page (assumed not far off google.com in its nature) is 51 lines. But that's 51 ''long'' lines of mostly javascript, with much of the unnecessary whitespace (including line-feeds) taken out of it, overwhelmingly single-character variable names, over 150 'if' statements (including 'else if' ones, in continuation to a prior one) and perhaps 56 'for' loops, at first glance. Whether 'optimised' or obfuscated, it certainly could be a challenge to fully understand.
:: HTH, HAND [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.161|141.101.106.161]] 21:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

IMHO DNA with its redundant sections for things not currently used and the bodges in biological design are a good example of unintelligent design. For example the blood supply to the retina is between the iris and the retina, so it is in the way. An intelligent designer would do an eye mark II. But this has nothing to do with the comic. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

White Hat is showing the hubris often seen by people who think their (often limited) knowledge in one field can be used as an anology for something very different. Megan only manages to showchim his error by showing that a "simple" web page, which has only been evolving for a few years is more complex than he thinks, and the role of any one line/command in the page is probably far from clear without deep analysis [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

The evolution of life is composed exclusively of copy-paste programming on top of legacy code, global variables, and hacks on hacks on hacks at every level, from telomeres and DNA looping, to the structure of the human hip (childbirth), to our breathing tract, optic nerve, and brain structure and cognition. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.234|199.27.130.234]] 21:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
: That's what you get when you hack the universe together with perl.

1604: Snakes

2015-11-17T09:39:56Z

198.41.238.32: Lower case initial for ohms unless at the beginning of a sentence.

{{comic
| number = 1604
| date = November 16, 2015
| title = Snakes
| image = snakes.png
| titletext = The last band of color indicates the snake's tolerance for being held before biting.
}}

==Explanation==
In the comic, [[Megan]] confuses a popular method of identification of the dangerous North American {{w|coral snake}} by its red, yellow, and black stripes with the {{w|Electronic color code|color-coding system}} using colored bands to mark the resistance of electrical resistors.

The coral snake has red bands adjacent to its yellow bands. However, coral snakes are {{w|mimicry|mimicked}} by nonvenomous species with similar coloring, such as the {{w|milk snake}}, whose red bands are not adjacent to its yellow bands. This has led to a variety of rhyming {{w|mnemonic}}s, such as “Red touches yellow, kill a fellow; red touches black, friend of Jack.”

In electronics, {{w|resistor}}s and other electronic components have their parameters marked on their body using colored bands. Resistors have at least three bands to identify their nominal resistance in {{w|ohm}}s, followed by an optional fourth band showing the {{w|engineering tolerance|tolerance}} as within the bounds of a certain percentage of the aforementioned resistance value. A red band followed by a yellow and a black one identifies a 24 ohm resistor (the Omega symbol, “Ω”, stands for ohms). The lack of a fourth band means the tolerance is ±20%, so the actual resistance will be between 19.2Ω and 28.8Ω. See this [http://www.audionotekits.com/resistorcodes.html resistor code calculator]. Resistor color codes were also mentioned in [[227]].

Therefore, Megan is actually holding a coral snake, which contains the most potent venom of any snake in North America. This assumes, of course, that the comic takes place in North America. The familiar mnemonic does not apply to South and Central American coral snakes.

The title text refers to the fourth band specifying the tolerance but interprets it as the snake's tolerance for being held before biting, instead of the measure of the inaccuracy of the 24 ohms. In the case of black, this would refer to a tolerance value of 0.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are standing in some grass. Megan is holding a snake with red, yellow, and black stripes.]

:Megan: Red touches yellow, which I think means this is a 24Ω snake.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]