explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1672: Women on 20s

2022-05-04T01:55:28Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235624 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1672
| date = April 25, 2016
| title = Women on 20s
| image = women_on_20s.png
| titletext = I get that there are security reasons for the schedule, but this is like the ONE problem we have where the right answer is both easy and straightforward. If we can't figure it out, maybe we should just give up and just replace all the portraits on the bills with that weird pyramid eye thing.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic portrays a series of press conferences with a {{w|US Treasury}} spokesperson (different from [[Cueball]] in the first panel as he has a bit of hair). The panels after the first summarize and ridicule the recent controversy over the upcoming redesign of US currency. The dialog between the US Treasury and reporters is paraphrased for comedic effect, but the events depicted are {{w|United_States_twenty-dollar_bill#Proposal_for_a_woman.27s_portrait|otherwise factual}} (including the punchline).

American currency has only once had a woman as the primary portrait on paper currency ([http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/martha-washington/martha-on-1/ Martha Washington] was on the $1 Silver Certificate in the 1880's and 1890's), which is widely seen as a real problem. A large-scale petition was organized which advocated replacing {{w|Andrew Jackson}} on the {{w|United States twenty-dollar bill|$20 bill}} with a woman, to be chosen by public voting. The {{w|Trail of Tears}} is a reference to the {{w|Andrew_Jackson#Indian_removal_policy|forced re-locations}} of Native American peoples that Andrew Jackson conducted during his presidency. This is now seen as a human rights violation on a massive scale, and is presented as a reason why Andrew Jackson should not be honored on American currency.

The timing of the release of this new bill with a woman was to be scheduled with the 100 year anniversary of {{w|Women's suffrage in the United States|Women's suffrage}} in 2020 and should thus preferably also be on the $20 bill.

The voting process [http://www.womenon20s.org/results selected] {{w|Harriet Tubman}}, a 19th century {{w|abolitionist}} and a major figure in the {{w|Underground Railroad}} system which freed {{w|Slavery in the United States|American slaves}}. Cueball is seen to be clearly pleased and excited about this prospect in the first panel, where he votes for her first, among several other options.

The list shows that Cueball chooses Tubman first representing the generic everyman and thus represents the about one in five that choose her first. But he may select up to three out of the fifteen selected candidates.
*The other two women he chooses are:
**{{w|Eleanor Roosevelt}}, an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving {{w|First Lady of the United States}}, holding the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}}'s four terms in office. She became the runner-up in the vote.
**{{w|Rachel Carson}}, a pioneering environmentalist who is most famous for her book ''{{w|Silent Spring}}''.
Since Carson was not one of the options for the final round, where only four were selected (the other two were {{w|Rosa Parks}}, 3rd; and {{w|Wilma Mankiller}}, 4th), it is clear that Cueball was already voting in the primary ballot, where Roosevelt actually came in first.

At this point, bureaucratic and political complications arise. The Treasury Department announces that, instead of replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, she would replace {{w|Alexander Hamilton}} on the {{w|United States ten-dollar bill|$10 bill}}. The {{w|United_States_ten-dollar_bill#Future_redesign|reason given}} is that the $10 bill was scheduled for redesign first. A reporter asks why they can't simply change the schedule, but doesn't get a clear answer.

There is a suggestion from "Steve" to put {{w|Martin Shkreli}} on the {{w|United States five-dollar bill|$5 bill}}. Shkreli is a pharmaceutical executive and hedge fund manager who provoked controversy when he {{w|Martin_Shkreli#Price_hike_controversy|acquired the rights to an anti-parasite drug and raised the price}} by over 5000%, making it unaffordable for many people. He became known as "the most hated man in America". Naturally, Steve's suggestion receives short shrift, not least of which because it's [https://www.quora.com/Can-anybody-or-anything-be-put-on-American-currency-other-than-dead-presidents a violation of Treasury policy and US law] (as Shkreli is still alive). This may be the same Steve who messed up both [[809: Los Alamos]] and [[1532: New Horizons]].

The plan to replace Hamilton likely seemed like an uncontroversial decision at the time. He was not especially well known among the American public and few people had an emotional attachment to his legacy. However, this changed abruptly when {{w|Hamilton_(musical)|a Broadway musical}} about his life came out and become massively popular. By total coincidence, this play creates a flood of interest in Hamilton right at the time the currency decisions are being made and makes replacing his portrait politically complicated. The spokesperson suggests putting both Hamilton and Tubman on the $10 bill, but the reporters are clearly unhappy with this solution, probably because it seems to dilute the recognition being given to Tubman.

Finally, the spokesperson announces that they will put Tubman on the $20 bill, but their schedule demands that they do the $10 bill first. They decide to put a "mural to women" on the new $10 bill to try and contain the tension until the new $20 bill is released. The reporters say that the Treasury has total control over the release of currency, so the simpler solution is just to change the schedule, but they apparently ignore that suggestion.

In the final panel, the spokesperson mentions that Jackson's portrait will still appear on the new $20 bill, seriously weakening the symbolism of replacing him and adding irony since Jackson was a slave owner. This is likely an effort to head off the complaints of traditionalists, but is seen here as an unfortunate attempt to avoid taking a real stand.

In the title text [[Randall]] reiterates that this is a rare case in politics in which there's a clear and simple solution. The Treasury has the authority to redesign currency, and a petition to Congress could change the release schedule to fit their needs. That makes all the compromises and backtracking unnecessary: they could simply replace Jackson with Tubman and hypothetically release the new $20 bill whenever they choose. Randall appears frustrated with the artificial constraints that are holding back what should be a simple and straightforward process although he does acknowledge that it takes time to evaluate the security of a redesign's resistance to {{w|Counterfeit money|counterfeiting}}.

The mention of the "[http://google.com/search?q=illuminati+confirmed weird pyramid eye thing]" is a reference to the {{w|Eye of Providence}}, which is an old and {{rw|Illuminati|somewhat arcane symbol}} that appears on the {{w|United States one-dollar bill|US $1 bill}}. Randall seems to be using this as an example of the outdated and frankly strange design of American currency, the implication that using that on all US dollar bills would constitute giving up on ever having a design relevant to the modern world. Also by replacing all portraits with this image, there would no longer be any gender controversy.

As of 2020, progress on updating both the $10 and the $20 has stalled, with the Treasury stating that [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/us/harriet-tubman-bill.html no new changes will be unveiled until 2026].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at his laptop. Above him is the text he reads on the screen, then he speaks, and below that text is the list of women from his computer showing his three picks, each with a gray "drop-down menu" triangle to the right of the names. Below this is his final spoken line. At the top of the panel is a small frame breaking the top left border with a caption:]
:2015
:Website: Petition: Replace Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson with a woman on the $20 for the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in 2020.
:Cueball: Hey, good idea!
:Website:
::Vote for your three picks:
::1 Harriet Tubman
::2 Eleanor Roosevelt
::3 Rachel Carson
:Cueball: Tubman for #1, definitely.

:[An executive from the department of treasury, with a wee bit of hair on his head, stands behind a lectern. On the front of the lectern the top part of the image inside the seal for the department of treasury is visible inside a circle, showing the scales and the tip of the triangular band beneath it. The rest of this image is hidden below the panel frame. There is text written above this image. At the top of the panel is a small frame breaking the top left border with a caption:]
:Soon...
:Treasury Executive: After a flood of public interest, the Treasury has decided to feature a woman on our money!
:Offscreen voice 1: Yay!
:Treasury Executive: She will replace Hamilton on the $10.
:Offscreen voice 1: Yay-- wait, what? Why not the $20?
:Offscreen voice 2: ''Are we mad at Hamilton?''
:Text above the seal: Treasury

:[The executive with a hand on the lectern is seen from the side.]
:Treasury Executive: The $10 was scheduled for the next redesign by a board made up of-
:Offscreen voice 3: Can't you just do the $20 next?
:Treasury Executive: We will review the...
:Offscreen voice 3: *Sigh*
:Offscreen voice 4 (Steve): ''Put Martin Shkreli on the $5!''
:Offscreen voice 5: Shut up, Steve.

:[The executive lifts both hands, the one over the lectern points a finger up. Again seen from the side. At the top of the panel is a small frame breaking the top left border with a caption:]
:Later in 2015...
:Treasury Executive: Wow, some musical came out, and now suddenly Hamilton has ''tons'' of fans.
:Offscreen voice 6: So do the $20 next. Problem solved!
:Treasury Executive: Maybe he and a woman can ''share'' the $10!
:Offscreen voice 6: Are you serious.

:[The executive, again with a hand on the lectern, is seen from the side. At the top of the panel is a small frame breaking the top left border with a caption:]
:2016:
:Treasury Executive: We've decided to put Harriet Tubman on the $20.
:Offscreen voice 7: Perfect! Happy ending.
:Treasury Executive: -After we do the new $10.
:Offscreen voice 7: What?

:[The executive again from the front behind the lectern. On the front of the lectern only the text and the very top of the circle around the image can be seen.]
:Treasury Executive: We'll put a mural to women on the back of the $10. Hopefully that will tide you over until we get to the $20?
:Offscreen voice 8: ''Seriously?'' How is this so complicated? Just say "We're putting Harriet Tubman on the $20," then do it.
:Text above the seal: Treasury

:[The executive with hands down behind the lectern is seen from the side.]
:Treasury Executive: We'll do the $20 ASAP, but we can't change the-
:Offscreen voice 9: C'mon, your hands aren't tied here. You're the freaking Treasury. This is the '''''one''''' thing you're definitely in charge of.

:[The executive lifting a hand above the lectern is seen from the side.]
:Treasury Executive: Oh, and we're putting Andrew Jackson on the back.
:Three offscreen voices: '''''What.'''''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Money]]

1247: The Mother of All Suspicious Files

2022-05-04T01:55:10Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235642 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1247
| date = August 5, 2013
| title = The Mother of All Suspicious Files
| image = the_mother_of_all_suspicious_files.png
| titletext = Better change the URL to 'https' before downloading.
}}

==Explanation==
The save {{w|dialog box}} shows a download from the address <tt><nowiki>http://65.222.202.53</nowiki></tt>, an {{w|IP address}} that hosted {{w|JavaScript}} {{w|malware}} during a recent attack on the {{w|Tor anonymity network}}, with a very long file title. Many of the {{w|file extension|extensions}} used inside there indicate executable code; multiple file extensions are sometimes used to disguise a {{w|Trojan horse (computing)|trojan program}} as a document.

You can also see common download syntax for a pirated movie, {{w|Hackers (film)|''Hackers''}}, likely included to appear malicious to anyone skimming but is actually a movie about hackers, making it a benign reference rather than malicious. It is described as "<tt>_BLURAY_CAM</tt>", which contradicts itself ("<tt>_BLURAY</tt>" would imply it was ripped from a copy on {{w|Blu-ray Disc}}, while "<tt>_CAM</tt>" would mean it was copied by pointing a camera at the screen in the cinema). "<tt>_BLURAY_CAM</tt>" would probably indicate a search-keyword-stuffed fake copy; fake pirated media often contain viruses (although this is more likely to be a problem with newer media, before the first real pirated copy appears).

The {{w|URL}} contains the path "<tt>~tilde/pub/cia-bin/etc</tt>". The first part is a public folder of a user named "tilde" (which is also the name for the {{w|tilde|~ symbol}}), "<tt>cgi-bin</tt>" is a common folder on a web server for server-side executables ([[Randall]] changes the name to "<tt>[[CIA|cia]]-bin</tt>"), and "<tt>etc</tt>" is a standard folder for configuration files – normally never accessible through a web server. The program "init.dll" isn't executable at all, it's a {{w|Windows Dynamic Link Library}} which can't be run standalone, and is rarely referenced in URLs (even though such syntax is still being employed, even on [https://www.google.com/search?q=site:edu+filetype:dll reputable websites (Google search)] or here at [https://signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll eBay], indicating the webserver is a Microsoft {{w|Active Server Pages|ASP}} server). The question mark indicates the start of a parameter list, and in this case we have only one named "<tt>FILE</tt>".

The "Save" button is greyed out, suggesting that it is disabled; you can click only the "Cancel" button. For security reasons, some browsers (like Firefox) disable the "Save" button for a few seconds before enabling it. This prevents users from accidentally accepting a download while entering input, like a malicious CAPTCHA.

The complete content sent to the server, starting with "<tt>/~tilde...</tt>" and ending with "<tt>...out.exe</tt>", is exactly 256 characters long. On {{w|HTML 3}} specifications you have a limitation of 1024 characters, whereas later HTML specifications don't have this limit; it just depends on the web server's capabilities. But posting parameters directly at the URL is still a worse choice.

The content of the parameter is shown here:
*<tt>__</tt> (underscore underscore) — used in the {{w|C programming language}} to denote that a symbol is really not for public consumption.
*<tt>{{w|autoexec.bat}}</tt> — a {{w|batch file}} which is automatically run during startup on {{w|MS-DOS}} and {{w|Windows}} operating systems, and was often modified by viruses, which added malicious code to be run on each boot.
*<tt>My%20OSX%20Documents</tt> — referencing Apple's {{w|OS X}} operating system (<tt>{{w|URL encoding#Character data|%20}}</tt> is a representation of a space in a URL, i.e. it reads as "<tt>My OSX Documents</tt>").
*<tt>install.exe</tt> — a typical {{w|Installer#Installer|installer}}.
*<tt>{{w|RAR|.rar}}</tt> — a compressed archive file type.
*<tt>{{w|INI file|.ini}}</tt> — a configuration file type.
*<tt>{{w|Tar (computing)|.tar}}</tt> — a {{w|file}} archive popular in {{w|Unix}} and {{w|Unix-like}} operating systems. tar has been mentioned [[1168: tar|before]].
*<tt>.doçx</tt> — <tt>{{w|docx|.docx}}</tt> is an {{w|Office Open XML}} file, i.e. a word processing format used by {{w|Microsoft Word 2007}} and above, but has no {{w|cedilla}} (¸). The addition of a cedilla may be a reference to exploits that rely on rare characters being mistaken for more common ones that look similar, such as the {{w|IDN homograph attack}}.
*<tt>.phphphp</tt> — a play on {{w|PHP}} files, a kind of server-based web page file type. PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page" but was later redefined as the recursive abbreviation "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".
*<tt>{{w|XHTML|.xhtml}}</tt> — another web page file type.
*<tt>{{w|TransducerML|.tml}}</tt> — stands for Transducer Markup Language, an {{w|XML}}-based {{w|markup language}} that specifies how to capture, time-tag and describe sensor data.
*<tt>.xtl</tt> — possibly a play on XHTML.
*<tt>.txxt</tt> — a play on <tt>{{w|Text file|.txt}}</tt> file types.
*<tt>0DAY.HACK</tt> — a reference to a {{w|zero-day exploit}}. (overlaps with the next entry)
*<tt>HACK.ERS_(1995)_BLURAY_CAM-XVID</tt> — a reference to the 1995 {{W|Hackers (film)|''Hackers''}} movie, but pirated movies would either be a <tt>BLURAYRIP/DVDRIP</tt> or <tt>CAM</tt>, but not both at the same time unless you used a camera to record a {{w|Blu-Ray}} movie as it played.
*<tt>{{w|EXE|.exe}}</tt> — an executable file type used by Microsoft Windows.
*<tt>[SCR]</tt> — a tag used by movie pirates to denote a '{{w|Screener}}', the DVD copy of films given to critics prior to theater release. Usually the highest quality available at the time, rare, and thus good bait for a virus-laden download. "{{w|.scr}}" is also the extension for screensaver files, really just an exe file with a different extension and one of the classical ways to distribute infected files.
*<tt>{{w|Lisp (programming language)|Lisp}}</tt> — programming language.
*<tt>{{w|Windows Installer|.msi}}</tt> — an installation file used by Microsoft Installer.
*<tt>{{w|.lnk}}</tt> — an extension used by Microsoft Windows for shortcuts. The extension is normally hidden to the user.
*<tt>.lnk.zda.gnn</tt> — references to {{w|Link (The Legend of Zelda)|Link}}, {{w|Princess Zelda|Zelda}}, and {{w|Ganon}}, important characters from ''{{w|The Legend of Zelda}}'' video game franchise.
*<tt>{{w|White Rabbit#Television and films|wrbt.obj}}</tt> — A reference to the line of code Dennis Nedry used in ''{{w|Jurassic Park}}'' to shut down key systems.
*<tt>{{w|Object file|.o}}</tt> — The extension for a {{w|Linker (computing)|linker file}}, an intermediary created when compiling {{w|C programming language|C code}}.
*<tt>{{w|Header file|.h}}</tt> — The file extension of a {{w|header file}} in C code.
*<tt>{{w|.swf}}</tt> — {{w|Shockwave Flash}} file type.
*<tt>{{w|Dpkg|.dpkg}}</tt> — The {{w|Debian}} package management, although the package files use the file suffix <tt>.deb</tt>.
*<tt>.app</tt> — an application on the {{w|Mac OS X}} operating system.
*<tt>{{w|ZIP (file format)|.zip}}</tt> — compressed archive file type.
*<tt>.co</tt> — the {{w|List of Internet top-level domains|top-level domain (TLD)}} for Colombia, but marketed as a global domain. Some countries use <tt>.co.''TLD''</tt> for general use, e.g. <tt>.co.uk</tt> in the United Kingdom. But the TLD <tt>.gz</tt> does not exist and thus <tt>.co.gz</tt> is invalid.
*<tt>{{w|Gzip|.gz}}</tt> — a compressed file using {{w|GNU}} zip.
*<tt>{{w|A.out|.a.out}}</tt> — Default filename when creating an executable on {{w|Linux}} or other Unix-like operating systems if none was specified for the compiler.

The title text suggests changing from <tt>http</tt> to <tt>https</tt>, as if encrypting a suspicious file before downloading it is somehow better than downloading it unencrypted. <tt>{{w|http}}</tt> (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and <tt>{{w|https}}</tt> (Hypertext Transfer Protocol – Secure) are the two common protocols for getting web pages and web downloads. http is the simple download, whereas https adds an SSL encryption layer so the item being downloaded cannot be viewed unencrypted by anyone except the end recipient. Changing <tt>http</tt> to <tt>https</tt> is a common suggestion to improve security when browsing the web from an insecure network (such as a public {{w|WiFi}} hotspot) to avoid surveillance or hijacking to a malicious website; Google automatically switches to <tt>https</tt> for all mail accounts and is starting to do so with searches. The end recipient will still get whatever nasties were in the original, however — encrypting it doesn't change the content at all.

The {{w|IP address}} referenced in the comic, <tt>65.222.202.53</tt>, was, at the time this article was authored, being used by the shellcode of a {{w|JavaScript}} {{w|zero-day exploit}} for the {{w|Tor Browser Bundle}} being run by the {{w|FBI}} to phone home over the clearnet [http://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Firefox-Exploit-Tor-Network-child-pornography-Freedom-Hosting.html] and deanonymize visitors to websites on Freedom Hosting that are serving child pornography. [http://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/1jmrta/founder_of_the_freedom_hosting_arrested_held/]

As the last extension in the file is .exe, a Windows computer would run the file like an application. Usually, it is not safe to run unknown .exe files.

==Transcript==
:[Browser download warning box containing the following text.]
:WARNING!
:This type of file can harm your computer! Are you sure you want to download:
:<nowiki>http://65.222.202.53/~TILDE/PUB/CIA-BIN/ETC/INIT.DLL?FILE=__AUTOEXEC.BAT.MY%20OSX%20DOCUMENTS-INSTALL.EXE.RAR.INI.TAR.DOÇX.PHPHPHP.XHTML.TML.XTL.TXXT.0DAY.HACK.ERS_(1995)_BLURAY_CAM-XVID.EXE.TAR.[SCR].LISP.MSI.LNK.ZDA.GNN.WRBT.OBJ.O.H.SWF.DPKG.APP.ZIP.TAR.TAR.CO.GZ.A.OUT.EXE</nowiki>
:[Cancel and Save buttons (Save button disabled)]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Video games]]

1760: TV Problems

2022-05-04T01:53:00Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 232666 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1760
| date = November 16, 2016
| title = TV Problems
| image = tv_problems.png
| titletext = Certified skydiving instructors know way more about safely falling from planes than I do, and are way more likely to die that way.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] has broken his computer's software so much that he is unable to "turn on the news" as requested by [[White Hat]]. Since his computer is not working at all, he is using the next best thing to download a fix: his smartphone, via a {{w|CD}}. This is probably one of two things:

# Cueball has broken his computer enough that the operating system no longer works, in which case he would probably be downloading an {{w|ISO file}} (which is the type of image on a CD) to his phone. This would enable him to connect his phone as a USB device to his computer and boot from it. After booting from his phone, he could repair or reinstall his computer's operating system.
# Cueball is trying to connect his computer to his TV, but needs a driver or other software to make the connection. He is unable to connect to the Internet from his computer (maybe he is using a network dongle that also requires drivers/software to function, or maybe the internet from his ISP is down, so he is using cellular data), so he is using his phone to download the files. Perhaps the computer has internal {{w|Bluetooth}} or he can transfer files from his phone to his computer via a wired connection.

He later states that even that first step of mending won't be enough to display the news, as his computer's state is so bad that being able to send information to the TV screen is just the first step of debugging. In the last panel, he tells White Hat that his computer science degree just helps him ''understand'' how he ended up with such a terrible situation, but did not give him enough foresight to prevent the most unexpected issues. The title text clarifies this statement with a similar problem- when things start to go horribly wrong while falling from a plane, certified skydiving instructors will be able to better understand why and how bad the situation is, but won't be able to do anything if their usual tools have failed them. Besides, while they are less likely to make a fatal mistake on a given flight and fall, they are more likely to make one in their life, because of the far greater number of attempts. This is especially true considering most people ''never'' attempt a jump in their lives, giving them absolutely ''zero'' probability of dying in a skydiving accident. This also resembles [[795: Conditional Risk]]: the more informed a person is, the more likely this person is to suffer from the issue they know about.

Computers breaking in unexpected ways, and somewhat weird solutions to computer problems seems to be a thing with Cueball - and probably Randall as well. At that point, you might assume he probably enjoys it. In [[1586: Keyboard Problems]], he also had a problem involving both software and hardware. [[1739: Fixing Problems]] could very well apply to this comic; Cueball may have ended with this situation while trying to correct a simple problem (eg: channels in the wrong order), and just made the situation worse every step of the way. In [[456: Cautionary]], he teaches his cousin about <s>breaking</s> fixing a computer.

In this instance Cueball has his single tasking phone busy while he downloads to it and cannot interrupt what he's doing just to use the phone as a remote for the TV, although it appears more that the TV is one of the things he is trying to fix.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting by his TV, holding his phone, when White Hat walks in.]
:White Hat: Hey, turn on the news.
:Cueball (Sitting on the floor in front of a computer holding a cell phone): Can't. Downloading a CD onto my phone.

:White Hat (off-screen): Why?
:Cueball: So I can use it to fix my computer's operating system enough that I can teach it to talk to my TV screen.

:White Hat: But then you'll be able to watch the news?
:Cueball: (off-screen): No.

:White Hat: Don't you have a computer science degree?
:Cueball: That just means I ''understand'' how everything went so wrong.

==References==
<references />

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Cueball Computer Problems]]

Blue Eyes

2022-05-04T01:52:38Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233783 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| date = October 11, 2006
| title = Blue Eyes
| image = Blue Eyes.jpg
| before = The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World
| lappend = blue_eyes.html
| extra = yes
}}
{{TOC}}
==Explanation==
xkcd's [http://xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html Blue Eyes] puzzle is a logic puzzle posted around the same time as comic [[169: Words that End in GRY]]. [[Randall]] calls it "The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World" on its page; whether or not it really is the hardest is up to speculation.

The page contains two comics. On the top is [[82: Frame]], and at the bottom is [[37: Hyphen]]. These particular comics may have been chosen intentionally, as 82 involves a mind screw (and formal logic can be pretty mind-screwy to the uninitiated) and 37 involves linguistic ambiguity, which Randall has explicitly gone out of his way to avoid (interestingly, [[169]] involves the infuriating ambiguity caused by misquoting riddles). That said, Randall could have simply picked those comics out of a hat to plug for his comic (which he also does explicitly), and the date of release could also be completely random.

Randall cites "some dude on the streets in Boston named Joel" as his source for the comic idea (although he's rewritten it).

==The Puzzle==

A group of people with assorted eye colors live on an island. They are all perfect logicians -- if a conclusion can be logically deduced, they will do it instantly. No one knows the color of their eyes. Every night at midnight, a ferry stops at the island. Any islanders who have figured out the color of their own eyes then leave the island, and the rest stay. Everyone can see everyone else at all times and keeps a count of the number of people they see with each eye color (excluding themselves), but they cannot otherwise communicate. Everyone on the island knows all the rules in this paragraph.

On this island there are 100 blue-eyed people, 100 brown-eyed people, and the Guru (she happens to have green eyes). So any given blue-eyed person can see 100 people with brown eyes and 99 people with blue eyes (and one with green), but that does not tell him his own eye color; as far as he knows the totals could be 101 brown and 99 blue. Or 100 brown, 99 blue, and he could have red eyes.

The Guru is allowed to speak once (let's say at noon), on one day in all their endless years on the island. Standing before the islanders, she says the following:

"I can see someone who has blue eyes."

Who leaves the island, and on what night?

==Solution==

Randall's solution is at [http://xkcd.com/solution.html xkcd.com/solution.html].

Here are some observations that help simplify the problem.

No one without blue eyes will ever leave the island, because they are given no information that can allow them to determine which non-blue eye color they have. The presence of the non-blue-eyed people is not relevant at all. We can ignore them. All that matters is when the blue eyed people learn that they actually are blue-eyed.

There are two ways in which blue-eyed people might leave the island. A lone blue-eyed person might leave on the first night because she can see that no one else has blue eyes, so the guru must have been talking about her. Or an accompanied blue-eyed person can leave on a later night, after noticing that other blue-eyed people have behaved in a way that indicates that they have noticed that her eyes are blue too.

The problem is symmetrical for all blue-eyed people, so this means they will either all leave at once or all stay forever.

'''Theorem:''' If there are N blue-eyed people, they will all leave on the Nth night.

'''Dual Logic.'''

Blue eyed people leave on the 100th night.

If you (the person) have blue eyes then you can see 99 blue eyed and 100 brown eyed people (and one green eyed, the Guru).
If 99 blue eyed people don't leave on the 99th night then you know you have blue eyes and you will leave on the 100th night knowing so.

'''Intuitive Proof.'''

Imagine a simpler version of the puzzle in which, on day #1 the guru announces that she can see at least 1 blue-eyed person, on day #2 she announces that she can see at least 2 blue eyed people, and so on until the blue-eyed people leave.

So long as the guru's count of blue-eyed people doesn't exceed your own, then her announcement won't prompt you to leave. But as soon as the guru announces having seen more blue-eyed people than you've seen yourself, then you'll know your eyes must be blue too, so you'll leave that night, as will all the other blue-eyed people. Hence our theorem obviously holds in this simpler puzzle.

But this "simpler" puzzle is actually perfectly equivalent to the original puzzle. If there were just one blue-eyed person, she would leave on the first night, so if nobody leaves on the first night, then everybody will know there are at least two blue-eyed people, so there's no need for the guru to announce this on the second day. Similarly, if there were just two blue-eyed people, they'd then recognize this and leave on the second night, so if nobody leaves on the second night, then there must be a third blue-eyed person inspiring them to stay, so there's no need for the guru to announce this on the third day. And so on... The guru's announcements on the later days just tell people things they already could have figured out on their own.

It's obvious that our theorem holds for the "simpler" puzzle, and this "simpler" puzzle is perfectly equivalent to the original puzzle, so our theorem must hold for the original puzzle too.

Another way of looking at it is to use selective attention. Although each blue-eyed person can see each other blue-eyed person on the island, she doesn't need to. The only thing she needs to know in order to determine whether to leave on night N is whether or not she can see an Nth person with blue-eyes. On night 1, she only needs to see 1 other blue-eyed person to not leave; on night 2, she can see 2 other blue-eyed people, so she doesn't leave; and so on and so on until night 100 when she can't see a 100th blue-eyed person, and then leaves.

'''Formal Proof.'''

To prove this more formally, we can use mathematical induction. To do that, we'll need to show that our theorem holds for the base case of N=1, and we'll need to show that, for any given X, *if* we assume that the theorem holds for any value of N less than X, then it will also hold for N=X. If we can show both these things, then we'll know the theorem is true for N=1 (the base case), for N=2 (using the inductive step once), for N=3 (using the inductive step a second time) and so on, for whatever value of N you want.

Base case: N=1. If there is just one blue-eyed person, she will see that no one else has blue eyes, know that the guru was talking about her, and leave on the first night.

Inductive step: Here we assume that the theorem holds for any value of N less than some arbitrary X (integer greater than 1), and we need to show that it would then hold for N=X too. If there are X blue-eyed people, then each will reason as follows: "I can see that X-1 other people have blue eyes, so either just those X-1 people have blue eyes, or X people do (them plus me). If there are just X-1 people with blue eyes, then by our assumption, they'll all leave on night number X-1. If they don't all leave on night number X-1, then that means that there is an Xth blue-eyed person in addition to the X-1 that I can see, namely me. So if they all stay past night number X-1, then I'll know I have blue eyes, so I'll leave on night number X. Of course, they'll also be in exactly the same circumstance as me, so they'll leave on night number X too."

This suffices to prove our theorem. The base case tells us the theorem holds for N=1. That together with the inductive step tells us that it therefore holds for N=2, and that together with the inductive step again tells us that it holds for N=3, and so on... In particular, it holds for the case the original puzzle asked about, N=100, so we get the conclusion that the 100 blue-eyed people will leave on the 100th night.

==Randall's thought-provoking questions==

After giving his solution, Randall posed three questions for further thought about the puzzle. (I'll answer them in a different order than he asked.)

'' '''Question 2.''' Each person knows, from the beginning, that there are no less than 99 blue-eyed people on the island. How, then, is considering the 1 and 2-person cases relevant, if they can all rule them out immediately as possibilities?''

Blue-eyed people can't see their own faces, so blue-eyed people can see one less blue-eyed face than non-blue-eyed people can. Even though I can see that there are at least 99 blue-eyed people, I don't know that they can see that, so I need to imagine people who see only 98, who would base their actions in part by imagining people who can see only 97 who would base their actions in part by imagining people who can see only 96, and so on... All the levels are relevant. (It's like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_eZmEiyTo0 the Princess Bride scene] where Vizzini is trying to think about what Wesley would choose in part based upon Wesley thinking about what Vizzini would choose in part based upon... "So clearly I cannot choose the one in front of me!") Each layer of thinking about what someone else might be thinking about can decrement by 1 the number of blue-eyed people visible to the lattermost imagined person, so it turns out that even the base case with N=1 blue-eyed person is relevant. As the days go by, some of the more far-fetched "he might be thinking that I might be thinking that he might be thinking that I might be thinking that..." hypotheses get ruled out. But it's only after night N-1 that the blue-eyed people rule out all the possibilities in which they have brown eyes, whereas the brown-eyed people only learn on night number N that they don't have blue eyes.

It might help to think of all the different situations people might be in. (Remember brown-eyed people always are situated where they can see one more blue-eyed face than blue-eyed people can.)

'''Situation 0.''' If I see 0 blue-eyed people, I can leave right after the announcement on night 1.
'''Situation 1.''' If I see 1 blue-eyed person, then she might be in situation 0 and about to leave on night 1; or else she might be in situation 1 just like me, in which case we'll both leave together on night 2.
'''Situation 2.''' If I see 2 blue-eyed people, they might each be in situation 1 watching to see whether anyone in situation 0 leaves the first night (I know nobody will leave that night, but they wouldn't know this), in which case they would leave together on night 2; or else they might be in situation 2 just like me, in which case we'll all leave together on night 3.

:
:
:
'''Situation N.''' If I see N blue-eyed people, they might be in situation N-1 watching to see whether any people in situation N-2 leave on night N-1 (I know nobody will leave that night, but they wouldn't know this), in which case they would leave together on night N; or else they might be in situation N just like me, in which case we'll all leave together on night N+1.
:
:

Even though I start out in situation 99, I need to worry that the blue-eyed people might be in situation 98, so I need to wait long enough for people in situation 98 to figure out what's going on, and then see whether they act like they are indeed in situation 98. But if they're in situation 98, then they're worrying about whether all the blue-eyed people might be in situation 97, so they're going to need to wait long enough for people in situation 97 to figure out what's going on. Of course, that requires waiting long enough for people in situation 96 to figure out what's going on, and so on, down all the way to situation 0. All the levels are relevant, and it takes a separate day to eliminate each level, which is why the whole process takes N days.

'' '''Question 3.''' Why do they have to wait 99 nights if, on the first 98 or so of these nights, they're simply verifying something that they already know?
''

Consider an analogy. I've heard that miners used to take canaries down into mines because canaries pass out more quickly in poor air than miners do. Suppose you know the canary will do fine for 98 or so seconds, and then pass out if the air is bad. As you watch the canary for those 98 seconds, there's a sense in which you're just verifying something you already know (it'll do fine), but it seems more accurate to say that your best detector for the quality of the air takes 98 seconds to give you a reading, and you're waiting 98 seconds to see what that reading is.

When the blue-eyed people wait 98 or so days to leave, that's because their best available detector of their own eye-color takes 98 or so days to give a reading. (This detector involves watching what the other blue-eyed people do, and of course they themselves are waiting on a detector that takes 97 or so days to yield its result...) There's a sense in which they're "simply verifying something that they already know", but it seems more accurate to say that they're waiting for their best available detector of their own eye-color to deliver its reading.

'' '''Question 1.''' What is the quantified piece of information that the Guru provides that each person did not already have?''

Before the Guru speaks, the hypothetical chain of A imagining B imaging C imagining D...imagining Z seeing N blue eyed people cannot terminate uniquely. Z seeing no blue eyed people can consider whether or not they are blue eyed. This means it is not {{w|Common knowledge (logic)|common knowledge}} that there are blue eyes. Once the guru makes their pronouncement it is common knowledge and every chain of reasoning must terminate at 1 blue eyed person and Z above would have to conclude that they had blue eyes. From then on every midnight the common knowledge that there are N blue eyed people increments by 1 as everyone sees nobody leaving on the ferry.

Stated another way, there's only one stable set of beliefs for the blue eyed people that would allow them to have so many exist on the island indefinitely. That is if each blue eyed person believed not only that they have brown eyes, but also that every other blue-eyed person believed, incorrectly, that they had brown eyes. Logic reduces this to "all blue-eyes believe that all blues-eyes have brown eyes". The Guru eliminates that particular possibility.

Another simple way to understand why the Guru's information is important is thus. Each blue-eyed person knows two sets of information: what the actual situation is on the island (both now and in the past), and what would happen in a hypothetical situation. Each blue-eyed person then needs only to compare the actual situation to a known hypothetical one, and if it matches up, then they take the corresponding action. Consider this: If there were only one blue-eyed person, and the guru never made the announcement, she would not leave on day 1 because she would not know that N is greater than or equal to 1. Now let's add a 2nd blue-eyed person. Blue-eyes 2 would not be able to inductively determine whether or not to leave on night 2, because blue-eyes 2's knowledge of whether or not to leave on night 2 is dependent on what blue-eyes 1 does on night 1 if and only if blue-eyes 1 knows what to do on night 1. If blue-eyes 1 doesn't know that N is greater than or equal to 1, then blue-eyes 1 doesn't know what to do on night 1, so her lack of leaving gives blue-eyes 2 no new information, since it was an uninformed action and blue-eyes 2's inductive reasoning was dependent on blue-eyes 1 knowing what to do, and so the inductive process never takes off for the hypothetical situation. This means a hypothetical situation for N people cannot be induced. As such, blue-eyes 100 does not have certain knowledge of the hypothetical situation that would occur on nights 99 and 100, and so even though she knows N = either 99 or 100, she can't take action on either of those nights, because she has no certain hypothetical situation to compare reality to, and as such cannot have certainty about the actions she should take.

==Trivia==
*The web page which contains the puzzle has no {{w|CSS|style sheet}}. The font size of the heading and subheading is increased with deprecated HTML tags, rather than the heading tags. The way the page is displayed therefore depends on the browser's settings. Despite this fact, due to a similarity of default settings between computers, most computers will by default display the page similarly to the way it is displayed in this page's screenshot, with a white background, black text and the {{w|Times New Roman}} font or a similar one. However, it has two line breaks after every paragraph instead of HTML paragraph breaks, meaning that paragraph spacing will not vary between browsers, relative to the font size.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:No title text]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

2576: Control Group

2022-05-04T01:52:22Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233861 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2576
| date = February 2, 2022
| title = Control Group
| image = control_group.png
| titletext = Placeble 228 x/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Wordle}} ([https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/]) is a web-based word puzzle game that was popular when this comic was released. In the comic, [[Ponytail]] asks [[Cueball]] whether he's playing the game; Cueball replies that he isn't, because he's "in the control group".

In scientific studies, the {{w|control group}} stands in opposition to the treatment group; whereas the treatment group receives the experimental "treatment", the control group does not, instead receiving a {{w|placebo}} or nothing at all. This is done to establish a baseline—what would happen without intervention—against which the result of the experimental treatment is compared later.

When Cueball replies that he's "in the control group", this implies that Ponytail and other Wordle players are part of a "treatment" group. This implies that playing Wordle may have some long-term effects worth studying.
Jokingly, this may also imply that Wordle is some sort of {{w|social experiment}}, perhaps a [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sociological-study-conducted-by-harvard-university sociological study conducted by Harvard]. As noted in the caption to the comic, [[Randall]] has been using this line as his new all-purpose excuse when he is not doing something. It's a clever way of saying that you're determined not to take part, as a control group requires him to avoid it. Mind control studies can also be nonconsensual experiments that massively impact public behavior.

More realistically, Cueball may be part of a real market research control group, which was not exposed to advertisements and memes supporting the game or anything associated with the game. Market research studies have been common since the advent of advertising.

The title text is a parody of Wordle's sharing feature, which users have been [https://twitter.com/search?q=wordle&f=live posting on Twitter] or other social media platforms to show their success or failure at the game. The title text shows a 5x6 grid, but calls it "Placeble" (a {{w|portmanteau}} of Placebo and Wordle) and has a number after it, suggesting that not only is the game a social experiment, but that a "placebo version" is being given to the control group. In the real Wordle sharing feature, the number represents the current day's game. On the date this comic was released, the Wordle website itself was on game 228, matching the number in the title text. Randall's placebo version of Wordle has blank/incorrect squares and has a score of "x/6" which is a loss in Wordle — unsuccessful after the maximum 6 tries.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is looking at her smartphone which she is holding in her hand, while she is talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Are you playing Wordle?
:Cueball: No, I'm in the control group.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My new all-purpose excuse for when I'm not doing something

==Trivia==
*The image size that was originally posted was much larger than normal. This is because Randall seems to have posted the same image both for the normal "double size" image and the "regular" size. As of February 9, 2022, Randall has updated the comic: the [http://xkcd.com/2576/ image on xkcd.com] is now the same size as other comics.
**Later something similar happened with [[2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio]], when Randall changed the original comic, and made both images the same size, see that comics [[2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio#Trivia|trivia]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

2041: Frontiers

2022-05-04T01:52:06Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235318 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2041
| date = September 3, 2018
| title = Frontiers
| image = frontiers.png
| titletext = Star Trek V is a small part of the space frontier, but it’s been a while since that movie came out so I assume we’ve finished exploring it by now.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic refers to four remaining “final frontiers” of human discovery, according to popular usage—perhaps analyzed using an Internet search engine. It seems to imply that other fields of research aren’t a challenge anymore.

Outer '''space''' is so vast in size that it’s impossible for humans to discover even just the stars in our galaxy within a lifetime. Space travel is also very difficult and expensive.

'''The oceans''' are very deep{{citation needed}}. The vast majority of the deeper oceans hasn’t been visited by humans, and there is still much we don’t know about the living beings in the deep sea.

'''The human mind''' is not only very complex, but also often seems irrational, which makes it harder to investigate. Its relation to the brain is also somewhat mysterious: {{w|philosophy of mind}} is split on whether the mind is ultimately material (materialism) or immaterial (dualism/idealism). Further, certain philosophical systems have trouble explaining its relation to the body, in what is termed the {{w|mind–body problem}}.

'''Alaska''' is the state of largest area in the U.S., and also the most sparsely populated. Many places in Alaska have only been partially explored to this day. Randall was probably inspired by the TV series ''{{w|Alaska: The Last Frontier}}'', which plays off of the state’s official nickname of “The Last Frontier”.

The humor from this comic comes from the fact that Alaska seems comparably of less important than the other “Final Frontiers”. It is not as hard or expensive to explore as the ocean bottom and outer space, and it is much smaller. While one's own human mind is much more easily accessible than the other three locations, its nature is a substantial frontier in human knowledge. Furthermore, minds other than one’s own are very hard to access.

The title text refers to the movie ''{{w|Star Trek V: The Final Frontier}}'', released in 1989. “Final frontier” is a recurring motif in the ''Star Trek'' franchise (coming from the opening narration for ''{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}''), and is used to describe the exploration of outer space, which remains a notable frontier to humans, both in real life and within ''Star Trek''. [[Randall]], however, jokingly posits that the frontier to be explored is the film itself, and assumes that, because this movie has been out for a while—nearly thirty years—it ought to be fully and comprehensively explored by now.

==Transcript==
:[In a single framed picture a hand drawn rhombiod is shown. At the inside a few small arrows pointing to the four sides. The text in the middle reads:]
:Human achievement so far

:[Text above the top left side:]
:Space
:[Text above the top right side:]
:The oceans
:[Text below the bottom left side:]
:The human mind
:[Text below the bottom right side:]
:Alaska

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Final remaining “frontiers,” according to popular usage

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Science]]

464: RBA

2022-05-04T01:51:43Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 234500 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 464
| date = August 18, 2008
| title = RBA
| image = rba.png
| titletext = This is a story all about how I started drinking.
}}

==Explanation==
A [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bel%20Air Bel-Air] is an internet meme where a poster on a message board starts a post on a serious topic, but partway through the post switches to reciting the lyrics to the opening theme song of ''{{w|The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air}}'', a 1990s sitcom starring {{w|Will Smith}} (previously known in his rapping career as the "Fresh Prince") as a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who has been sent to live with his affluent and stuffy Aunt and Uncle in Bel Air, Los Angeles by his mother as a consequence of a single altercation with a couple of no-good guys who were making trouble in his previous neighbourhood.

[[Megan]] in the comic reverses the traditional arrangement by starting the conversation with a recitation of the lyrics to said theme song, and then switching partway through to a very serious discussion of the status of their relationship culminating in a break-up.

The lyrics go like this:

:Now this is the story all about how
:My life got flipped, turned upside down
:And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
:I'll tell you how I became ''the prince of a town called Bel-air''

The title ''RBA'' is an initialism for ''Reverse Bel-Air''.

The title text is also an RBA, but one that diverges from the song lyrics much more quickly. It's a play on the phrase "started drinking." This phrase usually refers to someone becoming an alcoholic (in this case, it would be because of the break-up), but in this case refers to the actual fact that Cueball had just started drinking (a glass of water) when Megan started talking to him.

A similar (though less serious) play on the Bel-Air meme was later used in [[1059: Bel-Air]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan walks up to Cueball pouring himself a drink.]
:Megan: Now, this is a story all about how

:Megan: My life got flipped turned upside down

:Megan: And I'd like to take a minute
:Megan: Just sit right there

:Megan: I'll tell you how I became uncertain about our relationship. I think you just like having a girlfriend, it doesn't matter who.
:Megan: I think we should break up.

:The reverse Bel-Air only works once, so make it something unforgettable.
:[Cut to a dropped glass, the drink spilled on the ground.]
:Cueball: ...wait, seriously?
:Megan: Yeah.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

954: Chin-Up Bar

2022-05-04T01:51:27Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233970 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 954
| date = September 21, 2011
| title = Chin-Up Bar
| image = chin up bar.png
| titletext = Those few who escaped found the emergency cutoff box disabled. The stampede lasted two hours and reached the bottom three times.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Black Hat]] has once again showed everyone that he is a [[classhole]], with a plan to block traffic on the {{w|Escalator#Longest individual escalators|longest single-tier escalator}} in the Western hemisphere. At the time of the comic's publishing, that placed the comic in the {{w|Wheaton (WMATA station)|Wheaton station}} in {{w|Washington D.C.}}'s {{w|Washington Metro}} subway system, where the 70-meter (230-foot) escalator is. It's clear that Black Hat knows it is the longest and that this is the reason he has chosen this exact escalator for his plan.

Black Hat carries a {{w|chin-up bar}} over his shoulder up the escalator, resulting in a conversation with [[Cueball]], riding up behind him, about Black Hat's motives for doing such. Black Hat uses sly conversing methods to avoid saying his true motives. First he counters the question with another question: ''Why aren't you wearing a hat?'' Cueball's reply is a normal ''I'm not really a hat person'', whereas Black Hat's copy reply is not a real answer; ''I'm not really a not-carrying-a-chin-up-bar person'', which is probably a sentence never used before this comic.{{Citation needed}} It takes Cueball a second to process this answer, but he doesn't give up and asks why again. Black Hat continues deflecting his questions by stating that he's ''not a psychologist'', although he clearly is aware of his own motives and intentions. (One could argue that it would take a psychology degree to explain those motives and intentions.)

After this they reach the top and once they get off Black Hat quickly turns around and locks the bar in place at about waist height (i.e. as high up as possible on an escalator), just before the moving part of the escalator ends.

Chin-up bars are typically capable of holding up a 300 pound (130 kg) person without moving, and a bar like Black Hat has brought with him can be [https://www.amazon.com/Sunny-Health-Fitness-Door-Chin/dp/B0016BNDXI/ref=sr_1_6?s=sports-and-fitness&ie=UTF8&qid=1470541509&sr=1-6&keywords=chin+up+bar installed easily in a doorway], or in the opening of an escalator…

The unexpected appearance of a solidly attached bar at the top of a crowded escalator could be disastrous. The first people would probably stumble backward to avoid it or hit it and topple backwards, and collide with the passengers immediately behind them, knocking them off their feet and likely creating a {{w|domino effect}} all the way down. Indeed, this is exactly what happens and is depicted in the last panel. Black Hat and Cueball are seen on the descending escalator in the background, Cueball has turned around looking at the scene and displaying worry about what Black Hat has done, but Black Hat isn't even looking at the chaos he has caused, completely ignoring all the falling bodies. Although it might be possible, the two are fairly lucky to be unscathed, as they could have been hit by someone in the pileup falling all the way over in their side of the escalator. Since they are most likely on the way down to a subway, the traffic should make it easy for them to get away on the next train, before anyone has a chance to try and find the perpetrator, so Black Hat gets away with his schemes once again.

In the title text it is made clear that the few people that actually escaped the moving stairs were unable to use the emergency shutdown because Black Hat had disabled the system, presumably before ascending in the first place. This is stated to have caused the {{w|stampede}} to last for two hours and waves of falling people would end up reaching the bottom three times, before ascending with the stairs again. The reason for this extended mayhem could be that only the very first people at the top of this domino effect who actually hit the chin-up-bar know what caused the problem to begin with. Since they are likely among those people too hurt to explain anything in time, the next group of people trying to get out after the first wave of falling people might just proceed to run into the same problem at the top once again. The problem is exacerbated by the disabled shutoff, so even if someone sees the chin-up-bar and knows how to escape, they would either be pulled back into the crowd of traffic or be free but unable to help. This helps to explain why the cycle of crowd collapse happened three times, and the use of the word "stampede" connotes the panicked, unorganized behavior of the trapped people that serves to make the problem worse.

Alternately, the stampede reaching the bottom might suggest that the people traversed the entire length of the escalator, though this is not sufficiently wide enough for a human body.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is in the middle of on an escalator with five other people as it ascends. He carries something like a a pole.]

:[Zoom in on Black Hat and Cueball.]
:Cueball: This is a long escalator.
:Black Hat: 70 meters. Longest in the country.

:[Black Hat goes upwards holding his pole.]

:[Cueball is still behind Black Hat.]
:Cueball: Why're you carrying a chin-up bar?
:Black Hat: Why aren't you wearing a hat?

:[The view returns to the original view only showing the six people ascending, only shifted so they are all a bit longer to the right.]
:Cueball: I'm not really a hat person.
:Black Hat: And I'm not really a not-carrying-a-chin-up-bar person.

:[Close up on Cueball on the escalator.]

:[Zoom out. Black Hat still has the pole in his hands.]
:Cueball: Seriously, why did you bring it?
:Black Hat: How should I know? I'm not a psychologist.

:[Zoom in on the top of the escalator where Black Hat steps off and installs the chin-up bar on the exit of the escalator.]
:''Twist'' ''Click'' ''Click''

:[View from above towards both ascending and descending escalators. Black Hat and Cueball are on the descending escalator.]

:[The final panel takes up two entire rows and shows all people falling down.]

==Trivia==
It would appear that the man behind Cueball with glasses and a goatee is the psychologist from [[435: Purity]], and then Megan next to him could be the sociologist from the same comic. This gives new meaning to Black Hat's line about not being a psychologist.

Escalators were also the subject of the earlier comic [[252: Escalators]], a rather more funny take on these dangerous devices.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Psychology]]
[[Category:Sabotage]]

2202: Earth-Like Exoplanet

2022-05-04T01:51:08Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235628 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2202
| date = September 13, 2019
| title = Earth-Like Exoplanet
| image = earth_like_exoplanet.png
| titletext = Fire is actually a potential biosignature, since it means something is filling the atmosphere with an unstable gas like oxygen. If we find a planet covered in flames, it might be an indicator that it supports life—or used to, anyway, before the fire.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is a reference to the {{w|K2-18b#Discovery_of_water|recent discovery}} of water vapor in the atmosphere of exoplanet {{w|K2-18b}}. The planet was discovered already in 2015 by the {{w|Kepler (spacecraft)|Kepler Space Observatory}}, orbiting the {{w|red dwarf}} star {{w|K2-18}}. {{w|Extraterrestrial liquid water|Water on exoplanets}} is considered a {{w|biosignature}}, meaning it's an indicator that there could be life there. However, as [[Megan]] reveals the planet's other characteristics, it becomes clear that it is unlikely to actually support life, and in fact is actually a horrible hellscape. The question of habitability by higher forms of life is profoundly different from the way {{w|astrobiology|astrobiologists}} use the term for microbes. Even a "survivable zone" can't mitigate the description of just how inhospitable this new wet planet would be to life as we know it, save possibly for {{w|extremophile}} organisms. In the comic [[1231: Habitable Zone]], this zone was the subject.

The planet being {{w|Tidal locking|tidally locked}} indicates that the same side would face the planet's star year-round, meaning half of the planet would be in constant day and the other half would be in constant night. It is believed that {{w|K2-18b#Physical_characteristics|K2-18b is tidally locked}}. Based on our (admittedly limited) understanding of life, {{w|abiogenesis}} can only occur in environments with liquid water; however, the day hemisphere would likely be so hot that all water found there would be in a gaseous state, and all water found in the night hemisphere would likely be frozen due to the intense cold. If life were to be found on this exoplanet, it would be in the twilight strip, a thin ring around the edge separating the two hemispheres where sunlight can reach but is refracted by the atmosphere. The environment in the twilight strip would thus experience something akin to an eternal sunset, and temperatures there would be moderate enough to allow life to come about.

Unfortunately, the other characteristics of the exoplanet severely undermine our chances of finding life even in its twilight strip, as there are many problems with the {{w|habitability of red dwarf systems}}.
* {{w|Stellar flare|Stellar flares}} are ejections of radiation and plasma from a star, and a planet being blasted with these searing-hot flares probably wouldn't readily support life. These are {{w|Habitability_of_red_dwarf_systems#Variability|common}} for red dwarfs, which can often be of the {{w|flare star}} type.
* Meteors are chunks of material that enter a planet's atmosphere, and if the planet is "blasted" by them it is likely that many of them are impacting the surface, thus becoming meteorites. As we know from {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event|the extinction of the dinosaurs}}, meteorites can have a sharply negative effect on a planet's habitability. There seems, however, to be no reason to believe this is a particular problem for this type of star system. This is where the comic starts to veer into absurdity.
* Strong acids are present in some planetary atmospheres, {{w|Atmosphere_of_Venus#Composition|including sulfuric acid in Venus's}}, and their hypothetical presence in the exoplanet's atmosphere would make life there even less likely. While life that evolves in a highly acidic environment might be able to withstand it, most life on Earth reacts poorly to strong acids. There is no reason to believe that the atmosphere of K2-18b is acidic. Apart from water the {{w|K2-18b#Discovery_of_water|atmosphere mainly consists}} of hydrogen and helium. However, there is also reason to believe the planet has {{w|K2-18b#Discovery_of_water|no solid surface}}.

The comic uses '''swinging blades''' as a metaphor to succinctly describe the planet's perilous conditions. That is, as far we know, there are no actual swinging blades on K2-18b.{{Citation needed}} Swinging blades made their first famous appearance in the Edgar Allan Poe poem "The {{w|Pit and the Pendulum}}," where the titular pendulum was a large blade swinging back and forth slowly. Due to the fame of Poe's work and the number of allusions made to it over the years, swinging blades have become a common feature in fictional deathtraps, and were used as an analogy to illustrate that the planet is chronically inhospitable to life.

"Biosignatures in the form of screaming" suggests that any life that had developed on the planet would be in continuous pain or fear due to their hazardous surroundings. In addition, this suggests that the screaming of these organisms would cause ripples in the atmosphere which we should be able to detect light-years away through the vacuum of space and that it would be more noticeable than other signs of life (such as the spectra from the ash produced by burning organic material.)

The title text mentions that fire could indicate the presence of life. This is because fire requires both fuel and oxygen (or some other similar, reactive gas). The occurrence of fire suggests that those things are both being continuously produced by some process. The most likely processes we know for producing oxygen are biological. The irony, of course, is that fire is also very dangerous, and almost universally lethal to organisms that are exposed to it for long enough. Munroe points out that oxygen reliably indicates that there was life, before the fire, with the implication that the fire may have killed everything.

==Transcript==
:[Side view of Megan standing behind a lectern, speaking to an off-panel audience in front of her. Two people from the audience react to her statement.]
:Megan: We've discovered the most earth-like exoplanet yet!
:Off-panel voices: ''Yay!!''

:[Front view of Megan behind lectern:]
:Megan: Well, it's in the habitable zone. Habitable-ish. "Habitable."
:Megan: The survivable zone.

:[In a frameless panel with the same setting as before, Megan holds her left hand out with palm up.]
:Megan: It's tidally locked. And blasted with stellar flares. And probably meteors. And bathed in acid.

:[Closeup side view of Megan, now holding up a finger on her left hand. Again an unseen audience member replies.]
:Megan: But we've detected water vapor! In between all the swinging blades.
:Off-panel voice: I see.
:Megan: We're hoping to find biosignatures in the form of screaming.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]

2453: Excel Lambda

2022-05-04T01:50:54Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235701 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2453
| date = April 21, 2021
| title = Excel Lambda
| image = excel_lambda_new.png
| titletext = Extremely rude how Turing's later formulations of the halting problem called me out by name specifically.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is computing and [[Ponytail]] criticizes him in a way that is reminiscent of the [[:Category:Code Quality|Code Quality series]], although not as harsh. Cueball has lots of strange [[:Category:Cueball Computer Problems|computer problems]], and this will most likely result in another one.

The comic begins with Ponytail finding out that {{w|Microsoft Excel}} is adding a {{w|Anonymous_function|lambda function}} to their function library. This was [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel-blog/announcing-lambda-turn-excel-formulas-into-custom-functions/ba-p/1925546 announced by Microsoft] for Beta users in December of 2020. A lambda function is a fundamental mathematical structure that can be used to define all possible computations, in what is known as {{w|lambda calculus}}. They are commonly found in programming languages such as {{w|Lisp}}, {{w|Python}}, and many others. A lambda function is also called an {{w|anonymous function}} because in most languages it can be passed to other functions (including another lambda function) without needing to be given any formal name.

Finding that Excel is adding a lambda function pleases Ponytail. Cueball claims that the lambda function is unnecessary, as when he needs arbitrary computation he just adds a block of columns to the side of his sheet and has a {{w|Turing machine}} process it. This would technically work as lambda calculus is formally equivalent to Turing machines. People have created [https://www.felienne.com/archives/2974 Turing machines in Excel], although not for practical purposes.

Ponytail finds his solution absurd and is convinced Cueball is "doing computing wrong". But he claims that all computing is equally wrong, citing the {{w|Church-Turing thesis}}, a hypothesis which says that a function can be computed by executing a series of instructions if and only if that function is computable by a Turing machine. A classical Turing machine uses an infinitely long strip of tape as its memory; for Cueball, the large Excel column acts as the "tape". All ways of computing are "equally wrong" since, according to this thesis, they can all be translated to or from a Turing machine.

Ponytail and Cueball appear to have different ideas of 'computing'. Ponytail, like most programmers, probably includes efficiency and readability as important characteristics of 'doing computing right'. Cueball appears interested only in {{w|computability}}, a more theoretical point of view than Ponytail's.

Ponytail then says that Turing would change his mind if he saw Cueball's spreadsheet, presumably because of the extreme complexity of Cueball's code in the spreadsheet. Cueball's final statement is that Turing could ask him to stop, but would not be able to prove if he actually will stop.

Cueball's final statement is a reference to the {{w|halting problem}} mentioned in the title text. It is the problem of determining whether a given Turing machine will halt. The problem has been shown to be undecidable, i.e., it is impossible to build an algorithm that computes whether any arbitrary Turing machine will halt or not. Because of the way Cueball has behaved, he has been specifically mentioned in Turing's later formulations of the halting problem. Cueball finds this very rude. This is of course a joke, since Turing has been dead since 1954, presumably long before Cueball was born. But it would be crazy indeed if a scientist became so mad at a person that they would mention this person by name in their formulation of a serious problem.

Over-complicated spreadsheets were also mentioned in [[2180: Spreadsheets]].

==Transcript==
:[In a narrow panel, Ponytail is walking in from the left, looking down at her phone]
:Ponytail: Oh cool, Excel is adding a lambda function, so you can recursively define functions.

:[Ponytail, holding her phone to her side stands behind Cueball, who is sitting in an office chair with a hand on a laptop standing on his desk. He has turned around to face her, leaning with the other arm on the back of the chair.]
:Cueball: Seems unnecessary.
:Cueball: When I need to do arbitrary computation, I just add a giant block of columns to the side of my sheet and have a Turing machine traverse down it.

:[In a frame-less panel Ponytail is standing in he same position behind Cueball, who has resumed working on his laptop with both hands on the keyboard.]
:Ponytail: I think you're doing computing wrong.
:Cueball: The Church-Turing thesis says that all ways of computing are '''''equally''''' wrong.

:[Ponytail is still behind Cueball, who has a finger raised in the air, and the other hand is on the desk. Cueball's head has a visible sketch layer which has not been erased.]
:Ponytail: I think if Turing saw '''''your''''' spreadsheets, he'd change his mind.
:Cueball: He can ask me to stop making them, but not prove whether I will!

==Trivia==
*In the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/3/3b/excel_lambda.png original version] of the comic, in the final panel, there was a gray pencil outline, slightly different to Cueball's head that had not been removed.
**This was later fixed in a re-upload.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Spreadsheets]]
[[Category:Programming]]

768: 1996

2022-05-04T01:50:34Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233041 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "1996". For comic #1996, see [[1996: Morning News]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 768
| date = July 19, 2010
| title = 1996
| image = 1996.png
| titletext = College Board issues aside, I have fond memories of TI-BASIC, writing in it a 3D graphing engine and a stock market analyzer. With enough patience, I could make anything... but friends. (Although with my chatterbot experiments, I certainly tried.)
}}

==Explanation==
There has been a stunning amount of progress in pretty much any measurable dimension of technology since 1996. We laugh at our prior naivete, pointing out that what would be a non-functionally awful computer now was considered state of the art at that time. Likewise with a {{w|PalmPilot|Palm Pilot}}, arguably a precursor to today's omnipresent smartphones. {{w|Texas Instruments|Texas Instrument (TI)}} calculators, however, appear to have been left behind, not having made any significant advances (or price drops) since the newly discovered issues of the US computer magazine ''{{w|Computer Shopper (US magazine)|Computer Shopper}}'' were published. Thus, while we groan at how awful our state of the art technologies truly were in 1996, we are reminded that some technologies have remained in relative stasis over the years.

The title text, after alluding to the fact that academia's practice of only allowing (or requiring) specific models is at the root of how TI can charge high prices for stagnant technology, reminds us that when they were new, TI calculators were relatively powerful tools if you knew how to use them. TI-Basic was a fairly versatile programming language that could be used to make anything from games to reference files to computational programs.

The second half of the title text is a reminder to those of us who felt like gods for knowing how to program that power comes at a price—in this case, the power to program a calculator costs [[866: Compass and Straightedge|friends]]. Since, as of this comic's publication date, no program yet devised had truly passed a Turing test, even the most sophisticated {{w|Chatterbot}} (program designed to mimic conversation) couldn't quite qualify as a friend. As of June 2014, however, [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/08/super-computer-simulates-13-year-old-boy-passes-turing-test a computer convinced 33% of the people who spoke to it that it was a human, qualifying it to pass the Turing Test]. Though some [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/09/turing-test-eugene-goostman_n_5474457.html skepticism] on this point is [http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/boxplot/did-chatbot-really-pass-turing-test needed], as it only passed the University's contest, not the actual {{w|Turing test}}.

Being unable to "make" friends was also later mentioned in [[866: Compass and Straightedge]].

While many people aren't aware of them, TI ''does'' make more modern calculators in their {{w|TI-Nspire series}}, although they were introduced after this comic was published. The newest versions have color screens and (''finally!'') non-BASIC programming support through {{w|Lua (programming language)|Lua}} and {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is going through a cardboard box marked "MISC", and finds a catalog. Megan looks on.]
:Cueball: Check it out - old ''Computer Shoppers!'' Wow - in 1996, $3,000 would get you a 100 MHz Pentium system with a parallel port, ''two'' serial ports, a 2MB video card, ''and'' "MS-Windows"
:Megan: ''Nice!''

:[The two are face-to-face, and they each have a separate copy of Computer Shopper.]
:Megan: And $299 would get you a Palm Pilot 100- - 16MHz, 128Kb storage, and a memo pad, calendar, and state-of-the-art address book that can store over 100 names!
:Cueball: Oooh!

:[Cueball continues to read from his.]
:Cueball: And $110 would get you a bulky TI graphing calculator with around 10MHz CPU, 24Kb RAM, and a 96x64-pixel B/W display!
:Megan: Times sure have... ...have... uh.

:[They both put down their catalogs.]
:Cueball: Okay, what the hell, T.I.?
:Megan: Maybe they cost so much now because there's only one engineer left who remembers how to make displays ''that'' crappy.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

289: Alone

2022-05-04T01:50:14Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 234962 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 289
| date = July 13, 2007
| title = Alone
| image = alone.png
| titletext = Worries assuaged, the numbers become less important than your touches.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is making love with [[Megan]] but, like many highly introverted people, his attention is split between his inner and outer worlds. Part of his mind is counting her touches, and another part is wondering why his brain does these things, automatically and without his wanting it to. This worries him, and he feels guilty because he isn't giving her his undivided attention, which he believes she deserves.

As he unwillingly counts her touches, he recognizes the {{w|Fibonacci sequence}}. This recognition shocks him: it's like she knows what is going on in his head, and she sends him this signal to tell him that it's okay and that she understands. Awestruck, Cueball is reassured and glories in her love.

The title text makes it clear that he is able to stop worrying about the counting and that he is able to let it continue just in the background. It doesn't stop, but it isn't nearly that important or salient as the touching done by Megan.

==Transcript==
:[Megan crawling on bed toward Cueball.]
:Cueball: It's not something you can turn off.
:[Cueball pulling Megan, bedspread, and pillow off of bed onto floor.]
:Cueball: A part of me is always detached. Abstracting, looking at numbers and patterns.
:[Megan on top of Cueball, both under bedspread, on floor. Megan looks to be 'touching' Cueball.]
:Cueball: When we should be closest, part of me is still so alone. Counting the touches of her fingertips. Touch. Touch. Touch touch. Touch touch touch. Touch touch touch touch touch.
:[Same scene as third panel.]
:Cueball: Wait. Is that... That's the Fibonacci sequence! Whatever I did to deserve you, it couldn't have been enough.

==Trivia==
*Randall forgot the period after "Counting the touches of her fingertips".

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Sex]]

178: Not Really Into Pokemon

2022-05-04T01:49:31Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233083 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 178
| date = October 11, 2006
| title = Not Really Into Pokemon
| image = not_really_into_pokemon.png
| titletext = As of this writing, Ubuntu 6.10 and Firefox 2.0 have left my computer a complete mess.
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Pokémon}}'' is a popular franchise that includes 5 children's animated television shows, a {{w|collectible card game}}, and a whole series of video games. The premise is that a young "trainer" goes out to explore the world and catch Pokémon: fanciful wild creatures that come in many varieties, ranging from [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Rhydon_(Pok%C3%A9mon) armoured dinosaurs that have drills for horns] to [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Genesect_(Pok%C3%A9mon) robotic bugs that change their type depending on the items they are holding]. When the trainer comes across wild Pokémon or other trainers, they use their Pokémon to fight each other.

In this comic, [[Randall]] claims that "I'm not really into Pokémon" can serve as an all-purpose phrase of condescending dismissal. The implied insult to the thing being dismissed can include:
* Childishness. Although it does have a significant adult following, the ''Pokémon'' franchise was and is mainly targeted at children.
* Frivolousness. The essential goal of ''Pokémon'' games, summed up in the slogan "Gotta Catch 'Em All," is to catch Pokémon for the sake of having them.
* Commercialism. ''Pokémon'' is a sprawling franchise that periodically releases new iterations, which (at least to a non-fan) can seem much like more of the same, only existing to make money. At present, the ''Pokémon'' universe contains {{w|List of Pokémon|over 800}} different types of Pokémon.
* Absurdity. As mentioned, the names and designs of individual Pokémon can be quite fanciful; "absurd" would be a more unkind way to put it.

The example in the comic is [[Black Hat]] dismissing {{w|Ubuntu}}, an open-source computer operating system. Ubuntu may have been particularly chosen as ''specifically'' suitable for the "Pokémon dismissal" for reasons such as:
* The name "Ubuntu," which (like the names of Pokémon) can sound strange or silly. Individual Ubuntu releases also have animal-themed names (like "Hoary Hedgehog" and "Saucy Salamander").
* The name "Ubuntu" sounds like a Pokemon [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Region region.]
* Its release schedule; new Ubuntu releases come out every six months, which might (like ''Pokémon'') be unfavourably described as putting out more of the same in new packaging.
* A notion that people try Ubuntu (and other {{w|Linux distribution}}s) just for the sake of doing so, like catching all the Pokémon.

The title text refers to the complications that new software releases can have on computers, especially if either the release is an alpha or beta release, or if the computer is rather old. Randall specifically mentions {{w|Ubuntu 6.10}} and {{w|Firefox 2.0}}, both of which were officially released around two weeks ''after'' this comic was posted, so the versions causing problems were certainly pre-release editions. While Randall does not detail any specific issues, the title text may paint a picture of two computer programs fighting each other inside the computer and making a mess in the process, as if they were Pokémon.

==Transcript==
:I have found the perfect phrase for condescendingly dismissing anything:
:Cueball: Have you seen the new Ubuntu release?
:Black Hat: Nah, I'm not really into Pokémon.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Linux]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]

1612: Colds

2022-05-04T01:49:12Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233387 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1612
| date = December 4, 2015
| title = Colds
| image = colds.png
| titletext = The contagious period ends right around when you start to sound sick over the phone, which is probably evidence of cold viruses evolving to spread optimally in the workplace.
}}

==Explanation==
The typical symptoms of a {{w|Common cold|cold}} are a sore throat, blocked or runny nose, sneezing, and coughing. Slightly less common symptoms can include headache, aching muscles and {{w|fever}}.

The earlier symptoms to occur following infection are generally the more unpleasant-feeling symptoms: headache, aching muscles, sneezing and feeling cold. However, these symptoms are also those which are least obvious to other people, and so elicit very little {{w|sympathy}}.

Within a few days, these symptoms start to subside, while a cough and runny nose start. These symptoms generally feel less unpleasant, but are much more noticeable to others, and so more sympathy may be given. The cough may lead to a hoarse voice, making the patient sound very ill; ironically, at this point, it may be easier for an employed person to phone in sick, but it is less desirable to stay off work.

But it is now when the patient sounds hoarse that others give the sympathy that was really needed when the patient was feeling awful during the first couple of days. And to [[Randall]] this is the worst about colds, that the patients first gets sympathy when it is no longer really needed.

The graph shows the above-mentioned facts as two curves, one that indicates how bad the sickness is, really bad on day 2, but much better already on day 3. And the other curve how bad the patient sounds due to the hoarseness and the coughing. And this curve first peaks around day 4-6 when the sympathy is no longer needed.

The symptoms of the two periods are listed below the curves indicating which periods are affected by them.

In the title text Randall muses about the fact that contagiousness ends around the time when hoarseness begins. This is the time when employers ask sick employees to stay at home in bed when they call in to the office, because they sound so hoarse. And also the time when coworkers will stay clear of those who do come in. But then it is too late, since everyone is probably already infected by then. Randall thus suggests that this is evidence that the cold virus has evolved to spread optimally in a work place. Since the cold virus is much older than offices this is unlikely. But it will always spread better in places where many people are close together; and since we are more inside in the winter, this is the main reason why it spreads more during cold periods. However, viruses do evolve very quickly so it may not be unlikely that some of them has already adapted to our present way of living.

Another thing that Randall doesn't like about cold is that no medicine works, and the one that relives you the most is hard to come by. This was the subject two weeks later in [[1618: Cold Medicine]], and this suggests that it is actually Randall himself who has a long lasting cold.

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown with two curves. The Y-axis indicated how you feel, with three levels indicated with small ticks on the inside of the axis. These are labeled to the left of the Y–axis. The X-axis gives the time. The unit is given (days written in gray text) to the left and then the number of days are noted below the axis for each of the eight ticks on the inside of the axis. Both curves begin at the lowest level just off the Y-axis. One curve, indicating how bad you feel, rises rapidly, reaching its maximum in less than two days only to fall off almost as rapidly, ending up on an even lower level than it began with before day 5. The other curve, indicating how bad you sound, start out by staying constantly low, first rising on day 3, when the first curve are drooping down. They cross between day 3 and 4, and first then does the second curve rise, reaching its max around day 5, not as high a maximum as the first curve, but it stays up longer, falling only moderately off even after day 8, where it reaches the middle level on the Y-axis. Above the two curves are two line intervals that indicated when you need sympathy and when you get it. This text is written on the broken line. All this is in gray text. Below the X-axis are the symptoms listed for the different time period. These are written in white inside gray rectangles. The rectangles are a different length depending on how many days they last. And they are in two layers.]

:[Y-axis:]
:The worst
:Bad
:Fine

:[The X-axis, with the unit written in gray just below ''Fine'' from the Y-axis:]
:Days: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

:[Labels for curves:]
:How bad you feel
:How bad you sound

:[Gray text on the two gray lines above:]
:Need sympathy
:Get sympathy

:[Text in white on gray below, first the three to the left (one above two below), then the two to the right one above the other:]
:Skin crawling
:Sore throat
:Aching
:Cough
:Hoarseness

:The worst part about colds

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]

410: Math Paper

2022-05-04T01:48:46Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235006 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 410
| date = April 14, 2008
| title = Math Paper
| image = math_paper.png
| titletext = That's nothing. I once lost my genetics, rocketry, and stripping licenses in a single incident.
}}

==Explanation==
The math paper [[Cueball]] is in the process of describing in this comic turns out to be nothing but an elaborate setup for a joke about {{w|imaginary friend}}s by taking the concept of "{{w|friendly number}}s" into the complex (imaginary) plane, which comprises complex numbers that have both a real and an imaginary part (see details [[#Math|below]]).

Cueball is challenged on this setup by his superiors, specifically the Cueball-like guy sitting at the end of the table, who look straight through his first line-up for the joke, and ask him directly if this is just a build-up for this joke. Cueball tries at first to look like he has no idea what he's talking about, then lowers his head, in shame, and finally tries to state that ''it might not be'' such a setup. But it is too late now.

Such a pun is both so obvious and so terrible that Cueball's superiors deem that he should no longer have a {{w|Licence to kill (concept)|license to ''math''}}, and they thus revoke Cueball's "math license." Of course you do not need a math license{{Citation needed}}, but that is part of the comic's concept along the lines mentioned here below and further elaborated in the title text.

It is a [[:Category:Banned from conferences|recurring theme]] in earlier xkcd comics that Cueball (or [[Randall]]) ends up being banned from holding presentations at conferences after a presentation turns out to be just an elaborate pun.

The title text takes the joke a step further, with the added hilarity of making the audience question exactly how Cueball/Randall was able to work a {{w|striptease}} into a presentation about {{w|genetic engineering}} and {{w|astrophysical}} rocket study (or possibly genetics and rockets into a striptease), and then even manage to lose all three licenses in one go. This is what TV Tropes calls a "{{tvtropes|NoodleIncident|noodle incident}}."

The whole comic is basically Randall making the joke that Cueball never got around to, but packing it up so we think it is about something else. Randall has often made such feeble jokes, but by putting them into a context where someone listening may comment on how bad that joke is or have to explain the joke, it somehow becomes alright, and he can get away with these jokes anyway. (See for instance [[18: Snapple]]).

===Math===
An {{w|imaginary number}} is a number that can be written as a real number multiplied by the imaginary unit ''i'', which is defined by its property ''i2 = -1'' (an impossibility for regular, "{{w|real numbers}}," for which all squares are positive). The name "imaginary number" was coined in the 17th century as a derogatory term, since such numbers were regarded by some as fictitious or useless, but over time, many applications in science and engineering have been found.

An imaginary number ''bi'' can be added to a real number ''a'' to form a {{w|complex number}} of the form ''a + bi'' (the formula shown at the bottom of Cueball's slide ), where ''a'' and ''b'' are called, respectively, the real part and the imaginary part of the complex number. If ''a'' and ''b'' are both integers, the complex number is called a {{w|Gaussian integer}} (as Cueball mentions). The {{w|complex plane}} is an X-Y plot with ''a'' on the X axis and ''b'' on the Y axis. (Such a plane is shown at the bottom of Cueball's slide).

Joel Bradbury (once) had the below cited and wonderful explanation of {{w|friendly number}}s on his site:

:What are Friendly Numbers?
:We need first to define a divisor function over the integers, written σ(n) if you're so inclined. To get it first we get all the integers that divide into n. So for 3, it's 1 and 3. For 4, it's 1, 2, and 4, and for 5 it's only 1 and 5.

:Now sum them to get σ(n). So σ(3) = 1 + 3 = 4, or σ(4) = 1 + 2 + 4 = 7, and so on.

:For each of these n, there is something called a characteristic ratio. Now that's just the divisors function over the integer itself: σ(n)/n. (This is the formula shown at the top of Cueball's slide). So the characteristic ratio where n = 6 is σ(6)/6 = 12/6 = 2.

:Once you have the characteristic ratio for any integer n, any other integers that share the same characteristic are called friendly with each other. (This is what is written in the frame in Cueball's slide, spelling friendly numbers as ''friendly #s''). So to put it simply, a friendly number is any integer that shares its characteristic ratio with at least one other integer. The converse of that is called a solitary number, where it doesn't share its characteristic with anyone else.

:1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are solitary. 6 is friendly with 28; σ(6)/6 = (1+2+3+6)/6 = 12/6 = 2 = 56/28 = (1+2+4+7+14+28)/28 = σ(28)/28.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, holding a pointing stick, is using it to point at an equation on a panel. He is looking to the right. There are several parts of the panel that can be read. At the top, there is a formula. Below is a frame with text. Below again to the left is an X-Y plot with small dots all over all four quadrants, probably indicating the complex numbers with ''b'' on the Y and ''a'' on the X axis. Finally, right of this is yet another formula.]
:Cueball: In my paper, I use an extension of the divisor function over the Gaussian integers to generalize the so-called "friendly numbers" into the complex plane.
:Panel:
::σ(n)/n = d(n)
::Friendly #s share d(n)
::For a + bi...

:[The audience to the right of Cueball consist of two Cueball-like guys (one in front and one in the back), and between them are Hairbun, with glasses, and Megan. They sit around a table; only Hairbun is on the near side. The Cueball-like guy sitting to the right is at the end of the table, the other two are on the far side. The Cueball at the end of the table is talking, the other three have turned to look at him:]
:Guy at the end of the table: Hold on. Is this paper simply a giant build-up to an "imaginary friends" pun?

:[Back to Cueball, who stands speechless.]

:[One more beat panel with Cueball, who now looks down.]

:[Zoom out to Cueball and the front end of the table with the Cueball-like guy who has not spoken yet and Hairbun who now looks at Cueball. Cueball looks up again and speaks. The guy at the end of the table speaks off panel.]
:Cueball: It might not be.
:Guy at the end of the table (off panel): I'm sorry, we're revoking your math license.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Banned from conferences]]
[[Category:Number theory]]
[[Category:Puns]]

1369: TMI

2022-05-04T01:48:31Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 234323 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1369
| date = May 16, 2014
| title = TMI
| image = tmi.png
| titletext = 'TMI' he whispered, gazing into the sea.
}}

==Explanation==
"TMI" is an acronym that means "too much information". It is typically used as a response to someone "oversharing" — telling personal details ("Sorry I just missed your call - I was urinating when the phone rang") that the listener would rather not have heard. Here, however, [[Cueball]] may be using it in a more literal and absolute sense: he feels {{w|Information overload|overwhelmed by the colossal amount of information}} that is now generally available to anyone with an Internet connection.

The title text amplifies this interpretation by evoking the image of an individual person who is overcome as he stands at the edge of the ocean, contemplating its vastness.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at a desk, looking at a laptop.]
:Cueball: Ugh, TMI.

:Offscreen: Oh? What?

:Cueball: Just... Everything.
:Offscreen: ''True.''

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

1341: Types of Editors

2022-05-04T01:48:19Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 236063 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1341
| date = March 12, 2014
| title = Types of Editors
| image = types_of_editors.png
| titletext = m-x machineofdeath-mode
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|WYSIWYG}}, pronounced, "wizzy-wig" IPA /ˈwɪziˌwɪg/, is an acronym that stands for "What you see is what you get". In regards to computers, it refers to text editors in which the user can see exactly what will be published as they are typing it. The comic compares various types of editors, each one a play-on-words on WYSIWYG.

*A WYSIWYG editor displays the edited document in its final form. This could be a printed paper, a web page, a PDF document, and more. This is a real term used for text editors.
*A WYSINWYG editor is the opposite; there is a distinct difference between what the editor displays, and what will be printed. Hence, what you see is ''not'' what you get. They are also known as source editors, such as a {{w|wiki markup}} editor or {{w|TeX}}. In the comic an HTML source editor is shown, where you enter raw HTML code and then presented with the rendered appearance of the final page. The <nowiki></nowiki>-tag marks text that has stress emphasis.
*The WYSITUTWYG ("... is totally unrelated to ...") editor apparently takes your input and proceeds to ignore it entirely, instead displaying totally unrelated words. Possibly a commentary on the Autocorrect function. Randall seems to have made this term up. The phrase "The HORSE is a noble animal" seems to refer to the {{w|Stereotypes of animals#Horses|stereotypes}} commonly associated with horses, or possibly to {{w|Houyhnhnm}} in ''{{w|Gulliver's Travels}}'', an extreme version of those stereotypes.
*WYSIHYD ("... is how you die") shows an "editor" which is not really an editor at all, but rather a pun on the multiple meanings of the word "get": If you ''see'' "eaten by wolves", you will ''get''... eaten by wolves. As in physically attacked and devoured by wolves. This is an example of the [[wikipedia:use-mention distinction|use-mention distinction]], or simply ''get'' meaning "to receive" or "to become" (compare German's different evolution: ''werden'' ("to become") but ''bekommen'' ("to receive")).

The title text is a fictitious command, {{w|meta key|meta}}-x machineofdeath-mode, to the highly extensible {{w|Emacs}} text editor. Emacs operates in various "modes", which are customizations for specific purposes. Placing Emacs into "Machine of Death" mode would turn it into a WYSIHYD editor. (For another fictitious emacs command see [[378: Real Programmers]]). See [[#Machine of Death book|below]] for why this was used.

===Machine of Death book===
This is a reference to "{{w|Machine of Death}}". This book from 2010 is a collection of short stories edited by amongst other {{w|Ryan North}} (of {{w|Dinosaur Comics}}) mentioned here since the idea was based on one of [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=675 his comics]. Since [[Randall Munroe]] wrote one of the stories the reference is very likely, and would be Randall's first [[:Category:Book promotion|book promotion]] in xkcd, but not the last. All the stories are based around a device, the "Machine of Death", that can predict, with 100% accuracy though generally with extreme ambiguity, how people die from a drop of their blood. In many of the stories very unusual deaths are predicted, often in a very literal way, but not so you know when or where you will die. From the [http://machineofdeath.net/ official home page] the entire book can be downloaded for free as a [http://machineofdeath.net/ebook PDF file]. (Randall's story begins on page 421 - or page 218 of the two sided PDF file. It is simply called "?"). In [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]] the default question is ''How will I die?'' and can then be answered by an ''Emojic 8 Ball'', which would make it a type of Machine of Death.

==Transcript==
:[There are four panels, each with different headings and explanations of the headings above the panels.]

:[The first three panels shows two titled text boxes, one above the other, with text inside. This text is formated with both small and capital letters as opposed to all capital letters in the rest of the comic.]

:[Heading panel 1:]
:'''WYSIWYG'''
:What you see is
:what you get

:[Panel 1.]
:What you see:
:''Hi''
:What you get:
:''Hi''

:[Heading panel 2:]
:'''WYSINWYG'''
:What you see is
:not what you get

:[Panel 2.]
:What you see:
:<nowiki>Hi</nowiki>
:What you get:
:''Hi''

:[Heading panel 3:]
:'''WYSITUTWYG'''
:What you see is totally
:unrelated to what you get

:[Panel 3.]
:What you see:
:<nowiki>Hi</nowiki>
:What you get:
:The HORSE is a noble animal.

:[The fourth panel shows two titled text areas, the top is a black rectangle with white text in a very large font, and the bottom text area is not outlined with a border.]

:[Heading panel 4:]
:'''WYSIHYD'''
:What you see is
:how you die

:[Panel 4.]
:What you see:
:'''EATEN BY WOLVES'''
:What you get:
::Eaten by wolves

==Trivia==
*"The horse is a noble animal" is the name of a giant rocking-horse sculpture in {{w|Yorkshire}}.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Emacs]]
[[Category:Book promotion]]

730: Circuit Diagram

2022-05-04T01:48:01Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235996 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 730
| date = April 21, 2010
| title = Circuit Diagram
| image = circuit_diagram.png
| titletext = I just caught myself idly trying to work out what that resistor mass would actually be, and realized I had self-nerd-sniped.
}}

==Explanation==
Another fine example of [[356|nerd sniping]], as mentioned in the title text.
There are pieces of circuit diagrams, road maps, chemical diagrams, and other things all mixed in.
Explanations for each below!

{|class="wikitable table-padding left-align"
!Image Fragment
!width="130px" | Image Location
!Description
|-
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=19|Y=25|W=106|H=37|image=circuit_diagram-019-025-106-037-scale.png|text=A map scale. Lists kilometers and miles as equivalent. (And makes the diagram many miles wide.)}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=15|Y=62|W=40|H=85|image=circuit_diagram-015-062-040-085-antenna.png|text=An antenna. Typical of radio receivers or transmitters. Or the Turtle in {{w|Logo (programming language)|LOGO programming language}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=53|Y=60|W=41|H=87|image=circuit_diagram-053-060-041-087-inductor.png|text=A coil or {{w|inductor}}. Normal, but unlabeled.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=107|Y=86|W=85|H=93|image=circuit_diagram-107-086-085-093-cloverleaf.png|text=A {{w|cloverleaf interchange}} or junction is a feature of road networks that does not belong in a circuit diagram. Of course, other types of {{w|p–n junction|junctions}} are important in electronics.
A cloverleaf junction has previously been used in comic: [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]].}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=184|Y=12|W=87|H=63|image=circuit_diagram-184-012-087-063-battery.png|text=A battery. The voltage of square root of two is strange, but getting about 1.41412... volts is not unheard of. This could also indicate an {{w|Root_mean_square|RMS}} voltage, although this is unlikely given that this is a DC power supply and not an AC generator. The marked polarity is also the reverse of what is implied by the symbol (where the larger terminal is positive). A possible reference to [[567: Urgent Mission]].}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=187|Y=110|W=94|H=71|image=circuit_diagram-187-110-094-071-resister.png|text=A 120 ohm {{w|resistor}} is normal enough. "Or to taste" is odd for a circuit diagram and more like instructions from a recipe, e.g., "1 tbsp tomato purée, or to taste".}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=283|Y=50|W=90|H=63|image=circuit_diagram-283-050-090-063-switch.png|text=A normal {{w|switch}}, with a notation to glue it open. Reminiscent of the [http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/magic-story.html MAGIC/MORE MAGIC] switch.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=337|Y=101|W=69|H=64|image=circuit_diagram-337-101-069-064-transisitor.png|text=A {{w|Bipolar_junction_transistor#PNP|bipolar PNP transistor}}, except that it has two emitters and no collector. It also resembles one of the schematic symbols for a {{w|DIAC}}, except the arrows are backwards.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=52|Y=141|W=79|H=107|image=circuit_diagram-052-141-079-107-compass-points.png|text=Compass points. A map feature, not a circuit feature, but possibly useful given the circuit is many miles wide.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=415|Y=18|W=63|H=58|image=circuit_diagram-415-018-063-058-resister.png|text=A normal resistor, labeled with color code. Brown-Blue-Orange would be 16000 ohms. {{w|Electronic color code|Resistor color codes}} are for reading the value on the physical device itself. They would not normally be shown on the circuit diagram, where it's much easier to just write the number, e.g. 16K.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=517|Y=14|W=42|H=32|image=circuit_diagram-517-014-042-032-diode.png|text=A normal {{w|diode}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=615|Y=55|W=73|H=74|image=circuit_diagram-615-055-073-074-666timer.png|text=A chip. The normal timer is a "{{w|555_timer_IC|555}}". "666" would be the number of the beast in [http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rev&c=13&v=18&t=KJV#18 Rev. 13:18]. The pin connected to "?" is the CTRL pin on a normal 555 timer, which would typically be connected to ground (via a decoupling capacitor) if used at all; the implication here seems to be that it would be connected directly to Hell itself.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=632|Y=138|W=69|H=41|image=circuit_diagram-632-138-069-041-bat.png|text=A Batman logo.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=650|Y=211|W=75|H=71|image=circuit_diagram-650-211-075-071-squirrel.png|text=A squirrel, or perhaps a wire bent into the shape of a squirrel. {{w|Electrical disruptions caused by squirrels|Squirrels are among the leading causes of disruptions to electrical grids,}} so having one as part of a circuit is inviting disaster. [[:Category:Squirrels|Squirrels]] also appear in past and future xkcd comics.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=606|Y=165|W=54|H=53|image=circuit_diagram-606-165-054-053-inductor.png|text=A coil or inductor, or a spring symbol in Physics force diagrams, probably the latter as it is labeled with an 11-kilogram mass.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=538|Y=209|W=99|H=59|image=circuit_diagram-538-209-099-059-generator.png|text=A 240-volt AC generator (or other power source).}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=483|Y=186|W=111|H=103|image=circuit_diagram-483-186-111-103-shorted-generator.png|text=A shorting wire around a generator. The label reads "Omit this if you're a wimp." If this wire is included, it will quickly melt - or worse.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=419|Y=78|W=57|H=75|image=circuit_diagram-419-078-057-075-scarab-beetles.png|text=A jar of {{w|Scarabaeidae|scarab beetles}}. Possibly a conflation of a {{w|Leyden jar}}, that is an actual very old-style electrical/electronic component, and something like a {{w|killing jar}} or other {{w|Insect trap|insect-collection equipment}}. Or even, due to the traditionally Egyptian beetles, a repurpsed {{w|canopic jar}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=482|Y=47|W=28|H=44|image=circuit_diagram-482-047-028-044-variable-resister.png|text=A {{w|variable resistor}} with center tap. Normally, there would be an arrowhead on the center tap.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=507|Y=53|W=22|H=27|image=circuit_diagram-507-053-022-027-capacitor.png|text=A normal {{w|capacitor}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=577|Y=318|W=96|H=62|image=circuit_diagram-577-318-096-062-magic.png|text="{{w|Magic Smoke}}" is the legendary stuff that all circuit components require to function. This is why all components cease to function after releasing smoke.{{Citation needed}} }}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=669|Y=315|W=51|H=66|image=circuit_diagram-669-315-051-066-frayed-wires.png|text=Some frayed or dangling wires. The wire on the left seems confused because it did not manage to cross with the one on the right.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=567|Y=392|W=58|H=48|image=circuit_diagram-567-392-058-048-buoy.png|text=An object which is either a {{w|Fishing float|float}} used in fishing, a {{w|Tippe top}}, or perhaps a {{w|Naval mine|mine}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=458|Y=336|W=111|H=86|image=circuit_diagram-458-336-111-086-moral-rectifier.png|text=A {{w|Diode_bridge|bridge rectifier}}, which would normally turn alternating current at the top and bottom into direct current on the left and right. In this case, it is labeled as a "moral rectifier". This is presumably a play on the idea of moral rectitude – it makes your circuit more moral. Why this matters in a circuit is unclear.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=423|Y=259|W=80|H=85|image=circuit_diagram-423-259-080-085-warm-front.png|text=This resembles both the schematic symbol for part of a {{w|transformer}} and the meteorological symbol for a warm front. A {{w|warm front}} is a feature on a {{w|Surface weather analysis|synoptic weather map}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=190|Y=199|W=54|H=52|image=circuit_diagram-190-199-054-052-battery.png|text=A normal 50-volt battery.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=173|Y=200|W=89|H=56|image=circuit_diagram-173-200-089-056-shorted-battery.png|text=A battery is grounded on both sides. Something will melt or burn out quickly, unless these are separate "earth ground"s, in which case the ground might get a bit cooked.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=259|Y=198|W=174|H=25|image=circuit_diagram-259-198-174-025-pull-wire.png|text=Text reads "Pull this wire really tight". This kind of physical-property issue may indicate a high-frequency radio device. Or, given the absurdity of the context, it's a silly reference to a "high tension wire."}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=141|Y=211|W=41|H=91|image=circuit_diagram-141-211-041-091-3-8-inch.png|text=A specified 3/8-inch separation. This probably indicates a carefully controlled capacitance issue. Also contradicts the scale of the drawing, by which the distance shown would be about 0.8 miles or 0.8 km. Or both.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=173|Y=309|W=92|H=59|image=circuit_diagram-173-309-092-059-eel.png|text=An {{w|electric eel}}. This may be an effective power source in the circuit, capable of producing a shock at up to 600 volts and 1 ampere of current (600 watts), but for less than 2 ms.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=266|Y=307|W=35|H=41|image=circuit_diagram-266-307-035-041-resistor.png|text=A normal resistor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=222|Y=358|W=34|H=29|image=circuit_diagram-222-358-034-029-capacitor.png|text=A normal capacitor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=130|Y=335|W=44|H=40|image=circuit_diagram-130-335-044-040-resistor.png|text=A normal resistor, labeled "ë". This may be a play on {{w|e (mathematical constant)|Euler's Number}}, which doesn't normally have a {{w|tréma}} or an {{w|umlaut (linguistics)|umlaut}}. Alternatively instead of being an umlaut or tréma it may indicate the second {{w|derivative}} of e with respect to time in {{w|Newton's notation}}, in which case, as e is a constant, the resistance of this element is zero.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=65|Y=249|W=61|H=92|image=circuit_diagram-065-249-061-092-blender.png|text=Our best guess is that this is a {{w|blender}}. Due to the scale, this would certainly be the worlds largest blender. Record setting blenders are not typically part of computer circuits{{Citation needed}}}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=20|Y=342|W=115|H=73|image=circuit_diagram-020-342-115-073-arduino.png|text=An {{w|arduino}}, labeled "Arduino, just for blog cred". May refer to the fact that inexpensive, easy-to-integrate single-board computers like the arduino, which have contributed to the rise of {{w|Maker culture}}, are used and discussed frequently in that culture, and the use of one might impress readers. The comment implies that an arduino is not otherwise needed in this circuit, although it is necessarily hard to tell, given the other components of the circuit.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=39|Y=423|W=118|H=82|image=circuit_diagram-039-423-118-082-meca.png|text=A chip labeled "Most expensive chip available". The small curve at the top is a part of the packaging designed to show its orientation.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=159|Y=428|W=91|H=50|image=circuit_diagram-159-428-091-050-neck-strap.png|text=Labeled "Neck Strap". Perhaps a piece of torture equipment or indicating that the circuit is part of an {{w|electric chair}}? May also be a reference to the grounded wrist straps people working with electronics commonly wear, to prevent accidental static discharges from frying the circuitry.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=147|Y=480|W=110|H=88|image=circuit_diagram-147-480-110-088-switch.png|text=A switch labeled "Hire someone to open and close switch real fast." Possibly meant to perform the function of an {{w|Electronic oscillator|oscillator}} in a more hackish manner and the reason for the neck strap. Could also be a reference to {{w|Maxwell's Demon}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=273|Y=498|W=61|H=64|image=circuit_diagram-273-498-061-064-resistor.png|text=A 5 ohm resistor labeled "(decoy)". One end is not attached to anything. Perhaps this indicates wishful thinking that electrons might be tricked into entering this part of the circuit despite the fact that there's nowhere for them to go?}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=307|Y=453|W=103|H=56|image=circuit_diagram-307-453-103-056-tongue.png|text=A pair of contacts, labeled "Touch Tongue Here". Could be referring to the practice of daring someone to touch their tongue to the contacts of a 9V battery.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=301|Y=270|W=45|H=45|image=circuit_diagram-301-270-045-045-frown.png|text=A frowny-face. See the float/mine.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=294|Y=311|W=128|H=124|image=circuit_diagram-294-311-128-124-IC.png|text=A small integrated circuit. The lower gate is an {{w|Inverter (logic gate)|inverter}}, wired as a free-running oscillator. The upper gate is an {{w|XOR gate|XOR}} wired to act as either a free-running oscillator or a latch. Since the XOR will be slower than the inverter, the overall output of the upper gate is probably very chaotic. Two "input" wires are not connected at all. An additional wire is attached to the top with hot glue. This last wire probably acts to control static electricity and leakage.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=302|Y=235|W=91|H=25|image=circuit_diagram-302-235-091-025-curve.png|text=A caution sign at a curve. Another road feature in the circuit. This is a play on the notion that 90-degree corners on printed circuit board traces can disrupt signal integrity.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=401|Y=455|W=67|H=68|image=circuit_diagram-401-455-067-068-CH3.png|text=A {{w|methyl group}} (chemistry) attached to a corner. If the circuit were an organic chemical, it would be reasonable to find a number of these.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=453|Y=167|W=43|H=93|image=circuit_diagram-453-167-043-093-baloon.png|text=A balloon, possibly blowing in a breeze.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=572|Y=68|W=22|H=43|image=circuit_diagram-572-068-022-043-inductor.png|text=A coil or inductor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=508|Y=96|W=42|H=20|image=circuit_diagram-508-096-042-020-inductor.png|text=A coil or inductor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=534|Y=61|W=22|H=31|image=circuit_diagram-534-061-022-031-ground.png|text=A ground connection.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=472|Y=49|W=134|H=140|image=circuit_diagram-472-049-134-140-solderr-blob.png|text=A {{w|Soldering#Soldering_defects|solder blob}} covering a portion of the circuit. Normally, this would not be part of the circuit diagram, but a mistake in building the circuit.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=493|Y=443|W=207|H=158|image=circuit_diagram-493-443-207-158-res-rats-nest.png|text=A rat's nest of 1 ohm resistors. It is labeled "Oh, so you think you're such a whiz at EE201?" The name EE201 (Electrical Engineering 201) follows US course naming conventions for what appears to be a basic level course in electrical engineering (compare the term {{w|101 (term)|101}}), which would include being taught how to [http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Series-and-Parallel-Resistance calculate the effective resistance of various resistor networks]. Performing the calculation on a network this complex would probably be very difficult. Experimentally, the resistance of the mass can be measured as, likely coincidentally, about π/4.
A grid of 1 ohm resistors has appeared earlier in [[356: Nerd Sniping]], a comic also referred to in the title text.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=315|Y=533|W=232|H=200|image=circuit_diagram-362-531-151-167-arena.png|text=An {{w|arena}}, with a few bodies in it. Note the direction of movement enforced by the surrounding diodes, {{w|Mad_Max_Beyond_Thunderdome|"two men enter, one man leaves"}}, a film reference.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=569|Y=653|W=47|H=51|image=circuit_diagram-569-653-047-051-resistor.png|text=A "{{w|pi}}" ohm resistor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=610|Y=655|W=75|H=70|image=circuit_diagram-610-655-075-070-generator.png|text=A 500-volt AC generator. The wiring to the right shorts out this generator.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=481|Y=682|W=85|H=64|image=circuit_diagram-481-682-085-064-ground.png|text=A ground connection, labeled "Bury deep, but not too deep". This type of ground connection is called an "earth ground" The "too deep" part might be a reference to {{w|Moria (Middle-earth)|Moria}} in Lord of Rings. The dwarves dug too deeply and disturbed a Balrog. See also comic [[760]].}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=17|Y=610|W=75|H=73|image=circuit_diagram-017-610-075-073-fishhook.png|text=A ground connection at the end of a curve, looking like a fishhook. Means perhaps "earthed down under", i.e., Australia or the southern hemisphere.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=206|Y=662|W=66|H=45|image=circuit_diagram-206-662-066-045-yarn.png|text=A length of "wire" is labeled "yarn". This probably makes it a terrible conductor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=102|Y=590|W=93|H=88|image=circuit_diagram-102-590-093-088-fluxcapacitor.png|text=The {{w|DeLorean time machine#Flux capacitor|flux capacitor}} from {{w|Back to the Future}}. This may be difficult to implement, since flux capacitors are not available to most people,{{Citation needed}}}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=138|Y=685|W=54|H=24|image=circuit_diagram-138-685-054-024-I95.png|text=A road sign for "I-95". {{w|Interstate 95}} is the main north-south highway on the east coast of the United States, running from Maine to Florida.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=12|Y=713|W=134|H=36|image=circuit_diagram-012-713-134-036-tothesun.png|text=A connection labeled "To center of Sun". A 93-million-mile or 150-million-km circuit is rather large.{{Citation needed}}}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=31|Y=753|W=144|H=177|image=circuit_diagram-031-753-144-177-rats-nest.png|text=A rat's nest of wires. Everything winds up being connected. May also be a parody diagram of an [http://i.stack.imgur.com/np2p9.png undirected graph], from graph theory.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=22|Y=513|W=97|H=61|image=circuit_diagram-022-513-097-061-esf.png|text=A label reading "Electrons Single File". If this happens, the resistance in this section of wire would be rather high.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=256|Y=619|W=29|H=39|image=circuit_diagram-256-619-029-039-ground.png|text=A ground connection.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=589|Y=600|W=58|H=46|image=circuit_diagram-589-600-058-046-vibrator.png|text=A vibrator, which would be a motor with an off-center weight attached to it.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=532|Y=779|W=74|H=52|image=circuit_diagram-532-779-074-052-motor.png|text=A motor, labeled "To Scale". This indicates that the physical size and shape of the motor must match the size of the parts around it, or is consistent with the specified scale of the drawing. }}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=662|Y=822|W=73|H=109|image=circuit_diagram-662-822-073-109-holy-ground.png|text=A ground connection, in a beaker labeled "{{w|Holy Water}}", possibly creating {{w|Holy ground (religion)|holy ground}}.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=197|Y=740|W=48|H=55|image=circuit_diagram-197-740-048-055-speed.png|text=A sign indicating a speed limit of 55 MPH. This is a rather typical road sign, but inappropriate for a circuit diagram. It is presumably referring to the speed of individual electrons, which can normally vary up to almost the speed of light - although based on the width of the wire and assuming about 1A of current, the ''average'' speed of all electrons, the drift velocity, is likely to be in the order of 10-17mph.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=238|Y=706|W=100|H=116|image=circuit_diagram-238-706-100-116-flipflop.png|text=A pair of {{w|NOR gate}}s wired as a SR (set-reset) {{w|Flip-flop (electronics)|flip-flop}}. The label reads "May use an actual sandal instead", which is a play on the meanings of the term "{{w|Flip-flops|flip-flop}}". Also,the gate looks like a sandal.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=322|Y=708|W=70|H=54|image=circuit_diagram-322-708-070-054-holdingpen.png|text=Something that could be the side view of a fence, labeled "Holding Pen".}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=339|Y=777|W=42|H=49|image=circuit_diagram-339-777-042-049-knot.png|text=A simple {{w|overhand knot}}. Also looks like a pretzel, which would have pretty high resistance.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=191|Y=889|W=149|H=33|image=circuit_diagram-191-889-149-033-ecg.png|text=This appears to be an {{w|Electrocardiography|electrocardiograph}} (ECG) trace, but not the sort that would be seen in a healthy person. If this were a real ECG trace, the absence of large, clear {{w|P wave (electrocardiography)|P waves}} might indicate {{w|Atrial Fibrillation|fine atrial fibrillation}}, but in some recording configurations, P waves are sometimes lost in the noise anyway. Additionally, without a time scale to tell us the ventricular heart rate, it is impossible to make a strong educated diagnosis of any hypothetical disease at all. If we assume it is atrial fibrillation, it is not clear if Randall intended this, or if he is just not familiar with how a normal ECG should look. Lastly, we should throw all of these findings out of the window, as it does not appear that this is an actual ECG machine, but simply a bent wire, much like the "Not a resistor" label nearby.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=223|Y=826|W=82|H=68|image=circuit_diagram-223-826-082-068-photodiode.png|text=A {{w|photodiode}}, labeled "Tear Collector". A photodiode is a light-sensing device.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=373|Y=859|W=49|H=68|image=circuit_diagram-373-859-049-068-lamp.png|text=A lamp. This is not [http://electronicsclub.info/circuitsymbols.htm the symbol used in electrical circuits], but a drawing of a lightbulb.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=450|Y=887|W=65|H=32|image=circuit_diagram-450-887-065-032-inductor.png|text=A coil or inductor.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=537|Y=847|W=120|H=72|image=circuit_diagram-537-847-120-072-inductor.png|text=A coil or inductor, labeled "Take off shirt while wiring this part. Ooh, yeah, I like that." Stripping while wiring plays on the more mundane action of stripping a wire.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=504|Y=860|W=34|H=41|image=circuit_diagram-504-860-034-041-resistor.png|text=A resistor labeled "?". Presumably this means the resistance is unknown.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=459|Y=828|W=55|H=38|image=circuit_diagram-459-828-055-038-resistor.png|text=A resistor labeled "YES". Likely another improper unit - a reference to boolean values YES (TRUE) and NO (FALSE). Depending on the limits of a circuit, a resistor would still have a YES boolean value. Possibly indicating that this is a real resistor, as opposed to the one above it in the circuit, labeled "not a resistor." This may also be a reference to the question: "How much INSERT OBJECT HERE do you want?, Yes."}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=389|Y=774|W=58|H=53|image=circuit_diagram-389-774-058-053-resistor.png|text=A resistor labeled "8 mm". Resistance is measured in ohms, and while it might be useful to specify the dimensions of a component to be used (usually on an actual assembly template, or other written documentation, rather than upon a connectivity diagram) the lack of required resistance rating/acceptable range adds far more doubt.}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=443|Y=747|W=93|H=84|image=circuit_diagram-443-747-093-084-resistor.png|text=A resistor labeled "Not a resistor; wire just does this". Apparently the wire is or must be physically bent into a zig-zag shape, which would not serve much useful purpose in a low frequency or DC circuit, or perhaps it reflects the fact that any wire has a certain (small) amount of resistance just by being a wire. In a {{w|Radio frequency|high frequency circuit}} this can be actually useful, as the shape and length of the {{w|Transmission line|transmission line}} alters the {{w|Electrical impedance|impedance}} of the line. ([https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phaseshifter2.png Example])}}
{{circuit-diagram-part|X=415|Y=863|W=82|H=24|image=circuit_diagram-415-863-082-024-unsure.png|text=A symbol for a feedthrough capacitor, labeled "3 Liters". Probable word-play on "capacity/capacitor." Also similar to the symbol for an orifice or flow restriction used on plumbing or hydraulic diagrams, in which case the "3 Liters" might mean 3 liters per minute or per second.}}
|}

==Transcript==
:[In the upper left corner there is a map scale, labeled with 1 mi (1 km).]
:[Underneath the scale is a circuit diagram with the following items connected:]
:An antenna symbol.
:A blender.
:An Arduino, labeled with "Arduino, just for blog cred".
:A chip, labeled "Most expensive chip available".
:A symbol for an inductor.
:A pattern that looks like a highway cloverleaf.
:A battery symbol (with the + and - symbols on the wrong ends) with a value of √2V.
:A resistor symbol label "120Ω or to taste".
:A switch that is labeled "glue open".
:A transistor with two emitters, one P and one N, and no collector.
:A jar of scarab beetles.
:A resistor labeled "brown blue orange".
:An unlabeled resistor with a center tap.
:A capacitor.
:A diode.
:A ground.
:An inductor.
:An another inductor.
::The two inductors and ground are all covered by a "solder blob".
:A "666 timer" that has pin 5 going into a question mark.
:A compass rose.
:A battery, labeled 50V, with grounds on both sides.
:A long horizontal wire that is labeled "pull this wire really tight".
:An AC source that is labeled 240V, shorted out, with a label on the short "Omit this if you're a wimp."
:An inductor that is labeled with "11kg".
:A Batman symbol.
:A squirrel.
:A wire that is labeled as a distance 3/8".
:A 50V battery.
:A frowny face.
:A vertical wire with a 90 degree bend labeled "caution".
:A balloon.
:An inductor symbol with a line on the bottom edge labeled as "warm front".
:A resistor labeled "ë".
:An electric eel.
:A capacitor.
:An unlabeled resistor.
:A gob of hot glue attached to a chip with an inverter hooked to an XOR gate, both with feedback into each other.
:A neck strap.
:A bridge rectifier labeled as "Moral rectifier".
:A bottle of magic smoke.
:A fishing bobber.
:A broken wire labeled with a question mark.
:A vertical wire labeled with "electrons single file".
:A switch labeled "Hire someone to open and close switch real fast."
:A contact labeled "touch tongue here".
:A resistor labeled "5Ω (decoy)" with only one terminal connected.
:A methyl group attached to a wire.
:A complex mesh of 1Ω resistors labeled with "Oh, so you think you're such a whiz at EE201?"
:A wire labeled "electrons single file".
:A wire bent in a U shape with an upside-down ground on the end.
:A flux capacitor with the bottom wire labeled "I-95".
:A wire labeled "yarn".
:An arena with two diodes going in and one leaving.
:An anode labeled "Bury deep, but not too deep."
:A motor labeled "vibrator".
:A resistor with a value of π.
:A 500V AC source.
:A wire that leads out of frame with a label "to center of sun".
:A 55 MPH speed limit sign.
:An SR latch (flip-flop) labeled "may use an actual sandal instead".
:A holding pen.
:A wire in a knot.
:A resistor labeled "8mm".
:A resistor symbol labeled "not a resistor; wire just does this".
:A motor symbol labeled "to scale".
:A tangled mess of wires connected and jumping over each other.
:A photo diode labeled "tear collector".
:A wire in the shape of a ECG.
:A light bulb.
:A capacitor-looking symbol labeled "3 liters".
:A resistor labeled "yes".
:An unlabeled inductor.
:A resistor with a question mark as a label.
:An inductor labeled "Take off shirt while wiring this part. Ooh, yeah, I like that."
:A ground symbol immersed in a beaker of holy water.

==Trivia==

*This is one of the [[:Category:Footer comics|six footer comics]] linked at the bottom part of the {{xkcd}} website.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Footer comics]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Back to the Future]]

1970: Name Dominoes/Numbered images

2022-05-04T01:47:47Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235616 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

*Below is the numbered image that have been created from the [https://xkcd.com/1970/large/ large version] of the image in [[1970: Name Dominoes]] so it can be used in the explanation of each of the tiles.

==Numbered image==
*'''For a version that fits to the screen'''
**'''Use [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/7/73/1970-_Name_Dominoes_-_The_large_image_with_numbers.jpg this link]'''
***The [[#Full image|full image]] is included below.
*The numbering has been done as well as possible from left to right top to bottom, taking approximately two rows of domino pieces for each swipe across the picture.
**Thus if a piece is fully or partly located inside the current swipe, then it will be numbered this time. If it is below it will be numbered in the next swipe.
**If a piece extends above the current swipe, then it should have been numbered during the previous swipe.
***There have been several times the rules have been broken, but the further down the picture the more strict the rule have been followed.
**There is thus no consideration of which name dominoes belong to which during this numbering phase.
*As the font for the numbers have been chosen so big that it would be easy to see the them, it became difficult to fit three numbers in, and there are 270 tiles.
**To make this fitting easier, the hundred number, 1 and 2 from 101-199 and 201-270 has been written in a much smaller font.
***To make it easy to see which number it is, those from 1-100 is written in red, those from 101-200 is written in blue and those from 201-270 is written in green font.
***For 100 and 200 the hundred cipher has been written in the large font, to make it clear where the change happens.
*There is very likely errors, either a number that is missing/used twice or a tile that is not numbered. But I have tried to be carefull and read it through.
**But if you find an error then write to me and I will try to see if I can fix it --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

===Full image===
[[File:1970- Name Dominoes - The large image with numbers.jpg]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:1970}}
[[Category:Comic subpages]]

1875: Computers vs Humans

2022-05-04T01:47:31Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233941 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1875
| date = August 11, 2017
| title = Computers vs Humans
| image = computers_vs_humans.png
| titletext = It's hard to train deep learning algorithms when most of the positive feedback they get is sarcastic.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Cueball]]'s laptop smugly crows to its owner about how computers have proven their intellectual superiority over humans yet again. In May 2017, a Google artificial intelligence {{w|AlphaGo versus Ke Jie|beat}} the world's best Go player at the game. {{w|Go (game)|Go}} is a very complex and deep board game, so this could seem alarming to a person concerned about competing with computers.

However, Cueball seems too focused on his book or phone to care. He remains nonchalant in the face of this news, and suggests that computers learn next to become "too cool to care about stuff" themselves. The computer gets to work preparing to outdo humans at not caring. However, by expending the physical effort to set up the algorithm, it proves that it cares about reaching this goal, a contradiction that Cueball points out. Cueball further rubs it in by coolly stating that he doesn't even have to try to act the way he acts – much like a wide range of everyday human behaviors, such as moving around, or recognizing objects in images, require very little conscious effort, while being quite hard for machines to emulate.

Relative strengths of human versus computer go players was previously mentioned in [[1263: Reassuring]]. This comic also presents something that looks like a reassuring parable (something humans can do which computers are not yet able to do). An irony here is that, unlike in the cartoon, it is very easy to make a computer not care about something. It is making it care about anything that would be quite difficult.

The title text elaborates on the hypothetical paradox of computers trying not to care about stuff. Neural network programs are developed by training them with sample inputs and the desired output. When the end goal is not to care, that is, that the output is unaffected by this input, then any examples where the output did depend on the input would be sarcasm: the use of irony to mock or to convey contempt.

[[Randall]] already noticed that computers would soon beat humans in Go back in 2012 in the comic [[1002: Game AIs]] and a year later the event is so close that it became the main topic of [[1263: Reassuring]]. The present comic could almost be seen as a continuation of ''Reassuring.''

==Transcript==
:[A laptop sits on a desk with office chair while Cueball is sitting with his back towards the desk in a sofa while he is reading from something in his hands, a book or a smartphone.]
:Laptop: We computers finally beat you humans at Go.
:Cueball: Yup.
:Laptop: Sucks for you!
:Cueball: Mm hmm.

:[Same setting in a frameless panel.]
:Laptop: What's next? Which quintessentially human thing should we learn to do better than you?
:Cueball: Being too cool to care about stuff.

:[Same setting.]
:Laptop: Okay, I'll apply 10,000 years of CPU time to the initial—
:Cueball: Sounds like you've already lost.
:Laptop: Damn. This is hard.
:Cueball: Is it? Never noticed.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Board games]]

1005: SOPA

2022-05-04T01:46:40Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233117 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1005
| date = January 18, 2012
| title = SOPA
| image = sopa.png
| titletext = In protest of SOPA, I'm currently getting totally blacked out.
}}

==Explanation==
SOPA, the {{w|Stop Online Piracy Act}} and PIPA, the {{w|Protect IP Act}}, were a pair of controversial bills being considered by the United States government in late 2011 and early 2012. The bills contained the ability for the US government to deny American internet users access to certain sites at a judge's request. These would be activated if the government could prove to a court that a site was primarily used to harbor illegally distributed copyrighted goods, such as video games, music, and TV shows.

Many people considered this to be censorship and were concerned that this could instead be used by larger corporations to squelch smaller competing sites who may not have the resources to challenge a "take-down notice" in court, should judges continually agree with the larger corporation.

As the bills gained infamy online, many popular websites and web comics participated in a mass protest on January 18, 2012, to announce their displeasure with the bill in an attempt to convince the House of Representatives to reverse their judgement, which had at the time been considered likely to pass if drafted.

This was [[xkcd|xkcd's]] participation in the protest. [[Randall]] discusses below the black panel that if he was having better copyright protection with these new acts then he would never have gotten this popular since his fans would not have been allowed to distribute the comic gaining him new followers.

In typical xkcd fashion, this comic contains several layers of depth that may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer. In this instance, the apparently solid-black region contains a hidden image revealed with simple brightness+contrast manipulation (or simply loading the image into Microsoft Paint and using the fill tool), with [[Black Hat]] saying "A message from sysadmins everywhere: Seriously, don't screw with DNS. If you break this internet, we are ''not'' making you a new one." This stems from the fact that sites could be ordered taken down by allowing manipulation of the {{w|DNS}} itself, effectively making a site completely disappear from the web. This court-enforced DNS manipulation was considered by many technical professionals to damage the underlying structure of the internet, as well as potentially criminalizing recent work to improve its security.

[[File:sopa hidden message.png||upright=2|The comic image with the message revealed.]]

The title text referred to a common theme across protesting sites: a {{w|Protests against SOPA and PIPA|blackout of the internet}}. Sites such as Google changed to a black background, while Wikipedia prevented access by linking their sites to a black page with white text explaining their participation. On the day of the protest, xkcd was similarly "blacked out," with all comics redirecting to this one. The humor is that Randall has jokingly misinterpreted this "blackout" to mean that he should instead protest by "getting totally {{w|Blacking out|blacked out}}" – i.e. by drinking so much {{w|Alcoholic drink|alcohol}} that he {{w|Drunk|gets drunk}}, {{w|Passing out|passes out}}, and wakes up the next day having no memory of his actions or experiences during his drunkenness; despite Randall's good intentions, this would probably not help the protest against SOPA/PIPA.

After the protest, the bills were postponed from being drafted on January 20, 2012.

==Transcript==
:[A completely black panel with white text. all non-capital letter, in square brackets:]
::[don't censor the web.]

:[Hidden in the background, and only visible under certain conditions, is an inverted Black Hat (i.e. white), with the text from above still visible written across his forehead. Above him is the first line of text, and then he speaks the next line:]
:A message from sysadmins everywhere:
:Black Hat: Seriously, don't screw with DNS. If you break this internet, we are ''not'' making you a new one.

:[Below the black panel is a visible message from Randall written normally black on white in xkcd style.]
:I make my living drawing xkcd, which wouldn't have been possible if people
:hadn't been able to freely share my comics with each other all over the internet.
:As a copyright holder and small business owner, I oppose SOPA and PIPA.
:[Randall Munroe's signature, with a little drawing of Cueball on one of the tails. Below that a last message.]
:''Randall Munroe''
:See the links below to learn more.

==Trivia==
*The following were the links and text listed below the last message (and below the comic):
:::Learn more:
:{{w|Electronic Frontier Foundation|EFF}}: [https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/One-Page-SOPA_0.pdf One-page guide to SOPA] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20120118194022/https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/One-Page-SOPA_0.pdf archived])
:{{w|reddit}}: [http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html A technical overview of the SOPA and PIPA bills] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20120118015844/http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html archived])
:{{w|Dyn (company)|DYN}}: [http://dyn.com/sopa-breaking-dns-parasite-stop-online-piracy/ How these bills would break DNS] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20130321051254/http://dyn.com/blog/sopa-breaking-dns-parasite-stop-online-piracy archived])
:{{w|Electronic Frontier Foundation|EFF}}: [https://www.eff.org/free-speech-weak-link Free speech on the web] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20120118014050/https://www.eff.org/free-speech-weak-link archived])
 
:::{{w|USA.gov|Act}}:
:[http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml Contact information for US elected officials] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20120117165307/https://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml archived])

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Politics]]

2004: Sun and Earth

2022-05-04T01:46:28Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 232851 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2004
| date = June 8, 2018
| title = Sun and Earth
| image = sun_and_earth.png
| titletext = But we don't need to worry about the boiling masses sandwiching the thin layer in which we live, since we're so fragile and short-lived that it's unlikely to kill us before something else does! Wait, why doesn't that sound reassuring?
}}

==Explanation==
This is one of a number of comics which describe everyday events in unusual terms, making them sound really weird. In this case, both the Sun and the Earth are "massive convective systems [blasting] huge plumes of heat", which contrasts sharply with the daily idea of the Sun being a ball in the sky and the Earth the thing under our feet.

{{w|Free convection}} is based on an difference in density. What is colder is typically denser, so gravity forces it downwards, displacing what is hotter (and less dense) upward (This should not be confused with {{w|forced convection}}, which uses fans or other devices that are not practical to build on the scale of a planet). In the sun, most of the energy to drive this process comes from nuclear fusion, specifically the fusion of hydrogen into helium. We cannot directly see inside of the earth,{{Citation needed}} but its core is known to be much hotter than its surface.

The magnitude of these systems gives you an idea of the size of the fluctuations you can expect. The sun is very massive, meaning the fluctuations in its convective or heat-dissipating behavior are very large. This is an instance of the {{w|Fluctuation-dissipation_theorem|Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem}}. These fluctuations take the form of a solar flare, as explained below. For a more thorough (but non-technical) explanation of the role of gravity and entropy in such systems, see [https://arxiv.org/abs/0907.0659 this].

The {{w|Sun}} produces great amounts of light and heat and blasts it towards us, which is why we can live on Earth. Since Ludwig Boltzmann pointed out the fact in 1875, people have been working on establishing exactly how such far from equilibrium systems as life might depend upon, or be formed by ([https://www.quantamagazine.org/first-support-for-a-physics-theory-of-life-20170726/ like this article]), such massive entropy gradients as between the sun and earth (or rather the sun and empty space). Main sequence stars like the sun transport energy by {{w|Radiation_zone|radiation}} and by {{w|Convection_zone|convective currents}} of {{w|Plasma (physics)|plasma}}, bringing the heat generated in the core of the sun to its surface. These quickly moving charged particles create a massive magnetic field, which occasionally gets concentrated into a {{w|solar prominence}} which can snap, causing a large amount of charged particles to get shot into space as a {{w|solar flare}}. If the Earth happens to be in the direction of the solar flare, we can notice all sorts of interesting and often damaging effects. Thankfully, there are lots of other directions for the sun to shoot solar flares, so they don't come by the Earth that often.

The {{w|Earth#Internal_structure|Earth's interior}} is also very hot. {{w|Mantle convection}} causes {{w|plate tectonics}} which is the main cause of {{w|Volcano|volcanic activity}} (next to {{w|Mantle_plume|mantle plumes}}), which essentially also consists of huge blasts of heat.

This could sound like a very bad scenario, but the title text reminds us that the real scenario we live in is far worse, as we are not likely to die from a Sun blast or volcano eruption. In doing this, he indirectly points out the hard truth about our lives: that they're limited and they're short, and it is far easier to die of because of other things. In this way Randall attempts to give the reader an existential crisis; he concludes that his statement did not help to reassure himself.

This comic was likely inspired by the recent eruptions of the {{w|Kīlauea}} and {{w|Volcán de Fuego}}. In contrast, solar activity is currently low, because the {{w|Sunspot#Solar_cycle|sunspot solar cycle}} is in the low end of the 11-year cycle.

==Transcript==
:[The entire comic is within a panel. At the bottom of the image a curved shape depicting a small part of the Earth's surface and labeled as "Earth" is shown. At the top a similar sized shape but opposite curve is labeled as "Sun". The surface of the Sun is seething while on Earth's surface a few plants, two birds, and Cueball together with Megan are visible.]

:[Two arrows pointing to the Sun and the Earth with a caption applying to both of them:]
:Massive convective systems which occasionally blast huge plumes of heat at us without warning through mechanisms we can't directly observe and don't really understand.

:Cueball: What a nice day!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

2225: Voting Referendum

2022-05-04T01:46:14Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233077 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2225
| date = November 6, 2019
| title = Voting Referendum
| image = voting_referendum.png
| titletext = The weirdest quirk of the Borda count is that Jean-Charles de Borda automatically gets one point; luckily this has no consequences except in cases of extremely low turnout.
}}

==Explanation==
The day before this comic's publication was an {{w|election day}} throughout the {{w|United States}}, primarily for local and state issues (normal elections for federal offices of the President, Senate, and House of Representatives are always in even years). The topic of today's comic highlights many different methods for conducting elections and counting votes. While elections are primarily used to allow voters to select from candidates for public offices, election ballots also frequently present questions for voters to directly voice their support or opposition to some change in a process or law - commonly called a {{w|Referendum|referendum}}. The comic depicts an election ballot referendum for voters to select the method to be used in future elections. While the referendum is asking voters to select a method from a long list of methods, a referendum is usually presented as a specific proposal which requires a simple Yes or No vote.

As an example, the ballot in New York City included a referendum ([https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/5/20948376/new-york-election-results-ranked-choice-voting which passed]) on whether to use a different method, ranked choice voting (another name for instant-runoff voting as described below).

A common issue with such referenda is what method to use to conduct the referendum itself. Here, the method of marking each choice on the ballot reflects the marking method which would be used if it were the winner. Moreover, each item is listed in a way which is suggestive of what it means (e.g., "First past the post" is the first one, "Top-two" is among the top two, and "Multiple non-transferable vote" is selected among numerous other ones). A few of the methods allow for multiple winners, which can often be good when electing councils and representatives, but it is unclear what it would mean to have several of these voting methods all win.

* '''{{w|First-past-the-post voting|First past the post}}'''
The aim of political elections in first-past-the-post is to determine which of the candidates standing for election is most preferred by the most voters. In a simple two-person contest, this process is quite effective, since whichever candidate receives the most votes will be the one that the majority of voters prefer. This system works well for simple cases, but for elections with more than two candidates this system may result in a candidate being elected who less than 50% of the voters would prefer.

For example, in a contest with three candidates, A, B and C, in which candidate A receives 43% of the vote, candidate B 38%, and candidate C 19%, candidate A will be elected, even though some of the voters who chose candidate C might have preferred candidate B as their second choice instead of candidate A, leading to a result which pleases less than half of the population. For example, the above distribution of votes happened in the {{w|2000 United States presidential election in Florida}}, where George W. Bush beat Al Gore by less than 1000 votes largely because of the third-party candidacy Ralph Nader, whose 100,000 voters would mostly have otherwise gone to Gore.

Additionally, in election of multiple candidates across a country (or region etc.), first past the post does not lead to a distribution of elected representatives proportional to the total number of votes, only electing the lead candidate in each case. For example, imagine a country with 100 representatives to be elected, with each seat having the same distribution as described in the example above. Under first past the post, 100 representatives will be elected representing party A, and none for party B or C.

Despite these drawbacks, First Past the Post voting continues to be used for political elections in many countries including the US and UK, which historically have both had two main parties receiving the majority of votes. The First Past the Post system has received much criticism, particularly from smaller parties who may lose out; however, supporters promote the simplicity of the system compared to other methods.

This system is shown with a {{w|radio button}}, the classic computer metaphor for being allowed one choice out of a set.

* '''{{w|Top-two primary}}'''
This method is used in California and Washington to select candidates for the US House of Representatives. In most states' primary-election systems, each party votes separately to select one candidate to continue to a first-past-the-post general election ballot. In these two states, on the other hand, candidates from all parties, as well as "independent" candidates from no party, run in a single race, and the top two finishers then contest the general election, even if both are from the same party (a common occurrence in heavily-Democratic California), and even if one candidate has a clear majority of the vote. (In an older version, a majority winner in the primary was immediately declared elected. This was held to be in violation of federal law, by effectively setting an "election day" before the national Election Day in November.) This is a form of the {{w|two-round system}}, a system for selecting elected officials most notably used to elect the President of {{w|France}}

* '''{{w|Louisiana primary}}'''
This system is almost identical to the top-two primary, but with two differences. First, the open-to-all ballot is held on the national Election Day, instead of on the state's primary day. (This avoids the conflict with Federal law described above.) Also, the second round of the election is not held if one candidate has a clear majority (more than 50%) of the votes in the first round. Like the top-two primary and the first-past-the post system, the comic represents this system with a radio button, except this one has been marked, indicating the vote.

* '''{{w|Cumulative voting}}'''
In cumulative voting, voters get as many votes as there are seats to be filled, and may distribute them as they choose. This system's most common use is in selecting corporate boards of directors. It is also used in some areas to allow a minority bloc within an electorate to elect some of its preferred candidates without imposing a system of separate districts.

The comic illustrates this with multiple radio buttons, each row representing an option/candidate and each (implied) column one vote. On the ballot the first 2 radio buttons are marked, as they are each the only radio buttons in their column and cannot be unmarked.

* '''{{w|Approval voting}}'''
In this system, each candidate is listed as a yes/no choice, where the voters can choose which candidates they approve of winning the election, and which ones they do not approve of. The winner of the election is the candidate with the highest approval rate.

This type of voting system can be used as a vetting process to filter out undesirable candidates before the final vote; for example, the United Nations [https://web.archive.org/web/20080227114317/http://www.unsgselection.org/files/WisnumurtiGuidelinesSelectingCandidateSecretary-General.pdf uses a series of "straw polls"] to filter out candidates for the Secretary General before the Security Council makes a final vote. In 2018, Fargo, North Dakota [https://ballotpedia.org/Fargo,_North_Dakota,_Measure_1,_Approval_Voting_Initiative_(November_2018) switched to using approval voting] to elect local politicians, making it the only jurisdiction in the United States to use this system.
In the xkcd ballot, the approval option is presented as a checkbox, where a check in the box is "approve" or an empty box is "disapprove". Checkboxes are distinct from radio buttons in that several can be marked in the same field, and can also be unmarked without marking another.

* '''{{w|Multiple non-transferable vote}}'''
This system for electing multiple members to a ruling body is also known as {{w|plurality-at-large voting}} or block vote. It is commonly used in the US for city council elections, and simply limits the number of votes per voter to the number of winners. It allows a cohesive plurality of the electorate to claim all of the seats, denying other voters any representation whatsoever.

In 2019, the Justice Department required {{w|Eastpointe, Michigan}} to run at least the next two elections via {{w|single transferable vote}} because their existing plurality-at-large system was disenfranchising black citizens.

This system is also shown as a checkbox, as each candidate gets either 0 or 1 votes from each voter.

* '''{{w|Instant runoff voting}}'''
In this system, people vote for all the candidates, or perhaps their favorite three, but assign different preferences to each candidate they vote for, as in 1 for their first choice, 2 for the second, 3 for their third, etc. If at least 50% of voters vote for a candidate as their first choice, that candidate wins. If not, the person with the least votes gets eliminated, and anyone who voted for that person has their next (slightly less favorable) choice automatically move up a rung. The 50% mark is again checked, and if there is no winner, another lowest-voted candidate is eliminated. Eventually one candidate will emerge victorious. The advantages of this system are that there is rarely a need to have another election if things are close (the information is already there to "instantly" recalculate the vote based on additional voter preferences), and "spoiler" candidates only cause problems when they become competitive. And as {{w|Arrow's impossibility theorem}} shows, as with all ranking methods, sometimes {{w|Monotonicity_criterion#Instant-runoff_voting_and_the_two-round_system_are_not_monotonic|voters can hurt a candidate by ranking them more favorably}}.

On this weird xkcd ballot, we see this type of ranking between this type of voting (''Instant runoff voting'') and the two that follow (''Single transferable vote'' and ''Borda count''), all of which allow multiple ranked votes. It appears that between these three, Randall has voted for ''Single transferable vote'' as his top choice, ''Borda count'' for his second choice, with ''Instant runoff voting'' as his third choice.

* '''{{w|Single transferable vote}}'''
This system extends the instant runoff to multiple-winner elections. Specifically, the election threshold is set not at 50%, but at 100%/(''k''+1) where ''k'' candidates will win (in other words, just high enough to prevent more candidates from reaching it than there are seats). The bottom candidates are eliminated as in instant-runoff and their votes redistributed. In addition, if a candidate wins with more than enough votes, the extra votes (either a fraction of each vote, or some subset of the ballots) are also redistributed. This procedure continues until the requisite number of winners is reached.

* '''{{w|Borda count}}'''
Each ballot is counted as 1 point for the last choice, 2 for next-to-last, and so on up to ''n'' for the first choice among ''n'' candidates. The highest point-earner(s) win. This system may also be calculated as 1 point for first choice, 2 for second, etc., with the lowest total winning; this variant, called the "cross-country vote" (due to its resemblance to the scoring system of the sport of cross-country running), is used by the NCAA's various selection committee as one step in choosing championship tournament fields.

The title text refers to the inventor of the Borda count, {{w|Jean-Charles de Borda}} (for whom it is named), implying that the use of the system implies the inclusion of a ballot in which he gets one point in the counting. This "1 point" would be quickly drowned out by any sensible quantity of actual votes. This also humorously suggests that if no one were to vote at all, Borda would win by default.

* '''{{w|Range voting}}'''
For each candidate, the voter selects a value within a fixed range (the xkcd voter sees this choice presented as a slider) for each candidate, independent of the values given to other candidates. The highest total wins. (If the range is restricted to two values, this becomes the approval system.)

The punchline for the comic is that the whole referendum is a chicken-and-egg problem: in order to accomplish the purpose of a referendum, one needs to know how the votes will be translated into a result, but in this case, determining that rule is the purpose of the referendum. Additionally this xkcd demonstrates one of the mechanisms that makes it hard to change the currently-used voting system in any state: Each voting system in fact votes for itself as the ones who are able to decide upon the voting system being in use have been elected using the current voting system and therefore are likely to profit from it.

==Transcript==
:[A voting ballot is shown with an underlined header and 10 different options below with different boxes/buttons next to each choice. Some are empty, some are marked/checked or numbered.]
:Which voting system should we use?

:*[Empty radio button]: First past the post
:*[Empty radio button]: Top-two primary
:*[Filled radio button]: Louisiana primary
:*[Three radio buttons in a row, first two filled]: Cumulative voting
:*[Checked box]: Approval voting
:*[Checked box]: Multiple non-transferrable vote
:*[Box marked]: 3: Instant runoff voting
:*[box marked]: 1: Single transferrable vote
:*[box marked]: 2: Borda count
:*[Slider with value slightly below half]: Range voting

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The referendum went well, but we can't figure out how to count the ballots.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

254: Comic Fragment

2022-05-04T01:45:58Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 232698 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 254
| date = April 27, 2007
| title = Comic Fragment
| image = comic fragment.jpg
| titletext = No one wants an explanation more than us. Except Ms. Garofalo.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[Randall]] has gone missing from the office, and his 'editors' have found only this panel from an unfinished project (of which he says is his 'best idea ever'). The panel depicts an amalgam of science fiction disasters.

* A crippled space station falling from orbit.
* An exploding volcano.
* Rampaging dinosaurs.
* A lone hero in what appears to be a hopeless situation.

{{w|Janeane Garofalo}} is an actress and comedian associated with strong feminist roles and opinions. She is an unlikely choice for an action hero, but she has fringe appeal. It should be noted that in the panel it is Janeane Garofalo herself on the motorcycle, not a character played by Janeane Garofalo, meaning she ''is'' the character.

Randall is parodying a mode of self-indulgence common among artists and writers, particularly those who have been prolific and have gained mass appeal. A writer might have a project he thinks of as his "best idea ever," but upon examination, it is just a mish-mash of ideas the writer thinks are cool, which don't add up to a coherent story.

This type of project is self-indulgent because it allows the writer to feel like he's exercising creative impulses he can't use in his regular work, even though the actual project has little artistic merit and is unlikely to appeal to a popular audience.

In this strip, Randall winks at a lot of the hallmarks of this sort of "project:"

* It is unfinished. The point of such a project is not to complete it, but to have a place to set down all the fun ideas you never get to use, so you can feel like you're using them. But elements like these are found throughout xkcd, so the joke is that it's absurd to need a separate outlet for them, but he has one anyway.

* He keeps it in a folder labeled "My Best Idea Ever." A writer might think of such a project as his "best idea," but it's unlikely anyone would use that phrase as a working title. Using it so boldly here emphasizes the self-indulgent nature of the enterprise.

* It includes a ton of scattershot, disconnected ideas that are all cool individually, but are likely to require massive amounts of suspension of disbelief when combined:

* Why does a motorbike exists on a small spacecraft?
* The aircraft and its rider both require an amount of air pressure
* On a falling spacecraft that air pressure would amount to enough wind friction to fry the motorcycle and its rider
* What keeps the motorcycle on the falling spacecraft?
* How is Ms. Garofalo supposed to survive the impact?
* Dinosaurs and spacecrafts should be tens of millions of years apart from each other
* If the volcano explodes: Will the dinosaurs still attack her and not just flee?

Some of the ideas (dinosaurs, spacecraft) are derivative of Randall's prior work; others (volcanoes, Janeane Garofalo) are not. It is telling, though, that the closeup inset of the woman on the motorcycle, while referred to as Janeane Garofalo in the text, looks an awful lot like [[Megan]].

* Good judgment and artistic sensibility are suppressed in favor of heightened coolness. (Janeane Garofalo is cool. Janeane Garofalo on a motorcycle is cooler! With tranq darts! On a spaceship! Etc.) The comic takes this to an extreme. Every element in the comic is there because of its awesomeness; no other aesthetic principle is being exercised anywhere.

The title text is written from the 'editors' perspective, expressing their extreme puzzlement - outshone only by Ms. Garofalo's confusion.

Later on, in December 2007, [[Randall Munroe]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=7m15s suggested in a speech at Google] that a motivation to draw this comic was to put an end to reenactments of his comics (such as the [[225: Open Source|Richard Stallman]] and [[239: Blagofaire|Cory Doctorow]] comics, which {{w|xkcd#Inspired activities|inspired real-life happenings}})... or challenge anyone to reenact such a complex one:
:''I've been doing these comics, and people have a habit of acting out the comics. I first — I did a comic about Cory Doctorow; you know, he wears red cape and goggles when he blogs and a week or so later, he was given an award. And he went up on the stage; they presented him with a red cape and goggles. I have done a comic little before that about Richard Stallman suggesting that he sleeps with the katana, you know, just in case. And, sure enough, they sent him, some fans pitched in together and sent him a katana. He had never heard of the comic. He was very confused. And I decided, okay, this is going to get out of hand. So, shortly after all that, I did a comic about Janeane Garofalo jumping a motorcycle off of the International Space Station as it crashes over an island with a volcanic eruption and Tyrannosaurus. And I said, okay, if someone can make ''that'' happen, but until they do that...''

==Transcript==
:Editor's note: Mr. Munroe has been missing for several days. We have recieved no submissions from him for some time, but we found this single panel on his desk in a folder labeled 'MY BEST IDEA EVER'. It is clearly part of a work in progress, but we have decided to post it in lieu of a complete comic.
:[Single panel illustration in color with one small panel embedded within, showing a zoomed-in version of Janeane Garafolo on a motorcycle. The background is a gray landscape beneath a falling space station, a large volcano with smoke rising the only discernible feature of the landscape below.]
:As the damaged space station fell deeper into the atmosphere and started to break up around her, Janeane Garofalo tightened her grip on the motorcycle.
:The volcano was looming ahead, and her tranquilizer pistol only had six darts left - barely enough to bring down even one Tyrannosaur.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

385: How it Works

2022-05-04T01:43:33Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 236141 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 385
| date = February 18, 2008
| title = How It Works
| image = how it works.png
| titletext = It's pi plus C, of course.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic reveals discriminative jargon against women when doing tasks such as mathematics. When a guy does something wrong, it's his own mistake. When a girl does something wrong, it is taken as a confirmation that girls are inferior.

The mathematics displayed is neither {{w|semantically}} nor {{w|syntactically}} correct. To begin with, there should (reasonably) be a ''dx'' after x2. Adding this, we have an {{w|indefinite integral}} on the left hand side.

The answer {{w|π}} is just nonsensical: What we want is a {{w|Function (mathematics)|function}} whose {{w|derivative}} is x2. Now, x3/3 satisfies this condition. However, since adding a {{w|constant (mathematics)|constant}} to a function does not change its derivative, the full answer is (any function of the form) x3/3 {{w|Constant of integration|+ C}}, where C is any fixed number. The "plus a constant" part is very easy to forget, and might even be omitted by a (sloppy) professional mathematician. So if someone really gave the answer π, "you forgot to add a constant" would be a pretty funny remark, because in one way it's true, but on the other hand it wouldn't quite be the main thing to worry about. (It is especially inane as π itself ''is'' a constant.)

It would also be possible to fix the equation by adding [http://www.mathwords.com/b/bounds_of_integration.htm bounds of integration], so that {{w|π}} becomes the area below a section of the curve x2. That is called a definite integral, and there would be no "+ C". The bounds would have to be somewhat awkward though; if 0 was the lower bound, the cube root of 3π would have to be the upper.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and a friend stand at a blackboard. The friend is writing, in standard mathematical notation, that the integral of x squared equals pi. No differential or bounds are given for the integral.]
:Cueball: Wow, you suck at math.
:[The same scene, except the writer is Megan.]
:Cueball: Wow, girls suck at math.

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

1688: Map Age Guide

2022-05-04T00:53:01Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 236093 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1688
| date = June 1, 2016
| title = Map Age Guide
| image = map_age_guide.png
| titletext = Does the screeching chill your blood and herald death? If yes, banshee. If no, seagull.
}}

* A [http://xkcd.com/1688/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by clicking the image at xkcd.com - the comic's page can also be accessed by clicking on the comic number above.

==Explanation==
The comic consists of a flowchart depicting various ways to tell what era a map is from based on present country borders and land forms. (Except in the Not a Political Map Branch (from "Can you see the familiar continents?" downwards), the comic applies to a political map.) While many of the options are very serious, a few bizarre options reference fictional maps ({{w|Discworld}}, {{w|Narnia}}, and Tolkien's {{w|Middle-earth}}), or consider that seagulls, staplers, tubas, or breadboxes could be mistaken for a map. Randall also mentions US President {{w|Jimmy Carter}} being [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident attacked by a giant swimming rabbit], an event previously referenced as one we must never forget in [[204: America]].

The flowchart, although probably effective in eventually identifying the production year of certain maps, is designed in a rather inefficient way, as some early distinctions are already on a very detailed level before some really important distinctions (fictional or non-political map) are made. This, of course, adds to the humorous tone of the comic. It is also hampered by several smaller or larger error (see [[#Trivia|trivia]]), the biggest being a whole section on I-25 that gives years in the range 1948–1952, before I-25 was built, and coming from a question that fixed the year range to 1960–1961.

Additionally, (possible) future maps including a "Radioactive Exclusion Zone" in the place of Colorado are mentioned. It predicts that some kind of nuclear incident will occur in Colorado (possibly at Rulison or Rio Blanco nuclear testing sites) in 2022. It also predicts that the area will be infested by radioactive spiders one year later.

The title text continues the path where the user has confused a seagull for a map by inquiring if the (presumed) seagull might be a banshee based on the effect of its screams.

===Table===
*Going through the flowchart, taking the leftmost path first, recursively. (Note there is no recursive loop, any loop is your mistake). See also {{w|Depth-first search}}.
**"Prior Date Range" is the range determined immediately before the question, carried over from the previous question.
**"Question Date Range" is the range each answer choice implies.
**"New Date Range" is the intersection of the Prior Date Range and the Question Date Range for each choice, and is the range determined by all questions hitherto answered.

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Question !! Explanation !! Prior Date Range !! Question Date Range !! New Date Range
|-
! 1
| '''Istanbul or Constantinople'''
| The largest city in {{w|Turkey}} is famous for having different names at different times or to different people. Variations on both names go back at least 1,000 years. Other names have also been used at various points. {{w|Istanbul}} has been the official name in Western languages since the 1920s (although it's been the native name since 1453), although Western maps often referred to it as Constantinople as late as the 1960s; on the flowchart, the choice of name appears to go with the 1920s date. The name changes are the subject of a [http://mentalfloss.com/article/60314/original-istanbul-not-constantinople song], originally by the Four Lads, but now mainly known for the They Might Be Giants recording.
| '''Start here'''
|
* Constantinople: 330 – 1928
* Neither: inconclusive
* Istanbul: 1928+
|
* Constantinople: 330 – 1928 (Go to 2)
* Neither: inconclusive (Go to 19)
* Istanbul: 1928+ (Go to 51)
|-
| colspan="6" | '''Note:''' the chart splits here into three divisions, each from a choice in question 1. The Neither Division will attempt to use other indicators to sort maps into one of the other two divisions or branches thereof, or, after 5 failures to find a country, conclude that the "map" in question is not a political map and proceed to find out what it is (the Not a Political Map Branch). The Constantinople and Istanbul Divisions are linear except where the Neither Division joins them as stated above.
|-
! colspan="6" | Constantinople Division
|-
! 2
| '''Do any of these exist?'''
* '''Independent Canada'''
* '''US Territory of Alaska'''
* '''Tokyo'''
| All these seem to specify a date cut-off of 1867/8, but there are caveats attached to each:
* {{w|Canada}} gained its independence gradually, but it would appear as its own country (the Dominion of Canada) on maps sometime between the {{w|Constitution Act, 1867}} (which created Canada as a British dominion) and the {{w|Statute of Westminster 1931}} (which made Canada largely self-governing).
* The {{w|Territory of Alaska}} existed between 1912 (previously, it was a US district) and 1959 (when it became a state). The US has owned Alaska since the 1867 {{w|Alaska Purchase}}, but it was not a territory then.
* {{w|Tokyo}} was once called Edo. It was renamed Tokyo (which means "Eastern Capital") when it became the capital in 1868. [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Tokyo%2CTokei&year_start=1870&year_end=1880&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CTokyo%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CTokei%3B%2Cc0 Most English books around then] would actually have called it "Tokei," the Chinese reading. The name Tokyo didn't take off until {{w|Hepburn romanization}} was popularized in the 1880s.
| 330–1928 (from 1)
1299–1922 (from 19 in the Neither Division)
(from 24 in the Neither Division)
|
* No: 1867-
* Yes: 1868+
|
* No: 330–1867 (Go to 3)
* Yes: 1868–1928 (Go to 11)
|-
! colspan="6" | Holy Roman Empire Branch
|-
! 3
| '''The Holy Roman Empire?'''
| The predecessor to modern Germany, the {{w|Holy Roman Empire}} was a union of hundreds of small states in Central Europe. Nationalism and the concept of the {{w|nation state}} hadn't taken off yet, so countries as we know them didn't really exist. There were just small lands, often with keenly contested borders, owned by minor aristocracy who pledged allegiance to one of the big powers. The HRE was {{w|Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire|dissolved}} in 1806 after it was invaded by Napoleon, arguably the first leader to realise the potential of making a nation salute a flag.
| 330–1867
|
* Yes: 899–1806
* No: 899- or 1806+
|
* Yes: 899–1806 (Stated in comic as "1805 or earlier," since modern map-making was fuzzy as a concept prior) ('''Stop''')
* No: 330–899 or 1806–67 (Go to 4)
|-
! 4
| '''The United States?'''
| The original {{w|Thirteen Colonies|13 colonies}} declared independence in 1776. A map that does not include ''either'' the HRE ''or'' the USA must be older than the HRE, which would put the map sometime prior to 1000 AD, when there really were no countries, and English wasn't used yet, hence Randall's comment.
| 330–899 or 1806–67
|
* No: 1776-
* Yes: 1776+
|
* No: 330–899 (Not stated in comic, since a map in this period is probably not in English, which violates a proviso of the comic) ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1806–67 (Go to 5)
|-
! 5
| '''Texas is... Part of Mexico? Independent? Part of the US?'''
| {{w|Mexico}} (and before its independence, {{w|New Spain}}) occupied the area modern-day Texas from around 1718 ({{w|Spanish Texas|when the first permanent Spanish settlements were founded}}) to the {{w|Texas Declaration of Independence}} in 1836 (the comic apparently cited 1834 as the date) – the land called "Texas" was only a small part of the modern-day state. The {{w|Republic of Texas}} only lasted a decade and joined the US in 1846.
| 1806–67
|
* Part of Mexico: 1718–1836
* Independent: 1836–46
* Part of the US: 1846+
|
* Part of Mexico: 1806–36 (Go to 6)
* Independent: 1836–46 (stated in comic as 1834–45 – a discrepancy) ('''Stop''')
* Part of the US: 1846–67 (Go to 9)
|-
! 6
| '''Florida is part of... Spain? The US?'''
| Spain occupied {{w|Florida}} (as {{w|East Florida}} and {{w|West Florida}}) but frankly they didn't actually want it – it was expensive to send people to settle it, and there wasn't much economic value in it. So they gave it to the US for free in the 1819 {{w|Adams–Onís Treaty}} (which took effect in 1821) in exchange for the US giving up parts of Mexico and paying off angry Spanish settlers. (For some reason, the comic treats Florida as part of the US in 1818; see questions 7 and 8.)
| 1806–36
|
* Spain: 1565–1763 or 1783–1821
* The US: 1821+
|
* Spain: 1806–21 (Go to 7)
* The US: 1821–36 (Go to 8)
|-
! 7
| '''{{w|Paraguay}}?'''
| Declared independence from Spain in 1811 (although it might appear on older maps as the Spanish Province of Paraguay).
| 1806–21
|
* No: 1811-
* Yes: 1811+
|
* No: 1806–11 (stated in comic as 1806–10) ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1811–21 (stated in comic as 1811–17 – a discrepancy (see question 6)) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 8
| '''{{w|Venezuela}} and/or {{w|Ecuador?}}'''
| Both declared independence from {{w|Gran Colombia}} (Greater Colombia) in 1830.
| 1821–36
|
* No: 1830-
* Yes: 1830+
|
* No: 1821–30 (stated in comic as 1818–29 – a discrepancy (see question 6)) ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1830–36 (stated in comic as 1830–33 – a discrepancy (see question 5)) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 9
| '''Does Russia border the Sea of Japan?'''
| The 1858 {{w|Treaty of Aigun}} brought the {{w|Russian Empire}}'s border to the {{w|Sea of Japan}}.
| 1846–67
|
* No: 1858-
* Yes: 1858+
|
* No: 1846–58 (Go to 10)
* Yes: 1858–67 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 10
| '''The US's southern border looks...'''
| The last southward expansion of the US is the 1854 {{w|Gadsden Purchase}}, where the US bought a chunk of what is now {{w|Arizona}} and {{w|New Mexico}} so they could build a railway that avoided unfavourable terrain. The southern border looks "weird" before that because we are accustomed to the current border shape.
| 1846–58
|
* Weird: 1854-
* Normal: 1854+
|
* Weird: 1846–54 (stated in comic as 1846–53) ('''Stop''')
* Normal: 1854–58 (stated in comic as 1854–56 – a discrepancy (where is 1857?)) ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | South Africa Branch
|-
! 11
| '''{{w|South Africa}}?'''
| The {{w|Union of South Africa}} was created in 1910 out of the four British colonies ({{w|Cape Colony}}, {{w|Colony of Natal|Natal}}, {{w|Transvaal Colony|Transvaal}}, and {{w|Orange River Colony|Orange River}}), although South Africa was then not yet fully independent from the United Kingdom (which would not happen until 1931).
| 1868–1928
|
* No: 1910-
* Yes: 1910+
|
* No: 1868–1910 (Go to 12)
* Yes: 1910–28 (Go to 16)
|-
! 12
| '''Rhodesia?'''
| The region that now makes up {{w|Zambia}} and {{w|Zimbabwe}} was named {{w|Rhodesia (region)|"Rhodesia"}} by the {{w|British South Africa Company}} in 1895. An {{w|Rhodesia|unrecognised state}} (1965–79) and a {{w|Southern Rhodesia|colony}} (1923–80 on-and-off) also bore this name, but they are both outside the Prior Date Range.
| 1868–1910
|
* No: 1895-
* Yes: 1895+
|
* No: 1868–95 (Go to 13)
* Yes: 1895–1910 (Go to 15)
|-
! 13
| '''Is Bolivia landlocked?'''
| {{w|Bolivia}} lost its coastal territory to {{w|Chile}} in the {{w|War of the Pacific}}, ceding {{w|Antofagasta}} in the {{w|Treaty of Valparaiso}} in 1884.
| 1868–95
|
* No: 1825–84
* Yes: 1884+
|
* No: 1868–84 (Go to 14)
* Yes: 1884–95 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 14
| '''"Buda" and "Pest" or "Budapest"?'''
| In 1873, the Hungarian cities of {{w|Buda}} and {{w|Pest, Hungary|Pest}} joined together to form the city of {{w|Budapest}}.
| 1868–84
|
* Buda and Pest: 1247–1873
* Budapest: 1873+
|
* Buda and Pest: 1868–73 (stated in comic as 1868–72) ('''Stop''')
* Budapest: 1873–84 (stated in comic as 1873–83) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 15
| '''Is Norway part of Sweden?'''
| {{w|Norway}} was ceded to {{w|Sweden}} in 1814, from which it separated in 1905.
| 1895–1910
|
* Yes: 1814–1905
* No: 1814- or 1905+
|
* Yes: 1895–1905 (Stated in comic as 1896–1905) ('''Stop''')
* No: 1905–10 (Stated in comic as 1906–09) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 16
| '''Austria-Hungary?'''
| {{w|Austria-Hungary}} formed in 1867 and dissolved in 1918. (Clueless bureaucrats of the time loved to abbreviate the name to just "Austria", but mapmakers tended to be more careful than that.)
| 1910–28
|
* Yes: 1867–1918
* No: 1918+
|
* Yes: 1910–18 (Go to 17)
* No: 1918–28 (Go to 18)
|-
! 17
| '''Albania?'''
| {{w|Albania}} declared independence from the {{w|Ottoman Empire}} in 1912.
| 1910–18
|
* No: 1912-
* Yes: 1912+
|
* No: 1910–12 ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1912–18 (stated in comic as 1913–18) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 18
| '''Leningrad?'''
| {{w|Saint Petersburg}} was known as Leningrad between 1924 and 1991. The city was founded in 1703 as Saint Petersburg (specific spellings vary); in August 1914, due to major anti-German sentiment related to WWI, it was renamed Petrograd (essentially the Russian translation of Petersburg). On January 26, 1924, five days after the death of {{w|Vladimir Lenin}} (the main revolutionary leader), the new Communist government (hostile to both the the Orthodox {{w|Saint Peter}} the city was named after and the Czar {{w|Peter the Great}} who named it) renamed the city Leningrad in his honor. After the decline of the Soviet government in 1991, the name became unpopular, and a referendum in June 1991 (concurrently with the first Russian presidential election) restored the name Saint Petersburg for the city (officially in September 1991), which it holds to this day.
| 1918–28
|
* No: 1924- or 1991+
* Yes: 1924–91
|
* No: 1918–24 (stated in comic as 1919–23) ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1924–28 (stated in comic as 1924–29) ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | Neither Division
|-
! 19
| '''Does the Ottoman Empire exist?'''
| The {{w|Ottoman Empire}} was founded in 1299, and defeated and dissolved on November 1, 1922 when the sultanate was abolished.
| Inconclusive
|
* Yes: 1299–1922
* No: 1299- or 1922+
|
* Yes: 1299–1922 (Go to 2 in the Constantinople Division)
* No: 1299- or 1922+ (Go to 20)
|-
! 20
| '''The Soviet Union?'''
| The {{w|Soviet Union}} is one of the largest countries ever to exist consisting of Russia and large portions of eastern Europe and central Asia. It was a major political force from December 28, 1922, when several allied Soviet republics united, to 1991, when it broke up.
''Note:'' This question is the same as question 51 in the Istanbul Division, but because there a Prior Date Range of 1928+ has already been established by the presence of Istanbul, we need one more question to determine whether we are within the range of 1928+.
| 1299- or 1922+
|
* Yes: 1922–91
* No: 1922- or 1991+
|
* Yes: 1922–91 (Go to 21)
* No: 1299- or 1922 (November 1–December 28) or 1991+ (Go to 22)
|-
! 21
| '''Saudi Arabia?'''
| The Kingdom of {{w|Saudi Arabia}} was founded in 1932. It is the first modern state to exert control over the area it claims, which previously were controlled by various tribal leaders. Most maps before 1932 will not mark the area as belonging to a nation at all, will attempt to mark the various shifting chieftains, or will attribute the land to the {{w|Ottoman Empire}}, which claimed the land but did not effectively control it.
| 1922–91
|
* Yes: 1932+
* No: 1932-
|
* Yes: 1932–91 (Go to 52 in the Istanbul Division)
* No: 1922–32 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 22
| '''North Korea?'''
| The {{w|Korean Peninsula}} was divided into two regions, the north of which would be known as {{w|North Korea}}, at the end of {{w|World War II}} in 1945. This resulted in the inconclusive {{w|Korean War}}.
| 1299- or 1922 (November 1–December 28) or 1991+
|
* Yes: 1945+
* No: 1945-
|
* Yes: 1991+ (Go to 69 in the Istanbul Division)
* No: 1299- or 1922 (November 1–December 28) (Go to 23)
|-
! 23
| '''Saint Trimble's Island'''
| Since [[Randall]] just made up this place, it is impossible that a map would include it, probably as a {{w|trap street|cartographer's fingerprint}} indicating plagiarism?
| 1299- or 1922 (November 1–December 28)
|
* No: inconclusive
* Yes: impossible
|
* No: 1299- or 1922 (November 1–December 28) (Go to 24)
* Yes: impossible ('''Stop''')
|-
! 24
| '''Is Jan Mayen part of the kingdom of Norway?'''
| Jurisdiction over the island of {{w|Jan Mayen}} was given to {{w|Norway}} around 1920, and it officially joined in 1930. '''Note:''' Strictly speaking, it should be almost impossible to answer "Yes" to this question – the Ottoman Empire existed until 1922, the Soviet Union existed from 1922 to 1991, and North Korea from 1945 onwards, so by answering "No" to the previous three questions, the user has ruled out the entire period during which Norway has officially owned Jan Mayen, and almost the entire period it controlled it barring an extremely slim sliver of time between November 1, 1922 to December 28, 1922. The following questions ignore the previous ones (East Germany only existed at the same time as the USSR, and Pakistan was founded later than North Korea, so both should have already been excluded) – essentially, the Jan Mayen question reboots the test.
| 1299- or 1922 (November 1–December 28)
|
* Not yet: prior to 1930
* What?: Not a political map
* Yes: 1930+
|
* Not yet: (Go to 2 in the Constantinople Division)
* What?: (Go to 25)
* Yes: (Go to 53 in the Istanbul Division)
|-
! colspan="6" | Not a Political Map Branch
|-
! 25
| '''Can you see the familiar continents?'''
| At this point, it is clear that the map in question is not a political map from any time. Therefore, the comic tries to determine whether it is a map of the Earth at all by asking if the continents are there.
|
|
* Yes: map of the Earth
* No: not a map of the Earth
|
* Yes: map of the Earth (Go to 26)
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 32)
|-
! colspan="6" | Topographical Map / Satellite Image Subbranch
|-
! 26
| '''This sounds like a physical map or satellite photo.'''
| A map of the Earth that does not label political regions must be a topological map; or, it can be a satellite image of the Earth.
| Map of the Earth
|
* Yes, that's it: topographical map or satellite image of the Earth
|
* Yes, that's it: topographical map or satellite image of the Earth (Go to 27)
|-
! 27
| '''Is Lake Chad missing?'''
| {{w|Lake Chad}} lost 75% of its area in the 1970s, becoming too small to be included in a map or picture of the Earth.
| Topographical map or satellite image of the Earth
|
* No: 1970s-
* Yes: 1970s+
|
* No: 1970s- (Go to 28)
* Yes: 1970s+ (Go to 31)
|-
! 28
| '''How far east do the American prairies reach?'''
| As settlers made their way west, the prairie land in the {{w|Great Plains}} region was steadily replaced by farmland and ranches. By the 1920s, most of the land had been converted to agricultural use, and the last of the prairie was largely obliterated by the {{w|Dust Bowl}}s in the 1930s. The dividing lines correspond roughly to the three types of prairie: {{w|tallgrass prairie}} grew between the Mississippi and Indiana, {{w|mixed grass prairie}} covered Nebraska and other states on the {{w|100th meridian west}}, and {{w|shortgrass prairie}} covered the remaining area east of the Rocky Mountains. There's some overlap in the dates, since it's fairly arbitrary at what point you say the prairies stopped existing. There are still patches of prairie (covering about 1% of their former reach), but these are probably not visible in a satellite image.

| 1970s-
|
* Indiana: Before 1830
* The Mississippi: 1830–1880s
* Nebraska: 1860s–1910s
* What prairies?: 1920s+
|
* Indiana: Before 1830 ('''Stop''')
* The Mississippi: 1830–80s ('''Stop''')
* Nebraska: 1860s–1910s (Go to 29)
* What prairies?: 1920s–1970s (Go to 30)
|-
! 29
| '''Is there a big lake in the middle of Southern California? (created by mistake)'''
| This is {{w|Salton Sea}}, a previously dry lake bed accidentally flooded in 1905 while attempting to increase irrigation to the area from the Colorado River
| 1860s–1910s
|
* No: before 1905
* Yes: 1905+
|
* No: 1860s–1900s ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1910s ('''Stop''')
|-
! 30
| '''Is there a big lake in the middle of Ghana? (created on purpose)'''
| {{w|Lake Volta}}, formed by the {{w|Akosombo Dam}} which was built in the 1960s
| 1920s–1970s
|
* No: before 1960s
* Yes: 1960s+
|
* No: 1920s–50s ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1960s–70s ('''Stop''')
|-
! 31
| '''Is the Aral Sea missing?'''
| Shrinking since the 1930s, the {{w|Aral Sea}} would be too small to be on maps or images of the Earth by the 2000s.
| 1970s+
|
* No: 1990s-
* Yes: 2000s+
|
* No: 1970s-90s ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 2000s+ ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | ''Topograpical Map / Satellite Image Subbranch ends''
|-
! colspan="6" | Fictional Map / Non-Map Subbranch
|-
! 32
| '''Rivers "Sirion" or "Anduin"?'''
| The rivers {{w|List of Middle-earth rivers#Sirion|Sirion}} and {{w|Anduin}} are part of {{w|Middle-earth|Middle-earth}}, the fictional setting of J.R.R. Tolkien's ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' books.
| Not a map of the Earth
|
* Yes: map of Middle-earth
* No: inconclusive
|
* Yes: map of Middle-earth (Go to 33)
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 37)
|-
! colspan="6" | Middle-earth Subbranch
|-
! 33
| '''Mordor?'''
| {{w|Mordor}} is the base of operations of {{w|Sauron}}, who settled there c. 1000 in the {{w|Second Age}} (which lasted for 3,441 years).
| Map of Middle-earth
|
* No: S.A. c. 1000-
* Yes: S.A. c. 1000+
|
* No: S.A. c. 1000- (Go to 34)
* Yes: S.A. c. 1000+ (Go to 35)
|-
! 34
| '''Beleriand?'''
| {{w|Beleriand}} was broken in the {{w|War of Wrath}} in the year 583 in the {{w|Years of the Sun}} in the {{w|First Age}}. The First Age itself ran for 450 Valian Years and 590 Years of the Sun, adding up to between 5,023 and 65,390 Years of the Sun, depending on the conversion factor used ({{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}} has given several during the years). Note that Randall has apparently ignored the time before the First Age (4,550 Valian Years).
| S.A. c. 1000-
|
* Yes: Y.S. 583 First Age-
* No: Y.S. 583 First Age+
|
* Yes: Y.S. 583 First Age- (stated in comic as First Age) ('''Stop''')
* No: Y.S. 583 First Age–S.A. c. 1000 (stated in comic as early Second Age) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 35
| '''Númenor?'''
| The island of {{w|Númenor}} was raised from the sea at the start of the Second Age. It sank back into the sea in 3319 in the Second Age, as the formerly flat Earth was made into a globe.
| S.A. c. 1000+
|
* Yes: S.A. 1–3319
* No: First Age- or S.A. 3319+
|
* Yes: S.A. c. 1000–3319 (stated in comic as late Second Age) ('''Stop''')
* No: S.A. 3319+ (Go to 36)
|-
! 36
| '''The forest east of the Misty Mountains is...'''
| The forest {{w|Mirkwood}} was called Greenwood the Great from its discovery by the Elves c. V.Y. 4620 in the First Age to 1050 in the {{w|Third Age}} when the shadow of Sauron fell upon it and it was renamed. It was cleansed on 'March' 28, 3019 in the Third Age (which ran for 3,021 years), after which it is called the Wood of Greenleaves. Note that Randall ignores the Fifth Age and onwards; although Tolkien said that the present day is about the end of the Sixth Age or the beginning of the Seventh, nothing is written about these later Ages.
| S.A. 3319+
|
* Greenwood the Great: c. V.Y. 4620–T.A. 1050
* Mirkwood: T.A. 1050–3019–03–28
* The Wood of Greenleaves: T.A. 3019–03–28+
|
* Greenwood the Great: S.A. 3319–T.A. 1050 (stated in comic as early Third Age) ('''Stop''')
* Mirkwood: T.A. 1050–3019–03–28 (stated in comic as Late Third Age) ('''Stop''')
* The Wood of Greenleaves: T.A. 3019–03–28+ (stated in comic as Fourth Age) ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | ''Middle-earth Subbranch ends''
|-
! 37
| '''Cair Paravel?'''
| {{w|Cair Paravel}} is the fictional castle where the Kings and Queens of Narnia rule in ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}''.
| Not a map of the Earth
|
* Yes: map of Narnia
* No: inconclusive
|
* Yes: map of Narnia (Go to 38)
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 42)
|-
! colspan="6" | Narnia Subbranch
|-
| colspan="6" | '''Note:''' This series contains seven books, whose original publication order does not match their chronological order. Specifically, ''The Magician's Nephew'' is earlier than ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', and ''The Horse and His Boy'' is between ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' and ''Prince Caspian''. Questions in this subbranch concern whether the place referenced can be found in the map contained in each book, not in which books' time the place exists. Therefore, places that exist in a book published later but is chronologically earlier than another book will not appear in the latter book, even if canonically they still exist in its time. Here are the seven books in their original publication order, which they will be referred to as.

# ''{{w|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe}}''
# ''{{w|Prince Caspian}}''
# ''{{w|The Voyage of the Dawn Treader}}''
# ''{{w|The Silver Chair}}''
# ''{{w|The Horse and His Boy}}''
# ''{{w|The Magician's Nephew}}''
# ''{{w|The Last Battle}}''
|-
! 38
| '''Calormen?'''
| {{w|Calormen}} is a foreign empire in ''The Chronicles of Narnia''. While it was indirectly referenced in the first three books, it was not included in maps until the later books in the series.
| Map of Narnia
|
* No: 3-
* Yes: 4+
|
* No: 3- (Go to 39)
* Yes: 4+ (Go to 41)
|-
! 39
| '''Lotta islands?'''
| Refers to [http://www.charliewstarr.com/_Media/mapdawntreader.gif this map] from ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', which focused on a ship voyage from Cair Paravel to the eastern edge of the world and back.
| 3-
|
* No: not 3
* Yes: 3
|
* No: 2- (Go to 40)
* Yes: 3 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 40
| '''Beruna'''
| Refers to [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-54_2TDRUbHY/TpJHzFBzmiI/AAAAAAAALOA/q3RnPSvfdJ0/s1600/IMG.jpg the map] of Narnia originally published in Prince Caspian. During the time of ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'', the people of Beruna crossed the Great River via a ford, but it had been replaced by a bridge at the beginning of ''Prince Caspian''.
| 2-
|
* Ford: 1
* Bridge: 2
|
* Ford: 1 ('''Stop''')
* Bridge: 2 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 41
| '''Weird recursive heaven?'''
| Refers to ''The Last Battle'', where the protagonists find themselves in {{w|Aslan's Country}}, a glorious afterlife of which Narnia (along with Earth and presumably every other world) is only a shadowy reflection.
| 4+
|
* No: 6-
* Yes: 7
|
* No: 4–6 (stated in comic as one of the random later books) ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 7 ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | ''Narnia Subbranch ends''
|-
! 42
| '''Mossflower?'''
| A forest from the ''{{w|Redwall}}'' book series. See also the comic [[370: Redwall]] and [[1722: Debugging]] that references the books.
| Not a map of the Earth
|
* Yes: ''Redwall''
* No: inconclusive
|
* Yes: ''Redwall'' ('''Stop''')
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 43)
|-
! 43
| '''Is the world on the back of a turtle?'''
| The comic fantasy book series ''{{w|Discworld}}'' is set on the fictional Discworld, a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle.
| Not a map of the Earth
|
* Yes: ''Discworld''
* No: inconclusive
|
* Yes: ''Discworld'' ('''Stop''')
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 44)
|-
! 44
| '''Are you ''sure'' this is a map?'''
| After incorrectly guessing several popular fictional world, it is fair to doubt whether the subject being identified here is a map at all.
| Not a map of the Earth
|
* Yes: a map ''for sure'', just not of the Earth
* No: not a map
|
* Yes: a map ''for sure'', just not of the Earth (Go to 45)
* No: not a map (Go to 47)
|-
! 45
| '''Did you make it yourself?'''
| At this point, the map can only be a homemade map of some other fictional world. (Although it might be a published map of another world, such as Pern, Oz or Mars but there isn't enough room for these options.)
| A map ''for sure'', just not of the Earth
|
* Yes: a homemade map
|
* Yes: a homemade map (Go to 46)
|-
! 46
| '''It's very nice.'''
| A stock response to "[It's] Very nice" is "Thanks, I made it myself". Since we have already done the "made it myself" part, we need to do the other parts too, albeit out of sequence.
| A homemade map
|
* Thank you!: something "very nice"
|
* Thank you!: a "very nice" homemade map ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | Not a Map Subbranch
|-
! 47
| '''Is it trying to bite you?'''
| Now we are trying to guess something that is not a map. Makes sense to ask if it's something that bites, right? Right?
| Not a map
|
* No: doesn't bite
* Yes: bites
|
* No: doesn't bite and not a map (Go to 48)
* Yes: bites (Go to 49)
|-
! 48
| '''Is it larger than a breadbox?'''
| A typical, generic question asked by Steve Allen on ''{{w|What's My Line?}}'', and is often used when playing {{w|Twenty Questions}}. However, instead of asking further questions to narrow down the choices, the comic just gives a guess for each response. The comic guesses a breadbox itself as something about the same size as a breadbox.
| Doesn't bite and not a map
|
* Yes: larger than a breadbox
* No: smaller than a breadbox
* About the same: about the same size as a breadbox
|
* Yes: larger than a breadbox, doesn't bite, and not a map (comic guesses a {{w|tuba}}) ('''Stop''')
* No: smaller than a breadbox, doesn't bite, and not a map (comic guesses a {{w|stapler}}) ('''Stop''')
* About the same: about the same size as a breadbox, doesn't bite, and not a map (comic guesses a {{w|breadbox}}) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 49
| '''If you let it go, what does it do?'''
|This assumes that you are holding the biting object. While holding it, the object may have already bitten you, and the consequences of this would most likely be painful.
| Bites
|
* Hisses and runs away: hisses and runs away if let go
* Screeches and flaps around the room breaking things: screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go
|
* Hisses and runs away: bites, and hisses and runs away if let go (comic guesses a {{w|cat}}) ('''Stop''')
* Screeches and flaps around the room breaking things: bites, and screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go (comic guesses a {{w|seagull}}) ('''Stop''' (however, see 50))
|-
! 50
| '''Does the screeching chill your blood and herald death?'''
| ''Note: Title text question.'' Likely, if a banshee is being held, or flapping around the room, one would have bigger problems than its identification. Also, heralding of death is a difficult quality to identify.
| Bites, and screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go
|
* Yes: Screeching chills your blood and heralds death
* No: Screeching does not chill your blood and herald death; or does not screech
|
* Yes: bites; screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go; screeching chills your blood and heralds death (title text guesses a {{w|banshee}}) ('''Stop''')
* No: bites; screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go; screeching does not chill your blood and herald death (title text guesses a seagull) ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | Istanbul Division
|-
! 51
| '''Does the Soviet Union exist?'''
| The {{w|Soviet Union}}, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, existed from 1922 to 1991. After 1991, the Soviet Union split up into Russia and 15 other post-Soviet states.
|1928+
|
* Yes: 1928–1991
* No: 1991+
|
* Yes: 1928–1991 (Go to 52)
* No: 1991+ (Go to 69)
|-
! colspan="6" | West Africa branch
|-
! 52
| '''Is most of West Africa a giant French blob?'''
| Before 1960, most of West Africa consisted of a number of French colonies united under {{w|French West Africa}}.
|1928–1991
|
* Yes: 1928–1960
* No: 1960–1991
|
* Yes: 1928–1960 (Go to 53)
* No: 1960–1991 (Go to 60)
|-
! 53
| '''Pakistan?'''
| {{w|Pakistan}} was officially recognized as its own country in 1947, when {{w|British India}} was granted independence and {{w|Partition of India|partitioned into two nations}}. Pakistan was created at the request of Muslims who wished for a Muslim majority state.
|1928–1960
|
* No: 1928–1947
* Yes: 1947–1960
|
* No: 1928–1947 (Go to 54)
* Yes: 1948–1960 (Go to 56)
|-
! 54
| '''How many Germanys are there?'''
| During WWII, the {{w|Nazi Party}} invaded a large swath of Europe, which would make {{w|Nazi Germany}} huge on the map during that period. After the war, it split up into two countries — {{w|West Germany}} which was part of {{w|NATO}}, and {{w|East Germany}} which was part of the {{w|Warsaw Pact}}. Note that by modern standards, pre-WWII Germany was also quite huge, since at that point Germany included {{w|Prussia}} which contained much of modern Poland as well as Russian {{w|Kaliningrad}}, and in 1938 Germany took control of Austria in the {{w|Anschluss}} and the {{w|Sudetenland}} in {{w|Czechoslovakia}} following the {{w|Munich Agreement}}. Not all maps produced during WWII used the Nazi borders, since the Allies refused to recognize German occupation and supported the {{w|government-in-exile|governments-in-exile}}.
|1928–1947
|
* One: 1928–1940
* One, but it's ''huge'': 1941–1945
* Two: 1946–1947
|
* One: 1928–1940 (Go to 55)
* One, but it's ''huge'': 1941–1945 ('''Stop''')
* Two: 1946–1947 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 55
| '''Persia or Iran?'''
| In 1935 the {{w|Iran|Iranian}} Government requested that westerners call it by the name its own people had used for hundreds of years, rather than after a tribe within it that gained prominence 2500 years earlier. The interval from 1928 to 1930 is dropped from this branch, but it would fall under {{w|Persia}}.
|1928–1940
|
* Persia: 1930–1934
* Iran: 1935–1940
|
* Persia: 1930–1934 ('''Stop''')
* Iran: 1935–1940 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 56
| '''Cambodia?'''
| {{w|Cambodia}} (or Kampuchea) declared independence from France in 1953.
|1948–1960
|
* No: 1948–1953
* Yes: 1953–1960
|
* No: 1948–1953 (Go to 57)
* Yes: 1953–1960 (Go to 59)
|-
! 57
| '''Eritrea is a part of...'''
| {{w|Eritrea}} declared independence from Italy in 1952, joining {{w|Ethiopia}} to create the {{w|Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea}}.
|1947–1953
|
* Italy: 1948–1952
* Ethiopia: 1952–1953
|
* Italy: 1948–1952 (Go to 58)
* Ethiopia: 1952–1953 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 58
| '''Canada is...'''
| In 1949, the {{w|Dominion of Newfoundland}} became a part of {{w|Canada}}. Before that, it was marked as its own country on the map, so maps from 1948 and before would have Canada "missing a piece" on its east coast as compared to how it looks today.
|1947–1952
|
* Missing a piece: 1948
* Fine: 1949–1952
|
* Missing a piece: 1948 ('''Stop''')
* Fine: 1949–1952 (Go to 63)
|-
! 59
| '''The United Arab Republic?'''
| The {{w|The United Arab Republic}} was a short-lived political union between {{w|Egypt}} and {{w|Syria}}. The union began in 1958 and existed until 1961 (although Egypt continued to call itself the United Arab Republic for several years after Syria left the union).
|1953–1960
|
* No: 1953–1958
* Yes: 1958–1960
|
* No: 1953–58 (stated in comic as 1954–57 – a discrepancy) ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 1958–60 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 60
| '''How many Vietnams are there?'''
| On April 30, 1975, forces from {{w|North Vietnam}} captured {{w|Saigon}} (now known as {{w|Ho Chi Minh City}}), and reunified the country, in an event known as {{w|Reunification Day}}, which marked the end of the {{w|Vietnam War}}. Maps before this date would have "North Vietnam" and "{{w|South Vietnam}}" on them rather than a single "{{w|Vietnam}}".
|1960–1991
|
* Two: 1960–1975
* One: 1975–1991
|
* Two: 1960–1975 (Go to 61)
* One: 1975–1991 (Go to 64)
|-
! 61
| '''Bangladesh?'''
| {{w|Bangladesh}} (formerly {{w|East Pakistan}}) declared independence from {{w|Pakistan}} in 1972, as they had different languages, cultures, and the Bengalis felt their country was being run from West Pakistan without their input. The {{w|Bangladesh Liberation War|resulting war}} lasted just over 8 months and ended in Indian intervention.
|1960–1975
|
* No: 1960–1972
* Yes: 1972–1975
|
* No: 1960–1972 (Go to 62)
* Yes: 1972–1975 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 62
| '''Is the area south of Lake Victoria...'''
| The area south of {{w|Lake Victoria}} was called {{w|Tanganyika}}, and it declared independence from the United Kingdom to form its own country in 1961, and unified with {{w|Zanzibar}} to create {{w|Tanzania}} in 1964.
|1960–1972
|
* British: 1960–1961
* Tanganyika: 1961–1964
* Tanzania: 1965–1971
|
* British: 1960 ('''Stop''')
* Tanganyika: 1961–1964 ('''Stop''')
* Tanzania: 1965–1972 (stated in comic as 1964–1971 – a discrepancy) ('''Stop''')
|-
! 63
| '''The town on I-25 between Albuquerque and El Paso is... '''
| {{w|Interstate 25 in New Mexico|I-25}} didn't exist for any of the years listed for this item, since the Interstate Highway System wasn't launched until 1956. The highway designation on maps printed during the years listed was {{w|U.S. Route 85#New Mexico|US-85}}, and it was first replaced by I-25 in 1970–1990. The town changed its name from Hot Springs to "{{w|Truth or Consequences, New Mexico|Truth or Consequences}}" in 1950, although locals say that it provides more of the latter than of the former. Initially there was an error as this question was on a path from the British Tanganyika (directly above it) instead of from the "Fine" option of "Canada is.." but this has been fixed.
|1949–1952
|
* Hot Springs: 1916–49
* Truth or Consequences: 1950+
|
* Hot Springs: 1948–49 ('''Stop''')
* Truth or Consequences: 1950–52 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 64
| '''Jimmy Carter is...'''
| On April 20, 1979, {{w|Jimmy Carter}} was "{{w|Jimmy Carter rabbit incident|attacked}}" by a swamp rabbit, a fact referenced in [[204|204: America]]. This fact would not normally be referenced on a map, however, and is simply a joke entry that leads to the next question.
|1975–1991
|
* Being attacked by a giant swimming rabbit: April 20, 1979
* Fine: 1975–1991
|
* Being attacked by a giant swimming rabbit: April 20, 1979 ('''Stop''')
* Fine: 1975–1991 (Go to 65)
|-
! 65
| '''The Sinai is part of what country?'''
| In 1979, {{w|Israel}} signed a peace treaty in which it would gradually retreat from the entire {{w|Sinai Peninsula}}, handing that area to {{w|Egypt}}. This happened over a period of three years, completing in 1982.
|1975–1991
|
* Israel: 1976–1979
* Mostly Israel: 1980
* Mostly Egypt: 1981
* Egypt: 1982–1991
|
* Israel: 1976–1979 (missing 1975?) ('''Stop''')
* Mostly Israel: 1980 ('''Stop''')
* Mostly Egypt: 1981 ('''Stop''')
* Egypt: 1982–1991 (Go to 66)
|-
! 66
| '''What's the capital of Micronesia?'''
| The {{w|Federated States of Micronesia}} are a group of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Their capital was {{w|Kolonia}} until 1989, when it changed to {{w|Palikir}}, on the same island.
|1982–1991
|
* Kolonia: 1982–1988
* Palikir: 1989–1991
|
* Kolonia: 1982–1988 (Go to 67)
* Palikir: 1989–1991 (Go to 68)
|-
! 67
| '''Republic of the Upper Volta or Burkina Faso?'''
| {{w|Burkina Faso}} was named the {{w|Republic of Upper Volta}} until 1984, when the president Thomas Sankara decided to rename it to promote a sense of unity in the nation and in an anti-colonial statement.
|1982–1988
|
* Upper Volta: 1982–1984
* Burkina Faso: 1985–1988
|
* Upper Volta: 1982–1984 ('''Stop''')
* Burkina Faso: 1985–1988 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 68
| '''(Number of Yemens) + (Number of Germanys) = ?'''
| In 1990, two unification events took place: {{w|Yemeni unification}} on May 22, and {{w|German reunification}} on October 3. Before these events, in early 1990, there would have been four Yemens and Germanys total. In mid-1990, when only the Yemeni unification had taken place, there would be one Yemen and two Germanys, for a total of three. and in late 1990, after both events took place, there would be one of each for a total of two.
|1989–1991
|
* Four: 1989–early 1990
* Three: mid-1990
* Two: late 1990–1991
|
* Four: 1989–early 1990 ('''Stop''')
* Three: mid-1990 ('''Stop''')
* Two: late 1990–1991 ('''Stop''')
|-
! colspan="6" | Post-Soviet branch
|-
! 69
| '''Zaire? or: "Hong Kong (UK)"'''
| Zaire was one of a series of names for what is today called the {{w|Democratic Republic of the Congo}}. In 1996 a (successful) revolt began to oust the reigning government from power. As part of this revolution, the country was renamed. The original name change away from 'Congo' was part of an 'Africanisation' naming campaign, although 'Congo' is in origin an authentic African name for the river that set the boundaries of the nation.

{{w|Hong Kong}} was taken by the British in 1843 at the end of the {{w|First Opium War}}, and an additional area (the {{w|New Territories}}) were leased from China in 1898 on a 99-year lease. When the lease expired in 1997, {{w|Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong|the whole of Hong Kong was returned to China}}.
|1991+
|
* Yes: 1992–1996
* No: 1996+
|
* Yes: 1992–1996 ('''Stop''')
* No: 1996+ (Go to 70)
|-
! 70
| '''Serbia and Montenegro are...'''
| The Union of {{w|Serbia and Montenegro}} was a remnant of {{w|Yugoslavia}}. {{w|Montenegro}} voted to become its own country in 2006. '''Note:''' For much of the prior date range, "Serbia and Montenegro" did not appear on maps–the states still went by the name Yugoslavia. {{w|Serbia and Montenegro#State union|Serbia and Montenegro only came into existence in 2003}}.
|1996+
|
* One country: 1996–2006
* Two countries: 2007+
|
* One country: 1996–2006 (Go to 71)
* Two countries: 2007+ (Go to 72)
|-
! 71
| '''East Timor?'''
| {{w|East Timor}} (also known as Timor-Leste) is a nation north of Australia and south east of {{w|Indonesia}}. During the Dutch colonization of Indonesia, East Timor remained in Portuguese hands. While {{w|Indonesian occupation of East Timor|occupied and annexed by Indonesia}} in 1976, East Timor retained its own culture and voted for independence, then had a nasty militia action that required UN peacekeeping action, and finally become independent in 2002.
|1996–2006
|
* No: 1997–2001
* Yes: 2002–2006
|
* No: 1997–2001 ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 2002–2006 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 72
| '''How many Sudans are there?'''
| In 2011, after a long history of violence between the two portions of the country (which can be characterized as Islam vs. Christianity and traditional religions), {{w|South Sudan}} became independent from {{w|Sudan}}.
|2006+
|
* One: 2007–2011
* Two: 2011+
|
* One: 2007–2011 ('''Stop''')
* Two: 2011+ (Go to 73)
|-
! 73
| '''Is Crimea disputed?'''
| In 2014, a {{w|Euromaidan|revolution}} ousted the current Ukrainian president. {{w|Crimea}} had its own civil unrest, and Russian troops exploited the unrest to launch {{w|Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation|an invasion}}. A {{w|2014_Crimean_status_referendum|referendum}} was held on March 16 2014 and ostensibly decided in favor of Russian annexation. Many nations, including all member states of the EU, the USA, and Canada, disputed the democratic legitimacy of the referendum. As a result, depending on where you get your maps, Crimea may be marked as disputed or as part of one or the other countries. [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/12/302337754/google-maps-displays-crimean-border-differently-in-russia-u-s Google Maps Ukraine shows it as solely Ukrainian while Google Maps Russia shows it as Russian].
|2011+
|
* Yes: 2014+
* No: 2012–2013
|
* Yes: 2014+ (Go to 74)
* No: 2012–2013 ('''Stop''')
|-
! 74
| '''"Colorado" or "Danger—Radioactive Exclusion Zone—Avoid"?'''
| This entry and the one below it are now referring to hypothetical future events: specifically, a huge radioactivity event in {{w|Colorado}} that takes place some time in 2022. Colorado houses several important USA defense installations which, in popular culture, become targets for nuclear strikes in the event of an all out war between the USA and Russia (for example over the {{w|political status of Crimea}}). Installations include {{w|Peterson Air Force Base}} and the heavily fortified {{w|Cheyenne Mountain Complex}} housing {{w|NORAD}} command functions. Colorado also has a previous history of radioactive contamination–it was home to uranium mines, nuclear tests (including {{w|Project Rulison}}, an attempt to use nuclear bombs to drill for natural gas that ended up making the gas radioactive) and the controversial {{w|Rocky Flats Plant}}, a nuclear weapons manufacturing facility that suffered {{w|Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant|several fires and leaks}} and was ultimately raided and shut down by the FBI. None of these has yet caused spiders to mutate.{{Citation needed}}
|2014+
|
* Colorado: 2014–2021
* Danger: 2022+
|
* Colorado: 2014–2021 ('''Stop''')
* Danger: 2022+ (Go to 75)
|-
! 75
| '''Does the warning mention the spiders?'''
| Presumably some time in 2023, the radioactive exclusion zone also becomes infested with mutant spiders.
|2022+
|
* No: 2022
* Yes: 2023 or later
|
* No: 2022 ('''Stop''')
* Yes: 2023 or later ('''Stop''')
|}

==Transcript==
:[A very complicated flow chart, which can only be read in detail using the larger image now shown at the top of this page. This transcript uses the large version, which is more legible.]

:[At the top of the chart there is a large caption, with a smaller caption below:]
:<big>Guide to figuring out the age of an undated world map</big>
:(Assuming it's complete, labeled in English, and detailed enough)

:[Below the starting bracket in the small caption is a start box. It has rounded corners and it is gray with white text. From this box there is a gray line to a box consisting of a black frame with rounded corners. In these kind of boxes there are questions regarding the map in black text. Below this box there are three gray boxes like the start box, superimposed over the bottom frame. In these boxes are the possible answers to the question in the frame above. From each of these options there is a gray line going to similar black framed boxes with other questions either below, or to either side. There can either be two, three or four gray boxes, two the most common. Only at the very bottom of the central branch where it turns out it was a home made map, are there two frames with only one gray question box each. This trend continues over this entire large image. When reaching the end of a branch in the flow chart, there is no line away from one, more or all of the gray boxes for a black frame. When this happens a year range or a guess at what the map shows, or what it is (if it turns out to not be a map) is written below the gray box in gray text. Of the text in the gray boxes are Yes/No, but not always. There are 74 boxes with black frames with 158 gray boxes and 78 endpoints with text below the gray box and one end point without text below (the one with the home made map).]

:Start
::Istanbul or Constantinople?
:::Constantinople
::::Do any of these exist? 
::::*Independent Canada
::::*US Territory of Alaska
::::*Tokyo
:::::No
::::::The Holy Roman Empire?
:::::::Yes
::::::::1805 or earlier (before this point, the modern idea of a complete political map of the world gets hard to apply.)
:::::::No
::::::::The United States?
:::::::::No
::::::::::How sure are you that this map is in English?
:::::::::Yes
::::::::::Texas is...
:::::::::::Part of Mexico
::::::::::::Florida is part of...
:::::::::::::Spain
::::::::::::::Paraguay?
:::::::::::::::No 1806–10
:::::::::::::::Yes 1811–17
:::::::::::::The US
::::::::::::::Venezuela and/or Ecuador?
:::::::::::::::No 1818–29
:::::::::::::::Yes 1830–33
:::::::::::Independent 1834–45
:::::::::::Part of the US
::::::::::::Does Russia border the Sea of Japan?
:::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::The US's southern border looks...
:::::::::::::::Weird 1846–53
:::::::::::::::Normal 1854–56
:::::::::::::Yes 1858–67
:::::Yes
::::::South Africa?
:::::::No
::::::::Rhodesia?
:::::::::No
::::::::::Is Bolivia landlocked?
:::::::::::No
::::::::::::"Buda" and "Pest" or "Budapest"?
:::::::::::::Buda and Pest 1868–72
:::::::::::::Budapest 1873–83
:::::::::::Yes 1884–95
:::::::::Yes
::::::::::Is Norway part of Sweden?
:::::::::::Yes 1896–1905
:::::::::::No 1906–09
:::::::Yes
::::::::Austria-Hungary?
:::::::::Yes
::::::::::Albania?
:::::::::::No 1910–12
:::::::::::Yes 1913–18
:::::::::No
::::::::::Leningrad?
:::::::::::No 1919–23
:::::::::::Yes 1924–29
:::Neither
::::Does the Ottoman Empire exist?
:::::Yes [[#canada-alaska-tokyo]]
:::::No
::::::The Soviet Union?
:::::::Yes
::::::::Saudi Arabia?
:::::::::Yes
::::::::::Is most of West Africa a giant french blob?
:::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::Pakistan?
:::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::How many Germanys are there?
:::::::::::::::One
::::::::::::::::Persia or Iran?
:::::::::::::::::Persia 1930–34
:::::::::::::::::Iran 1935–40
:::::::::::::::One, but it's ''huge'' 1941–45
:::::::::::::::Two 1946–47
:::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::Cambodia?
:::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::Eritrea is part of...
:::::::::::::::::Italy
::::::::::::::::::Canada is...
:::::::::::::::::::Missing a piece 1948
:::::::::::::::::::Fine
::::::::::::::::::::The town on I-25 between Albuquerque and El Paso is...
:::::::::::::::::::::Hot Springs 1948-49
:::::::::::::::::::::Truth or Consequences 1950–52
:::::::::::::::::Ethiopia 1952–53
:::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::The United Arab Republic?
:::::::::::::::::No 1954–57
:::::::::::::::::Yes 1958–60
:::::::::::No
::::::::::::How many Vietnams are there?
:::::::::::::Two
::::::::::::::Bangladesh?
:::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::Is the area south of Lake Victoria...
:::::::::::::::::British 1960
:::::::::::::::::Tanganyika 1961–64
:::::::::::::::::Tanzania 1965–71
:::::::::::::::Yes 1972–75
:::::::::::::One
::::::::::::::Jimmy Carter is...
:::::::::::::::Being attacked by a giant swimming rabbit April 20, 1979
:::::::::::::::Fine
::::::::::::::::The Sinai is part of what country?
:::::::::::::::::Israel 1976–79
:::::::::::::::::Mostly Israel 1980
:::::::::::::::::Mostly Egypt 1981
:::::::::::::::::Egypt
::::::::::::::::::What's the capital of Micronesia?
:::::::::::::::::::Kolonia
::::::::::::::::::::Republic of the Upper Volta or Burkina Faso?
:::::::::::::::::::::Upper Volta 1982–84
:::::::::::::::::::::Burkina Faso 1985–88
:::::::::::::::::::Palikir
::::::::::::::::::::(number of Yemens) + (number of Germanys) = ?
:::::::::::::::::::::Four 1989-early 1990
:::::::::::::::::::::Three mid-1990
:::::::::::::::::::::Two late 1990–1991
:::::::::No 1922–1932
:::::::No
::::::::North Korea?
:::::::::Yes
::::::::::Zaire? or: "Hong Kong (UK)"
:::::::::::Yes 1992–96
:::::::::::No
::::::::::::Serbia/Montenegro are...
:::::::::::::One country
::::::::::::::East Timor?
:::::::::::::::No 1997–2001
:::::::::::::::Yes 2002–06
:::::::::::::Two countries
::::::::::::::How many Sudans are there?
:::::::::::::::One 2007–11
:::::::::::::::Two
::::::::::::::::Is Crimea disputed?
:::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::"Colorado" or "Danger—Radioactive Exclusion Zone—Avoid"?
:::::::::::::::::::Colorado 2014–21
:::::::::::::::::::Danger
::::::::::::::::::::Does the warning mention the spiders?
:::::::::::::::::::::No 2022
:::::::::::::::::::::Yes 2023 or later
:::::::::::::::::No 2012–13
:::::::::No
::::::::::Saint Trimble's Island
:::::::::::No
::::::::::::Is Jan Mayen part of the Kingdom of Norway?
:::::::::::::Not yet
::::::::::::::[[#canada-alaska-tokyo]]
:::::::::::::What?
::::::::::::::Can you see the familiar continents?
:::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::This sounds like a physical map or satellite photo.
:::::::::::::::::Yes, that's it
::::::::::::::::::Is Lake Chad missing?
:::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::How far east do the American Prairies reach?
:::::::::::::::::::::Indiana before 1830
:::::::::::::::::::::The Mississippi 1830s-80s
:::::::::::::::::::::Nebraska
::::::::::::::::::::::Is there a big lake in the middle of Southern California? (created by mistake)
:::::::::::::::::::::::No 1860s-1900s
:::::::::::::::::::::::Yes 1910s
:::::::::::::::::::::What prairies?
::::::::::::::::::::::Is there a big lake in the middle of Ghana? (created on purpose)
:::::::::::::::::::::::No 1920s-50s
:::::::::::::::::::::::Yes 1960s-70s
:::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::Is the Aral Sea missing?
:::::::::::::::::::::No 1970s-90s
:::::::::::::::::::::Yes 2000s+
:::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::Rivers "Sirion" or "Anduin"?
:::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::Mordor?
:::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::Beleriand?
:::::::::::::::::::::Yes First Age
:::::::::::::::::::::No Early Second Age
:::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::Númenor?
:::::::::::::::::::::Yes Late Second Age
:::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::The forest east of the Misty Mountains is...
:::::::::::::::::::::::Greenwood Early Third Age
:::::::::::::::::::::::Mirkwood Late Third Age
:::::::::::::::::::::::The Wood of Greenleaves Fourth Age
:::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::Cair Paravel?
:::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::Calormen?
:::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::Lotta Islands?
:::::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::::Beruna
:::::::::::::::::::::::::Ford The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
:::::::::::::::::::::::::Bridge Prince Caspian
:::::::::::::::::::::::Yes Dawn Treader
:::::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::::Weird recursive heaven?
:::::::::::::::::::::::No One of the random later books
:::::::::::::::::::::::Yes The Last Battle
:::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::Mossflower?
:::::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::::Redwall
:::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::Is the world on the back of a turtle?
:::::::::::::::::::::::Yes Discworld
:::::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::::Are you ''sure'' this is a map?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::::::::Did you make it yourself?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::It's very nice.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Thank you!
:::::::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::::::Is it trying to bite you?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::No
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Is it larger than a breadbox?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Yes tuba
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::No stapler
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::About the same breadbox
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::If you let it go, what does it do?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Hisses and runs away cat
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Screeches and flaps around the room breaking things seagull
:::::::::::::Yes
::::::::::::::[[#pakistan]]
:::::::::::Yes No, I made that one up.
:::Istanbul
::::Does the Soviet Union exist?
:::::Yes
::::::[[#west-africa-french-blob]]
:::::No
::::::[[#zaire]]
 
 
Title text: Does the screeching chill your blood and herald death? If yes, banshee. If no, seagull.

==Trivia==
*There are some errors and several discrepancies in the comic regarding how year ranges are given although it appears Randall has been fixing these errors.
**I-25 was built in 1970–1990 through New Mexico; see the [[#Table|table]] above for more info.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Spiders]]
[[Category:Chronicles of Narnia]]
[[Category:Redwall]]

1638: Backslashes

2022-05-04T00:49:57Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 234001 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{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==
Most programming languages use the concept of a {{w|String literal|string}} literal, which is just a text between some delimiters, usually quotes. For example, "Hello, world" is a string literal. The text being represented is ''Hello, world'' without the quotes. However, the quotes are also written to mark the beginning and end of the string. This is a problem when the text itself contains a quote, as in "This is a "quoted" string". The quotes around the word "quoted" are intended to be part of the text, but the {{w|Lexical analysis|language processor}} will likely confuse it for the end of the string, which would thus be two strings with ''quoted'' outside these strings (probably resulting in a syntax error).

To avoid this problem, an {{w|Escape character|escape character}} (usually a backslash) is prepended to non-string-terminating quotes. So, the previous text would be written as "This is a \"quoted\" string". The language processor will substitute every occurrence of \" with only the quote character, and the string terminates at the quote character which does not immediately follow a backslash. In this case the resulting text string would be ''This is a "quoted" string'' as intended.

However, the problem now is that the intended text might contain a backslash itself. For example, the text "C:\" will now be interpreted as an unterminated string containing a quote character. To avoid this, literal backslashes also are escaped with a second backslash, i.e. instead of "C:\" we write "C:\\", where the language processor interprets \\ as one single backslash and the quote terminates the string to give ''C:\'' as the output.

This doubling of backslashes happens in most programming and scripting languages, but also in other syntactic constructs such as {{w|Regular expression|regular expressions}}. So, when several of these languages are used in conjunction, backslashes pile up exponentially (each layer has to double the number of slashes). See example of a backslash explosion and alternatives to avoid this [[#Backslash explosion and alternatives|below]].

This kind of backslash explosion is known as {{w|Leaning toothpick syndrome}}, and can happen in [[1313: Regex Golf|many situations]]. Below is an explanation of all the [[#Entries in the list|entries in the comic]].

The backslash explosion in the title text is about a {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|bash}} command (which uses the backslash to escape arguments) invoking the {{w|grep}} utility which searches for text following a pattern specified by means of a regular expression (which also uses the backslash to escape special characters). This leads to 3 backslashes in a row in the command, which could easily become 7 backslashes in a row if the text being searched for also contains a backslash.

Even advanced users who completely understand the concept often have a hard time figuring out exactly how many backslashes are required in a given situation. It is hopelessly frustrating to carefully calculate exactly the number of backslashes and then noticing that there's a mistake so the whole thing doesn't work. At a point, it becomes easier to just keep throwing backslashes in until things work than trying to reason what the correct number is.

It's unclear whether the regular expression in the title text is valid or not. A long discussion about the validity of the expression has occurred here on this explanation's [[Talk:1638: Backslashes|talk page]]. The fact that many editors of the site, often themselves extremely technically qualified,{{Citation needed}}{{Citation needed}} can't determine whether the expression is valid or not, adds a meta layer to the joke of the comic. This is an example of [[356: Nerd Sniping|nerd sniping]] (oh, the irony\!\!\!\).

===Entries in the list===
*The first four examples have names that are (somewhat) based on what they actually produce:
**'''Backslash''': 1 backslash appropriately named
**'''Real backslash''': 2 backslashes are labeled correctly as they do indeed refer to an escaped backslash.
**'''''Real'' real backslash''': 3 backslashes would refer to an escaped backslash followed by an unescaped one. The first two backslashes would combine to make a ''real backslash'' while the third one would combine with the character following it to form an {{w|Escape sequence|escape sequence}}. The name does thus not make a lot of sense, as this is two escape sequences and not a single "very real" one.
**'''Actual backslash, for real this time''': 4 backslashes form one single backslash escaped twice (the first escaping produces two backslashes, the second escaping doubles each of the backslashes). This is so common that even the documentation for the {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}} regular expression library has a section called [https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html Regular expression operations] that mentions "\\\\" explicitly. In this case, the backslash has to be escaped once for being part of a regular expression and then ''each'' of these once more as the regular expression needs to be written inside a Python string. This is named in reference to the fact that the previous examples didn't contain enough escaping.
*The remaining five examples of backslashes have more and more occult names (explanations) and do not refer to any more real uses of backslash escapes:
**'''Elder backslash''': 5 backslashes would be a doubly-escaped backslash plus an unescaped one. The reference to {{w|Elder}} in the comic has many meanings. It has become known through fantasy media; Most prominent with the {{w|Elder Days}}, which are the first Ages of {{w|Middle-earth}} in {{w|The Silmarillion}}, the more-or-less prequel to {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}. More recently it has been used in the {{w|Harry Potter}} universe where the ''Deathly Hallow'' called the ''{{w|Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter#Deathly_Hallows|Elder wand}}'', made from {{w|Sambucus|Elder wood}}, is a very important part of the last book ''{{w|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}}''. Other examples are the {{w|Elder Gods}} of the {{w|Cthulhu Mythos}} as well as various 'Elder' magical items and beings in the {{w|Dungeons and Dragons}} mythologies.
**'''Backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain''': 6 backslashes is a play on the word "escape" as the backslash is supposed to be an "escape character" but obviously not "escaping the screen" and entering your brain. This could also be understood as the programmer is getting backslashes on his mind, when he goes beyond the ''Elder backslash'' domain...
**'''Backslash so real it transcends time and space ''': 7 backslashes goes further than escaping the screen as they now {{w|Transcendence (philosophy)|transcends}} both {{w|Spacetime|time and space}}
**'''Backslash to end all other text''': 8 backslashes would be a triply-escaped backslash (same as 4 backslashes but with an additional escaping layer). It is said to "end all other text", i.e. there should never be any more text if someone uses eight in a row. But there could be more as indicated in the last example.
**'''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater''': {{w|Infinity|∞ backslashes}} (11 are shown but followed by "..." to indicate that they continue forever). If you could write an infinite number of backslashes it would actually be ''The true name of {{w|Baal|Ba'al}}, the {{w|Soul eater (folklore)|Soul-Eater}}''. This indicates that if you continue misusing backslashes like this you will end up devoured by a demon, for instance {{w|Beelzebub}}, for being so thoughtless... Ba'al has been mentioned before in [[1419: On the Phone]] and in the title text of [[1246: Pale Blue Dot]].

===Backslash explosion and alternatives===
A reasonable example of a backslash explosion would be a {{w|PHP}} script on a web server which writes {{w|JavaScript}} code with a {{w|Regular Expression}} to be run on the client. If the JavaScript code has to test a string to see if ''it'' has a double-backslash, the Regular Expression to do so would be:
\\\\
where the first two backslashes represent a single backslash and the second two also represent a single backslash, so this searches for two consecutive back slashes.
And the JavaScript would be:
RegExp("\\\\\\\\").test(str);
where every two backslashes means just one backslashes in the string, so the 8 backslashes in JavaScript become 4 backslashes in the Regular Expression.
However, since this JavaScript code is to be written through a PHP script, the PHP code would be:
echo "RegExp(\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\").test(str);";
where:
* The word <code>echo</code> is the PHP command for writing something
* The first quote starts the string
* The <code>RegExp(</code> - including the open parenthesis - is written literally
* The <code>\"</code> following that is a literal quote to be written
* The first two slashes produce one single slash
* And so on until 8 backward slashes are written
* The next <code>\"</code> produces a literal quote character
* The <code>).test(str);</code> is written literally
* The next quote finishes the string.
* The final semicolon terminates the <code>echo</code> command
So, the presented scenario has escalated from a simple test for <code>\\</code> to no less than seventeen backslashes in a row without stepping out of the most common operations.

If we go a bit further and try to write a {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} program that outputs our PHP script, we'd have:
System.out.println("echo \"RegExp(\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\").test(str);\";");
Here, we have 35 backslashes in a row: the first 34 produce the 17 we need in our PHP script, and the last one is for escaping the quote character. (This comes closer to ''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater'').

Some programming languages provide alternative matching string literal delimiters to limit situations where escaping of delimiters is needed. Often, one can begin and end a string with either a single quote or a double quote. This allows one to write <code>'This is a "quoted" string'</code> if double quote marks are intended in the string literal or <code>"This is a 'quoted' string"</code> if single quote marks are intended. Both kinds of delimiters can't be used in the same string literal, but if one needs to construct a string containing both kinds of quote marks one can often concatenate two string literals, each of which uses a different delimiter.

Another feature that seems to be popular in modern programming languages is to provide an alternative syntax for string delimiters designed specifically to limit leaning toothpick syndrome. For example, in Python, a string literal starting with <code>r"</code> is a "raw string" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_literal#Raw_strings] in which no escape processing is done, with similar semantics for a string starting with <code>@"</code> in C#. This allows one to write <code>r"C:\Users"</code>  in Python or <code>@"C:\Users"</code> in C# without the need to escape the backslash. This does not allow one to embed the terminating delimiter in the middle of the string and prevents the use of the backslash to encode the newline character as <code>\n</code>, but comes in handy when writing a string encoding of a regular expression in which the backslash is escaping one or more other punctuation characters or a shorthand character class (e.g., <code>\s</code> for a whitespace character). For example, when looking for an anchor tag in HTML, developers may encode the regular expression as <code><[Aa]\s[^>]*></code>. If they express this regular expression as a raw string literal, the code looks like <code>r"<[Aa]\s[^>]*>"</code> instead of <code>"<[Aa]\\s[^>]*>"</code>. The point here is that "leaning toothpick syndrome" is such a real problem that it has influenced programming language implementations.

==Transcript==
:[A list of the names of different numbers of backslashes. After each "item" there is a gray line to the text describing each item. As the text is aligned above each other, the lines becomes shorter as the sequence of backslashes becomes longer until there is just a line with the length of a single hyphen for the last item. There are 1 to 8 backslashes and then 11 plus "..." in the last entry.]
:\------------ 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

==Note on Title Text==
The title text when first published was

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.

It was changed within a few days to

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.

The original title text seems to be more relevant to the comic, but the revised title text seems to make more sense as a legitimate command line due to the way backslashes are interpreted in regular expressions. See the Discussion below for much more on the topic.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Regex]]
[[Category:Programming]]

339: Classic

2022-05-04T00:49:35Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233267 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 339
| date = November 7, 2007
| title = Classic
| image = classic.png
| titletext = Someone get that Pachelbel's Canon kid a recording contract, stat.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] listens to the song "{{w|Stairway to Heaven}}" performed by {{w|Led Zeppelin}} using an old {{w|phonograph}}. Led Zeppelin was active during the 1970s, with Stairway To Heaven being released in 1971; as such, the music belongs to the {{w|Baby-boom generation|Baby Boomer generation}}. After the song fades out to the end, he expresses how much it's affected him by stating that the baby boomers are winning over his own generation at music. The way in which the lyrics are written evokes the sound of this particular song as it finishes and fades out.

The title text likely refers to {{w|Lim Jeong-hyun}}, the guitarist in the YouTube video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8 ''guitar''] that went viral in 2006-2007, in which he performed a cover of "Canon Rock," a rock arrangement of {{w|Pachelbel's Canon}}. Alternatively, it may refer to {{w|JerryC}}, the original composer of "Canon Rock," who also performed the song in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by8oyJztzwo YouTube video], though his video did not gain as much popularity as Lim's.

The Classical era was a period in music history (1750 - 1820) that produced many musical compositions still remembered hundreds of years afterward, and the word 'classic' is now used to describe something that remains popular long after its time. The "Baby Boomer generation" is known for having created many musicians still well-loved today, including:
*{{w|Led Zeppelin}}
*{{w|The Who}}
*{{w|Deep Purple}}
*{{w|Genesis}}
*{{w|The Doors}}
*{{w|Pink Floyd}}
*{{w|Janis Joplin}}
*{{w|Jimi Hendrix}}
*{{w|The Rolling Stones}}
*{{w|Stevie Ray Vaughan}}
*{{w|Creedence Clearwater Revival}}
*{{w|Grateful Dead}}
*{{w|The Beatles}}
*[[Wikipedia:Yes (band)|Yes]]
*...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in front of a turntable, listening to Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. A guitarist (possibly meant to be Jimmy Page) can be seen in an inset in the top left corner of the first two panels.]
:Song: And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul

:Song: When all is one and one is all, to be a rock and not to rooooll

:Song [fading away]: And she's buying a stairway to Heaven

:Cueball: Man. The Baby Boomers are kicking our ASSES.
:Cueball: We need to get it together, guys.

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

1023: Late-Night PBS

2022-05-04T00:49:24Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233497 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1023
| date = February 29, 2012
| title = Late-Night PBS
| image = late night pbs.png
| titletext = Then it switched to these old black-and-white tapes of Bob Ross slumped against the wall of an empty room, painting the least happy trees you've ever seen. Either PBS needs to beef up studio security or I need to stop using Ambien to sleep.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic examines the way the world seems different for adults today compared with how we remember it as a child, due to complex subtext or naïvety, to a humorous extreme, and with a specific reference to {{w|television programs}} for children.

{{w|PBS}} is a US public television network known for {{w|highbrow}} and educational programming, and shows a high proportion of {{w|BBC}} programming. The show ''{{w|Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (game show)|Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego}}'' was a light-hearted educational game show that ran from 1991 to 1995. In the show players followed geography-based clues to find out where a master criminal, Carmen Sandiego, was going, and catch her. After catching (or failing to catch) Carmen Sandiego, a character called The Chief would congratulate or encourage the players. Rockapella was an {{w|a cappella}} band featured on the show that gave clues, punctuated the show with humor, and closed the show.

[[Megan]] recounts her surprise as to the nature of programming on late night PBS to [[Cueball]]. She claims to have fallen asleep after watching ''{{w|Downton Abbey}}'' and woken up to see that ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego'' is still making new episodes, but is significantly darker than she remembers it. The host has aged poorly (the show would have been off the air for 20 years) and developed a drinking problem; the locations the child contestants visit are traumatizing; and the children are clearly freaked out. In the end they find Carmen Sandiego hiding behind a Dutch bookcase, an allusion to ''{{w|The Diary of a Young Girl|The Diary of Anne Frank}}'', thus implying that instead of aiding legitimate law enforcement in finding thieves they have been aiding the Nazis in their search for Jews (and others) to murder. The Chief admonishes the children for their actions and Rockapella glares at the children disapprovingly until the children break down in tears.

After Megan concludes her story, Cueball remarks that he did not remember the show being that dark. In response Megan replies that as kids, they may not have been able to understand the darker subtext of the show. It is true that some programs intended for children often have subtle themes for adults who may be watching the show with their children that the children do not usually remember or pick up on. The joke is that although young viewers may not be able to pick up on everything, they would certainly have noticed if the show was as dark as Megan described.{{Citation needed}}

The title text describes the next program, an episode of ''{{w|The Joy of Painting}}'', in which a depressingly weary painter paints unhappy trees. This contrasts with the usual mood of the show where {{w|Bob Ross}} was upbeat and the components of his paintings were described as "happy little" objects. Megan then postulates that either people are breaking into the television station to produce horrible programming, or she is experiencing {{w|hallucinations}} due to her sleep aid {{w|Ambien}}. This gives hallucination as an alternate explanation for the main comic.

===Locations visited===
*{{w|Mogadishu}} is the battle-torn capital city of {{w|Somalia}}, where the "{{w|Battle of Mogadishu (1993)|Battle of Mogadishu}}" took place in 1993, which would coincide with the air dates of ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego''.

*The {{w|Killing Fields}} are a number of sites in {{w|Cambodia}} where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the {{w|Khmer Rouge}} regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, following the end of the {{w|Cambodian Civil War}} (1970-1975).

*"A bookshelf in a Dutch apartment" is a reference to {{w|Anne Frank}}, a Jewish girl who hid from the {{w|Nazi}}s with her family in a secret annex hidden behind a bookshelf in an apartment in {{w|Amsterdam}}. Her diary recounting her experiences was later published as the ''Diary of Anne Frank''.

===Carmen Sandiego===
''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego'' was originally an educational {{w|video game}} released in 1985. {{w|Carmen Sandiego}} was a mysterious character that the player tracked around the globe, attempting to find clues as to where she was heading to next. The game helped players learn geography and facts about the world while having fun. The video game inspired the TV show ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?''.

The show was split into three rounds. In the first round, there were three child contestants, called “gumshoes” on the show, who scored points for every question they answered correctly. The top two scoring gumshoes moved onto the next round, where they had to play a game based on the card game {{w|Concentration (game)|Concentration}}, in which they had to find the thief, warrant, and loot in the correct order. Whichever gumshoe did so captured the thief, saved the loot, and moved onto the next round, where they had a chance to catch Carmen Sandiego herself. Success was not always guaranteed in this round, as contestants had to plant flags correct on seven different countries in a continent within a very short time. If successful, they captured Carmen and won the grand prize (a trip to a place of their choosing in the continental US). If not, Carmen would escape and the contestant would win a lesser prize (such as a computer).

The role of The Chief was played by {{w|Lynne Thigpen}}. She explained the mission to the contestants, and gave some clues to the thief's last whereabouts. When the mission was over The Chief would appear and congratulate them if successful or console them if Carmen got away.

The host of the TV show was an actor named {{w|Greg Lee (actor)|Greg Lee}}. His role was to ask the contestants questions, provide clues, and tell them which flags to plant on the map in the final round, as well as engage with The Chief and Rockapella to keep the show moving.

{{w|Rockapella}} was an {{w|A cappella|a cappella}} group (a group that sings without any instruments), which sang the theme song to ''Where in The World Is Carmen Sandiego.'' Rockapella also acted as a "house band", singing songs while the contestants transitioned between events, providing clues, and playing pranks on the host along with other gags. At the end of each show, the host and the episode's winning contestant would shout "Do it, Rockapella!" at which point the band would sing the show's theme song.

===Continuity issues===
The locations the contestants visit in the episode depicted in this comic seem to require traveling backwards in time (1993 for the Battle of Mogadishu, 1975-1979 for the Cambodian killing fields, and 1944 for the arrest of Anne Frank). Episodes of ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego'' did not deal with this, but its successor, ''{{w|Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? (game show)|Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?}}'', did.

==Transcript==
:[Megan with disheveled hair is rubbing sleep out of her eyes and talking to Cueball.]
:Megan: Have you ever watched PBS late at night?
:Megan: I fell asleep after ''Downton'' and woke up at like 3 AM.

:[The next panel is split in two. The upper portion, which is not in a frame, continues Megan's dialogue, while the lower part, in a frame, shows a drunk game-show host (indicated with two small bobbles and a third exploding next to his head). He has stubble and only little hair on his head. He is holding a bottle in one hand and the other hand is up over a TV monitor showing a black field filled with crosses, presumably graves, going out to the far off horizon. In front of him are three kids, who are contestants in the game. They stand behind three lecterns to the left. The first kid is a boy with thin black hair, who has turned away from the monitor. The middle kid is a girl with blonde hair in a ponytail who looks at the host, and the last kid looks like Cueball and he looks down at his lectern.]
:Megan (off-panel): ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego'' was back on, except the host hadn't aged well and he'd clearly been drinking.
:Megan (off-panel): Every question took them to some horrible place like Mogadishu or the Cambodian killing fields.

:[In a room with tiles on the floor, a bookshelf full of books has been moved away from the wall revealing that is was a door to be opened with a hidden room behind it. Megan continues to speak, her text is above the shelf but inside the frame this time.]
:Megan (off-panel): The kids were freaked out, but they kept playing. Eventually they were told they'd found Carmen Sandiego hiding behind a bookshelf in a Dutch apartment.

:[Megan has stopped rubbing her eyes but still talks to Cueball.]
:Megan: The Chief appeared and asked "Are you ''proud'' of what you've become?"
:Megan: Then Rockapella walked out and just glared at the kids until they started crying.
:Cueball: I, uh, don't remember the old show being that dark.
:Megan: Maybe we were too young to pick up on it.

==Trivia==
*This is the second comic posted on a Leap Day ({{w|February 29}}), it was a Wednesday in 2012.
**The previous leap day was the first after xkcd began, and that day fell on a Friday in 2008, and the first leap day comic [[390: Nightmares]] was released then.
**The leap day after this comic also fell on a Friday in 2016 and [[1649: Pipelines]] was released then.
**If the current M-W-F schedule continues, the next such comic will not happen before 2036 when the leap day again falls on a Friday.
**Interesting to note that the first three leap years after xkcd began (in just over 10 years) all fell on a release day, then followed by a break of 20 years. And three of these first four leap days all fell on a Friday.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Dreams]] 
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2557: Immunity

2022-05-04T00:49:08Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233908 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2557
| date = December 20, 2021
| title = Immunity
| image = immunity.png
| titletext = This plan may sound appealing to people who know a little about the immune system, but the drawbacks are clear to people who know a lot about the immune system and also to people who don't know anything about it.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is, although not specifically referenced, another entry in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

A common issue posited by people opposed to {{w|vaccination}}, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, is that there are other ways to become immune to diseases caused by viruses or bacteria — most notably, contracting the disease "naturally".

[[Cueball]], by way of questioning, points out to [[White Hat]] that this makes no sense. Contracting the natural disease is the thing people are trying to ''prevent''. Diseases are bad.{{citation needed}}

Although there are plenty of instances where someone has already recovered, and therefore is in possession of [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1087466/covid19-cases-recoveries-deaths-worldwide/ natural immunity], it would be better to have that immunity without getting sick at all. Especially with a disease like COVID that can cause permanent damage even to those who eventually clear the virus. Vaccination provides similar immunity without the negative effects of infection. While explaining that getting infected is the best way to avoid getting infected, White Hat thus realizes the {{w|Circular reasoning|circular logic}} presented by {{w|Vaccine hesitancy|anti-vaxxers}}, and thus stops mid sentence.

The title text elaborates on this by pointing out that people with ''no'' understanding of the immune system will understand that contracting a disease to avoid contracting a disease is a bad idea, and that people with a ''strong'' understanding of the immune system will understand the specific ways it can fail (and that vaccines provide a greater benefit for less risk). It is thus only people with a ''limited'' understanding of the immune system, who know that infection can provide immunity but haven't thought out the disadvantages of catching the disease, who would [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-12-28 make a claim] such as White Hat does.

The comic does not specifically reference vaccines and anti-vaxxers. It could also be about people who refuse to wear masks and social distance during the pandemic, who do not understand how much they are putting other people at risk. White Hat may even be fumbling an explanation of his previous [[2515: Vaccine Research]] into why vaccines are good.

Older folks may be familiar with the "infection gives you immunity" trope due to their experience with so-called "childhood diseases". Before there were vaccines for e.g. {{w|measles}}, {{w|mumps}}, and {{w|chickenpox}}, it was seen as preferable for young children to contract these diseases, because the risk of serious illness is greater for those who get "first infections" later in life. Children run a comparatively smaller risk of serious illness in return for (usually) life-long immunity. Note that this only ever made sense for children whose immune system is still flexible enough to adapt, and not for 30 something fitness bros. Furthermore, the trope has outlived its context. Small as the risk to children of serious illness from measles, mumps, and chickenpox might be, vaccines all but eliminate the risk of contracting serious symptoms at all, so there is no sensible reason to subject oneself to infection.

The trope, moreover, is misapplied to COVID-19, because, on present evidence, immunity from infection is short-lived (which, at least at the time of this comic, was exacerbated by the fact that variants with sufficiently different spike proteins to at least partially evade natural immunity (such as beta, delta, and omicron) were arising at a rate of multiple per year), so there is no benefit to be gained by running the risk of winding up in the hospital - or the morgue. The better comparison is to {{w|influenza}}, which people get vaccinated against every year. Instead of childhood diseases, think of diseases that had a high probability of serious illness at any age, such as {{w|poliomyelitis}} and {{w|smallpox}}, for which few accepted the "infection gives you immunity" trope (even though, for those diseases, infection typically yielded life-long immunity), and there was far less resistance to effective vaccines once these became available.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat has raised his hand, palm up, as he addresses Cueball.]
:White Hat: See, it's ''good'' to get infected, because it gives you immunity.

:[White Hat has lowered his arm.]
:Cueball: Why would I want immunity?

:[Same setting.]
:White Hat: To protect you from getting inf...
:White Hat: ...wait.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:COVID-19 vaccine]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1253: Exoplanet Names

2022-05-04T00:48:53Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235664 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1253
| date = August 19, 2013
| title = Exoplanet Names
| image = exoplanet names.png
| titletext = If you have any ideas, I hear you can send them to <nowiki>iaupublic@iap.fr</nowiki>.
}}
==Explanation==
On the 14th August 2013, the {{w|International Astronomical Union}} (IAU) [http://www.iau.org/science/news/179/ issued a document] about public naming of astronomical objects. It stated, "IAU fully supports the involvement of the general public, whether directly or through an independent organized vote, in the naming of planetary satellites, newly discovered planets, and their host stars."

The text above the image states the fact above and then notes that the IAU immediately regret this decision. As we can see from [[Cueball|Cueball's]] question, from [[Ponytail|Ponytail's]] facepalm, and the fact that even [[Megan]] is speechless, the suggestions are appalling. It becomes even worse when [[Hairbun]] tells them that an automatic filter has already been applied to the results, one designed to remove inappropriate entries that don't meet certain criteria. This implies that the list would have been even worse if presented in its unfiltered form (as seen below in the table).

The naming document also contained, amongst other things, guidelines that suggested names should meet. These include stipulations such as "16 characters or less", "preferably one word", being "pronounceable (in as many languages as possible)", "not too similar to an existing name of an astronomical object", avoiding commercial names, and being "respectful of intellectual property". If we go down the list, we can see that many of [[Randall|Randall's]] suggestions do indeed violate the guidelines. Which is part of the joke as it reflects the tendency of internet submissions to ignore such softly suggested guidelines.

The randomness and inappropriateness of the suggested names reflects the commonly expected response from anonymous submitters on the internet. Many forums and contests that call for online response and do not apply strict control over the responses receive similar collections of random, inappropriate and obscure submissions that are often only tangentially related to the original subject. For example, Greenpeace held a naming contest for one of the whales recently tagged in their research and preservation campaign and even after selecting the finalists the online voting resulted in naming the whale "Mr. Splashypants". PepsiCo had even less restrictive controls in their marketing campaign that asked the internet to name a new flavour of Mountain Dew. They had to shut down the contest in order to avoid naming the new beverage "Hitler did nothing wrong" which was the current leader at the time and only marginally the most inappropriate of the top ten voted suggestions. Even more recently is the case of {{w|Boaty McBoatface}}, in which the internet decided to dub a British research vessel "Boaty McBoatface". The boat was given the name {{w|RRS Sir David Attenborough}} in the end, with its Autonomous Underwater Vehicle being called "Boaty McBoatface."

The document also states that naming suggestions may be sent to the email that Randall included in the title text.

This comic was updated in [[1555: Exoplanet Names 2]].

{| class="wikitable"
! Star !! Planet !! Suggested Name !! Explanation
|-
| rowspan=7 | {{w|Gliese 667}} || {{w|Gliese 667 Cb|b}} || Space Planet || A very unoriginal name; every planet is in space.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|{{w|Gliese 667 Cc|c}} || PILF || Pun of {{w|MILF pornography|MILF}}, i.e. ''Planet I'd Like to Fuck''. Planet c is a relatively hot planet, within the habitable zone.
|-
|{{w|Gliese 667 Cd|d}} || A Star || "A {{w|Star}}" is obviously a bad name for a planet. A* (pronounced "A star") is already used in in astronomy, for example the Milky Way's black hole core is {{w|Sagittarius A*}}. "A star" is also the name for the character {{w|asterisk}} and the name of the popular {{w|A* search algorithm}} in computer science. It also suggests that the planet is a star.
|-
|{{w|Gliese 667 Ce|e}} || e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;-- || A reference to {{w|SQL injection}}, riffing off of [[327|comic 327]], which featured a schoolboy named <code>[[Robert'); DROP TABLE students;--]]</code>. The idea here is that the IAU would enter the name into their system and promptly lose all of their data pertaining to planets. Note that Planet e is located in the habitable zone of the star system.
|-
|{{w|Gliese 667 Cf|f}} || Blogosphere || rowspan = 2 | Weird ''{{w|blog}}''-related terms are a recurring theme in xkcd. See, for instance, [[181|comic 181]].
|-
|{{w|Gliese 667 Cg|g}} || Blogodrome
|-
|[http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/gj_667c_h/ h] || Earth || Planet candidate h is about the mass of the Earth, and described as "tantalizing": [http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2013/08/aa21331-13/aa21331-13.html A dynamically-packed planetary system around GJ with three super-Earths in its habitable zone]. See also ([[1231: Habitable Zone]]).
|-
| rowspan=5 | {{w|Tau Ceti}} || [http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/tau_cet_b/ b] || Sid Meier's Tau Ceti B || This refers to the game {{w|Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri}}.
|-
| [http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/tau_cet_c/ c] || Giant Dog Planet || {{w|VY Canis Majoris}} is one of the largest known stars at our galaxy and belongs to the constellation {{w|Canis Major}}, Latin for "greater dog". The constellation further contains {{w|Sirius}}, the brightest star in the night sky, also called "Dog Star".
|-
|[http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/tau_cet_d/ d] || Tiny Dog Planet || cf. {{w|Canis Minor}}, Latin for "lesser dog", another constellation.
|-
|{{w|Tau Ceti e|e}} || Phil Plainet || A reference to {{w|Phil Plait}}, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer.
|-
|{{w|Tau Ceti f|f}} || Unicode Snowman || The Unicode character ☃ may be a reference to the planet's estimated surface temperature of -40 °C (-40 °F). However, this name would be pronounced differently (being a symbol, not a word or name) in different languages. Planets in our solar system are assigned to {{w|Astronomical symbols|astronomical symbols}} like ♁ for Earth or ♂ for Mars. (A unicode snowman is also referenced in Randall's book ''What If'', where it is keymapped to a laptop.)
|-
| {{w|Gliese 832}} || {{w|Gliese 832 b|b}} || Asshole Jupiter || This massive planet orbits a {{w|red dwarf}} star at the longest known period of 3416 days at this category.
|-
| rowspan=6 | {{w|Gliese 581}} || {{w|Gliese 581 b|b}} || Waist-deep Cats || Likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s, which are a series of images of cats captioned with poorly-written and/or spelled English.
|-
| {{w|Gliese|c}} || Planet #14 || About 200th discovered exoplanet (in 2007); reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star, though that is in doubt now. The joke might be that like "Space Planet", "Planet #14" is a generic and unoriginal name. Also note that this is the 15th entry in the table so the numbering is {{w|Zero-based_numbering|zero-based}}.
An interesting (?) coincidence is that the 14th and 15th {{w|Definition of planet#Minor planets|Minor planets}} (then called asteroids) were discovered in 1851; see see {{w|List of minor planets: 1–1000}}. If they were to be counted among the planets of the {{w|Solar System}}, as was sometimes done then, the 14th known planetary body would be {{w| 7 Iris|Iris}} (discovered in 1847, a year before {{w|Neptune}}).
|-
|{{w|Gliese 581 d|d}} || Ballderaan || A {{w|wikt:balls|crude pun}} on the planet {{w|Alderaan}} from the ''{{w|Star Wars}}'' universe.
|-
|{{w|Gliese 581 e|e}} || Eternia Prime || {{w|Eternia}} is a fictional planet, venue of the ''{{w|Masters of the Universe}}'' animated series and toy collection.
|-
| {{w|Gliese 581 f|f}} || Taupe Mars || {{w|Kim Stanley Robinson}}'s award-winning {{w|Mars trilogy}} (''Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars'' after various stages of {{w|terraformation}}). {{w|Taupe}} is a brownish-grey colour.
|-
|{{w|Gliese|g}} || Jelly-Filled Planet || Possibly a reference to the conjecture that this tidally locked planet has an isolated habitable zone under the substellar point, akin to the pocket of jelly in a jelly doughnut.
|-
| rowspan=2 | {{w|Epsilon Eridani}} || {{w|Epsilon Eridani b|b}} || Skydot || [http://skydot.lanl.gov SkyDOT] is the Sky Database for Objects in Time-Domain run by {{w|LANL}} for the {{w|U.S. Dept. of Energy}} and includes data for [http://skydot.lanl.gov/nsvs/star.php?num=14831575&mask=32004 Epsilon Eridani] that can be used to constrain the orbital parameters of ε Eri b. It may also refer to how objects in space may appear as bland, bright dots in the night sky.
|-
| {{w|Epsilon Eridani c#Planet_c|c}} || Laser Noises || A {{w|Laser}} does not produce {{w|Noise (electronics)|noise}} in the signal sense; it only works at a well-defined frequency. In science fiction films, however, laser weapon discharges are usually accompanied by sound ("pew pew" or the like). Sun-like Epsilon Eridani became a popular setting for science fiction after its publicity as a target of the {{w|Project Ozma}} experiment.
|-
| rowspan=2 | {{w|Gliese 176}} || {{w|Gliese 176 b|b}} || Pandora || The mythological name {{w|Pandora}} fulfills most of IAU's guidelines and has been popular for planets in science fiction; most recently and famously is {{w|Pandora (Avatar)|the venue}} of James Cameron's ''{{w|Avatar (film)|Avatar}}'' (although actually it is not a planet but just a moon of a gas giant in Alfa Centauri A). It is also a hellish planet from {{w|Frank Herbert}}'s {{w|Frank Herbert bibliography#WorShip novels|WorShip}} series of novels, a jungle planet in Brothers Strugatsky's {{w|Noon Universe}} and the planet used in {{w|Borderlands (video game)|Borderlands Games}}.
|-
| [http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/gj_176_c/ c] || Pantera || Named for the {{w|Pantera|heavy metal band}}, which itself was named after an Italian sports car, the {{w|De Tomaso Pantera}}.
|-
| Kepler-61 || {{w|Kepler-61b|b}} || GoldenPalace.com || A gambling website, known for {{w|GoldenPalace.com|paying to have their name in unusual places}} (like forehead tattoos, species names...).
|-
! colspan=4 | (right column)
|-
| rowspan=3 | {{w|Upsilon Andromedae}} || {{w|Upsilon Andromedae c|c}} || Stampy || Most likely a reference to [https://www.youtube.com/user/stampylonghead stampylonghead], although it could be a reference to the elephant from the {{w|Simpsons}} episode {{w|Bart Gets an Elephant}}.
|-
|{{w|Upsilon Andromedae d|d}} || Moonchild || The name Bastian gives the Childlike Empress in {{w|The Neverending Story}}.
|-
|{{w|Upsilon Andromedae e|e}} || Ham Sphere || [http://www.hamsphere.com HamSphere] is a {{w|Amateur radio|Ham Radio}} simulator program. Ham radio uses designated radio frequencies for non-commercial exchange of messages and more. A pun of Hemisphere.
|-
| rowspan=3 | {{w|. Eridani|HD 20794}} || [http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/hd_20794_b/ b] || Cosmic Sands || style="font-family:'Comic Sans MS', 'Comic Sans'" | A {{w|pun}} on the name of the font {{w|Comic Sans}}. (See also: [[590|590: Papyrus]].)
|-
| [http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/hd_20794_c/ c] || Legoland || {{w|Legoland}} is a chain of {{w|theme park}}s owned by the {{w|Lego Group}}.
|-
|[http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/hd_20794_d/ d] || Planet with Arms || A reference to the [http://web.archive.org/web/20160119111332/http://www.thecolorsofmysoul.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/The-Hitchhikers-Guide-to-the-Galaxy.jpg early covers] of {{w|Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}}? Could also be a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/birds-with-arms "Birds with Arms" meme].
|-
| {{w|HD 85512}} || {{w|HD 85512 b|b}} || Lax Morality || Possibly a parody of science fiction in which certain planets are suggested to be uniformly... lax in morals (i.e. full of sex, drugs, etc.). See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Planetville and related.
|-
| rowspan=6 | {{w|HD 40307}} || {{w|HD 40307 b|b}} || Good Planet || Similar to the above, except with good planets. May also be yet another non-descriptive name, like "Space Planet" and "Planet #14".
|-
|{{w|HD|c}} || ProblemLand || See above.
|-
|{{w|HD 40307 d|d}} || Slickle || This is a reference to "[http://zdarsky.tumblr.com/post/2837139960 The Petals Fall Twice]", which was made as a humorous example of bad fan-fiction. The word itself is a portmanteau of "slowly", "licked", and "tickled".
|-
|{{w|HD 40307 e|e}} || Spare Parts || This suggests that the planet is "worthless" or "junk". This is false, of course. May be a reference to the fact it is a planet with nothing much different from the other planets.
|-
|{{w|HD 40307 f|f}} || New Jersey VI || Refers to the state of {{w|New Jersey}}; may be an insult to either.
|-
|{{w|HD|g}} || How Do I Join the IAU || This implies that the user "got lost" on the IAU website and thought that the "planet name suggestion" input was for general queries.
|-
| rowspan=3 | {{w|Gliese 163}} || [http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/gj_163_b/ b] || Neil Tyson's Mustache || {{w|Neil deGrasse Tyson}} is a famous American astrophysicist and science communicator who does maintain a distinguished mustache.
|-
|{{w|Gliese|c}} || help@gmail.com || Similar to "How Do I Join the IAU", this implies that the user confused the "planet suggestion" text box for a new email they are trying to send.
|-
|[http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/gj_163_d/ d] || Hair-Covered Planet || Refers to the well-known {{w|Hairy ball theorem}} of topology.
|-
| {{w|Pi Mensae}} || {{w|Pi Mensae b|b}} || Moon Holder || {{w|Jupiter}} has more than 60 discovered moons, and still counting... A planet ten times more massive ''must'' also be a Moon Holder.
|-
| {{w|HD 189733}} || {{w|HD 189733 b|b}} || Permadeath || A well-characterized "{{w|Hot Jupiter}}" at a temperature range of 973 ± 33 K to 1,212 ± 11 K. The name refers to the feature of {{w|Permanent death}} common in many RPGs and roguelikes.
|-
| {{w|Kepler-22}} || {{w|Kepler-22 b|b}} || Blue Ivy || Blue Ivy Carter is the daughter of musicians {{w|Beyoncé}} and {{w|Jay-Z}}.
|-
| Kepler-3284 || b || Blainsley || A very small town in the United Kingdom, south of Edinburgh. Possibly chosen due to its insignificance?
|-
| Kepler-3255 || b || Unicorn Thresher || As far as we can tell, Kepler-3255b is in the vicinity of the constellation Monoceros, aka the Unicorn. Also a pun on {{w|Threshing machine|corn thresher}}.
|-
| Kepler-2418 || b || Spherical Discworld || {{w|The Discworld}} is the fictional setting for British author {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} series of humorous fantasy novels; it consists of a large disc supported by four elephants themselves standing on top of a turtle flying through space. "Spherical Disc" would be an oxymoron.
|-
| Kepler-1686 || {{w|KOI-1686.01|b}} || Emergency Backup Earth || This candidate planet has an {{w|Earth Similarity Index}} of 0.89, making it one of the most habitable {{w|Kepler object of interest}}. The name suggests that it could be used as a backup in case something happened to our current planet.
|-
| Kepler-3010 || b || Feeeoooooooop || Possibly the onomatopoeia for something getting sucked into a black hole.
|-
| Kepler-4742 || b || Liz || ...Just a regular name (for a person, not a planet). Maybe a reference to the pet lizard on the Magic School Bus.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Text above the first frame of the comic:]
::August 2013:
:The International Astronomical Union
:decides to start naming exoplanets,
:and—for the first time ever—asks for
:suggestions from the general public.
:::They immediately regret this decision.
:[Ponytail is facepalming while Megan and Cueball are looking at a computer screen on a desk. Hairbun points to the screen.]
:Cueball‏‎: Can't you filter out the worst ones?
:Hairbun: This is '''''after''''' the filter!

:[Below is a table showing the list of planet names as seen on the computer screen with gray background around the edges of the table.]

:[The table is in two separate columns, but there is only headings over the left, so the right column is a direct continuation of the left. In the table it is mentioned when the right column begins. There is a small arrow pointing from the word "Planet" down to the second column of the table. The headings in the comic are not inside the table as they are here below. The text at the bottom of the left list seems to continue on below, at least the last entry is cut below the middle, although it is still easy to read. Similarly the text at the top right list, seems to continue from above, the top entry missing the very top of the text. This is as if the list is much longer and here is just shown part of the list. To further indicate this the first entry in the right list begins at "c" instead of at "b" which is else the case for all other instances.]

:{| class="wikitable"
! Star !! Planet !! Suggested Name
|-
| rowspan=7 |Gliese 667||b||Space Planet
|-
|c||PILF
|-
|d||A Star
|-
|e||e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--
|-
|f||Blogosphere
|-
|g||Blogodrome
|-
|h||Earth
|-
| rowspan=5 |Tau Ceti||b||Sid Meier's Tau Ceti B
|-
|c||Giant Dog Planet
|-
|d||Tiny Dog Planet
|-
|e||Phil Plainet
|-
|f||Unicode Snowman
|-
|Gliese 832||b||Asshole Jupiter
|-
| rowspan= 6|Gliese 581||b||Waist-deep Cats
|-
|c||Planet #14
|-
|d||Ballderaan
|-
|e||Eternia Prime
|-
|f||Taupe Mars
|-
|g||Jelly-Filled Planet
|-
| rowspan= 2|Epsilon Eridani||b||Skydot
|-
|c||Laser Noises
|-
| rowspan= 2|Gliese 176||b||Pandora
|-
|c||Pantera
|-
|Kepler-61||b||GoldenPalace.com
|-
! colspan=3 | [Below is the right column.]
|-
| rowspan= 3|Upsilon Andromidae||c||Stampy
|-
|d||Moonchild
|-
|e||Ham Sphere
|-
| rowspan= 3|HD 20794||b||Cosmic Sands
|-
|c||Legoland
|-
|d||Planet with Arms
|-
|HD 85512||b||Lax Morality
|-
| rowspan= 6|HD 40307||b||Good Planet
|-
|c||Problemland
|-
|d||Slickle
|-
|e||Spare Parts
|-
|f||New Jersey VI
|-
|g||How Do I Join the IAU
|-
| rowspan= 3|Gliese 163||b||Neil Tyson's Mustache
|-
|c||help@gmail.com
|-
|d||Hair-Covered Planet
|-
|Pi Mensae||b||Moon Holder
|-
|HD 189733||b||Permadeath
|-
|Kepler-22||b||Blue Ivy
|-
|Kepler-3284||b||Blainsley
|-
|Kepler-3255||b||Unicorn Thresher
|-
|Kepler-2418||b||Spherical Discworld
|-
|Kepler-1686||b||Emergency Backup Earth
|-
|Kepler-3010||b||Feeeoooooooop
|-
|Kepler-442||b||Liz
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Exoplanet Names]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Exoplanet Names]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball‏‎]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Little Bobby Tables]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]

472: House of Pancakes

2022-05-04T00:48:39Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 234065 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 472
| date = September 5, 2008
| title = House of Pancakes
| image = house_of_pancakes.png
| titletext = Fuck it, I'm just going to Waffle House.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] is parodying Mark Z. Danielewski's epistolary novel ''{{w|House of Leaves}}'' by renaming it ''House of Pancakes'' (after the American fast food franchise {{w|International House of Pancakes}}). ''House of Leaves'' has an unconventional page layout and style, including the colouring of every instance of the word "house" in blue, as is done on the menu. It includes footnotes within footnotes like Randall did here.

In ''House of Leaves'', protagonist Johnny Truant (whose meta-narration is marked by Courier font as mimicked in the comic) discovers a book called ''The Navidson Record'' (represented here by the pancake menu), which in turn details a film of the same name, which in turn details a horror story of a family living in a sentient house. Truant, who is clearly intelligent and cultured, probes deeper into notating ''The Navidson Record''—and into insomnia—until ''The Navidson Record'' consumes his mind horrifically, the same way the film in the novel consumed the author of ''The Navidson Record'', the same way the house in the novel consumed part of the family.

''House of Leaves'' lends itself to many interpretations, but has been called a "satire of academic criticism," which makes this comic essentially a satire of a satire. Since part of the appeal of ''House of Leaves'' is that it takes itself extremely seriously with its intricacy, multitude of both real and made-up references to academic and popular culture, and layered emotional conflict, Randall's reduction of the ''House of Leaves'' to the (International) House of Pancakes cuts a humorous edge to a dark story. The tone of the comic parodies the tone of ''House of Leaves'': lonely, fear-inducing, and increasingly insane, but using pancakes instead of darkness.

Additionally, the mysterious "Mohawk Girl" referred to in the comic may be a nod to the ''House of Leaves'' character Delial, or to comic [[147]].

The word "house" is in blue in every instance, which is a stylistic attribute of Mark Z. Danielewski's novel. Every Minotaur reference is marked out in red ink, and every use of "house" or a foreign language's equivalent, such as 'haus' and 'maison' is in blue. This is not a reference to hyperlinks. It is often thought that the house is printed in blue because houses have 'blueprints.'

The censored portion of the Big Steak Omelette is "...fresh green peppers, onions, mushrooms,..." per IHOP's website for the Big Steak Omelette: "Tender and tasty strips of steak, hash browns, fresh green peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and Cheddar cheese." Also, Omelette is misspelled, but that's probably just a typo.

The title text refers to the {{w|Waffle House}}, another US restaurant chain. The joke is that the protagonist has decided that maybe all this angst isn't worth it, and he'll just go to a different restaurant.

Clicking on the original comic links to the amazon.com page for House of Leaves.

==Transcript==
:[All instances of the word "House" are in blue.]
:[Every day a new city, a new IHOP. And yet every night the dreams get worse. I ply the highways, a nervous eye on the rear-view mirror, the back seat piled with stolen menus. Their doors are opened 24 hours, but forever closed to my soul. This is what my life has become. This is my hell.]
:[Sidenote left: International] House of Pancakes
:[Scribbled-out sidenote right: BLOGSPOT] Strawberry Banana Pancakes Four pancakes filled with sliced fresh banana and crowned with cool strawberry topping, more [17] bananas and [23] whipped topping.
::[17] Driven by a nameless fear, a whisper in the dark behind me, I flee ahead of I know not what. Whenver I turn, there's nobody behind me. And yet someone is clearly stealing the ketchup. WHY? (The footnote is covered in fingerprints.)
::[23] My life is feeding, fleeing, fighting, and forgetting. (The above note is sandwiched in sideways in between the Stuffed French Toast and Ham and Egg Melt.)
:[Rooty Jr. A kids only [19] version of our house signature Rooty Tooty. One scrambled egg, one strip of bacon, one pork sausage link and one fruit-topped buttermilk pancake.]
::[19] The decision not to hyphenate "kids only" is likely connected to the omission of the serial comma. I wonder if the author is British. I wonder if he sleeps at night. (The following passages are have a red substance underneath them, probably ketchup.)
:[Rise 'N Shine Two eggs, toast and hash browns served with your choice [21] of two strips of bacon or two pork sausage links.]
::[21] (illegible) rent a storage unit. Sleep there. Fill it with pancakes. Leave.
:[Stuffed French Toast Cinnamon raisin French [18] toast stuffed with sweet cream cheese filling, topped with cool strawberry or your choice of fruit compote and whipped topping.]
::[18] Nightmares again. I wake up covered in sweat, and what appears to be a thin sheen of maple syrup
: (Handwritten, underlined) WHO IS MOHAWK GIRL?
:[Slanted 90 degrees left] Ham & Egg Melt Grilled sourdough bread stuffed with ham, scrambled eggs, Swiss and American cheeses. [20] (At normal orientation)
::[20] Ordered this in at an IHOP in Rochester, New York. There was blood on the floor. Some of it was mine.
:(Comic strip) Enough with your pancakes. Enough with your GOD DAMN pancakes.
:[The Big Steak Omlette Tender strips of steak, hash browns, (redacted) tomatoes and Cheddar cheese. Served [22] with house salsa.]
::[22] Woke up in Las Vegas. They're closing the Star Trek Experience today. The IHOP up the strip had pancake platters named after various states. None of them sounded like home.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]

1564: Every Seven Seconds

2022-05-04T00:48:25Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 233689 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1564
| date = August 14, 2015
| title = Every Seven Seconds
| image = every_seven_seconds.png
| titletext = Every few months, I think about sex every seven seconds and how weird and implausible it would be.
}}

==Explanation==
There is an oft-stated {{w|urban myth}} that men think about sex every seven seconds. See for example this [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140617-how-often-do-men-think-about-sex BBC article], where they say that a more realistic number is 19 times in a waking day, i.e. once every 50 minutes.

In this comic [[Cueball]] is a {{w|sociologist}}, and the thought bubbles show his train of thoughts regarding this myth. First of all, he flatly denies that it could be true, and progressively his thoughts move to the effects if it were true, and then Cueball considers how it would even be studied. The title of the comic ''(Every seven seconds)'' hints strongly that this is the subject he is thinking about, and this is subsequently confirmed both in the caption and in the title text.

The setup is that thinking about sex every seven seconds would be dysfunctional and unproductive in addition to making working, social interactions and etcetera nearly impossible as explained by the sociologist's thoughts. The punch line is that thinking every seven seconds about how ridiculous it is to think about sex every seven seconds is just as dysfunctional and unproductive even if the thought time is spent refuting the original notion as understood in third person.

The irony of the comic is that in thinking every seven seconds about how impossible it would be for men to think about sex every seven seconds, the sociologist is, in fact, thinking about sex every seven seconds, albeit in a roundabout way.

In the title text, the narrator ([[Randall]] or Cueball the sociologist?) says he thinks about how implausible it would be to have sex every seven seconds, several times a year. See alternate interpretations below:

In the title text, the narrator's statement leaves some meaning up to interpretation:
*Every few months, I "think about sex" every seven seconds [in one day, i.e. 8200 times that day] and how weird and implausible [having intercourse] would be.
**Implying that narrator's sex life is not very active.
*Every few months, I think about [the statistic that men think about] sex every seven seconds and how weird and implausible it would be.
**A take on the main comic's topic, mirroring Cueball's thoughts.
*Every few months, I think about "sex" every seven seconds and how weird and implausible [such an assertion] would be.
**This interpretation is a bit paradoxical, because it implies that the narrator finds himself thinking about the very thing he dismisses as a possibility to think about so often.
*Every few months, I think about "sex every seven seconds" and how weird and implausible [such behaviour] would be.
**A humorous twist on the main comic's topic, in which the narrator imagines having sex every seven seconds.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking with four thought bubbles above him.]

:Cueball (thinking):
::There’s no way that’s true.
::It would interfere with basic cognition.
::Such a ridiculous view of masculinity.
::How would you even ''study'' that?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Every seven seconds, sociologists
:think about that made-up statistic
:about how often men think about sex.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Psychology]]

435: Purity

2022-05-04T00:48:07Z

Bshardy: Undo revision 235445 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 435
| date = June 11, 2008
| title = Purity
| image = purity.png
| titletext = On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Mathematics}} is the abstract study of topics encompassing quantity, structure, space, change, and others. {{w|Physics}} is a natural science that involves the study of matter-energy and its motion through space and time, along with related concepts such as forces. Physics is described using mathematics. {{w|Chemistry}} is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure, and properties. As chemical reactions are governed by physical laws (electromagnetism being particularly important), one could say that chemists are studying a subset of physics. {{w|Biology}} is the the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. As biological life is the result of a large number of complex chemical reactions, one could say that it is studying a subset of chemistry. {{w|Psychology}} is the study of mental functions and behaviors, why thinking beings do what they do. As thought is (currently) a capability exclusive to living things, one could say that it is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umN7YOsmGl4 a subset of biology]. {{w|Sociology}} is the study of society, or the study of groups of people and their interactions. Since a group of people is composed of many individuals, one could say that it is an application of psychology. Of course, one could also say that the fields are all independent, as deriving one from another would require not only good, but perfect understanding of the more fundamental field.

Mathematics has two classifications: {{w|pure mathematics}} (mathematics for its own sake, without any real-world interpretation) and {{w|applied mathematics}} (mathematics intended to solve real-world problems). It is not uncommon for scientists to formulate a problem that can be reduced to a problem already solved by pure mathematicians. Taking this to its logical extreme, the comic arranges the six scientific fields according to the {{w|Hierarchy of the sciences}}, represented by a person on a chart of purity, saying that a field is 'more pure' than the fields depending on it. This is a topic often used in jokes between scientists of various fields as to who is more important. The physicist, [[Cueball]], feels that he is at the top, that all other fields are based upon his... but is ultimately upstaged by the mathematician, [[Blondie]], whose field is so pure that its relationship to more applied fields can be distant or nonexistent. Unlike the others, however, the mathematician notably does not claim that physics is merely applied mathematics, because that claim would be categorically untrue. While physics makes extensive use of applied mathematical methods, physics (and, by extension, all the other sciences) are based on the analysis of experimental data collected about the universe—data which mathematics does not and cannot on its own provide.

The title text indicates that physicists like to repeat the following quote attributed to Richard Feynman: “Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.”

This ties the title of the comic, "Purity," to tie between various fields, to the topic of sex, as measured by the {{w|Purity Test}}.

==Transcript==

:[Six characters are standing on a line with small ticks under each person. Above the two persons most central in the comic is an arrow pointing right. There are labels both above and below the arrow. Beneath each tick is a label. All the labels are listed here in order.]
:<big>Fields</big> arranged by <big>purity</big>
:::More pure

:Sociologists
:Psychologists
:Biologists
:Chemists
:Physicists
:Mathematicians

:[Above each of the six ticks, there is a person. The last person to the right is the mathematician. She stands at the far right edge of the comic, with much farther distance between her and the second to last person going right. The first four spaces between the first five people are of equal distance. Except for the least pure sociologist, they all say something addressed to the less pure person(s) on their left. The first mute person above the Sociologists tick is Megan. The second person above the Psychologists tick is a bald man with glasses and a goatee beard holding a book under one arm. The third person above the Biologists tick is a Cueball-like guy with a squirming octopus in his hand. The fourth person above the Chemists tick is Ponytail holding up a test tube with bubbles coming out of the top. The fifth person above the Physicists tick is Cueball standing with his hands in his sides. Farthest out, the sixth and final person above the Mathematicians tick is Blondie. She waves to the other five.]

:Psychologist: Sociology is just applied psychology.

:Biologist: Psychology is just applied biology.

:Chemist: Biology is just applied chemistry

:Physicist: Which is just applied physics. It's nice to be on top.

:Mathematician: Oh, hey, I didn't see you guys all the way over there.

==Trivia==
*Blondie appearing as the mathematician could mean she is supposed to represent [[Miss Lenhart]], but since Lenhart is defined as a teacher, which she can not clearly be said to be here, it is uncertain.
*Later a similar setup was used in [[2057: Internal Monologues]], although here the different science fields are not ranked against each other, and only the physicist is represented in both comics (although as Cueball in both).
*This comic is available as a signed print in the [https://store.xkcd.com/products/signed-prints xkcd store].

{{comic discussion}}

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