explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3103: Exoplanet System

2025-06-16T21:47:06Z

Blackbearnh: Add info about hot acid world

{{comic
| number = 3103
| date = June 16, 2025
| title = Exoplanet System
| image = exoplanet_system_2x.png
| imagesize = 623x447px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Sure, this exoplanet we discovered may seem hostile to life, but our calculations suggest it's actually in the accretion disc's habitable zone.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Explanations for the planets are missing. [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ#table|Do NOT create a table]], unless it is impossible to convey that information without it.}}
Exoplanets are planets outside the Solar System. Astronomers are constantly on the look for planets that have Earth-like conditions, especially Earth-like planets that might support life. Unfortunately for many hopefuls, the conditions that made Earth suitable for life are believed to be extremely rare. Randall draws a hypothetical star system containing many exoplanets that describe (in an exaggerated fashion) the many frustrations astronomers face when analyzing planets and getting their hopes up only to discover the planets they found are sadly nothing like Earth.

Here are the explanations for each planet, in order of how far they are from the star:

# '''Giant planet orbiting so close that it's actually rolling on the star's surface'''
#: Giant planets are often gravitationally pulled close to their star. Here, the planet is literally touching the star, which, given both bodies' gaseous makeup, should cause them to merge.
# '''Hot Jupiter'''
#: A {{w|Hot Jupiter}} is typical terminology used in analyzing exoplanets, generally depicting a gas giant (of a size similar to our Jupiter or Saturn) which orbits in a much closer/hotter orbit than our own. Hot Jupiters are easier to detect than many other types of exoplanets, due to their gravitational effect on their stars.
# '''Planet that may actually be in the habitable zone, according to a very optimistic modeling paper by some desperate postdocs'''
#: The habitable zone of a star is the range at which water is liquid. Notably, planets in the habitable zone are seen as options for colonization by humanity, which would mean greater funding for research. As such, researchers will go to great lengths to determine as many habitable planets as they can.
# '''There's a pulsar here but it's probably fine'''
#: A pulsar is a neutron star, emitting beams of radiation while spinning very fast. Contrary to the label, presence of a neutron star in the system is probably not fine, since a second star would be source of gravitational instability, a lot of extra heat, and the beams of radiation pose substantial danger to the planets, rendering their surface uninhabitable. It also means, that this system is technically a binary star
# '''A waterworld paradise with beautiful oceans and warm— wait, no, we just got new measurements, it's a hellish steam oven'''
# '''Planet that could be habitable, if there's a form of life that hates water but loves acid and being on fire'''
#: Possibly to a reference to [https://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ What-If #30], in which Randall points out that the atmosphere on Venus is pretty survivable at 55km, except for the sulfuric acid, and way too hot at the surface.
# '''Mini Neptune'''
#: "Jupiter" and "Neptune" are rough size/mass categories for gas giants with a mass similar to Jupiter versus Neptune/Uranus. A mini Neptune would be smaller than Neptune, possibly small enough not to be a gas giant at all.
# '''Lukewarm Jupiter'''
#: A reference to Hot Jupiters and Cold Jupiters
# '''Planet whose atmosphere is confirmed to contain atoms'''
#: With interstellar distances, it is inevitable that some planets will be hard to get a read on. Here the astronomers can only confirm the planet has an atmosphere, not what it is made of or how thick it is.
# '''Earthlike data artifact'''
# '''Cold Jupiter'''
# '''Potentially habitable void'''
# '''Hot Mars'''
# '''Faint dust cloud that will cause several papers to be retracted'''
#: This could refer to either Fomalhaut b, aformer proposed exoplanet that turned out to be a dust cloud, or Tabby's Star, a star with odd irregular dimming pattern likely due to a dust cloud which was briefly thought by some to be an alien megastructure.{{acn}}
# '''Either a gas giant or a fist-sized rock, depending upon which calibration method you use'''
# '''Mini Pluto'''
# '''Wet Saturn'''
#: May be a reference to the 'fact' that "Saturn would float in water" {{w|Saturn#Physical characteristics|due to its density}}. The difficulties of finding a practical way to test this out, notwithstanding, perhaps someone managed it with this planet.
# '''Planet whose surface may host conditions suitable for rocks'''
#: As with planet number 8, this planet is too difficult to get a read on, and the measurements are still so vague it's still unknown if this planet is a rocky planet or a gas/ice giant.
# '''Somehow this whole system is smaller than the orbit of Mercury?!'''
; Title text
: The title text mentions a planet within an accretion disk, which means that the planet is in the orbit of a black hole and will inevitably fall in. Nevertheless, the researcher speaking assures that the planet is in the disk's habitable zone, implying it is a worthwhile option for colonization.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

2914: Eclipse Coolness

2024-04-02T07:12:12Z

Blackbearnh:

{{comic
| number = 2914
| date = April 1, 2024
| title = Eclipse Coolness
| image = eclipse_coolness_2x.png
| imagesize = 609x325px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ILLUSORY ECLIPSE (APRIL FOOLS) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A total {{w|solar eclipse}} will occur in North America {{w|Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024|on April 8, 2024}}, a week after this comic.

The comic refers to the fact that the human eye is very bad at detecting different levels of light intensity. You would think that a 95% eclipse would result in things looking only 5% as bright as normal, but because our irises adjust to diminishing available light, it will still seem fairly bright out even at the maximum point of coverage. It is only in the path of totality that things get truly dark. In fact, it is still dangerous to look at the sun with naked eyes outside the path of totality, even when most of the sun is eclipsed.

The joke is that people don't bother to travel an hour or two to get in the path of totality, because they think that being in a 91% zone will be almost as good.

[[Randall]] has earlier made [[:Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017|many comics]] about the 2017 total solar eclipse.

Previous eclipse comics: [[1876: Eclipse Searches]] through [[1880: Eclipse Review]] and [[2816: Types of Solar Eclipse]].

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

:How cool a solar eclipse looks
:by position along the path

:[Y-axis label:] Coolness
:[X-axis left and right labels:] Partial eclipse zone
:[X-axis center label, below a tall peak:] Path of totality

:[Two tiny lines on the partial eclipse zone on the right:]
:"We should have a good view here - we're pretty close to the middle of the path."
:"Yeah, this map says the sun will be 91% eclipsed!"

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

Talk:2818: Circuit Symbols

2023-08-22T03:01:33Z

Blackbearnh:

The direct link to the comic is getting a 404 error. But it appears at the xkcd.com home page. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 01:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
:The link is working now. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Randall is symbolizing sheep with a coil because ... wool takes a helical shape. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wool#/media/File:Royal_Winter_Fair_Wool.jpg. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

The title text is probably a reference to the classic novella "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (a common classroom reading in the US). In this novella, a young Puritan woman "sins" by having a child out of wedlock. She is punished by having to wear the letter A (for adultery). [[User:Comsmomf|Comsmomf]] ([[User talk:Comsmomf|talk]]) 02:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Can someone with more wiki-foo than me please put the actual images for the symbols in a new first column? [[User:Blackbearnh|Blackbearnh]] ([[User talk:Blackbearnh|talk]]) 03:01, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

2818: Circuit Symbols

2023-08-22T02:51:54Z

Blackbearnh: Add reference to Scarlet Letter

{{comic
| number = 2818
| date = August 21, 2023
| title = Circuit Symbols
| image = circuit_symbols_2x.png
| imagesize = 438x362px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A circle with an A in it means that the circuit has committed a sin and has been marked as punishment.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NAUGHTY CIRCUIT WHICH DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{| class="wikitable"
! Symbol !! Comic Description !! Comments
|-
| Switch
| Drawbridge
| The symbol represents a physical on/off switch in a circuit, but also resembles a medieval drawbridge.
|-
| Capacitor
| Overpass
| A capacitor is a component that can be used to hold electric charge, but also looks a bit like the map symbol for a highway overpass.
|-
| Ground
| Pogo Stick
| This symbol represents a connection to "ground" (aka earth for folks in the UK). If you squint, it also looks like a pogo stick.
|-
| Inductor
| Sheep
| Inductors are essentially the opposite of capacitors and generally consist of a coil of wire. The symbol can also look like fluffy curls of wool.
|-
| Transformer
| Two sheep in love, trapped on opposite side of a fence.
| The input and output coils on a transformer are represented as curly loops, which Randal claims resemble sheep, and the straight line (which represents the core) is a fence.
|-
| Battery
| Battery
| No joke, that's the symbol for a battery.
|-
| Battery (sorted)
| Baertty
| Randall seems to be mapping the vowels and 't's to the inner lines in the symbol, and asserting that if you sort them long long, short short, you need to put the vowels in the front and the 't's in the back.
|-
| Battery, with far too many short lines
| Batttttttttttery
| Or, you know, you could just throw in a ton of 't's.
|-
| Photodiode
| Check out this really cool diode
| A photodiode generates current in response to light (the arrows pointing at it.) Randall is instead pretending that the arrows are pointing at it because it's really cool.
|-
| Oscillator
| Wave Pool
| An oscillator generates signals at a given frequencies. A wave pool, it could be argued, is in fact a type of oscillator, just with water instead of electricity.
|-
| Transistor
| Trolley Problem
| A transistor will switch on a current flow depending on the input from a input signal. Thus, it switches electricity in the same way that the trolley problem switches the trolley. The symbol also somewhat resembles the usual pictorial depiction of the problem.
|-
| Circle with an A in it (Title text)
| Committed a sin and marked as punishment
| Circles with letters are usually some special component. In this case the "A" stands for ammeter, a device used to measure current. If a circuit misbehaves or "sins", the engineer may use an ammeter to examine the circuit and figure out what is going wrong. This could be considered a form of punishment. This is also a reference to "The Scarlet Letter", a novel in which the heroine is branded with an A in a circle to mark her as an adulteress.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
picture of drawbridge:drawbridge

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2818: Circuit Symbols

2023-08-22T02:21:18Z

Blackbearnh:

{{comic
| number = 2818
| date = August 21, 2023
| title = Circuit Symbols
| image = circuit_symbols_2x.png
| imagesize = 438x362px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A circle with an A in it means that the circuit has committed a sin and has been marked as punishment.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a REALLY COOL SHEEP DIODE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{| class="wikitable"
! Symbol !! Comic Description !! Comments
|-
| Switch
| Drawbridge
| The symbol represents a physical on/off switch in a circuit, but also resembles a medieval drawbridge.
|-
| Capacitor
| Overpass
| A capacitor is a component that can be used to hold electric charge, but also looks a bit like the map symbol for a highway overpass.
|-
| Ground
| Pogo Stick
| This symbol represents a connection to "ground" (aka earth for folks in the UK). If you squint, it also looks like a pogo stick
|-
| ?
| Sheep
| ?
|-
| Transformer
| Two sheep in love, trapped on opposite side of a fence.
| The input and output looks on a transform are represented as curly loops, which Randal claims resemble sheep, and the straight line (which represents the core) is a fence.
|-
| Battery
| Battery
| No joke, that's the symbol for a battery
|-
| None
| Baertty
| Randall seems to be mapping the vowels and 't's to the inner lines in the symbol, and asserting that if you sort them long long, short short, you need to put the vowels in the front and the 't's in the back.
|-
| Really None
| Batttttttttttery
| Or, you know, you could just throw in a ton of 't's.
|-
| Photodiode
| Check out this really cool diode
| A photodiode generates current in response to light (the arrows pointing at it.) Randall is instead pretending that the arrows are pointing at it because it's really cool.
|-
| Oscillator
| Wave Pool
| An oscillator generates signals at a given frequencies. A wave pool, it could be argued, is in fact a type of oscillator, just with water instead of electricity
|-
| Transistor
| Trolly Problem
| A transistor will switch on a current flow depending on the input from a input signal. Thus, it switches electricity in the same way that the trolly problem
switches the trolly. The symbol also somewhat resembles the usual pictorial depiction of the problem.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
picture of drawbridge:drawbridge

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2818: Circuit Symbols

2023-08-22T02:17:45Z

Blackbearnh: /* Explanation */

2604: Frankenstein Captcha

2022-04-08T18:10:48Z

Blackbearnh: Add title text explaination

{{comic
| number = 2604
| date = April 8, 2022
| title = Frankenstein Captcha
| image = frankenstein_captcha.png
| titletext = The distinction between a ship and a boat is a line drawn in water.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by Rated Argh -Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is a play on the meanings (and misunderstanding) of the name "Frankenstein". ''{{w|Frankenstein}}; or, the Modern Prometheus'' is a 1818 novel by Mary Shelley about a medical student called Victor Frankenstein who creates an artificial life-form. The man he creates names himself "Adam" in the book, and strictly speaking is properly known as "Frankenstein's ''monster''" (or perhaps "creation" or "son"), but is often erroneously called "Frankenstein" himself.

The Captcha shown in the comic instructs the user to select all tiles containing Frankenstein. The tiles include both a reanimated corpse (frequently called Frankenstein but actually called Frankenstein's monster) and a scientist yelling "it's alive" who is clearly intended to be Victor Frankenstein. The problem arises from the contrast between the generally accepted and technically accurate definitions of the term: Frankenstein. The correct answer to the Captcha is just the left square of the third row, unless you follow comic [[1589]].

If the images in the squares are from the famous {{w|Frankenstein (1931 film)|1931 film}} starring {{w|Boris Karloff}} as The Monster, then perhaps they could be correctly said to be "containing ''Frankenstein''", that is, the work.

This comic strip could also reference [[1897]], which would imply that someone had actually created a Frankenstein's monster.

Many of the other tiles appear to be pictures of entities that inspire similar <s>pedanticism</s> pedantry. For example, there is a picture of a turtle (or possibly a tortoise), a ship (or possibly a boat), Link (the protagonist of the {{w|Legend of Zelda}} video games, who may be erroneously referred to as Zelda), a pond (or possibly a lake), a tomato (often subject to the ''fruit or vegetable'' debate), an erupting volcano (with lava, or is it magma?), and a planet (or is it a dwarf planet?).

Other tiles seem to be inspired by images commonly occuring in actual captchas, like the STOP sign or the traffic light.

The title text refers to the fact that if you draw a picture of a boat/ship on calm water (a straight line), it is usually assumed to be on a lake or pond and is thus a boat, but if it is on wavy water (as in the comic), it's assume to be on the sea and is thus a ship.

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

> TO CONTINUE, PLEASE CLICK ALL SQUARES CONTAINING FRANKENSTEIN

Pictured (Starting from top left)

Row 1
* Tortoise (or turtle)
* Ship (or boat)
* Frankenstein's monster waking up (often mistaken as Frankenstein)
* Link from Legend of Zelda series (often mistaken as Zelda, aka Toon Link in SSB)
Row 2
* Fata morgana (or mirage)
* Megan
* Lava (or magma)
* Tomato (fruit vs vegetable)
Row 3
* Victor Frankenstein saying "It's alive"
* Sandwich
* Stop sign
* Girl running away from Frankenstein's monster
Row 4
* Rocket (spaceship) flying by Pluto (dwarf planet)
* Cueball and Ponytail standing next to each other
* Traffic light (also called a stoplight, possibly mistaken as stop sign?)
* Frankenstein's monster

> OH NO.

{{comic discussion}}

1845: State Word Map

2017-06-02T14:42:05Z

Blackbearnh: Add reference to PornHub's data farming

{{comic
| number = 1845
| date = June 2, 2017
| title = State Word Map
| image = state_word_map.png
| titletext = The top search for every state is PORN, except Florida, where it's SEX PORN.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Almost there...}}

This is another of the many comics where [[Randall]] used a map of America for his joke (see below for examples).

Similar in spirit to [[1138: Heatmap]], this comic pokes fun at many maps that attempt to use data to discern unique characteristics about various sub-regions, in this case {{w|U.S. state|American states}}. This map may have been inspired by [https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/status/869624196921303040 this map] posted on Twitter by Google Trends the day before the comic was posted. Many web companies use maps like this in viral marketing, but the methodology behind them is pretty weak. The random noise in the data will mean that there will be variations between states even if there is no underlying pattern - and this can be further boosted by statistical tricks. A common one is to show the "most characteristic" or "most distinctive" term for each state. For instance, [http://www.businessinsider.com/most-common-causes-of-death-in-each-state-2014-6?IR=T the most common cause of death is heart disease or cancer] in every US state, but this makes for a boring map. Looking at the [https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/14_0395.htm most distinctive cause of death] produces a more interesting map, but it highlights very minor trends - Lousiana is marked as having syphilis as its most distinctive cause of death, even though [https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/stateprofiles/pdf/louisiana_profile.pdf only 15 Louisianans in every 100,000 have the disease] and there were only 22 syphilis deaths in the state over a whole decade. These maps can give a misleading impression of huge variation between states that doesn't really exist.

This map does not say anything real, but says:
:You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half of the time you're just amplifying random noise because the underlying data doesn't change that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normalization lets you make fun of Florida.

The joke is that none of these states actually say these words, and Randall has just done exactly what he says he can do (make fun of Florida by putting whatever he wants.) He also has not obtained the data from anywhere, just 'Something Something'.

The joke about Florida is that the words most search for in Florida is "Florida", which would make people in Florida very self-centered.

The comic continues to make fun of Florida in the title text by saying that Florida searches for ''sex porn'' instead of ''porn'', which is not needed since porn means images and film of people having sex. This is also probably a reference to PornHub's [https://www.pornhub.com/insights/united-states-top-searches data-farming] exercises, where they have periodically released the most frequently searched term by state.

{{w|Florida}} is often the butt of many jokes, including the {{w|Florida Man}} meme and many mocking jibes regarding its {{w|2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida|historically-messy electoral history}}. {{tvtropes|OnlyInFlorida|"Only in Florida" phenomenon}}

Randall previously used a map of the United States as the basis for his comics in [[1767: US State Names]], [[1653: United States Map]], [[1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet]] and in [[1079: United Shapes]].

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the map, with sub caption:]
:<big>Most-Used Word in Each State</big>
:Based on Something Something Search Data

:[Beneath the captions are a colorful map of the United States of America. Each state has one color, but the colors do not change from state to state, but rather between rows of states. The top "row" is purple, the second row is gray-blue, but only goes half across. Where it stops a pink row of states begins. Beneath this runs a yellow row, except it does not take California with it, since it belongs to the next purple line beneath this yellow line. Finally the two states not in the contiguous states as well as the southern states from Texas to Florida are again pink. Inside each state is written one, and only one word (or for small states the word is outside and if needed a line indicates which state it belongs to). The words size depends on the size of the state and the word. If it can fit inside the state it will be written in a font large enough to fill the entire state if possible (in one case a hyphen is used). So a short word, like "lets" in huge Texas becomes huge, but a word like "noise" which has been fitted inside small Massachusets becomes small.]

:[Here is the 50 words written in lines resembling the colors on the map (from left to right). Purple, gray-blue, pink, yellow, purple and pink:]
:You can make these maps say whatever you want
:by adjusting the methodology.
:Half the time you're just amplifying random noise.
:Because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another.
:But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick
:whatever normal-ization lets you make fun of Florida.

==Trivia==
*The state line between New Hampshire and Maine is missing in the map, but each state has a word assigned, so it is only the line that has been left out.
**Thus there are indeed 50 single words on the map.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Geography]]

1638: Backslashes

2016-02-03T06:21:57Z

Blackbearnh:

{{comic
| number = 1638
| date = February 3, 2016
| title = Backslashes
| image = backslashes.png
| titletext = I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt | grep -o "\\\[[(].*\\\[\])][^)\]]*$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a regex noob.}}
[[wikipedia:regular expression|Regular expressions]] are often used to search large bodies of text for strings that match a particular pattern. Several characters in regex are "special characters", which by default do not match the literal character, but instead help indicate the pattern. To find a special character literally, you must "escape" it, by preceding it with a backslash. This, of course, means that the backslash is a special character, so to search for a literal backslash character, you need to type two backslashes -- \\. Occasionally, the text being searched will contain regular expressions, and occasionally you will need to search for an escaped backslash. To do ''that'', you need to escape two backspaces -- \\\\. This gets very silly, very quickly.

Things get even worse when you have to embed a regexp in a language like Java, which both lacks perl's syntactic sugar to demarcate the beginning and end of a regexp, and uses the backslash for it's own special characters. So, to create the regexp \\\\ in Java, you'd have to use the string "\\\\\\\\", since each backslash needs to be quoted to get through the Java string parser before it can then be considered as a regular expression.

The regex in the title text seems to be invalid. The left-parentheses character is a literal, causing it to fail to match up with the right-parentheses later in the expression. Whatever Randall was trying to do here, this expression didn't do the job.

==Transcript==
\ - backslash

\\ - real backslash

\\\ - _real_ real backslash

\\\\ - actual backslash, for real this time

\\\\\ - elder backslash

\\\\\\ - backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain

\\\\\\\ - backslash so real it transcends time and space

\\\\\\\\ - backslash to end all other text

\\\\\\\\\\\... - the true name of ba'al, the soul-eater

{{comic discussion}}

1638: Backslashes

2016-02-03T06:16:13Z

Blackbearnh:

{{comic
| number = 1638
| date = February 3, 2016
| title = Backslashes
| image = backslashes.png
| titletext = I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt | grep -o "\\\[[(].*\\\[\])][^)\]]*$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a regex noob.}}
[[wikipedia:regular expression|Regular expressions]] are often used to search large bodies of text for strings that match a particular pattern. Several characters in regex are "special characters", which by default do not match the literal character, but instead help indicate the pattern. To find a special character literally, you must "escape" it, by preceding it with a backslash. This, of course, means that the backslash is a special character, so to search for a literal backslash character, you need to type two backslashes -- \\. Occasionally, the text being searched will contain regular expressions, and occasionally you will need to search for an escaped backslash. To do ''that'', you need to escape two backspaces -- \\\\. This gets very silly, very quickly.

Things get even worse when you have to embed a regexp is embedded into a language like Java, which both lacks perl's syntactic sugar to demarcate the beginning and end of a regexp, and uses the backslash for it's own special characters. So, to create the regexp \\\\ in Java, you'd have to use the string "\\\\\\\\", since each backslash needs to be quoted to get through the Java string parser before it can then be considered as a regular expression.

The regex in the title text seems to be invalid. The left-parentheses character is a literal, causing it to fail to match up with the right-parentheses later in the expression. Whatever Randall was trying to do here, this expression didn't do the job.

==Transcript==
\ - backslash

\\ - real backslash

\\\ - _real_ real backslash

\\\\ - actual backslash, for real this time

\\\\\ - elder backslash

\\\\\\ - backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain

\\\\\\\ - backslash so real it transcends time and space

\\\\\\\\ - backslash to end all other text

\\\\\\\\\\\... - the true name of ba'al, the soul-eater

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T14:16:56Z

Blackbearnh:

Is "TRIATHOLON" just a typo, or does it have a special comic value?
:At this moment of creation it exists in a limbo in which it is both a typo and a joke, but now that it is has been released for viewers to take measures, the function will soon collapse into just one of the possible states. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.197|162.158.34.197]] 13:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
::It's clearly a spelling mistake (not a typo). See http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Triathalon, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/athelete. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.149|173.245.50.149]] 13:19, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this is just parodying left-brain right-brain myths. Rather, it's parodying neural reductionism of all kinds—the currently widespread myth that our selves are determined genetically by brain structure alone, minimizing the role of culture and the way experience rewires the brain. In particular, the part about "phones like yours" makes me think of "women are from venus"–style myths (where, say, a slight correlation is found between gender and size of spacial processing module, etc, and pop-sci media reports it as WOMEN ARE INHERENTLY BAD AT SPATIAL REASONING).
[[User:Leoboiko|Leoboiko]] ([[User talk:Leoboiko|talk]]) 13:25, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
:Seems plausible. Care to add? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.104|108.162.216.104]] 13:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC

Or it could be a riff on the current "Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow" model, which considers the brain as having two distinct (Type 1 and Type 2) types of thinking, often described as two separate actors in the brain, in spite of the fact that they probably overlap a lot in the sections of the brain used.
[[User:Blackbearnh|Blackbearnh]] ([[User talk:Blackbearnh|talk]]) 14:16, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T14:13:39Z

Blackbearnh: typo

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very quick and brief first attempt, may not have the right point, and probably needs links as well as expansion.}}
There is a fad to describe people as "left-brain" and "right-brain" types, or as variously capable of using their "logical" and "creative" halves of the brain, to one degree or another.

But in reality, the brain is a complex system in which subsystems identified as relating to activities are interrelated; tasks are shared, not farmed out to small, specialized regions, even if medical imaging techniques indicate that a particular area "lights up" during a particular task. For instance, some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.


The comic makes this point by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a mobile phone.

In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as a computer unto itself, much as arrangements of neurons in the brain can be variously repurposed. Because cores are not specialized (and because the phone processes pixel data, not the events happening in a photo), using many cores only speeds up any computations; it does not make more kinds of computations possible. (E.g., if there is a face-detection routine, the cores only increase the speed of identifying all regions that match an eigenface, not the total number of regions that can be found.)

However, a dedicated graphical processing unit (GPU) ''could'' add more processing power for suitable tasks than a single CPU core, just as certain parts of the brain may be better suited to certain tasks. But the presence of a GPU would still not affect the number of interesting and "likeable" points of interest in any picture taken.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueballs coment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]