explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3148: 100% All Achievements

2025-10-01T20:53:43Z

82.132.213.24: /* Explanation */ To distinguish from improbable auto-aim or downright engine-hacking.

{{comic
| number = 3148
| date = September 29, 2025
| title = 100% All Achievements
| image = 100_all_achievements_2x.png
| imagesize = 271x475px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I'm trying to share my footage of the full run to prove it's not tool-assisted, but the uploader has problems with video lengths of more than a decade.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN ANY% RUNNER. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
100% All Achievements is a category of {{w|Speedrunning|video game speedruns}} where the goal is to do everything possible in the game, as fast as possible. Many games have a progress bar to track completion of the game, making the "100%" criterion officially defined. "Achievements," also known as "trophies" for games on Sony-branded consoles, are another way to track accomplishments, either tracked within the game itself or through the storefront used to purchase the game such as the Microsoft Store.

[[Cueball]] is attempting a 100% All Achievements run for his university, which is a ridiculous pursuit for several reasons. Even though 100% runs for video games can take very long (up to [https://www.speedrun.com/baten_kaitos_eternal_wings_and_the_lost_ocean?h=100&x=mke7v926 two weeks]), they don't even come close to the amount of time needed to complete a single university major, let alone every class. This would be prohibitively expensive for most people due to the high cost of university attendance. Moreover, "All Achievements" is vaguely defined in this scenario, since the "achievements" possible at a university will change over the period of time involved, as courses are updated, revalidated, added and removed every year in a typical institution. In contrast, even if the possible achievements in a video game change as updates and downloadable content are released, it is possible to specify a particular version of the game used for the speedrun.

In addition, the university seems upset with this choice of action, perhaps because they doubt his ability to retain this information, perhaps because they simply cannot get as much tuition from one man. Thus, they are demanding he stop this course of action and graduate.

Gen-ed, which Cueball says he had completed all of in 2010, refers to {{w|Curriculum#Core_curriculum|general education courses}}. This usually means either:
(1) a set of classes, or at least categories of classes (such as literature, history, science, foreign language, etc.), that must be taken by all students, regardless of major; or
(2) classes that have few prerequisites, intended to be taken by students in other disciplines or by people not in university programs at all, to broaden their education (for example, a course in general science for arts students). It is common for a university program to require a student to take several courses that are somewhat related to their nominal preferred specialty in their first year, to provide a foundation for later studies and to permit some flexibility if the student's interests change. In the USA, some gen-ed courses are also included in programs of study so students get at least a bit of exposure to unrelated disciplines. Most students typically finish these within their first year, if not their first term.

Classes at a university typically receive a code that combines the name of the field/discipline being taught with a two- or three-digit number (e.g., a course in anthropology might be ANTH 209). The leading digit typically provides information about how advanced a class is: lower division work might receive a 0 or 1, while upper division and graduate courses will receive higher numbers. Although there is no standardization across universities for which specific numbers equate to which course levels, the generally accepted baseline education given in any specific subject is usually associated with the number {{w|101 (number)#In_education|101}}, while classes in the 400s would be graduate-level courses at most universities.

In traditional speedrunning, a {{w|tool-assisted speedrun}} (mentioned in the title text) is one done with software such as a {{w|video game console emulator|video game emulator}} to record and then play back incredibly precise movements. These are typically used to show the theoretical upper limit of how quickly a game can be completed, even if the required techniques are beyond human capabilities (i.e. performing a long chain of optimal actions, flawlessly, without the need to replay or restart any stage). Particularly exceptional speedruns may rouse suspicion that they weren’t truly performed by a human, which is what Cueball is trying to quell. Such tools generally do not exist for real-life pursuits such as education,{{cn}} so Cueball may have meant using artificial intelligence or similar "cheats" to illegitimately complete his work. Unassisted speedruns are typically reviewed in full by a moderator of the speedrunning community for that game to ensure there truly were no tools involved. There is no known community for university speedrunning,{{Citation needed}} so no moderators will be able to review the years of footage to determine whether the speedrun was legitimate.

Most video-sharing services limit the length of uploaded videos, either by size or length, for a variety of reasons. A decade-long video file is almost certainly too big for any service: an hour of 720p-resolution video is about one gigabyte [[https://www.overcasthq.com/blog/how-big-are-video-files/ Overcast]], so a decade would be about 100 terabytes. Currently the longest video on YouTube is just under 25 days [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12095652/trivia/ IMDB]], under 1% of what Cueball wants. Such a video would require significant infrastructure support by the service for it to be allowed, not to mention presenting challenges to recording and storing it in the first place.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball, arms outstretched, is talking to White Hat.]
:Cueball: I finished all the gen-ed back in 2010, and I'm up to the 400-level courses in most departments.
:Cueball: But now one of my advisors is saying I "can't have more than 20 majors" and "need to graduate next year."
:Cueball: It's outrageous!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My university is making it really hard to finish a 100% all achievements speedrun.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:1358: NRO

2025-10-01T20:42:53Z

82.132.213.24:

Could what if #32 be valid here? https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/ --[[User:Mralext20|Mralext20]] ([[User talk:Mralext20|talk]]) 07:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

: Nah. Spy satellites are usually on geosynced orbits, so they always hover over the same area of the ground, meaning no blur. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 14:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

:: Spy satellites are not usually in geosynchronous orbits, as this would be much too far away from earth to be of much use, Spy satelites are normally in very low polar orbits to maximize the areas they can spy on. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.65|108.162.216.65]] 22:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Not only he is using the satellites, he is also using the software - probably something which will highlight recognized target on photo. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I always thought this was a reference to the Governments Facial Recognition software they're working on. Combine that with the NSA's spy satellites and you can locate anyone anywhere. Maybe the NRO is a combination of such organizations and technologies (very very deadly) and they're testing it out using a Where's Waldo book. Not only testing the cameras on the satellite's resolution but the facial recognition software's ability to pick out a specific person in a crowd. [[User:Glitch|Glitch]] ([[User talk:Glitch|talk]]) 14:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The sentence "He usually is quite hard to find, which makes it challenging." is really bothering me. I'm not sure what to do with it. I considered deleting it or shortening it, but none of those feel right. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 18:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

What was bothering you about it? It was a quick and dirty explanation at the time, so it doesn't matter. [[User:Fizzle|Fizzle]] ([[User talk:Fizzle|talk]]) 21:36, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
:Redundancy. "The hard thing is challenging." "The big thing was huge." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 09:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Would "Government Facial Recognition" work at all via satellite? Wouldn't they do better with Governments Scalp Recognition? {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.117}}

Possible reference to xkcd.com/970? -CyanLights [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.223|108.162.238.223]] 17:46, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
:I don't see that. [[970: The Important Field]] is about private guns, but this comic is about real military items. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

similar to http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3222#comic but SMBC goes much deeper and darker. {{unsigned ip|173.245.63.174}}

The USA murdering children from the sky is not a fit subject for humour. I find this comic repugnant. [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 11:51, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
:Well...while there ''is'' an [https://www.nro.gov/NRO-Kids/ NRO Kids] section at the NRO's website, no child labor is mentioned in [https://xkcd.com/1358/info.0.json xkcd's official transcript]. This estimation is a bit blunt to me, considering that I've found Randall's humor to be fine and precise (I mean...it's why we have explainxkcd)...and it seems rather important to the joke to take these as adult employees of the org, with their expanded adult capabilities. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 00:22, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Would the description of the NRO's location map to any sort of actual Wheres Waldo image? [[Special:Contributions/72.138.52.174|72.138.52.174]] 17:58, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
:I presume you're asking if "Left edge, two inches down" is a valid solution to any actual Where's Waldo(/Wally) illustration that Randall has 'cribbed' from, rather than just making up a location out of thin air? (The first few times I read it, I went down a grammatical Garden Path with "location map" as a compound noun, and then the rest of the question didn't make sense!)
:Going by the typical size of the books (I found quoted roughly 6"x7.5" or 10"x12", closed book, and I think most scenes are double-page spreads) any given scene has perhaps between 96(-ish) and 240 possible 'inch squares'. ("Left edge" is maybe between the left margin and the 1"-from-left vertical, though it could be 0-0.5", and all non-zero N-inches would be N±0.5"... So adjust your grid-counts accordingly. And you would likely change to a count from the right/bottom for any location not in the top-left quadrant. Possible even counting either side from the central-fold for "more middling" locations. But there'd be roughly the same ''number'' of inch-squares.)
:Apart from any tendency to have Wally/Waldo/Wenda/Whoever not ''right'' at the edge of the page (I don't see why not, it might be the last place you'd look, as much as the first place, if the 'reader' is trying to be methodical ...and probably more likely to be set as the 'solution' than exact dead-centre), that's not so many possible locations that the number of puzzle-book versions multiplied by their puzzle-page counts might never have this particular position represented by ''at least'' one page-spread.
:I leave it to someone else to count up the possible number of images (to calculate the exact chances), or an actual ''collector'' to go through their bookshelves and give the chapter-and-verse (or book-and-page-number) of any actual match(es). I'm only susceptible to a certain degree of nerd-sniping. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.213.24|82.132.213.24]] 20:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Talk:1358: NRO

2025-10-01T20:38:42Z

82.132.213.24:

Could what if #32 be valid here? https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/ --[[User:Mralext20|Mralext20]] ([[User talk:Mralext20|talk]]) 07:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

: Nah. Spy satellites are usually on geosynced orbits, so they always hover over the same area of the ground, meaning no blur. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 14:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

:: Spy satellites are not usually in geosynchronous orbits, as this would be much too far away from earth to be of much use, Spy satelites are normally in very low polar orbits to maximize the areas they can spy on. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.65|108.162.216.65]] 22:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Not only he is using the satellites, he is also using the software - probably something which will highlight recognized target on photo. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I always thought this was a reference to the Governments Facial Recognition software they're working on. Combine that with the NSA's spy satellites and you can locate anyone anywhere. Maybe the NRO is a combination of such organizations and technologies (very very deadly) and they're testing it out using a Where's Waldo book. Not only testing the cameras on the satellite's resolution but the facial recognition software's ability to pick out a specific person in a crowd. [[User:Glitch|Glitch]] ([[User talk:Glitch|talk]]) 14:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The sentence "He usually is quite hard to find, which makes it challenging." is really bothering me. I'm not sure what to do with it. I considered deleting it or shortening it, but none of those feel right. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 18:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

What was bothering you about it? It was a quick and dirty explanation at the time, so it doesn't matter. [[User:Fizzle|Fizzle]] ([[User talk:Fizzle|talk]]) 21:36, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
:Redundancy. "The hard thing is challenging." "The big thing was huge." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 09:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Would "Government Facial Recognition" work at all via satellite? Wouldn't they do better with Governments Scalp Recognition? {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.117}}

Possible reference to xkcd.com/970? -CyanLights [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.223|108.162.238.223]] 17:46, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
:I don't see that. [[970: The Important Field]] is about private guns, but this comic is about real military items. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

similar to http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3222#comic but SMBC goes much deeper and darker. {{unsigned ip|173.245.63.174}}

The USA murdering children from the sky is not a fit subject for humour. I find this comic repugnant. [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 11:51, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
:Well...while there ''is'' an [https://www.nro.gov/NRO-Kids/ NRO Kids] section at the NRO's website, no child labor is mentioned in [https://xkcd.com/1358/info.0.json xkcd's official transcript]. This estimation is a bit blunt to me, considering that I've found Randall's humor to be fine and precise (I mean...it's why we have explainxkcd)...and it seems rather important to the joke to take these as adult employees of the org, with their expanded adult capabilities. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 00:22, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Would the description of the NRO's location map to any sort of actual Wheres Waldo image? [[Special:Contributions/72.138.52.174|72.138.52.174]] 17:58, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
:I presume you're asking if "Left edge, two inches down" is a valid solution to any actual Where's Waldo(/Wally) illustration that Randall has 'cribbed' from, rather than just making up a location out of thin air?
:Going by the typical size of the books (I found quoted roughly 6"x7.5" or 10"x12", closed book, and I think most scenes are double-page spreads) any given scene has perhaps between 96-ish) and 240 possible 'inch squares'. ("Left edge" is maybe between the left margin and the 1"-from-left vertical, though it could be 0-0.5", and all non-zero N-inches would be N±0.5"... So adjust your grid-counts accordingly. And you would likely change to a count from the right/bottom for any location not in the top-left quadrant. Possible even counting either side from the central-fold for "more middling" locations. But there'd be roughly the same ''number'' of inch-squares.)
:Apart from any tendency to have Wally/Waldo/Wenda/Whoever not ''right'' at the edge of the page (I don't see why not, it might be the last place you'd look, as much as the first place, if the 'reader' is trying to be methodical ...and probably more likely to be set as the 'solution' than exact dead-centre), that's not so many possible locations that the number of puzzle-book versions multiplied by their puzzle-page counts might never have this particular position represented by ''at least'' one page-spread.
:I leave it to someone else to count up the possible number of images (to calculate the exact chances), or an actual ''collector'' to go through their bookshelves and give the chapter-and-verse (or book-and-page-number) of any actual match(es). I'm only susceptible to a certain degree of nerd-sniping. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.213.24|82.132.213.24]] 20:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3146: Fantastic Four

2025-10-01T20:03:59Z

82.132.213.24:

And everyone wonders why that Franklin Richards kid is a little off... [[Special:Contributions/2601:8C3:8682:1FC0:9DB2:6777:1660:1D9C|2601:8C3:8682:1FC0:9DB2:6777:1660:1D9C]] 20:32, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Could be worse. In Star Trek, the kid would be born 2 centuries in the past. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:06, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Spoilers, Randall, spoilers...I'm sure there are other people who missed the theatrical release and are waiting for it to hit Disney+... [[Special:Contributions/128.4.149.3|128.4.149.3]] 21:22, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:It's probably fine, the movie came out... two months ago.
:Holy shit it only came out two months ago. [[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 22:04, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:This is how I learnt there was a new Fantastic Four movie [[Special:Contributions/64.114.211.124|64.114.211.124]] 23:25, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:I had already heard of the movie, but only after it had been released. Whatever advertising they'd used had bypassed me... I only saw the 'poster' for it when someone who had already watched it included the image in a review. And, by my own (probably wrong) count, this is the fifth live-action FF film, anyway (one of them was made but never released, for... reasons) and I've only actually seen two of the prior ones. (Couldn't say for sure which plot-points belong to which. Was the one where Johnny Storm had a 'pre-powers-kicking-in' skiing accident different from the one with the dimensional travel thing? ...I think so, but then which order were they?).
:It seems that cinema releases are these days probably considered loss-leaders (and 'Oscars-qualifying') to justify subsequent online-platforming sales. I was lucky enough to have a fairly local cinema play The Thursday Murder Club, given that I don't have access to Netflix (or Disney+, or Paramount+, or all the rest that might be necessary to view all the various different franchises of possible interest) and am stubbornly unlikely to succumb anytime soon.
:As to spoilers, I'll have probably forgotten/disregarded this comic by the time I get to see this one. By which time there'll be an even newer re-re-reboot FF film, ''anyway'' (probably photorealistically generated with AI 'actors', and piped straight into subscribers' brains!), if not ''several'' more. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.45|82.132.244.45]] 02:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
::I think so but couldn't say for sure, I just know the one with the dimensional thing will always to me be "that movie where everyone forgets about Werner von Braun". [[Special:Contributions/128.4.149.3|128.4.149.3]] 13:11, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
::Man, I made a comment because I was mad about a spoiler for the sake of a horribly geeky pun and it set off whatever this is. [[Special:Contributions/128.4.149.3|128.4.149.3]] 13:11, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Brings to mind the 1999 IgNobel Prize winner (in Managed Health Care), US Patent #3216423 ("Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force"), <https://patents.google.com/patent/US3216423A/en> {{unsigned ip|2601:189:8501:71a0:2ce2:fc8d:e6ee:d0f|00:21, 25 September 2025}}
:That's one crazy patent. Is that a net to catch the baby? Also this: "In the case of a woman who has a fully developed muscular system and has had ample physical exertion all through the pregnancy, as is common with all more '''primitive peoples''', nature provides all the necessary equipment and power to have a normal and quick delivery. This is not the case, however, with more '''civilized Women''' who often do not have the opportunity to develop the muscles needed in confinement." [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 09:33, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

After I read the problem statement, I feared that they would somehow propel the baby out of her extremely fast to get momentum… o.O [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 07:32, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
:Actually, it needs to be slower.
:On ejecting the "baby mass" (presumably retrograde), the "mother mass" (and "mothership and the rest of its contents) gain a reactionary forward momentum. As soon as the baby is caught ''or'' skids to a halt on the deliver-table/deck (assuming artificial gravity, the capability of which might suggest a reactionless 'gravity drive' solution, anyway!) ''or'' hits the stern bulkhead, it applies rearward momentum to the ship.
:Due to the Oberth Effect, if you start this process (internal 'reaction thrust') at periapsis and manage to complete it (bring the bairn to 'rest', for internal ) at apoapsis then ''conceivably'' (...although that point was probably nine months earlier!) you could gain a maximal degree of assymetric momentum transfer in an orbital frame of reference.
:But the infant must have been 'free floating' (or on a friction-free surface effectively unaffected by the perpendicularly applied internal gravity field) for the whole duration. Including whatever rotational conditions apply. (If the ship as a whole is sent on a marginally higher orbit by the movement of the baby, than it would previously have been, then the baby must be on a marginally lower orbit up to ''its'' subsequent recorrection by the eventual 'ship catch'.)
:Though this may be impractical (without a huge ship-space to work within), you can{{Actual citation needed}} seemingly gain lesser effects by stretching the process out from periapsis 'birthing' to some pre-apoapsis 'catching'. The more instantaneous, though, the less effect, effectively to zero. (There's a slight change in the CoG of the mothership+baby system, but some thoughts on this might suggest 'forward birthing', or even 'upward', could redistribute the mass of the baby more out of the gravity-well for a marginal gain that is more than the marginal loss by combined the non-baby mass being sent fractionally deeper. But this very fine balance of effects seems to need more than the simple Newtonian calculations that normally suffice in orbital mechanics.)
:Also, if I interpret the scenario correctly, there ''is no'' apoapsis (when achieved), as the aim is to attain an escape velocity instead of a sub-escape one (by however marginal a difference). As in on, or over, the "parabolic orbit", towards being a useful hyperbolic one with a finite time to return to Earth, rather than just being an extremely eccentric elliptic one. So (apart from delaying the 'catch' by infinite time/distance) it's probably going to very much earlier than the original limit-of-apoapsis had nothing been done.
:But still as delayed as possibly, meaning that a ''veeerrryyy'' slow birth (and maybe also a stupendously long berth, as in habitation space!) is probablg what we need to be useful in a such a scenario. Or just somehow apply your internal control of gravity/inertia (as befits most sci-fi vessels, and is likely Reed Richards' department) to do something magical, propulsion-wise, or just whatever abilities Sue ('invisible forcefields', traditionally, not sure if they're in this film) and Johnny (the versions of him that happily 'flame-fly' through space, changing direction at will) could possibly bring to the party (distracted or not by a birth happening at the time). Heck, I bet Ben could just chuck something useless and massive out of the airlock (assuming they don't go full The Martian and throw their own air away) with his super-strength, and gain significant delta-V to make all the difference in any critically knife-edge situation as I'm imagining (not having seen this film, myself). [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.64|82.132.246.64]] 11:30, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
::That is...not what the comic is saying though, nor is it what happened in the movie. It's merely connecting an event happening simultaneously with the boost with a pun on the Oberth effect. The writing in the comic could be a bit clearer that it's just two unrelated events happening concurrently. [[Special:Contributions/2001:569:FCEC:7F00:CDA6:30CD:A56D:5BF5|2001:569:FCEC:7F00:CDA6:30CD:A56D:5BF5]]
:::The comic is being deliberately humorous, of course, regardless of what might have happened in the film (like there was never actually an awkward conversation with Treebeard about why the Fellowship were all male).
:::The phrasing "and fire their engines at periapsis — as Sue has her baby — to get a boost" can be read numerous ways involving both coincidence and concurrence. Including the engines being fired to help the birthing process (c.f. the centripetal birthing device mentioned above)...
:::It all wouldn't look too out of place as a hook for a What-If question/answer situation, either, so of course various off the wall interpretions are going to be overanalysed for the purposes of humour. (Or overanalyzed for the purposes of humor.) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.95|82.132.244.95]] 07:11, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Without watching the movie (and reading only a short comics, where no baby was involved) I had the impression that the baby was left around the neutron star, or even more cruel - sent into it. {{unsigned ip|140.141.134.242|15:49, 30 September 2025}}

I think this explanation is incorrect. It says "The comic says that there is a boost because of the propulsion produced by the baby," but the comic specifically says "They [...] fire their engines at periapsis". The explanation fixates on this incorrect assessment stating "she does give birth to a baby while on board, but doesn't do that to get a boost" which is true, but the comic never claimed anything to the contrary. The next paragraph continues on this line of thinking talking about how ineffective birth would be at producing propulsion. [[Special:Contributions/136.226.154.60|136.226.154.60]] 16:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
:Depends upon how you read it. In one version, they make sure that periapsis happens at the same time as the birth so that the birth can contribute (in handwavy ways) to the boost you'd want to fire at that point. Alternatives include ensuring that the burn at periapsis happens coincident with the birth to ''boost the birth''. I think there could be six or seven different interpretations, although the one concentrated upon is typical fodder for a 'movie physics/pseudoscience/technobabble' answer to a plotwise narrow-escape.
:The version where "oh, and something else happens at the same time" is (I presume), the ''reality'' of the fictional scenario, ''just'' an additional complication (and reason) to the attempt to effect a narrow escape. But the humour comes from the ambiguity and misunderstanding of phrasing. (For one thing, the exact nature of the punctuation may not be clear, in-panel. Unlike a recent comic comma, it isn't clearly voiced exclamation mark!)
:Of course, it depends which particular frog of humour you wish to dissect. Some might still not find it funny, and there's now at least one dead frog. But you can also edit the explanation to convey what you think the joke is. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.213.24|82.132.213.24]] 20:03, 1 October 2025 (UTC)