explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression

2023-09-24T15:43:55Z

Andrewtheexplainer:

Somebody has been watching Not Just Bikes on YouTube...
:Orange Pilled!!🙂 [[User:Torzsmokus|Torzsmokus]] ([[User talk:Torzsmokus|talk]]) 19:43, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I would be very interested in having a discussion based on the "livability" comment. If a city is a place to LIVE, then these are fair comments, assuming that travel outside the local area is minimal. But if a city is a place to WORK, like a lot of downtown areas in the Eastern US, then this doesn't hold up as well. People don't live in these areas, they just travel to them on a regular basis.
:Talk about missing the forest for the trees
:Agree, downtown areas SHOULD be places to work, live, shop, and play. Eastern US downtowns USED to be that way, until White Flight screwed everything up and created "car culture". It's long past due for cities to change back. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 15:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
::You can't really blame white flight considering the same thing happened in both 'racially homogenous' cities in the U.S. and in Canada. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.251|172.70.174.251]] 17:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
: One thing that always bugs me about these discussions is that they tend to be so city-centric in thinking. Bikes simply aren't a practical mode of transportation in a lot of areas, dating back to pre-car days. I live in a rural area of the southern midwest, and "town" is a concentration of places that people in the area go to, and always has been. Only really wealthy people had houses in town, and even then they were often "Sunday Houses" where you would stay during your weekend trip to town for groceries and church BECAUSE it was such a hassle before cars. There's a "historic" (read: tourist-friendly) walkable town square in the center of many towns in my area, but these are as a rule businesses, some of which have loft apartments because the owner lived there too as some of the town's few constant residents. Even the parking lots are basically paved versions of the spaces where people would park their wagons and tie their horses back in the day, placed near things like general stores because hauling groceries for several blocks is a pain in any era. [[User:Scorpion451|Scorpion451]] ([[User talk:Scorpion451|talk]]) 18:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
:: I've never really lived in small towns on this side of the world, but this video does a pretty good job on approaching urbanism from a rural perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKRr8ymaqBM [[User:Yaygya|Yaygya]] ([[User talk:Yaygya|talk]]) 23:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
:: More generally, it's not really a useful, meaningful, or fair comparison between a densely populated country like the Netherlands (>1000/mi*mi) and a sparsely populated country like the USA (<100/mi*mi). All the USA's wide-open spaces are the actual physical reason we have a "car culture". It's not just people being deliberately being stupid or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.237|172.71.222.237]] 01:24, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

:Places meant for work and work alone are called 'industrial parks'. People's well-being in offices can significantly benefit from green spaces and other amenities like bars and shops.
:Especially if they feel safe walking to and from those shops. --[[User:Melle|Melle]] ([[User talk:Melle|talk]]) 16:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
:: Honestly, what impresses me the most about the Netherlands is not their neighbourhoods or city centres, it's their industrial parks. Dutch industrial parks are so much nicer it's not even funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ [[User:Yaygya|Yaygya]] ([[User talk:Yaygya|talk]]) 23:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

The explainxkcd explanations have gotten kinda funny, but I wanted to add that some european cities have sidewalks wider than roads, and it’s a much different experience. People like openness. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.55|162.158.62.55]] 17:46, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, I do not know how to format it, however this is the citation about painted vs protected bike lanes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140523001056?dgcid=author [[User:Vdm|Vdm]] ([[User talk:Vdm|talk]]) 21:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, cities are much better place to live in without so many cars. But on the other hand, vacation without car is much more complicated, unless your idea of vacation is to get to exactly same place as everyone else. Soo ... where will all those cars go? I know, you could rent a car, but that only works if there wouldn't be times where EVERYONE suddenly needs car ... like, say, Christmas.

Also, no, bikes are not alternative to cars unless you can get shower when you arrive at work. Public transport could work, but bikes are just nice theory.

To conclude, I don't think trying to turn all cities into Amsterdam will work. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:07, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
: Bikes are an incredibly helpful and useful tool for getting around. You don't even have to turn a city into Amsterdam. I live in Edmonton, which is by no means an urbanist utopia, and even getting around here, combining a bicycle with public transit makes it so much easier and faster to get around. The issue I face is lugging my bike with me, in which case a bike share service like Montréal's BIXI would help out for getting around.
: Regarding your point on vacation, first of all, most people end up going to the same places for vacation anyway. And vacation without bringing a car can very much be done, and even at high-demand times, the places where "everyone needs a car" are places where everyone will be going anyway, at which point a train just makes more sense. About a decade ago, my family took a trip from New Delhi to Goa a decade back (around 1800 km away) and we took trains to get there. We rented a car to get around in Goa and it worked pretty well. Not saying that cars aren't useful at all, but they aren't a 100% necessity. They're most useful when you're heading somewhere that's out of the way, and I've done those sorts of trips too. [[User:Yaygya|Yaygya]] ([[User talk:Yaygya|talk]]) 23:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

"...by allowing cyclists to cycle in the streets with the cars". ''Allowing''? Sorry, but that's a very neo-biker (or "person on a bike", rather than an actual cyclist) attitude that unfortunately seems to pervade the mindset of drivers. At least in the UK, bicycles have been 'allowed' (indeed, obliged) to ride upon the roads, as of laws as far back as [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Will4/5-6/50/section/72 1885] and are legitimate road vehicles and also not supposed to be ridden on actual pavements(/sidewalks) where not explicitly allowed. Of course, the US has policies driven (c.f. jaywalking). But a bicycle is a road vehicle. Add extra permissive routes (in the same manner as allowing traffic of less than three tonnes over a bridge, without forcing everything within that limit to do so) but you'd be wrong to suggest, over here, that you'd have to ''allow'' cyclists to cycle in(/on) the streets. Though the modern 'MAMILs' are often as wrong about all this (and as damaging to the reputation of real cyclists) as far too many motorists are. Of course, this may not reflect the US situation (or state/township legislations), but then they were influenced by the car-lobby to create the jaywalking 'crime' as well, so I really wouldn't be surprised. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.62|162.158.74.62]] 22:16, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I went to the Netherlands on vacation last month and I strongly identify with the guy waving flags and yelling "Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands!" in this comic. I was in Rotterdam, not Amsterdam, but I also spent a day in Enschede (near the border with Germany), and the sight was the same: bicycles everywhere, to a degree that would seem absurd anywhere else. I don't think it can be properly expressed in words; one look at the bicycle parking in Rotterdam Central Station and I was in awe that _so many bicycles_ could exist in one place. I used a bicycle to explore from The Haag to Neetle Jans and everywhere I went it was the same story; it isn't just Amsterdam, the entire country is built with bicycles as a solid and safe transportation option. --Faultline 11:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Speaking from the perspective of the UK, Cyclists (and I speak as one, with six decades of experience) are a complex issue. Being road vehicles (and requiring continuous at-grade surfaces, or at least smoothly transitioning slopes, whilst mounted) they need special consideration when laying out where they can go, outwith the baseline highway planning situation. And they also pose difficulties if improperly ridden in pedestrian areas, even if this is somehow due to being 'forced'(/’invited') off the roads by motorists and/or town planners that are in turn posing difficulties to them (legislatively, physically or just psychologically). In an ideal world, there would be no need for cycle lanes (on road), let alone cycle paths (split or shared pavement/sidewalk). And as it is not possible to have cycle-segregation everywhere (ignoring the question of whether forced segregation is a good policy!), I feel that attempting to take bicycles (or indeed other types of cycle!) off the road where it is easy and/or virtue-signalling makes the roads worse for cyclists ''everywhere else''. (And also the pavements worse for pedestrians, everywhere else!) 
There are (according to a quick check) 262,300 miles of paved road in the UK. Apart from the motorways (2,300 miles) and a smattering of other "no cycling" roads (often "motorway standard link roads" or major bridges), all of these are viable cycling routes. Maybe you'd not feel safe on some other routes (mostly a problem stemming from motorists, not the highways), so call it a cool quarter of a million miles. Compare with (again, a quick and unconfirmed check) the apparently 5,220 miles of traffic-free cycle paths (some 'cross country', bridleways/ex-railway/etc, others directly parallel to 'bike unfriendly/hostile/illegal' roadways) and 7,519 miles of on-road cycle lanes (paint and/or bollard-segregated, and I assume this includes bike+bus+taxi lanes and variations on that theme). Clearly, most places that you might want to cycle are not anywhere near covered by a convenient cycle-only(/dominant) path/road/lane/whatever. Even accounting for population density bias (a path-equipped city-centre ''can'' perhaps have a good few hundred thousand cyclists commuting along its copious off-street routes, whereas some remote area of equivalent road-length doesn't have more than a dozen people cycling around/through its country lanes on any given day), there's a distinct gap. 
And the problem is that car drivers (myself also being one, though only ''four'' decades behind the wheel, so what would I know?) seem to start to not anticipate bicycles on the road (or horses, or tractors, or anyone also driving but not actually going at-or-above the posted speed limit, etc) and at best they are startled/annoyed when they encounter their fellow road-users in different contexts. At worst, they 'come into contention' in a rather nasty way for at least one of the parties involved. 
'People on bikes' don't help when they (whether drivers themselves or not) do not obey [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82 the rules of the road], and/or footway. They give actual cyclists a bad name, make motorists less tolerant of those who actually are folling both the rights and responsibilities of cycle traffic and cause 'contention' with pedestrians on ''their'' supposedly safer routes (and road crossings), amongst other issues. The number of times I've seen someone progress rapidly down a pavement on two wheels, having to swerve round people, swerve to cross side-roads (to use the disabled-friendly drop-curbs), hop onto the road and back on again because of obstructions (curb-mounted parked cars/construction works) and all disrupting (or even causing danger to everyone else off/on the road)... Quite often, they would have been quicker ''and safer'' to have just ridden on the road ''with'' the traffic (without earphones in, they'd also be much more aware so could overtake the slower traffic legally and in full consideration). 
Even worse, when there's a 'pavement biker' riding alongside a road ''with a clearly marked cycle lane'' on it. Road space reserved, but they're endangering pedestrians (and potentially themselves) needlessly. But, adding in the reckless pedestrians who do ''their'' dangerous things (walking up the central reservation of a dual-carriageway, e.g.), it just goes to show that there are unthinking individuals using every form of locomotion and travel (I could moan about thoughtless bus/train passengers, too, and don't get me started on illegal eScooters, motorbikes that may skirt the rules to some extent and possibly soms illegal variations of eBike as well). But, insofar as cycling, I'm not convinced that (partially) changing the road system to mitigate for bad drivers is really the best solution. It barely scratches that surface, it gets abused/ignored by those it may be intended for, it makes those it isn't intended for more resentful/inconsiderate as a push-back and the only obvious and tangible metric is in the press release that "Trumpton Town Council has been able to add five more miles of cyclepath..." (which probably consists of several short stretches of red tarmac is frequently intruded upon by pre-existing highway signage/lamp-posts and frequent "Cyclists Dismount" advisories, running alongside a perfectly ridable road just so long as they filled the wheel-/suspension-damaging potholes and swept the gutters once in a while). 
Can you tell that I've often thought about all these issues? I could go on, or into more detail, but I reckon I've already written far too much, uninvited. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.218|172.70.85.218]] 11:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

The summation of the situation:
UNSPECIFIED line + SHORT distance = bicycle, walking, etc.
SPECIFIED line + SHORT distance = tram, everything in unspecified.
SPECIFIED line + LONG distance = train.
UNSPECIFIED line + LONG distance = automobile.

The '''most''' important combinations for urban planning are unspecified short and specified long which autos aren't good at. The one autos are good at is the least important.

Talk:2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression

2023-09-24T15:43:12Z

Andrewtheexplainer:

Somebody has been watching Not Just Bikes on YouTube...
:Orange Pilled!!🙂 [[User:Torzsmokus|Torzsmokus]] ([[User talk:Torzsmokus|talk]]) 19:43, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I would be very interested in having a discussion based on the "livability" comment. If a city is a place to LIVE, then these are fair comments, assuming that travel outside the local area is minimal. But if a city is a place to WORK, like a lot of downtown areas in the Eastern US, then this doesn't hold up as well. People don't live in these areas, they just travel to them on a regular basis.
:Talk about missing the forest for the trees
:Agree, downtown areas SHOULD be places to work, live, shop, and play. Eastern US downtowns USED to be that way, until White Flight screwed everything up and created "car culture". It's long past due for cities to change back. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 15:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
::You can't really blame white flight considering the same thing happened in both 'racially homogenous' cities in the U.S. and in Canada. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.251|172.70.174.251]] 17:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
: One thing that always bugs me about these discussions is that they tend to be so city-centric in thinking. Bikes simply aren't a practical mode of transportation in a lot of areas, dating back to pre-car days. I live in a rural area of the southern midwest, and "town" is a concentration of places that people in the area go to, and always has been. Only really wealthy people had houses in town, and even then they were often "Sunday Houses" where you would stay during your weekend trip to town for groceries and church BECAUSE it was such a hassle before cars. There's a "historic" (read: tourist-friendly) walkable town square in the center of many towns in my area, but these are as a rule businesses, some of which have loft apartments because the owner lived there too as some of the town's few constant residents. Even the parking lots are basically paved versions of the spaces where people would park their wagons and tie their horses back in the day, placed near things like general stores because hauling groceries for several blocks is a pain in any era. [[User:Scorpion451|Scorpion451]] ([[User talk:Scorpion451|talk]]) 18:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
:: I've never really lived in small towns on this side of the world, but this video does a pretty good job on approaching urbanism from a rural perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKRr8ymaqBM [[User:Yaygya|Yaygya]] ([[User talk:Yaygya|talk]]) 23:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
:: More generally, it's not really a useful, meaningful, or fair comparison between a densely populated country like the Netherlands (>1000/mi*mi) and a sparsely populated country like the USA (<100/mi*mi). All the USA's wide-open spaces are the actual physical reason we have a "car culture". It's not just people being deliberately being stupid or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.237|172.71.222.237]] 01:24, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

:Places meant for work and work alone are called 'industrial parks'. People's well-being in offices can significantly benefit from green spaces and other amenities like bars and shops.
:Especially if they feel safe walking to and from those shops. --[[User:Melle|Melle]] ([[User talk:Melle|talk]]) 16:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
:: Honestly, what impresses me the most about the Netherlands is not their neighbourhoods or city centres, it's their industrial parks. Dutch industrial parks are so much nicer it's not even funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ [[User:Yaygya|Yaygya]] ([[User talk:Yaygya|talk]]) 23:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

The explainxkcd explanations have gotten kinda funny, but I wanted to add that some european cities have sidewalks wider than roads, and it’s a much different experience. People like openness. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.55|162.158.62.55]] 17:46, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, I do not know how to format it, however this is the citation about painted vs protected bike lanes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140523001056?dgcid=author [[User:Vdm|Vdm]] ([[User talk:Vdm|talk]]) 21:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, cities are much better place to live in without so many cars. But on the other hand, vacation without car is much more complicated, unless your idea of vacation is to get to exactly same place as everyone else. Soo ... where will all those cars go? I know, you could rent a car, but that only works if there wouldn't be times where EVERYONE suddenly needs car ... like, say, Christmas.

Also, no, bikes are not alternative to cars unless you can get shower when you arrive at work. Public transport could work, but bikes are just nice theory.

To conclude, I don't think trying to turn all cities into Amsterdam will work. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:07, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
: Bikes are an incredibly helpful and useful tool for getting around. You don't even have to turn a city into Amsterdam. I live in Edmonton, which is by no means an urbanist utopia, and even getting around here, combining a bicycle with public transit makes it so much easier and faster to get around. The issue I face is lugging my bike with me, in which case a bike share service like Montréal's BIXI would help out for getting around.
: Regarding your point on vacation, first of all, most people end up going to the same places for vacation anyway. And vacation without bringing a car can very much be done, and even at high-demand times, the places where "everyone needs a car" are places where everyone will be going anyway, at which point a train just makes more sense. About a decade ago, my family took a trip from New Delhi to Goa a decade back (around 1800 km away) and we took trains to get there. We rented a car to get around in Goa and it worked pretty well. Not saying that cars aren't useful at all, but they aren't a 100% necessity. They're most useful when you're heading somewhere that's out of the way, and I've done those sorts of trips too. [[User:Yaygya|Yaygya]] ([[User talk:Yaygya|talk]]) 23:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

"...by allowing cyclists to cycle in the streets with the cars". ''Allowing''? Sorry, but that's a very neo-biker (or "person on a bike", rather than an actual cyclist) attitude that unfortunately seems to pervade the mindset of drivers. At least in the UK, bicycles have been 'allowed' (indeed, obliged) to ride upon the roads, as of laws as far back as [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Will4/5-6/50/section/72 1885] and are legitimate road vehicles and also not supposed to be ridden on actual pavements(/sidewalks) where not explicitly allowed. Of course, the US has policies driven (c.f. jaywalking). But a bicycle is a road vehicle. Add extra permissive routes (in the same manner as allowing traffic of less than three tonnes over a bridge, without forcing everything within that limit to do so) but you'd be wrong to suggest, over here, that you'd have to ''allow'' cyclists to cycle in(/on) the streets. Though the modern 'MAMILs' are often as wrong about all this (and as damaging to the reputation of real cyclists) as far too many motorists are. Of course, this may not reflect the US situation (or state/township legislations), but then they were influenced by the car-lobby to create the jaywalking 'crime' as well, so I really wouldn't be surprised. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.62|162.158.74.62]] 22:16, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I went to the Netherlands on vacation last month and I strongly identify with the guy waving flags and yelling "Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands!" in this comic. I was in Rotterdam, not Amsterdam, but I also spent a day in Enschede (near the border with Germany), and the sight was the same: bicycles everywhere, to a degree that would seem absurd anywhere else. I don't think it can be properly expressed in words; one look at the bicycle parking in Rotterdam Central Station and I was in awe that _so many bicycles_ could exist in one place. I used a bicycle to explore from The Haag to Neetle Jans and everywhere I went it was the same story; it isn't just Amsterdam, the entire country is built with bicycles as a solid and safe transportation option. --Faultline 11:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Speaking from the perspective of the UK, Cyclists (and I speak as one, with six decades of experience) are a complex issue. Being road vehicles (and requiring continuous at-grade surfaces, or at least smoothly transitioning slopes, whilst mounted) they need special consideration when laying out where they can go, outwith the baseline highway planning situation. And they also pose difficulties if improperly ridden in pedestrian areas, even if this is somehow due to being 'forced'(/’invited') off the roads by motorists and/or town planners that are in turn posing difficulties to them (legislatively, physically or just psychologically). In an ideal world, there would be no need for cycle lanes (on road), let alone cycle paths (split or shared pavement/sidewalk). And as it is not possible to have cycle-segregation everywhere (ignoring the question of whether forced segregation is a good policy!), I feel that attempting to take bicycles (or indeed other types of cycle!) off the road where it is easy and/or virtue-signalling makes the roads worse for cyclists ''everywhere else''. (And also the pavements worse for pedestrians, everywhere else!) 
There are (according to a quick check) 262,300 miles of paved road in the UK. Apart from the motorways (2,300 miles) and a smattering of other "no cycling" roads (often "motorway standard link roads" or major bridges), all of these are viable cycling routes. Maybe you'd not feel safe on some other routes (mostly a problem stemming from motorists, not the highways), so call it a cool quarter of a million miles. Compare with (again, a quick and unconfirmed check) the apparently 5,220 miles of traffic-free cycle paths (some 'cross country', bridleways/ex-railway/etc, others directly parallel to 'bike unfriendly/hostile/illegal' roadways) and 7,519 miles of on-road cycle lanes (paint and/or bollard-segregated, and I assume this includes bike+bus+taxi lanes and variations on that theme). Clearly, most places that you might want to cycle are not anywhere near covered by a convenient cycle-only(/dominant) path/road/lane/whatever. Even accounting for population density bias (a path-equipped city-centre ''can'' perhaps have a good few hundred thousand cyclists commuting along its copious off-street routes, whereas some remote area of equivalent road-length doesn't have more than a dozen people cycling around/through its country lanes on any given day), there's a distinct gap. 
And the problem is that car drivers (myself also being one, though only ''four'' decades behind the wheel, so what would I know?) seem to start to not anticipate bicycles on the road (or horses, or tractors, or anyone also driving but not actually going at-or-above the posted speed limit, etc) and at best they are startled/annoyed when they encounter their fellow road-users in different contexts. At worst, they 'come into contention' in a rather nasty way for at least one of the parties involved. 
'People on bikes' don't help when they (whether drivers themselves or not) do not obey [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82 the rules of the road], and/or footway. They give actual cyclists a bad name, make motorists less tolerant of those who actually are folling both the rights and responsibilities of cycle traffic and cause 'contention' with pedestrians on ''their'' supposedly safer routes (and road crossings), amongst other issues. The number of times I've seen someone progress rapidly down a pavement on two wheels, having to swerve round people, swerve to cross side-roads (to use the disabled-friendly drop-curbs), hop onto the road and back on again because of obstructions (curb-mounted parked cars/construction works) and all disrupting (or even causing danger to everyone else off/on the road)... Quite often, they would have been quicker ''and safer'' to have just ridden on the road ''with'' the traffic (without earphones in, they'd also be much more aware so could overtake the slower traffic legally and in full consideration). 
Even worse, when there's a 'pavement biker' riding alongside a road ''with a clearly marked cycle lane'' on it. Road space reserved, but they're endangering pedestrians (and potentially themselves) needlessly. But, adding in the reckless pedestrians who do ''their'' dangerous things (walking up the central reservation of a dual-carriageway, e.g.), it just goes to show that there are unthinking individuals using every form of locomotion and travel (I could moan about thoughtless bus/train passengers, too, and don't get me started on illegal eScooters, motorbikes that may skirt the rules to some extent and possibly soms illegal variations of eBike as well). But, insofar as cycling, I'm not convinced that (partially) changing the road system to mitigate for bad drivers is really the best solution. It barely scratches that surface, it gets abused/ignored by those it may be intended for, it makes those it isn't intended for more resentful/inconsiderate as a push-back and the only obvious and tangible metric is in the press release that "Trumpton Town Council has been able to add five more miles of cyclepath..." (which probably consists of several short stretches of red tarmac is frequently intruded upon by pre-existing highway signage/lamp-posts and frequent "Cyclists Dismount" advisories, running alongside a perfectly ridable road just so long as they filled the wheel-/suspension-damaging potholes and swept the gutters once in a while). 
Can you tell that I've often thought about all these issues? I could go on, or into more detail, but I reckon I've already written far too much, uninvited. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.218|172.70.85.218]] 11:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

The summation of the situation:
UNSPECIFIED line + SHORT distance = bicycle, walking, etc
SPECIFIED line + SHORT distance = tram, above
SPECIFIED line + LONG distance = train
UNSPECIFIED line + LONG distance = automobile

The '''most''' important combinations for urban planning are unspecified short and specified long which autos aren't good at. The one autos are good at is the least important.

Talk:2807: Bad Map Projection: ABS(Longitude)

2023-07-28T15:27:05Z

Andrewtheexplainer:

...actually, there's quite a bit of 'foldover' that's covered by the Atlantic, but it's still not quite so much as the Pacific gap across the ±180° edge-to-edge, so forgive me if consider the likes of places in India partnered with the over-adopted American locations as being trans-Atlantic (and across the whole width of Africa and some of the Indian Ocean too) rather than anything else. It could definitely do with a more precise analysis/description, though. Plus how bits of western Western Europe are folded over onto more-central Western Europe (not a very good mirror of Scotland, I think, but I'm particularly more familiar with its effective profile than Randall has any reason to be). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.195|172.71.242.195]] 01:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
This would make a great EU4 mod [[Special:Contributions/172.68.146.52|172.68.146.52]] 01:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh, good, thank you. I on ABS I couldn't get past antilock brakes. And the picture spam from the other day seemed to be tendeon repair. Looked like a surgicical procedure to to fasten cut tendons back together but I didn't see a cast to prevent movement. Shrug. Quite gross, as all surguries are. Poorly of course couldnt see all of the pic.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.70|172.71.222.70]] 02:35, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.71|172.71.222.71]] 02:57, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Added a very basic transcript because this comic is a little too complicated for me and it's my first time. Also, we need more positive vibes considering the previous comic about anti-vaxxers and the... interesting comments in the discussions.

Also, the Galapagos being near to Singapore (that's where I live) would be interesting! [[User:R3TRI8UTI0N|R3TRI8UTI0N]] ([[User talk:R3TRI8UTI0N|talk]]) 03:48, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

This map does not appear to be particularly…correct. For instance, Seoul, South Korea, is given as about 38N/155. But actually it is at 127E longitude. That's nowhere close. On a real map, 155E longitude is several hundred miles east of Japan into the open Pacific ocean, approx. the longitude of the Marshall Islands (but far north of them). Closer to home, for Randall and for me, Boston is given as about 59, but it is really 71W. What's up with that? Is everything shifted…and why? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 05:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

:Oh, wait. I was reading the coordinates like it was a cartesian plane, like on a Lambert or Mercator projection. But in retrospect this is some kind of elliptical projection ({{w|Robinson projection|Robinson}}? {{w|Winkel tripel projection|Winkel tripel}}?) such that the longitude lines are bowed out, further as you get away from the center (here 90°, I guess). That is...too hard for me to read with precision without doing too much math and drawing lines (so I guess I'm lazy), so, probably it's just fine? I dunno. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 05:09, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
:: This projection keeps the lines of latitude horizontal, allowing the lines of longitude to "bend", with only 90 degrees being vertical. 90 degrees, east/west, it doesn't really matter for this projection. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 14:12, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I just quickly put together an abs(longitude) "projection" image based on a real (public domain) map, to show what this would look like more realistically, with overlap. Are home-made images allowed? I cannot upload though ("You do not have permission to create new pages"). Is this because I'm a new user or are uploads prohibited for most users? [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 07:41, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
:It's just your newness (but I'm not sure how un-new/whatever you need to be). But I've 'sent in' things, before, by using some other public image host (not actually being new, but never having had the account here so of course the site won't accept my IP source - for good reason) and allowing an established uploader to spot the link, grab it and submit it locally by proxy if they thought it worthwhile.
:I'm already half tempted to do an ABS(Latitude) for my own ennoyment. Maybe even combined with the above (might be too busy, though, as I mentally model how the Eurasiamerindiafricaustralian subercontinent wouldn't leave much room for recognisable land-mass coastline). Further arbitrary overlapping transforms could also be fun, and perhaps even 'wrong but rational-looking'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.165|172.70.90.165]] 08:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

::I see, thanks for the info! Well here's a link: [https://i.ibb.co/TRTW1nq/abslongitude.png]. It's not that interesting, but to me it clarifies where North America has gone, all swallowed up by Asia. Better versions than this are certainly possible. I can add the image's info if someone uploads it. Absolute latitude sounds interesting too. [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 08:44, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

All technical analysis aside, this map is really cool and would make a fantastic fantasy setting.

So... Lemuria was South America all along! [[User:Shirluban|Shirluban]] 12:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

*There's a misspelling on the map: "Aleutian" is misspelled as "Aelutian". --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.80|172.70.127.80]] 15:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
* Reykjavík is misspelled as Reykjavic. Makes it kinda Serbo-Croatic-looking. --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 16:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Gondwanaland explained as a coordinate error.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

== an ABS(Latitude) map ==

After looking at this map, I wanted to see, what an ABS(Latitude) map would look like and [https://imgur.com/LzOp15b this is what I quickly threw together].

Unsurprisingly it doesn't change the world as much, since most of the land mass is on the northern hemisphere. The former South America has now created the worlds largest inland lake in the form of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico but the Panama Canal is still intact. Africa mostly folds up on itself and Australia is now the land bridge between China and Japan. However it was a fun and quick thing to do and I thought I should share it here.

:Can you do abs(log), abs(lat)? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.142|162.158.110.142]] 14:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

This would actually make a great fantasy map, as my father pointed out. Just swap out the city names with fantasy ones, and players would not be able to figure out where you got the map from. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.141|172.70.114.141]] 14:41, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
:Even at first glance it looks faked up though, because half the paisleys are backward.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm in Serbia and nothing changes for me. I wonder how the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia are dealing with the sudden Americans. [[User:Andrewtheexplainer|Andrewtheexplainer]] ([[User talk:Andrewtheexplainer|talk]]) 15:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2805: Global Atmospheric Circulation

2023-07-26T18:08:16Z

Andrewtheexplainer:

Is "altitude control" a reference to basketball, or is the only basketball reference in the title text "travelling"? [[User:R128|R128]] ([[User talk:R128|talk]]) 20:38, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I couldn't say regarding Altitude control re basketball, I think it's a ballooning thing. Also, I'm pretty sure that Beret guy is using this property: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/RandomWalk2-Dimensional.html Beret guy is generally used in hyper-realistic situations, in this case, living 1500 years and being lifted by a party balloon. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.152|172.70.110.152]] 22:22, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
: I'm remembering that Brownian motion is common in fluids. It's not intuitive when one thinks of flow currents, to think of a random walk, in my opinion. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.30|172.70.114.30]] 00:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Given Beret Guy's [[:Category:Strange_powers_of_Beret_Guy|special abilities]], I think he could survive that long just fine. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 23:24, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
: I imagine him having extended his life with AI somehow, maybe by asking so politely and persistently. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.30|172.70.114.30]] 00:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

It's got to be something to do with the Poincare recurrence theorem. {{unsigned|Iwyxc|05:44, 22 July 2023}}

Balloons of that size only have a few grams of lift, so being able to fly with one is a remarkable power, too! --[[User:Itub|Itub]] ([[User talk:Itub|talk]]) 12:00, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
:Even with a hypothetical vacuum balloon (which is a theoretical ideal), the lift is equal to the mass of displaced air; this implies that Beret Guy is either very light or the balloon violates the laws of physics. ~ Megan she/her [[user talk:megan|talk]]/[[special:contribs/megan|contribs]] 02:43, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
::I think Beret Guy makes use of physical laws that relate to something like human art or dreams rather than conventional mechanics. Maybe Beret Guy vs Black Hat could be an unending spinoff ;} [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.19|172.70.230.19]] 20:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

In the eighth frame he appears to have shifted the ball from one hand to the other, and later back again. That is itself an additional degree of difficulty for the trick shot. {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.5|22:43, 22 July 2023}}
:I see it just as having twisted the other way. Same hands, 180° in vertical axis. Though could ''also'' be 180° in a fourth(+) spacial dimension, as much as one of the three that even xkcd characters mostly actually live in... Beret Guy's powers would easily cover ''that'', too. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.101|172.70.162.101]] 04:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

--- I removed factually incorrect statement: "Perhaps this strip's inspiration was that a 3-dimensional discrete random walk has a finite expected number of steps to return to the origin.". The expected number of steps to return is infinite even in dimension 1 : https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/306467/expected-number-of-steps-for-reaching-k-in-a-random-walk

For a discrete random walk over a FINITE set of states (as would result if we say mesh the planet 2D surface by dividing it into a finite number of 1m x 1m squares), then of course there is a finite number of expected steps to return, which using symmetry can be calculated to be N steps if there are N states in total (i.e., over very long times, we need to spend about the same time on each state, something that any value other than N would fail to meet tending to infinity). {{unsigned ip|172.70.54.223|22:58, 22 July 2023}}
:Note that BG does ''not'' return to the starting point. Same issue of indeterminate (possibly infinite) travel-time to a specific-enough point, following the path dictated by the 'random'-but-determinate path (each visited position at each successive time has a successor position clearly mapped out from it, creating a weaving path that never crosses in spacetime but may or may not visit the intended destination/region in space at multiple timestamps), but then this ''is'' SG. And he has an 'understanding' of the physical world that exceeds ours so might only start his trick-shot at the moment when he knows the 'conveyor' he's catching onto (with or without the ability to choose to cross altitudes, and thus change conveyors, as per title text) will definitely accomplish his aim within an acceptable(!) time-frame... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.101|172.70.162.101]] 04:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
: So how did Randal come up with 1500 years? This seems much too fast: earth has an area of about 5e14 m2. If winds average 5 m/s (which seems high) then it would take 1e14 s = 3 million years to return given your "N steps" long term expectation. And this is assuming a 2D case; it's unlikely he could make a basket from 20 km up, so the states should actually be much higher than 5e14. Shortening to 1500 years would require a non-uniform distribution of states where it's more likely he'll return to the starting point. Maybe there are circular currents that tend to bring air back to the starting place that Randall is referencing? Or maybe he just made up a long time without doing the calculation? [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 12:23, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Is ExplainXKCD getting vandalized by a bunch of random people? [[User:Step93|Step93]] ([[User talk:Step93|talk]]) 02:09, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The vandalism goes FAR back, I keep an XKCD tab, I went back like 15 comics, same thing. What even IS that? I don't even recognize what the idiot pictures ARE! He/they may be counting on it being 10pm in the Eastern time zone, it's always quiet this time of night (I have almost never had an edit conflict). Someone higher up needs to block them, lock editing, something. I notice this comic was restored and re-vandalized a few times now, these morons are doing this NOW. Just restored it again, I'm sure it's revandalized by the time I submit this. I wish they could face serious enough consequences to learn they shouldn't mess around like that. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 02:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I find the "1500 years" thing strange. I would think that atmospheric circulation would be faster. For instance, recently the smoke from the Canada wildfires crossed the Atlantic and reached Portugal (2023-06-26) and I think it took only a couple of weeks. So I would expect that it would take some months. I just remembered to check how long it took in a balloon: "Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, 1999, first non-stop balloon circumnavigation in Breitling Orbiter 3, 19 days, 1 hour and 49 minutes, covering 42,810 kilometres (26,600 mi)." (from Wikipedia) [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 10:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
:That isn't circulation to pass over a single one-meter target. It would take some random-but-generally-very-long time, probably millennia, to pass within the area where Beret Guy could dunk the basketball through that hoop. (I notice we didn't comment on how the basketball hoop and its pole and net(!) have somehow survived for longer than, say, the Roman Republic. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 12:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
::In the ocean, I heard things tend to eventually drift to major flows and stay there; I infer this isn't true with the atmosphere? I would kind of imagine things trending to the equator or poles or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.19|172.70.230.19]] 20:42, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
:::The water circulates at the surface and below it, rising up and sinking down in various areas (perhaps seasonal/weather-driven, but also long-lasting/near-permanent) to represent an intertwined 3d-conveyor loop every bit as much as the atmosphere does.
:::But anything that floats (which is pretty much anything that doesn't just sink to seafloor - at least eventually) will happily drift along to a gyre and then be left circulating that as the water that pushes it there moves downwards and onward eventually to rise back up again to 'fetch' even more flotsam and jetsom. Wind-blown (but heavier than air) stuff can also pile up, but anything as free-floating as BG and his He-balloon is going to (mostly) follow the complex system of airflow that wends its (fluctuating) way all around the planet. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.231|172.70.90.231]] 21:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The "Albuquerque Box Effect" makes me laugh- been to the Balloon Fiesta a few times and I've never seen them land anywhere near the launching field. Balloons land randomly all over town anywhere there is a flat spot, it's kinda great but definitely not a loop. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.40|172.70.126.40]] 13:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
:Whoever had provided the captions of the image had used "northerly" and "southerly" exactly opposite to the way the image's own labels had them. I put them into agreement, although as (for example) {{wiktionary|northerly}} has meanings of both ''going towards'' North and ''coming from'' the North (the latter usually w.r.t. wind, and I couldn't find a consistent and authoritative usage style about say "'''North winds''', from the north, being therefore '''southerly''' in direction"), it is easy to see how confusion can arise. Maybe a rewrite (perhaps even a redrawing/relabelling of the diagram, at source) would be useful, with "north-heading wind"/etc disambiguating the autoantonymic language... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.80|172.70.90.80]] 19:34, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you think the comic could have been better if the passage of time was made more clear by there been shrubs and scenery everywhere around the basketball hoop, possibly the hoop itself crumbling and falling? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.207|172.70.42.207]] 19:39, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
: A subtle change. We'd have to ask Beret Guy. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.18|172.70.230.18]] 20:51, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
: It's Beret Guy's world, and we're living in it. Maybe he doesn't like to think about the passage of time. [[User:Andrewtheexplainer|Andrewtheexplainer]] ([[User talk:Andrewtheexplainer|talk]]) 18:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Somebody with a lot of patience and persistence kept reverting overt vandalism in the history. One of the edit comments reverting the vandalism over and over again was in the theme of the comic, "i don't have the time for this, you will literally die in the next 80 years". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.18|172.70.230.18]] 20:51, 24 July 2023 (UTC)