explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1520: Degree-Off

2015-05-04T08:24:34Z

Blegueni: /* Explanation */ Correction of Feynman Wiki link

{{comic
| number = 1520
| date = May 4, 2015
| title = Degree-Off
| image = degree off.png
| titletext = I'M SORRY, FROM YOUR YEARS OF CONDESCENDING TOWARD THE 'SQUISHY SCIENCES', I ASSUMED YOU'D BE A LITTLE HARDER.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|Unfinished. More detailed introduction and explain title text.}}

Cueball, Hair Bun Girl, and Megan appear to be on a talk show called Degree-Off, where representatives of different fields, in this case, physics, biology, and chemistry, explain why their fields are best and why to get a degree in the field. The title "Degree-Off" is a portmanteau of "{{w|Academic degree|degree}}", as in the recognized completion of studies at a school or university, and "{{w|face-off}}", a direct confrontation between two people or groups.

The host asks Cueball to go first. He lightheartedly tells a story about Richard Feynman, finishing with a quote. The quote "all science is either physics or stamp collecting." was said by {{w|Ernest Rutherford}}, not Richard Feynman, who Cueball attributes it to in the comic. During the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, {{w|Richard Feynman}} got bored because of the isolation and started learning lock picking on the secret documents safes. Using these new skills, he played lots of pranks on his colleagues, like leaving notes and spooking them into believing there was a spy among them (which, of course, {{w|Klaus_Fuchs|there was}}).

Hair Bun Girl, the representative for biology goes next, showing that through their efforts, biology has helped reduce disease. She accuses physics of creating a new weapon of destruction from gathering in the desert (likely referring to the {{w| Manhattan Project}}, conducted in the {{w|New Mexico desert}}), insisting that biologists are the true heroes. Physics is taken aback, having believed it would be a fun activity, which Biology refutes, saying he must have been thinking of Stamp Collecting, which was mentioned in the earlier quote. Megan, the representative for chemistry, does not speak during the comic.

==Transcript==
:[Hairy is acting as the host of a TV talk show, ''Degree-Off''. Cueball, Hair Bun Girl, and Megan are acting as representatives of Phys (Physics), Bio (Biology), and Chem (Chemistry) respectively. They each stand behind their own {{w|Lectern}} with the respective subject label.]

:Hairy: Welcome to the ''Degree-Off'', where we determine which field is the best! Physics, wanna go first?
:Cueball: Sure! I'd like to tell the story of Richard Feynman's Manhattan project lockpicking pranks...

:Cueball: ...and as he said, "all science is either physics or stamp collecting."
:Cueball: Thank you.
:Hairy: ''Great!'' Bio, you wanna go next?
:Hair Bun Girl: Okay.

:[A graph is shown above Hair Bun Girl]
:Hair Bun Girl: This is a graph of the death rate from infectious disease in this country.

:[Hair Bun Girl raising her left hand]
:Hair Bun Girl: The heroes of my field have ''slain'' one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

:[Hair Bun Girl pointing at Cueball]
:Hair Bun Girl: While the heroes of ''your'' field gathered in the desert to create a new one.

:Cueball: ...Jeez, what the hell? I thought this was supposed to be fun and lighthearted!
:Hair Bun Girl: ''You must have been thinking of stamp collecting.''

==See also==
*Different scientific fields, including physics, biology, and chemistry are compared in terms of purity in [[435: Purity]].

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hair Bun Girl]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

1475: Technically

2015-01-19T09:42:47Z

Blegueni: Transcript

{{comic
| number = 1475
| date = January 19, 2015
| title = Technically
| image = technically.png
| titletext = "Technically that sentence started with 'well', so--" "Ooh, a rock with a fossil in it!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are discussing]
:White Hat: Well, technically, food is a "drug", since it's a substance that alters how your body works, so yes, I'm —
:[Cueball look to a fliyng bug]
:Cueball: Hey Look at that weird bug!

:My life improved when I realized I could just ignore any sentence that started with "technically."

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]

571: Can't Sleep

2014-12-24T09:43:23Z

Blegueni: /* Explanation */ Add of a link to wikipedia article of CamelCase

{{comic
| number = 571
| date = April 20, 2009
| title = Can't Sleep
| image = cant sleep.png
| titletext = If androids someday DO dream of electric sheep, don't forget to declare sheepCount as a long int.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is in bed and is having trouble sleeping. He tries the old standby of counting sheep as they jump over a fence, but upon reaching 32,767 sheep, the sheep all jump back over the fence and start counting up again from -32,768. This is because when a whole number or integer is represented in a digital form, such as on a computer, the number's range is limited by the amount of space used to store it. When the greatest possible number given the storage space is exceeded, an arithmetic overflow occurs, which results in starting over at the least possible number given the storage space. This is not at all unlike a car's odometer. Imagine an odometer with six digits reaching 999999 miles. Upon driving one more mile, the digits will roll back over to 000000.

In this case, the least and greatest possible numbers are -32,768 and 32,767, which implies that the storage space used would be two bytes. In addition, it's clear that the number is designated as a signed number, meaning that it can be either positive or negative.

However, even if Cueball had this limitation, it would never actually pose a problem. By 32,767 sheep, at a rate of one sheep per second, Cueball has been counting for over nine hours. This would signify that he has extreme insomnia and probably needs treatment, and also that he has spent the entire night counting, and therefore would just get up and start the day rather than count sheep all over again from -32,768. Moreover, according to an experiment conducted by researchers at Oxford University, {{w|Counting sheep|counting sheep is actually an inferior means of inducing sleep}}.

The title text refers to the 1968 Philip K. Dick science fiction novel ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'', which was adapted into the perhaps more widely known Ridley Scott directed 1982 film ''Blade Runner''. The implication is that if we ever do create androids that dream of electric sheep, we should make sure to give them sufficient storage space to store numbers large enough such that an arithmetic overflow will be far less likely to occur, even if they count for a long time. A "long int" consists of four bytes rather than two, so instead of being limited to a range from -32,768 to 32,767 the number will be capable of storing numbers from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. "sheepCount" is a possible name for a variable to be used in a computer program. Declaring a variable tells the computer that it should allocate a portion of memory to be associated with the variable name given. For those who might be unfamiliar with common programming practices, "sheepCount" is named using what is commonly referred to as {{w|CamelCase}}, meaning that all words in the name ("sheep" and "count") are pushed together and the first letter of every word after the first is capitalized. This is one of several common approaches to naming variables in computer programming.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is in bed, presumably trying to sleep. The top of each panel is a thought bubble showing sheep leaping over a fence.]
:1... 2...
:baaa
:[Two sheep are jumping from left to right.]

:... 1,306... 1,307...
:baaa
:[Two sheep are jumping from left to right. The would-be sleeper is holding his pillow.]

:... 32,767... -32,768...
:''baaa baaa baaa baaa baaa''
:[A whole flock of sheep is jumping over the fence from right to left. The would-be sleeper is sitting up.]
:Sleeper: ?

:... -32,767... -32,766...
:baaa
:[Two sheep are jumping from left to right. The would-be sleeper is holding his pillow over his head.]

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

1035: Cadbury Eggs

2014-12-01T13:35:21Z

Blegueni: /* Explanation */ Title Text

{{comic
| number = 1035
| date = March 28, 2012
| title = Cadbury Eggs
| image = cadbury_eggs.png
| titletext = When they moved production from New Zealand to the UK and switched from the runny white centers to the thick, frosting-like filling, it got way harder to cook them scrambled.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Cadbury Creme Egg|Cadbury Eggs}} are a chocolate egg-shaped candy with a filling. They are supposed to replicate a regular egg with a hard exterior and soft interior. However, with Cadbury Eggs, you can eat the outside.

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is trying to say that sodas have way too much sugar to even be appealing as a beverage because they contain as much sugar as 2 or 3 Cadbury Eggs and one Cadbury Egg alone makes him feel sick.

However, [[Megan]], of course, takes it the wrong way and indicates that this means that she can eat Cadbury Eggs year round and as many as she wants. Cadbury Eggs are usually consumed around {{w|Easter}} — which is usually anywhere from late March to late April.

The title text mentions the closure of the {{w|Cadbury Creme Egg#Manufacture in New Zealand|manufacture in New Zealand}} in 2009 and the change of consistance of the filling from runny to thick as a consequence. The joke here is the comparison to the real eggs, who can be cooked {{w|Scrambled_eggs|scrambled}}, the new thick filling is not enough liquid to be cooked in a pan as was the runny filling like the inside of an egg.

==Transcript==
:[Two Cadbury eggs, one in the foil, the other out of the foil and broken open to reveal the gooey center.]
:A Cadbury egg has about 20g of sugar. (25, Outside the US) "One Cadbury Egg" is a nice unit of sugar content.

:[A can of soda with an equals sign and two eggs; a bottle of soda with an equals sign and three eggs.]
:One 12oz. can of soda has about two Cadbury eggs worth of sugar. One 20oz. bottle has three.

:[Two unwrapped Cadbury eggs, with an arrow indicating they should be placed in a glass of water.]
:One Cadbury egg is enough to make me feel kinda gross. Now when I see Coke or Snapple or Nestea or whatever, I imagine drinking a couple of dissolved Cadbury eggs.

:[Megan puts her hand to her chin in thought, Cueball has his arms out in exclamation.]
:Megan: Wow. Huh. So the takeaway is... I can eat Cadbury eggs by the handful all season and feel no worse about it than I do about soda?
:Cueball: That's not really—
:Megan: This is ''awesome!''
:Cueball: *sigh*

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

User:Blegueni

2014-11-27T09:58:48Z

Blegueni: Created page with "I'm a french reader of XKCD and sometimes i lack some english/US or science/technology/culture references. So I thanks ExplainXKCD for being there !!"

I'm a french reader of XKCD and sometimes i lack some english/US or science/technology/culture references.
So I thanks ExplainXKCD for being there !!

239: Blagofaire

2014-11-27T09:51:58Z

Blegueni: Add of Trivia part linked to a What if ? title text

{{comic
| number = 239
| date = March 23, 2007
| title = Blagofaire
| image = blagofaire.png
| titletext = Things were better before the Structuring and the Levels.
}}

==Explanation==
Facts become distorted as time moves forward. What do we know about the Elizabethan times? They spoke strange English. What will 400 years from now think of the first twenty years of the Internet? Crazy people said crazy things online. Will we even say "online" 400 years from now? Won't the internet be everywhere, and everyone on it all the time in their retinal implants that being "offline" will seem absurd?

"Ren Faire" is short for "{{w|Renaissance Faire}}", described as "an outdoor weekend gathering, usually held in the United States, open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which emulates a historic period for the amusement of its guests."

While {{w|Cory Doctorow}} is not in this comic, the character is {{w|cosplay}}ing him. This comic inspired several xkcd readers to give Cory Doctorow a red cape and goggles when he won the 2007 EFF Pioneer Award. Cory Doctrow's balloon is featured in [[482]].

The title Blagofaire might be an amalgamation between Blogosphere, Medieval Faire, and Blag; Randall's way of referencing [http://blag.xkcd.com his blog].

The title text might be a reference to Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, in which several references are made to the "structuring and the levels" of the wizards of Unseen University.

==Transcript==
:Man in Red Cape and Goggles: Hey, it worked!
:Cueball: What? Who are you?
:Man in Red Cape and Goggles: I'm from the distant future.
:Cueball: Wow. Hi!

:Man in Red Cape and Goggles: Are you a blogger? I play one of you at our festivals!
:Cueball: Huh?
:Man in Red Cape and Goggles: Like the ren faires of your time — I do reenactments.

:Man in Red Cape and Goggles: We relive the days when the internet was new and free. The days of risky sharing, slashdot, the myspace music renaissance. The generation's finest minds meeting on comment threads, battling roving bands of trolls, and holding the great dialogues of the age!

:Cueball: Is that how you—
:Man in Red Cape and Goggles: We're fuzzy on some details. Did bloggers really wear red capes and goggles and blog from high-altitude balloons?
:Cueball: No!
:Cueball: Well, Cory Doctorow does. But nobody else.

==Trivia==
The same topic is mentionned in the title text of the second image of '''''[http://what-if.xkcd.com/69 what if? Facebook of the Dead]''''' displaying ''"An elderly Cory Doctorow cosplaying by wearing what the future thinks he wore in the past."''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cory Doctorow]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Time travel]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

1111: Premiere

2014-11-17T13:40:25Z

Blegueni: Link to other comic with the same topic

{{comic
| number = 1111
| date = September 21, 2012
| title = Premiere
| image = premiere.png
| titletext = 'But what's the buzz about the film?' 'We're hoping it's distracting.'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic depicts an entertainment news television program. The anchor notes that "all Hollywood" is in town, meaning there are a lot of members of the film industry. The event is a movie premiere, a common place for reporters to interview celebrities, actors, and other people related to entertainment.

[[Megan]] is at the premiere reporting for the television program. The red carpet is a tradition whereby a long red carpet is laid out leading to the entrance of a theatre as a symbol of elegance. {{w|Celebrity|Stars}} are said to "walk the red carpet" when they arrive and do interviews and pose for photos along this carpet. When asked the ambiguous question "How do things look?", instead of reporting on the premiere, Megan reports on the {{w|Sun#Life_cycle|dire long-term outlook}} of our solar system. When asked how the stars are reacting, she makes a pun on stars reacting to the news and hydrogen fusion, the nuclear reaction of actual stars. All stars eventually {{w|Star#Collapse|die}} as a result of this hydrogen fusion. The anchor clarifies he meant movie stars, she notes that they and the rest of humanity will die out from the sun brightening just as the stars will eventually die. In the title text, the buzz refers to ongoing discussion of the movie, analogous to a continuous humming sound. Megan hopes this buzz distracts people from the apparently grave news she has already reported.

Also, since "premiere" etymologically means "first", the title might be a pun on the comic number, which only consists of ones (1111).

The joke of Megan answering a question in an interview in an unexpected manner has been used after in [[1302: Year in Review]].

==Transcript==
:[Standard vacuous entertainment newscast. An anchor starts off the segment with an inset feed of Megan.]
:In-studio News Anchor: All Hollywood is in town or tonight's star-studded premier! We go live to our reporter on the red carpet. How do things look?

:[Megan switches to fullscreen. Megan is stating on the red carpet in front of a full crowd.]
:Megan: Bleak. In 800 million years, the aging, brightening sun will boil away the oceans, and all this will be blowing sand.

:[Switch back to initial framing.]
:Anchor: Oh. Um. ...sounds pretty grim. How are the stars reacting?
:Megan: Hydrogen fusion. But it won't last forever.
:Anchor: I mean the ''movie'' stars.
:Megan: They won't last forever either. None of us will.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Physics]]