explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:868: Nolan Chart

2014-02-11T21:12:01Z

Curtmack:

I'm a Republican baseball fan, where does that put me? ~JFreund
: The Midwest? [[User:Curtmack|Curtmack]] ([[User talk:Curtmack|talk]]) 21:12, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1212: Interstellar Memes

2013-05-15T14:56:15Z

Curtmack:

I'm surprised ponies didn't make the list given how massively and completely they took over the Internet in recent years. Then again, xkcd hasn't made any mention of the phenomenon, which is pretty nice, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 04:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:Given that the closest one, "I'm on a boat," predates the first episode of MLP:FiM by more than a year (the brony phenomenon by even more), it's safe to say that ponies have not reached the nearest star yet. --[[Special:Contributions/24.145.230.202|24.145.230.202]] 04:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

It would be great to have the distances (in light years) of the stars as a fourth column. This would also provide a chronological order. --[[Special:Contributions/84.75.61.103|84.75.61.103]] 08:06, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If I look at the page source, there is no transcript this time... [[User:Kaa-ching|Kaa-ching]] ([[User talk:Kaa-ching|talk]]) 08:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

anyone else notice Sirius is getting the Bellatrix one? [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 08:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:Yeah, it was funny :D [[User:Zakator|Zakator]] ([[User talk:Zakator|talk]]) 10:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
::Should this reference be mentioned? On the one hand, it is a spoiler, but on the other hand, a) we *are* here to explain the jokes, and b) the book is almost a decade old, so I'm pretty sure there's a statute of limitations involved here. [[User:Curtmack|Curtmack]] ([[User talk:Curtmack|talk]]) 14:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If any civilization have nothing better to do that repeating our memes, there is no need to apologize to them: they will obviously be glad they have at least something. How many people on our planet are repeating memes from other civilizations? None. (The circles in crop doesn't count, they are not send by radio.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:51, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Given that the Rick Astley one is on the same star as Portal, which came out in 2007, it's probably meant to refer to rickrolling (and thus the date should also be 2007 for that one). [[User:Zakator|Zakator]] ([[User talk:Zakator|talk]]) 10:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

All your base are belong to us didn't start as a meme in the 1970. I don't have precise data right now but I'm pretty sure it was 1997-99 when it first appeared on the internet. Also, what is the Sun doing? [[Special:Contributions/195.32.50.126|195.32.50.126]] 11:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:1998 according to knowyourmeme. And I think the Sun is probably sending out all those radio waves for the aliens to listen to, or something? But I couldn't find an accurate way to portray it, so I just left it at that. [[User:Zakator|Zakator]] ([[User talk:Zakator|talk]]) 11:18, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:: The map only shows stars, or rather star systems. We live in the sol system, where all these memes originate from, hence the sun is shown as the origin of the "radio waves". In the same fashion, these supposed aliens don't actually live on the stars themselves, but rather on planets (or maybe moons?) around the stars. --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 11:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1184: Circumference Formula

2013-04-30T20:33:26Z

Curtmack:

:Tau x Radius, superscript 2
:Leaves one wondering what the superscript 1 refers. {{unsigned|‎74.215.40.250}}
::It's 2''πr''2, '''not''' ''τr''2. —[[Special:Contributions/173.199.215.5|173.199.215.5]] 05:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
:::You're missing the point. ''τ'' == 2''π'' and is considered better than using ''π'' by some people {{unsigned|138.195.69.136}}
::::Only for very loose definitions of "better." [[Special:Contributions/71.201.53.130|71.201.53.130]] 14:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
::::Whoa! Never heard about that before, but after 2 hrs or so, I think I'm getting convinced! Check this site out: http://tauday.com/ What do you think? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 18:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

::I think tau is pointless. Using tau what then happens to Euler's famous formula, the most beautiful equation of them all? Pi shows up in so many different ways and places in mathematics. Tau appears pretty much only in the formula for a circle's circumference. Why bother needlessly proliferating symbols? [[User:J Milstein|J Milstein]] ([[User talk:J Milstein|talk]]) 18:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

:::RE: Euler's Identity: e^(tau*i) - 1 = 0 --[[User:Max Nanasy|Max Nanasy]] ([[User talk:Max Nanasy|talk]]) 18:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
::::Ok, that works [[User:J Milstein|J Milstein]] ([[User talk:J Milstein|talk]]) 17:05, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
::::Why not just e^(tau*i) = 1. Do you routinely do 2 + 2 - 4 = 0?[[Special:Contributions/206.181.86.98|206.181.86.98]] 20:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
:::::Because:
:::::* Symmetry wrt the original Euler's Identity (e^(pi*i) + 1 = 0)
:::::* According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler's_identity#Mathematical_beauty, "in algebra and other areas of mathematics, equations are commonly written with zero on one side of the equals sign."
:::::--[[User:Max Nanasy|Max Nanasy]] ([[User talk:Max Nanasy|talk]]) 00:35, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
::::::I think Euler only did that because he disliked negative numbers. It really is less a deal than people make of it.[[Special:Contributions/206.181.86.98|206.181.86.98]] 03:02, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Also, it uses the five most important constants in mathematics: ''e'', ''π'' (or ''τ''), ''i'', 1, and 0. [[User:Curtmack|Curtmack]] ([[User talk:Curtmack|talk]]) 20:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
:::[http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto The tau manifesto] fairly well convinced me that all occurances of π in mathematics utimately trace back from the formula C = 2''πr''. If so, π naturally ''enter'' calculations as 2π. Can anyone find a counterexample to this thesis? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
::::How could there be a counter-example? I think it is true. In complex analysis, it really should be 2π, and thus Gaussian integrals. And then number theory applications. Even [http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2589152?uid=3739704&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101976916347 this] neat result really stems from trig identities, so it really is a result for 2π. [[Special:Contributions/206.181.86.98|206.181.86.98]] 02:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
:From what I understand, the thesis from the tau-proponents is that 2*pi is the fundamental natural constant, and that virtually ''every time'' that pi shows up without the factor 2, there originally was a factor two that was cancelled out. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 01:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Not completely sure Earth Prime is from Sliders, but it's true it's the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Prime only one named exactly that] ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:54, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

There's also a [http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Prime_Earth Prime Earth] now. Just so DC can screw with us. [[User:Hogtree Octovish|Hogtree Octovish]] ([[User talk:Hogtree Octovish|talk]]) 10:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I still don't get it.[[Special:Contributions/49.176.102.213|49.176.102.213]] 12:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

:If you don't get it, you don't need to get it [[User:J Milstein|J Milstein]] ([[User talk:J Milstein|talk]]) 18:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, that was lame. --[[Special:Contributions/87.122.60.227|87.122.60.227]] 17:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

This comic illustrates the strategy of "The Unconsummated Asterisk", from the essay "Mathmanship" by Nicholas Vanserg (available at [http://e-science.ru/forum/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=7701]).
<blockquote>
The other side of the asterisk gambit is to use a superscript as a key to a real footnote. The knowledge‐seeker reads that S is – 36.714 calories and thinks "Gee what a whale of a lot of calories" until he reads to the bottom of the page, finds footnote 14 and says "oh."
</blockquote>
For bonus points, Randall could have used also "Pi-Throwing":
<blockquote>
For example every schoolboy knows what π stands for so you can hold him at bay by heaving some entirely different kind of π into the equation. The poor fellow will automatically multiply by 3.1416, then begin wondering how a π got into the act anyhow, and finally discover that all the while π was osmotic pressure. If you are careful not to warn him, this one is good for a delay of about an hour and a half.
</blockquote> [[User:Chymicus|Chymicus]] ([[User talk:Chymicus|talk]]) 19:01, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
:Another good one is π as a symbol for profit in financial discussions. -[[User:DrGaellon|DrGaellon]] ([[User talk:DrGaellon|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/DrGaellon|contribs]]) 23:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe the current description of prime as denoting derivatives is true but irrelevant. Since the area and circumference refers to geometry (not really calculus), it's more likely that the title text is referring to the common use of primes in geometry. For example, there might be two or more parallel lines that are denoted by x, x′, x′′, etc. Wikipedia also notes another geometric use of {{w|prime}}: "if a point is represented by the Cartesian coordinates (x, y), then that point rotated, translated or reflected might be represented as (x′, y′)." [[User:S|S]] ([[User talk:S|talk]]) 23:32, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

that is so wrong, i feel my mind corrupted now. -- [[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 23:57, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

This explanation was hillarious -- where is the up-vote button ?? [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]])

:+1 [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 16:33, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

So, where's todays comic? How many times has Randal been late?[[Special:Contributions/70.199.225.225|70.199.225.225]] 16:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

:Today's comic was posted just a few minutes ago. I'm anxiously awaiting its explanation as it picks on a programming language I'm not familiar with (possibly SQL). [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 16:33, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

It uses pseudocode. The new one is about sorting algorithms in general, not any particular language. [[Special:Contributions/130.245.231.101|130.245.231.101]] 17:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just me, but did no one see the "square the circle" gag...? --[[Special:Contributions/128.232.142.37|128.232.142.37]] 09:24, 14 March 2013 (UTC) No one but you saw the square-the-circle gag, because it's not there. For it to be there, it would require this: (2πr)² [[User:J Milstein|J Milstein]] ([[User talk:J Milstein|talk]]) 15:31, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

949: File Transfer

2013-04-30T20:29:26Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 949
| date = September 9, 2011
| title = File Transfer
| image = file_transfer.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = Every time you email a file to yourself so you can pull it up on your friend's laptop, Tim Berners-Lee sheds a single tear.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is trying to help a friend help their cousin send them a 25 MB file. This exceeds most email programs' attachment limit (note: Gmail increased their attachment limit to 25 MB in 2009, though many email programs still top out at 20 MB. This is because every email has to be transferred between several mail transfer agents that each have to save a copy of the email. Space constraints of those mail servers means that they may impose size limits, which happens to be 20 MB in most cases.), and so simply attaching the file to an email is out of the question.

The next option is to upload the file to an FTP server (FTP stands for {{w|File Transfer Protocol}}, as opposed to HTTP, {{w|Hypertext Transfer Protocol}}), used to transfer files between computers on a shared network, such as the internet. However, FTP servers are a touch more esoteric than a mere email attachment, and many internet users don't have one of their own.

Web hosting is simply the ability to create a website and store all the data for said website on a server which is connected to the internet. If Cueball's friend's cousin had the ability to do that, sharing the file would be as easy as making a website for it, then having Cueball's friend visit said website and download said file. But no, the adventure continues.

{{w|Megaupload}} was one of many, many sites on the internet that recognizes most users' inability to host large files on their own, and so offers to host large files, sometimes for free, sometimes for a small fee. The payoff is that in order to make such a service profitable, many of these sites are cluttered with banner and pop up ads in a mad effort to squeeze as much ad revenue out of every page view as possible. It's not a dealbreaker for some, but Cueball seems to think it'll be too much for his friend's cousin to handle.

{{w|AOL Instant Messenger|AIM}} direct connect was a file sharing system on AOL Instant Messenger, which was already suffering severe drops in popularity by the year 2000. Clearly, Cueball is grasping at straws here: anybody desperate enough to invoke the name of AOL as a solution instead of a problem must be at their wits' end.

But then, the perfect solution arises: {{w|Dropbox (service)|Dropbox}}. A simple, easy to use program with an intuitive GUI that will automate file sharing between two computers using the internet, just like the internet was designed to do. But alas, by the time Cueball arrives at a solution, his friend's cousin has used a mix of old and new technology, namely a car and a USB drive, to physically transport the file to his friend's house, thus circumventing the internet all together. It's not an elegant solution, but sometimes brute force is the easiest way to get something done. (This approach is sometimes called "sneakernet.")

This inability to use the internet for its intended purpose is why {{w|Tim Berners-Lee}}, the arguable inventor of the World Wide Web, sheds a tear: his creation cannot be appreciated by the masses it was intended for.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands near a computer, talking on the phone to another person.]

:Cueball: You want your cousin to send you a file? easy. He can email it to- ... Oh, it's 25 MB? Hmm...
:Cueball: Do either of you have an FTP server? No, right.
:Cueball: If you had web hosting, you could upload it...
:Cueball: Hm. We could try one of those MegaShareUpload sites, but they're flaky and full of delays and porn popups.
:Cueball: How about AIM Direct Connect? Anyone still use that?
:Cueball: Oh, wait, Dropbox! It's this recent startup from a few years back that syncs folders between computers. You just need to make an account, install the-
:Cueball: Oh, he just drove over to your house with a USB drive?
:Cueball: Uh, cool, that works too.

:I like how we've had the internet for decades, yet "sending files" is something early adopters are still figuring out how to do.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Talk:961: Eternal Flame

2013-03-11T18:36:25Z

Curtmack:

Ugh, I hate it when people attribute everything the the technology to Steve Jobs. Apple spends pebbles on R&D, polishes up the work of other countries and they get labelled as inventors and heroes. Incredibly frustrating for the rest of us in the technology industry. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:35, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

:The way I see it, Apple's innovation is in their UI. The iPod wasn't the first portable digital music player, and the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone, but they ''were'' the first in their respective classes to have an intuitive interface that could easily be understood by someone with no technology background. Marketing is everything in the tech industry, and a product will fail if it can't ''convince'' the market that it's the better choice, even if it's absolutely better from a technical standpoint. [[User:Curtmack|Curtmack]] ([[User talk:Curtmack|talk]]) 18:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

1184: Circumference Formula

2013-03-11T15:23:56Z

Curtmack: Undo revision 30244 by Curtmack (talk): Sorry I didn't read the debate in the comments.

{{comic
| number = 1184
| date = March 11, 2013
| title = Circumference Formula
| image = circumference_formula.png
| titletext = Assume r' refers to the radius of Earth Prime, and r'<nowiki/>' means radius in inches.
}}

==Explanation==
The circumference of a circle is C = 2πr, where ''r'' is the radius of the circle. Randall then makes a footnote about ''r'', but he uses 2. This creates a typographical ambiguity, since the superscript 2 can also be an exponent (as in ''x''2). Randall's formula now looks like a strange hybrid of the correct formula and A = πr2, which is the formula for the ''area'' of the circle.

In the title text, r' normally means the derivative of r, and r'<nowiki/>' the double derivative of r, whereas ' can be read as "prime", while '<nowiki/>' can refer to inches.

==Transcript==
:Circumference of a circle:
:2πr2
:2The circle's radius

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]

1184: Circumference Formula

2013-03-11T15:22:14Z

Curtmack: I THINK this is probably what Randall meant here, correct if wrong

{{comic
| number = 1184
| date = March 11, 2013
| title = Circumference Formula
| image = circumference_formula.png
| titletext = Assume r' refers to the radius of Earth Prime, and r'<nowiki/>' means radius in inches.
}}

==Explanation==
The circumference of a circle is C = 2πr, where ''r'' is the radius of the circle. Randall then makes a footnote about ''r'', but he uses 2. This creates a typographical ambiguity, since the superscript 2 can also be an exponent (as in ''x''2). Randall's formula now looks like a strange hybrid of the correct formula and A = πr2, which is the formula for the ''area'' of the circle.

In the title text, r' normally means the derivative of r, and r'<nowiki/>' the double derivative of r, whereas ' can be read as "prime", while '<nowiki/>' can refer to inches. "Earth Prime" is a term used in comic books to describe ''our'' Earth, as opposed to a parallel universe Earth.
==Transcript==
:Circumference of a circle:
:2πr2
:2The circle's radius

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]

234: Escape Artist

2013-03-04T15:49:25Z

Curtmack: Created page with "{{comic | number = 234 | date = March 12, 2007 | title = Escape Artist | image = escape_artist.png | titletext = Easier to escape: n-layered nested quotes or a..."

{{comic
| number = 234
| date = March 12, 2007
| title = Escape Artist
| image = escape_artist.png
| titletext = Easier to escape: n-layered nested quotes or an iron maiden?
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Harry Houdini}} was a famous escape artist, whose more famous routines included escaping straitjackets and switching places with an assistant while locked inside a box.

The word "escape" also has a meaning {{w|Escape character|in computer science}}. To "escape" something in programming means to input some "escape character" to force to the computer to use a different interpretation of the following character (i.e. letter, number, or symbol). The escape character in most interpreters or languages is the backslash (\), and it's usually used to suppress the special meaning of the following symbol. For example, in most programming languages, strings are specified in quotation marks (e.g. "this is a string"). In this case, if the programmer tried to put a quotation mark inside the string, the compiler would interpret it as the end of the string, and probably end up having an error when it sees the rest of the string. Because of this, most languages also specify that \" can be used to literally just be a quotation mark, which allows programmers to put actual quotation mark characters into strings.

The problem [[Cueball]] is having is related to the fact that {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|the Bash shell}} interprets spaces as a special syntactic marker, when he actually just wants the spaces to be literal space characters. In this case, escaping the spaces with \ would force Bash to interpret his script in this way.

(There is one other way the escape character is sometimes used, but we'll ignore it for the sake of explaining the comic.)

The person talking to Cueball is having a separate conversation about Houdini as Cueball thinks aloud about his script issue, which results in diverging conversations. This eventually leads Cueball to suggest that Houdini might have "escaped" (freed himself from) handcuffs by "escaping" (removing the special meaning from) them with backslashes.

Sometimes, escape characters need to be "nested" - the backslash character itself can be escaped as \\ to produce a literal backslash, so if, for example, one needs to produce a literal quotation mark to output to a script file, and that script file ''also'' needs to have the quotation mark escaped, one would need to type it out as \\\", which would be output as \". If I needed to actually output that \\\", one would need to type it as \\\\\\\". The number of backslashes needed grows exponentially, and can be very hard to keep track of. This behavior is a type of n-level nested quotation mentioned in the title text.

An {{w|iron maiden (torture device)|iron maiden}} is supposedly a medieval torture device, currently believed to have been invented for tourism purposes much later than the time period when it was in use.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits before a computer on a desk while another man stands behind him.]
:Man: I was fascinated by locks as a kid. I loved how they turned information and patterns into physical strength.
:Cueball: Why does my script keep dying?

:[Closeup on Cueball sitting at the computer]
:Man: And a lock invites you to try and open it. It's the hacker instinct. Only your ignorance stands in the way.
:Cueball: Wait it's passing bad strings.

:[Returns to the two shot of both men]
:Man: I admired Harry Houdini, how he could open any lock and free himself from any restraint.
:Cueball: Ah - Bash is parsing the spaces.

:Man: Sure some of it was fakery and showmanship. But I still wonder how he so consistently escaped handcuffs.
:Cueball: Backslashes?
:Man: Huh?
:Cueball: Never mind.

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

463: Voting Machines

2013-03-04T14:58:18Z

Curtmack:

{{comic
| number = 463
| date = August 15, 2008
| title = Voting Machines
| image = voting_machines.png
| titletext = And that's *another* crypto conference I've been kicked out of. C'mon, it's a great analogy!
}}

==Explanation==
In the 2008 Ohio primary elections, there were numerous problems with electronic voting machines, which eventually required many districts to revert to pen and paper. Premier Election Solutions, the company that handled the machines, blamed these problems on {{w|McAfee}} anti-virus software.

From a computer programming standpoint, having anti-virus software on an electronic voting machine doesn't make sense because the machine shouldn't be accessing the Internet in a way that would leave it open to virus attacks. While there are a lot of ways that viruses can propagate, ultimately the computer still has to download an executable file and run it, which is something that ''no election machine should do'' in normal operation. Rather than use anti-virus software, it makes more sense to simply disable the downloading of files, which is very doable. (Or, if the machine might need to receive hotfixes during operation, require that all executable files be signed by the manufacturer with something like {{w|ECDSA}}.)

There's a principle in computer science that having more layers of defense is always better than having fewer. This is true, but one should take care not to introduce defenses against a nonexistent adversary when doing so might impede normal function. The comic makes an analogy to a teacher who reassures you that he always wears a condom when teaching. Theoretically it's always good to have protection, but the situation where a condom is useful shouldn't arise during class. The comment is more likely to make people worried about why the condom is there and what purpose it's serving.

The title text refers to [[153: Cryptography]].

==Transcript==
:Article: Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) has blamed Ohio voting machine errors on problems with the machines' McAfee antivirus software.
:First Man: Wait. "Antivirus software"? On voting machines? ''You're doing it wrong.''
:[Second Man enters the frame and speaks to First Man]
:Second Man: Why? Security is good, right?
:First Man: Of course. But, well-
:First Man: Imagine you're at a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher reassures you that he always wears a condom while teaching.
:Second Man: Ah. Strictly speaking, it's better than the alternative.
:First Man: -Yet someone is clearly doing their job horribly wrong.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers]]

221: Random Number

2013-02-26T17:27:30Z

Curtmack:

{{comic
| number = 221
| date = February 9, 2007
| title = Random Number
| image = random_number.png
| titletext = <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki> specifies 4 as the standard IEEE-vetted random number.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic specifies a function (in a {{w|C (programming language)|C-like}} syntax, perhaps {{w|C++}}) that, when called, returns a random number. Most functions of this form are random number ''generators'', implying that they return many ''different'' random numbers. Here, the programmer has instead created a function that just returns a ''single'' random number - one chosen by rolling a die. This function is essentially worthless, as it could simply be replaced by a "4" wherever it is used. (In fact, most modern compilers would do this automatically.)

The {{w|IEEE}} is the company responsible for maintaining a number of computer standards. An RFC, or {{w|Request for Comments}}, is a formal document put out to computing experts in the hopes of becoming a future standard. However, RFC 1149 was an {{w|April Fools' Day Request for Comments|April Fools' joke}}, suggesting that carrier pigeons be used to transmit Internet packets. (Ironically, although the RFC was written in 1990, a homing pigeon with a couple microSD cards tied to its leg might well be faster than your typical consumer Internet connection in the US today.) There is no <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki>.

==Transcript==
int getRandomNumber()
{
return 4; //chosen by fair dice roll.
//guaranteed to be random.
}

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

221: Random Number

2013-02-26T17:18:35Z

Curtmack: Wikipedia actually has a page on this, so I guess I should link it in

{{comic
| number = 221
| date = February 9, 2007
| title = Random Number
| image = random_number.png
| titletext = <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki> specifies 4 as the standard IEEE-vetted random number.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic specifies a function (in a {{w|C (programming language)|C-like}} syntax, perhaps {{w|C++}}) that, when called, returns a random number. Most functions of this form are random number ''generators'', implying that they return many ''different'' random numbers. Here, the programmer has instead created a function that just returns a ''single'' random number - one chosen by rolling a die. This function is essentially worthless, as it could simply be replaced by a "4" wherever it is used. (In fact, most modern compilers would do this automatically.)

The {{w|IEEE}} is the company responsible for maintaining a number of computer standards. An RFC, or {{w|Request for Comments}}, is a formal document put out to computing experts in the hopes of becoming a future standard. However, RFC 1149 was an {{w|April Fools' Day Request for Comments|April Fools' joke}}, suggesting that carrier pigeons be used to transmit Internet packets. There is no <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki>.

==Transcript==
int getRandomNumber()
{
return 4; //chosen by fair dice roll.
//guaranteed to be random.
}

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

221: Random Number

2013-02-26T17:16:25Z

Curtmack: I accidentally clicked Save instead of Show Preview. Mea culpa

{{comic
| number = 221
| date = February 9, 2007
| title = Random Number
| image = random_number.png
| titletext = <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki> specifies 4 as the standard IEEE-vetted random number.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic specifies a function (in a {{w|C (programming language)|C-like}} syntax, perhaps {{w|C++}}) that, when called, returns a random number. Most functions of this form are random number ''generators'', implying that they return many ''different'' random numbers. Here, the programmer has instead created a function that just returns a ''single'' random number - one chosen by rolling a die. This function is essentially worthless, as it could simply be replaced by a "4" wherever it is used. (In fact, most modern compilers would do this automatically.)

The {{w|IEEE}} is the company responsible for maintaining a number of computer standards. An RFC, or {{w|Request for Comments}}, is a formal document put out to computing experts in the hopes of becoming a future standard. However, RFC 1149 was an April Fool's joke, suggesting that carrier pigeons be used to transmit Internet packets. There is no <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki>.

==Transcript==
int getRandomNumber()
{
return 4; //chosen by fair dice roll.
//guaranteed to be random.
}

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

221: Random Number

2013-02-26T17:02:42Z

Curtmack: Who put in the automatic RFC links? That's awesome!

522: Google Trends

2013-02-25T21:56:00Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 522
| date = December 26, 2008
| title = Google Trends
| image = google_trends.png
| titletext = Obama has been writing Lincoln/Obama erotic fan fiction on his secret livejournal. Excerpt: Lincoln lay back on the bed, nude save for his trademark stovepipe hat. 'Tell me,' he purred seductively, as he and Obama formed a more perfect union. 'When you come, is it 10% ethanol?'
}}

==Explanation==
Google keeps track of which searches are most popular in which regions as part of more general data mining to improve their service. For the enjoyment of others, they release select, non-personal parts of this data under the banner "[http://www.google.com/trends/ Google Trends]."

The first statistic - that "Men kissing" was popular in Utah, a state normally opposed to homosexuality - is real. The others are made up for the sake of the joke. In order:

* {{w|Ubuntu}} is a Linux distribution; Redmond, WA is home to {{w|Microsoft}}, the company that makes rival operating system Windows.
* 2010 was not a presidential election year in the United States; Wasilla, AK is home to {{w|Sarah Palin}}, a politician known for making such gaffes.
* {{w|Abraham Lincoln}} was the US president from 1861 to his assassination in 1865; Chicago, IL is home to {{w|Barack Obama}}, who apparently reads (presumably erotic) fanfiction about the former president.
* {{w|Velociraptors}} and {{w|hoverboards}} are two favorite xkcd topics; Somerville, MA is home to [[Randall Munroe]].
* "How is babby formed?" was the title (and most of the content) of an infamous Yahoo! Answers question. Wasilla, AK is, again, home to {{w|Sarah Palin}}; a few months prior to this comic's release, Sarah Palin revealed that her daughter, Bristol Palin, was pregnant.
* Mountain View, CA is home to Google headquarters. The implication is that Google employees are putting "I hate this website" into Google.

With regards to the excerpt Randall provides in the title-text:

* The "more perfect union" line comes from the preamble to the US Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."
* {{w|Ethanol}} is the more scientific name for alcohol, as in, the stuff they serve in a bar that you have to be 21 years of age or older to drink. With regards to the title-text, "10% ethanol" refers to automotive gasoline that includes, well, 10% ethanol (usually made from corn or other vegetables), with the hopes of reducing the dependence on oil for fuel.

==Transcript==
Bloggers were recently amused to discover that, according to Google Trends, the search term "men kissing" is most popular in conservative Utah. A few other embarrassing correlations:

{| class="wikitable"
!Search Term!!Top City
|-
|Installing Ubuntu||Redmond, WA
|-
|Running for President in 2010||Wasilla, AK
|-
|Lincoln Fan Fiction||Chicago, IL
|-
|Raptors on Hoverboards||Somerville, MA
|-
|How is babby formed?||Wasilla, AK
|-
|I hate this website||Mountain View, CA
|}

{{comic discussion}}

522: Google Trends

2013-02-25T21:22:20Z

Curtmack: Created page with "{{comic | number = 522 | date = December 26, 2008 | title = Google Trends | image = google_trends.png | titletext = Obama has been writing Lincoln/Obama erotic..."

{{comic
| number = 522
| date = December 26, 2008
| title = Google Trends
| image = google_trends.png
| titletext = Obama has been writing Lincoln/Obama erotic fan fiction on his secret livejournal. Excerpt: Lincoln lay back on the bed, nude save for his trademark stovepipe hat. 'Tell me,' he purred seductively, as he and Obama formed a more perfect union. 'When you come, is it 10% ethanol?'
}}

==Explanation==
Google keeps track of which searches are most popular in which regions as part of more general data mining to improve their service. For the enjoyment of others, they release select, non-personal parts of this data under the banner "[http://www.google.com/trends/ Google Trends]."

The first statistic - that "Men kissing" was popular in Utah, a state normally opposed to homosexuality - is real. The others are made up for the sake of the joke. In order:

* {{w|Ubuntu}} is a Linux distribution; Redmond, WA is home to {{w|Microsoft}}, the company that makes rival operating system Windows.
* 2010 was not a presidential election year in the United States; Wasilla, AK is home to {{w|Sarah Palin}}, a politician known for making such gaffes.
* {{w|Abraham Lincoln}} was the US president 1861 to his assassination in 1865; Chicago, IL is home to {{w|Barack Obama}}, who apparently reads (presumably erotic) fanfiction about the former president.
* {{w|Velociraptors}} and {{w|hoverboards}} are two favorite xkcd topics; Somerville, MA is home to [[Randall Munroe]].
* "How is babby formed?" was the title (and most of the content) of an infamous Yahoo! Answers question. Wasilla, AK is, again, home to {{w|Sarah Palin}}; a few months prior to this comic's release, Sarah Palin revealed that her daughter, Bristol Palin, was pregnant.
* Mountain View, CA is home to Google headquarters. The implication is that Google employees are putting "I hate this website" into Google.

==Transcript==
Bloggers were recently amused to discover that, according to Google Trends, the search term "men kissing" is most popular in conservative Utah. A few other embarrassing correlations:

{| class="wikitable"
!Search Term!!Top City
|-
|Installing Ubuntu||Redmond, WA
|-
|Running for President in 2010||Wasilla, AK
|-
|Lincoln Fan Fiction||Chicago, IL
|-
|Raptors on Hoverboards||Somerville, MA
|-
|How is babby formed?||Wasilla, AK
|-
|I hate this website||Mountain View, CA
|}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1178: Pickup Artists

2013-02-25T20:26:00Z

Curtmack:

Oh my God, this one's brilliant. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 06:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:I did not get it. Waiting for explanation. [[Special:Contributions/95.35.63.243|95.35.63.243]] 07:43, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:See also comic #1027 [[Special:Contributions/65.49.14.70|65.49.14.70]] 10:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Added an explanation for the title text, but it's probably too wordy and not very clear. Anyone have any suggestions? [[User:Cornarias|Cornarias]] ([[User talk:Cornarias|talk]]) 11:07, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Umm... "The pun lies in the fact that a pickup basketball player becomes skilled at basketball."
I thought the pun was on the word "artist" meaning someone that does...art. The same goes with the "friend zone" explanation. It doesn't seem like disbelief, but rather that there is a "place to meet friends" or "a place that friends go to hang out" (in other words, "a zone of friends"). So the joke is that the world seems happier because you think the words are describing subjectively better things than they actually are. But that's just my take on the comic. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 11:11, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:P.S. This is a Saturday comic? [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 11:19, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
::Not anymore. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:Al right, just change it then. :) [[User:Jaap-Jan|Jaap-Jan]] ([[User talk:Jaap-Jan|talk]]) 14:33, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it's time we give the other guy a name. What about Sleezy Guy? [[User:ChrisFortyTwo|ChrisFortyTwo]] ([[User talk:ChrisFortyTwo|talk]])
:Seconded. I remember he's been named Harry in the past. A quick search brings up [[1028]]. He's appeared quite a bit now, and he probably should be named. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 12:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
::Thirded. But maybe something a bit nicer sounding. [[User:Cornarias|Cornarias]] ([[User talk:Cornarias|talk]]) 13:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:::Fourthed. And changed to 'Harry'. Should we add a tag as well? [[User:Jaap-Jan|Jaap-Jan]] ([[User talk:Jaap-Jan|talk]]) 14:33, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
::::That would probably have to go through due process via [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals]], but it should go through quickly enough, given how often Harry appears. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:42, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:::::Ah, now I get it, hehe – Harry–Hairy! (Are those two pronounced exactly the same, or just similarly?) –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 18:10, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
::::::I think he should be called "Hairy", not Harry: attributing a random real name to a character that the author himself didn't choose (like [[Megan]] or [[Mrs. Roberts]]) is likely to bring up issues, whereas calling him in a way that simply reflects how he's drawn (like [[Cueball]], [[Black Hat]], [[Ponytail]] and all the rest) just goes in direct line with what is done in the source; and it's self-explanatory in the description, it does not require the reader to be accustomed to the habits of this wiki (currently, reading "Harry" out of nowhere is quite uncanny). So, since it works pretty well here, let's call him Hairy. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 19:30, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Beret Guy is right, a day of Pickup Art sounds like a lot of fun. Everybody pack their sketchbooks, pastels and watercolours, wander around town till they find interesting vignettes or vistas, everyone sketch and paint without showing each other till picnic time. At PT, all pull out their packed lunches and eat and enjoy each other's efforts. He'll, this sounds 1000% better than almost every pub outing I have ever had.[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 13:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
:We could combine it with Geohashing. [[User:Curtmack|Curtmack]] ([[User talk:Curtmack|talk]]) 20:26, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

505: A Bunch of Rocks

2013-02-25T15:42:48Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ arglblargl why can't I words

{{comic
| number = 505
| date = November 17, 2008
| title = A Bunch of Rocks
| image = a_bunch_of_rocks.png
| titletext = I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, including {{w|quantum mechanics}} and {{w|general relativity}}. The Swiss patent office line refers to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, who supposedly came up with the idea for general relativity while bored at work as a Swiss patent clerk.

Next, armed with infinite time and space (and rocks), Cueball uses the rocks to build a {{w|cellular automaton}}, a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are {{w|Turing-complete}}, which means that they can be used to represent any computer program (given finite-but-possibly-extremely-large time and space). He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's {{w|Rule 110}}, which is indeed capable of universal computation. Cueball then uses his enormous, hand-powered computer to simulate a universe.

When using Rule 110 for universal computation, one builds a background pattern, which can be seen in the comic (especially panels 12 and 20) as the nigh-universal pattern of smaller triangles, and then performs computation by sending out "rockets" (the patterns of larger triangles seen in panel 20) to collide and interact with each other (for example, the triangular outlines in panel 13).

The last panel then implies that the universe Cueball is simulating is, in fact, ''our'' universe. In panel 24, Cueball mentions he must have made a mistake in the last "billions of billions of millenia." A millenium is a thousand years, which implies that the time needed to run this computer through a single step of computation is trillions of years. This means he spends much more time on a single step of computation than our universe has spent existing, and this single step of computation simulates an extremely short span of time (a {{w|Planck time}} most probably); to put this massive difference into perspective, our universe is around 13.772 billion years old, which corresponds to roughly 8,060,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years of Cueball's computation. (Give or take a few duodecillion years.) Suffice to say, this is a ''very'' long time.

The diagrams in panel 8 are, from left to right: A {{w|Gaussian function}} (probably the {{w|Normal distribution}}); what seems to be a reproduction of the {{w|Inclined plane#History|Epitaph of Stevinus}}; a weird diagram with lines in it (something to do with relativity?).

Rule 34 is a humorous rule of the Internet which states "If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Wolfram's Rule 34 is a cellular automaton. Randall is suggesting that someone should make pornography featuring the cellular automaton in question. This might prove to be quite challenging as Wolfram's Rule 34 quickly devolves into a bunch of diagonal lines given almost any input.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking, alone in desert, narrating his own situation.]
:Narrator: So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity.
:Narrator: I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.

:Narrator: I never feel hungry or thirsty.

:Narrator: I just walk.

:Narrator: Sand and rocks...

:Narrator: ...stretch to infinity.
:Narrator: As best as I can tell.

:[Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position.]
:Narrator: There's plenty of time for thinking out here.
:Narrator: An eternity really.

:[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand.]
:Narrator: I've rederived modern math in the sand
:Narrator: and then some.

:[Different graph types are depicted.]
:Narrator: Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity.
:Narrator: Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.

:[Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks.]
:Narrator: One day I started laying down rows of rocks.

:[Cueball continues to deploy rocks.]
:Narrator: Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.

:[Image continues to zoom out showing laid out rocks.]
:Narrator: With the right set of rules and enough space,

:Narrator: I was able to build a computer.
:Narrator: Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.

:Narrator: Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing.
:Narrator: Just slower.
:Notation: *Turing-complete

:[Cueball in contemplative pose.]
:Narrator: After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.

:[Image of binary encoding depicted in rocks.]
:Narrator: Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones.

:[Representations of two particles interacting.]
:Narrator: With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.

:[Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert.]
:Narrator: But I have infinite time and space.

:[Depiction of a universe.]
:Narrator: So I decided to simulate a universe.

:[Cueball is walking about his rocks, changing placement.]
:Narrator: The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.

:[Zoom out of the rows of rocks.]
:Narrator: The rows blur past to compute a single step.

:[Shows placement of two rocks.]
:Narrator: And in the simulation...

:[The two rocks have moved; an after-image of their previous placement is present.]
:Narrator: ...another instant ticks by.

:[A person observes a mote of dust vanish.]
:Narrator: So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something

:[Cueball is rearranging rocks.]
:Narrator: I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock...
:Narrator: ...sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.

:[Cueball in front of the vastness of his infinite desert.]
:Narrator: Oh and...

:[Cueball is in a classroom setting, girl and professor are present.]
:Narrator: if you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time for YOU...

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

505: A Bunch of Rocks

2013-02-25T15:41:46Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ scientific notation is for wimps

{{comic
| number = 505
| date = November 17, 2008
| title = A Bunch of Rocks
| image = a_bunch_of_rocks.png
| titletext = I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, including {{w|quantum mechanics}} and {{w|general relativity}}. The Swiss patent office line refers to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, who supposedly came up with the idea for general relativity while bored at work as a Swiss patent clerk.

Next, armed with infinite time and space (and rocks), Cueball uses the rocks to build a {{w|cellular automaton}}, a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are {{w|Turing-complete}}, which means that they can be used to represent any computer program (given finite-but-possibly-extremely-large time and space). He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's {{w|Rule 110}}, which is indeed capable of universal computation. Cueball then uses his enormous, hand-powered computer to simulate a universe.

When using Rule 110 for universal computation, one builds a background pattern, which can be seen in the comic (especially panels 12 and 20) as the nigh-universal pattern of smaller triangles, and then performs computation by sending out "rockets" (the patterns of larger triangles seen in panel 20) to collide and interact with each other (for example, the triangular outlines in panel 13).

The last panel then implies that universe Cueball is simulating is, in fact, ''our'' universe. In panel 24, Cueball mentions he must have made a mistake in the last "billions of billions of millenia." A millenium is a thousand years, which implies that the time needed to run this computer through a single step of computation is trillions of years. This means he spends much more time on a single step of computation than our universe has spent existing, and this single step of computation simulates an extremely short span of time (a {{w|Planck time}} most probably); to put massive difference into perspective, our universe is around 13.772 billion years old, which corresponds to roughly 8,060,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years of Cueball's computation. (Give or take a few duodecillion years.) Suffice to say, this is a ''very'' long time.

The diagrams in panel 8 are, from left to right: A {{w|Gaussian function}} (probably the {{w|Normal distribution}}); what seems to be a reproduction of the {{w|Inclined plane#History|Epitaph of Stevinus}}; a weird diagram with lines in it (something to do with relativity?).

Rule 34 is a humorous rule of the Internet which states "If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Wolfram's Rule 34 is a cellular automaton. Randall is suggesting that someone should make pornography featuring the cellular automaton in question. This might prove to be quite challenging as Wolfram's Rule 34 quickly devolves into a bunch of diagonal lines given almost any input.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking, alone in desert, narrating his own situation.]
:Narrator: So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity.
:Narrator: I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.

:Narrator: I never feel hungry or thirsty.

:Narrator: I just walk.

:Narrator: Sand and rocks...

:Narrator: ...stretch to infinity.
:Narrator: As best as I can tell.

:[Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position.]
:Narrator: There's plenty of time for thinking out here.
:Narrator: An eternity really.

:[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand.]
:Narrator: I've rederived modern math in the sand
:Narrator: and then some.

:[Different graph types are depicted.]
:Narrator: Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity.
:Narrator: Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.

:[Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks.]
:Narrator: One day I started laying down rows of rocks.

:[Cueball continues to deploy rocks.]
:Narrator: Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.

:[Image continues to zoom out showing laid out rocks.]
:Narrator: With the right set of rules and enough space,

:Narrator: I was able to build a computer.
:Narrator: Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.

:Narrator: Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing.
:Narrator: Just slower.
:Notation: *Turing-complete

:[Cueball in contemplative pose.]
:Narrator: After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.

:[Image of binary encoding depicted in rocks.]
:Narrator: Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones.

:[Representations of two particles interacting.]
:Narrator: With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.

:[Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert.]
:Narrator: But I have infinite time and space.

:[Depiction of a universe.]
:Narrator: So I decided to simulate a universe.

:[Cueball is walking about his rocks, changing placement.]
:Narrator: The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.

:[Zoom out of the rows of rocks.]
:Narrator: The rows blur past to compute a single step.

:[Shows placement of two rocks.]
:Narrator: And in the simulation...

:[The two rocks have moved; an after-image of their previous placement is present.]
:Narrator: ...another instant ticks by.

:[A person observes a mote of dust vanish.]
:Narrator: So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something

:[Cueball is rearranging rocks.]
:Narrator: I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock...
:Narrator: ...sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.

:[Cueball in front of the vastness of his infinite desert.]
:Narrator: Oh and...

:[Cueball is in a classroom setting, girl and professor are present.]
:Narrator: if you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time for YOU...

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

505: A Bunch of Rocks

2013-02-22T17:24:04Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ fixed up some stuff, added some detail

{{comic
| number = 505
| date = November 17, 2008
| title = A Bunch of Rocks
| image = a_bunch_of_rocks.png
| titletext = I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, including {{w|quantum mechanics}} and {{w|general relativity}}. The Swiss patent office line refers to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, who supposedly came up with the idea for general relativity while bored at work as a Swiss patent clerk.

Next, armed with infinite time and space (and rocks), Cueball uses the rocks to build a {{w|cellular automaton}}, a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are {{w|Turing-complete}}, which means that they can be used to represent any computer program (given finite-but-possibly-extremely-large time and space). He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's {{w|Rule 110}}, which is indeed capable of universal computation. Cueball then uses his enormous, hand-powered computer to simulate a universe.

When using Rule 110 for universal computation, one builds a background pattern, which can be seen in the comic (especially panels 12 and 20) as the nigh-universal pattern of smaller triangles, and then performs computation by sending out "rockets" (the patterns of larger triangles seen in panel 20) to collide and interact with each other (for example, the triangular outlines in panel 13).

The time needed to run this computer through a single step of computation is trillions of years, so it goes without saying that he's been at this for a ''very'' long time.

The diagrams in panel 8 are, from left to right: A {{w|Gaussian function}} (probably the {{w|Normal distribution}}); what seems to be a reproduction of the {{w|Inclined plane#History|Epitaph of Stevinus}}; a weird diagram with lines in it (something to do with relativity?).

Rule 34 is a humorous rule of the Internet which states "If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Wolfram's Rule 34 is a cellular automaton. Randall is suggesting that someone should make pornography featuring the cellular automaton in question. This might prove to be quite challenging as Wolfram's Rule 34 quickly devolves into a bunch of diagonal lines given almost any input.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking, alone in desert, narrating his own situation.]
:Narrator: So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity.
:Narrator: I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.

:Narrator: I never feel hungry or thirsty.

:Narrator: I just walk.

:Narrator: Sand and rocks...

:Narrator: ...stretch to infinity.
:Narrator: As best as I can tell.

:[Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position.]
:Narrator: There's plenty of time for thinking out here.
:Narrator: An eternity really.

:[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand.]
:Narrator: I've rederived modern math in the sand
:Narrator: and then some.

:[Different graph types are depicted.]
:Narrator: Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity.
:Narrator: Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.

:[Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks.]
:Narrator: One day I started laying down rows of rocks.

:[Cueball continues to deploy rocks.]
:Narrator: Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.

:[Image continues to zoom out showing laid out rocks.]
:Narrator: With the right set of rules and enough space,

:Narrator: I was able to build a computer.
:Narrator: Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.

:Narrator: Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing.
:Narrator: Just slower.
:Notation: *Turing-complete

:[Cueball in contemplative pose.]
:Narrator: After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.

:[Image of binary encoding depicted in rocks.]
:Narrator: Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones.

:[Representations of two particles interacting.]
:Narrator: With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.

:[Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert.]
:Narrator: But I have infinite time and space.

:[Depiction of a universe.]
:Narrator: So I decided to simulate a universe.

:[Cueball is walking about his rocks, changing placement.]
:Narrator: The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.

:[Zoom out of the rows of rocks.]
:Narrator: The rows blur past to compute a single step.

:[Shows placement of two rocks.]
:Narrator: And in the simulation...

:[The two rocks have moved; an after-image of their previous placement is present.]
:Narrator: ...another instant ticks by.

:[A person observes a mote of dust vanish.]
:Narrator: So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something

:[Cueball is rearranging rocks.]
:Narrator: I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock...
:Narrator: ...sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.

:[Cueball in front of the vastness of his infinite desert.]
:Narrator: Oh and...

:[Cueball is in a classroom setting, girl and professor are present.]
:Narrator: if you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time for YOU...

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

505: A Bunch of Rocks

2013-02-19T23:21:11Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ oops, forgot

{{comic
| number = 505
| date = November 17, 2008
| title = A Bunch of Rocks
| image = a_bunch_of_rocks.png
| titletext = I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, including {{w|quantum mechanics}} and {{w|general relativity}}. The Swiss patent office line refers to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, who supposedly came up with the idea for general relativity while bored at work as a Swiss patent clerk.

Next, armed with infinite time and space (and rocks), Cueball uses the rocks to build a {{w|cellular automaton}}, a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are {{w|Turing-complete}}, which means that they can be used to represent any computer program (given finite-but-possibly-extremely-large time and space). He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's {{w|Rule 110}}, which is indeed capable of universal computation. Cueball then uses his enormous, hand-powered computer to simulate a universe.

The time needed to run this computer through a single step of computation is trillions of years, so it goes without saying that he's been at this for a ''very'' long time.

Specific references made in the artwork:

*Panel 8 - From left to right: A {{w|Gaussian function}} (probably the {{w|Normal distribution}}); what seems to be a reproduction of the {{w|Inclined plane#History|Epitaph of Stevinus}}; a weird diagram with lines in it (something to do with relativity?).
*Panel 13 - The triangular shapes depict what a cyclic {{w|tag system}} looks like {{w|Rule 110#Constructing the cyclic tag system|in Rule 110}}. In layman's terms: "Yep, that's computation alright."

Rule 34 is a humorous rule of the Internet which states "If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Wolfram's Rule 34 is a cellular automaton. Randall is suggesting that someone should make pornography featuring the cellular automaton in question. This might prove to be quite challenging as Rule 34 quickly devolves into a bunch of diagonal lines given almost any input.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking, alone in desert, narrating his own situation]
:Narrator: So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity.
:Narrator: I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.

:Narrator: I never feel hungry or thirsty.

:Narrator: I just walk.

:Narrator: Sand and rocks...

:Narrator: ...stretch to infinity.
:Narrator: As best as I can tell.

:[Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position]
:Narrator: There's plenty of time for thinking out here.
:Narrator: An eternity really.

:[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand]
:Narrator: I've rederived modern math in the sand
:Narrator: and then some.

:[Different graph types are depicted]
:Narrator: Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity.
:Narrator: Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.

:[Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks]
:Narrator: One day I started laying down rows of rocks.

:[Cueball continues to deploy rocks]]
:Narrator: Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.

:[Image continues to zoom out showing laid out rocks]
:Narrator: With the right set of rules and enough space,

:Narrator: I was able to build a computer.
:Narrator: Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.

:Narrator: Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing.
:Narrator: Just slower.
:Notation: *Turing-complete

:[Cueball in contemplative pose]
:Narrator: After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.

:[Image of binary encoding depicted in rocks]
:Narrator: Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones.

:[Representations of two particles interacting]
:Narrator: With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.

:[Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert]
:Narrator: But I have infinite time and space.

:[Depiction of a universe]
:Narrator: So I decided to simulate a universe.

:[Cueball is walking about his rocks, changing placement]
:Narrator: The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.

:[Zoom out of the rows of rocks]
:Narrator: The rows blur past to compute a single step.

:[Shows placement of two rocks]
:Narrator: And in the simulation...

:[The two rocks have moved; an after-image of their previous placement is present]
:Narrator: ...another instant ticks by.

:[A person observes a mote of dust vanish]
:Narrator: So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something

:[Cueball is rearranging rocks]
:Narrator: I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock...
:Narrator: ...sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.

:[Cueball in front of the vastness of his infinite desert]
:Narrator: Oh and...

:[Cueball is in a classroom setting, girl and professor are present]
:Narrator: if you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time for _YOU_...

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

505: A Bunch of Rocks

2013-02-19T23:17:28Z

Curtmack: aaaaaaah this transcript is drowning me

{{comic
| number = 505
| date = November 17, 2008
| title = A Bunch of Rocks
| image = a_bunch_of_rocks.png
| titletext = I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, including {{w|quantum mechanics}} and {{w|general relativity}}. The Swiss patent office line refers to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, who supposedly came up with the idea for general relativity while bored at work as a Swiss patent clerk.

Next, armed with infinite time and space (and rocks), Cueball uses the rocks to build a {{w|cellular automaton}}, a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are {{w|Turing-complete}}, which means that they can be used to represent any computer program (given finite-but-possibly-extremely-large time and space). He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's {{w|Rule 110}}, which is indeed capable of universal computation. Cueball then uses his enormous, hand-powered computer to simulate a universe.

The time needed to run this computer through a single step of computation is trillions of years, so it goes without saying that he's been at this for a ''very'' long time.

Specific references made in the artwork:

*Panel 8 - From left to right: A {{w|Gaussian function}} (probably the {{w|Normal distribution}}); what seems to be a reproduction of the {{w|Inclined plane#History|Epitaph of Stevinus}}; a weird diagram with lines in it (something to do with relativity?).
*Panel 13 - The triangular shapes depict what a cyclic {{w|tag system}} looks like {{w|Rule 110#Constructing the cyclic tag system|in Rule 110}}. In layman's terms: "Yep, that's computation alright."

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking, alone in desert, narrating his own situation]
:Narrator: So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity.
:Narrator: I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.

:Narrator: I never feel hungry or thirsty.

:Narrator: I just walk.

:Narrator: Sand and rocks...

:Narrator: ...stretch to infinity.
:Narrator: As best as I can tell.

:[Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position]
:Narrator: There's plenty of time for thinking out here.
:Narrator: An eternity really.

:[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand]
:Narrator: I've rederived modern math in the sand
:Narrator: and then some.

:[Different graph types are depicted]
:Narrator: Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity.
:Narrator: Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.

:[Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks]
:Narrator: One day I started laying down rows of rocks.

:[Cueball continues to deploy rocks]]
:Narrator: Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.

:[Image continues to zoom out showing laid out rocks]
:Narrator: With the right set of rules and enough space,

:Narrator: I was able to build a computer.
:Narrator: Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.

:Narrator: Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing.
:Narrator: Just slower.
:Notation: *Turing-complete

:[Cueball in contemplative pose]
:Narrator: After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.

:[Image of binary encoding depicted in rocks]
:Narrator: Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones.

:[Representations of two particles interacting]
:Narrator: With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.

:[Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert]
:Narrator: But I have infinite time and space.

:[Depiction of a universe]
:Narrator: So I decided to simulate a universe.

:[Cueball is walking about his rocks, changing placement]
:Narrator: The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.

:[Zoom out of the rows of rocks]
:Narrator: The rows blur past to compute a single step.

:[Shows placement of two rocks]
:Narrator: And in the simulation...

:[The two rocks have moved; an after-image of their previous placement is present]
:Narrator: ...another instant ticks by.

:[A person observes a mote of dust vanish]
:Narrator: So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something

:[Cueball is rearranging rocks]
:Narrator: I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock...
:Narrator: ...sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.

:[Cueball in front of the vastness of his infinite desert]
:Narrator: Oh and...

:[Cueball is in a classroom setting, girl and professor are present]
:Narrator: if you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time for _YOU_...

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

801: Golden Hammer

2013-02-18T21:52:21Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ Whoops, this isn't Markdown

{{comic
| number = 801
| date = October 4, 2010
| title = Golden Hammer
| image = golden_hammer.png
| titletext = Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Java}} is a programming language touted for its PortabilityTM, which sometimes leads to it being used in systems where it really just shouldn't be used. [[Cueball]] laments that the hardware he's tinkering with, despite being used for a single purpose, has its firmware written in Java; since the microprocessor is unknown, it's quite possible the {{w|Java Virtual Machine}} (JVM) had to be ported over to the processor before the hardware designers could write firmware for it. Presumably, they considered this worthwhile to be able to write the control code in a language they're comfortable with, even though it probably would have been much simpler to just write the control code in whatever language they used to port the JVM in the first place.

[[Black Hat]] explains that this is really an example of an age-old adage: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." The hardware developers probably only knew Java, and when they thought about how to write firmware for their new device, "Java" was the only solution that occurred to them.

Of course, instead of a hammer and a nail, Black Hat's analogy is about using bolt-cutters and vodka to get through the lock on {{w|Wolf Blitzer}}'s boathouse. Not-so-coincidentally, Black Hat is holding a pair of bolt-cutters and a bottle of vodka. The implication is that Black Hat ''did'', in fact, break into Wolf Blitzer's boathouse the previous night, which is why he just now entered the door at the start of the strip.

The title-text further implies that the boat Black Hat stole did not survive.

==Transcript==
:[A man with a black hat is going through a door, a bottle in his hand. A voice speaks to him from off panel.]
:Person: Seriously? This thing runs Java? It's single-purpose hardware!
::
:[The person is sitting at a computer, holding some device which is wired to a box, and pointing at the screen.]
:Person: I bet they actually hired someone to spend six months porting this JVM so they could write their 20 lines of code in a familiar setting.
::
:[The man with a black hat has a pair of bolt cutters in the hand that had been obscured in the first panel.]
:Black hat guy: Well, you know what they say -- when all you have is a pair of bolt cutters and a bottle of vodka, everything looks like the lock on the door of Wolf Blitzer's boathouse.
:Person: I'm glad you had a nice night.



{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Language]]

801: Golden Hammer

2013-02-18T21:50:44Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 801
| date = October 4, 2010
| title = Golden Hammer
| image = golden_hammer.png
| titletext = Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Java}} is a programming language touted for its PortabilityTM, which sometimes leads to it being used in systems where it really just shouldn't be used. [[Cueball]] laments that the hardware he's tinkering with, despite being used for a single purpose, has its firmware written in Java; since the microprocessor is unknown, it's quite possible the {{w|Java Virtual Machine}} (JVM) had to be ported over to the processor before the hardware designers could write firmware for it. Presumably, they considered this worthwhile to be able to write the control code in a language they're comfortable with, even though it probably would have been much simpler to just write the control code in whatever language they used to port the JVM in the first place.

[[Black Hat]] explains that this is really an example of an age-old adage: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." The hardware developers probably only knew Java, and when they thought about how to write firmware for their new device, "Java" was the only solution that occurred to them.

Of course, instead of a hammer and a nail, Black Hat's analogy is about using bolt-cutters and vodka to get through the lock on {{w|Wolf Blitzer}}'s boathouse. Not-so-coincidentally, Black Hat is holding a pair of bolt-cutters and a bottle of vodka. The implication is that Black Hat *did*, in fact, break into Wolf Blitzer's boathouse the previous night, which is why he just now entered the door at the start of the strip.

The title-text further implies that the boat Black Hat stole did not survive.

==Transcript==
:[A man with a black hat is going through a door, a bottle in his hand. A voice speaks to him from off panel.]
:Person: Seriously? This thing runs Java? It's single-purpose hardware!
::
:[The person is sitting at a computer, holding some device which is wired to a box, and pointing at the screen.]
:Person: I bet they actually hired someone to spend six months porting this JVM so they could write their 20 lines of code in a familiar setting.
::
:[The man with a black hat has a pair of bolt cutters in the hand that had been obscured in the first panel.]
:Black hat guy: Well, you know what they say -- when all you have is a pair of bolt cutters and a bottle of vodka, everything looks like the lock on the door of Wolf Blitzer's boathouse.
:Person: I'm glad you had a nice night.



{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Language]]

737: Yogurt

2013-02-18T21:11:58Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ this is probably important to note

{{comic
| number = 737
| date = May 7, 2010
| title = Yogurt
| image = yogurt.png
| titletext = I am firmly of the opinion that if something doesn't have a year on it, every time the expiration date rolls around it is good again for the two weeks preceding that date.
}}

==Explanation==
Most packaged food has an {{w|shelf life|expiration date}} that indicates when the food will probably no longer be suitable for consumption. This could be due to any number of reasons; most products will rot or grow mold after their expiration date passes, but some processed foods will dry out or just generally become unpleasant long before they actually spoil. (The expiration date is sometimes called a "best by" or "use by" date for this reason.)

Some products don't list the year as part of the expiration date, on the assumption that by the time the year becomes an issue, the food will obviously be spoiled. [[Cueball]] is encountering this issue; clearly the yogurt has gone bad - it's raising "stink lines" and appears to have visible mold - but the expiration date only lists "May 12th" and it's currently May 7th, so the characters reason that it must still be good since the expiration date hasn't passed yet.

The {{w|Julian calendar}} is mostly the same as the {{w|Gregorian calendar}} (our current calendar) with two major differences:

* The Julian calendar's leap years vastly overestimated the length of a year. The Gregorian calendar's leap years are much more accurate at tracking the seasons. (Contrary to popular belief, the Julian calendar ''had'' leap years, they were just incorrect.)
* September 14th, 1752 immediately follows September 2nd, 1752 in the Gregorian calendar; there was no September 3rd-13th in that year. (At least, in most of the English-speaking world. In some countries the discontinuity might be October 4th, 1582 directly followed by October 15th, 1582.)

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}} in 1582, after scholars began noticing the drift in the solstices and equinoxes that occurred as a result of the Julian calendar's leap year tracking. By the time the British empire adopted the calendar, it was necessary to skip 11 days to reset the seasons to their correct dates, which is why the gap in September 1752 exists.

Cueball is bringing up the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars because it might make a difference in how he calculates the age of the yogurt. In reality, if the yogurt had been packaged while civilization was using the Julian calendar, it would have long ago stopped being yogurt.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a cup at arm's length. Waves of stink are rising from it.]
:Cueball: Oh God, how old is this yogurt in your fridge?
:[Someone speaks from off-panel.]
:Person: What's the expiration date?

:[Cueball holds up the cup to look at the bottom.]
:Cueball: May 12th, but there's no year.
:[From off-panel again.]
:Person: It's May 7th. So it's fine.

:[Now the second person is on panel, and Cueball speaks from off-panel. The second person is sitting down working on a laptop.]
:Cueball: I'm not sure. When it was packaged, was civilization using the Gregorian or Julian calendar?
:Person: Okay, I'll throw it out.
:Cueball: No, it might still be good!

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

737: Yogurt

2013-02-18T20:53:22Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ grammar fix

{{comic
| number = 737
| date = May 7, 2010
| title = Yogurt
| image = yogurt.png
| titletext = I am firmly of the opinion that if something doesn't have a year on it, every time the expiration date rolls around it is good again for the two weeks preceding that date.
}}

==Explanation==
Most packaged food has an {{w|shelf life|expiration date}} that indicates when the food will probably no longer be suitable for consumption. This could be due to any number of reasons; most products will rot or grow mold after their expiration date passes, but some processed foods will dry out or just generally become unpleasant long before they actually spoil. (The expiration date is sometimes called a "best by" or "use by" date for this reason.)

Some products don't list the year as part of the expiration date, on the assumption that by the time the year becomes an issue, the food will obviously be spoiled. [[Cueball]] is encountering this issue; clearly the yogurt has gone bad - it's raising "stink lines" and appears to have visible mold - but the expiration date only lists "May 12th" and it's currently May 7th, so the characters reason that it must still be good since the expiration date hasn't passed yet.

The {{w|Julian calendar}} is mostly the same as the {{w|Gregorian calendar}} (our current calendar) with two major differences:

* The Julian calendar's leap years vastly overestimated the length of a year. The Gregorian calendar's leap years are much more accurate at tracking the seasons. (Contrary to popular belief, the Julian calendar ''had'' leap years, they were just incorrect.)
* September 14th, 1752 immediately follows September 2nd, 1752 in the Gregorian calendar; there was no September 3rd-13th in that year.

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}} in 1582, after scholars began noticing the drift in the solstices and equinoxes that occurred as a result of the Julian calendar's leap year tracking. By the time the British empire adopted the calendar, it was necessary to skip 11 days to reset the seasons to their correct dates, which is why the gap in September 1752 exists.

Cueball is bringing up the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars because it might make a difference in how he calculates the age of the yogurt. In reality, if the yogurt had been packaged while civilization was using the Julian calendar, it would have long ago stopped being yogurt.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a cup at arm's length. Waves of stink are rising from it.]
:Cueball: Oh God, how old is this yogurt in your fridge?
:[Someone speaks from off-panel.]
:Person: What's the expiration date?

:[Cueball holds up the cup to look at the bottom.]
:Cueball: May 12th, but there's no year.
:[From off-panel again.]
:Person: It's May 7th. So it's fine.

:[Now the second person is on panel, and Cueball speaks from off-panel. The second person is sitting down working on a laptop.]
:Cueball: I'm not sure. When it was packaged, was civilization using the Gregorian or Julian calendar?
:Person: Okay, I'll throw it out.
:Cueball: No, it might still be good!

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

737: Yogurt

2013-02-18T17:36:12Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ what does "identical" mean, guys?

{{comic
| number = 737
| date = May 7, 2010
| title = Yogurt
| image = yogurt.png
| titletext = I am firmly of the opinion that if something doesn't have a year on it, every time the expiration date rolls around it is good again for the two weeks preceding that date.
}}

==Explanation==
Most packaged food has an {{w|shelf life|expiration date}} that indicates when the food will probably no longer be suitable for consumption. This could be due to any number of reasons; most products will rot or grow mold after their expiration date passes, but some processed foods will dry out or just generally become unpleasant long before they actually spoil. (The expiration date is sometimes called a "best by" or "use by" date for this reason.)

Some products don't list the year as part of the expiration date, on the assumption that by the time the year becomes an issue, the food will obviously be spoiled. [[Cueball]] is encountering this issue; clearly the yogurt has gone bad - it's raising "stink lines" and appears to have visible mold - but the expiration date only lists "May 12th" and it's currently May 7th, so the characters reason that it must still be good since the expiration date hasn't passed yet.

The {{w|Julian calendar}} is mostly the same as the {{w|Gregorian calendar}} (our current calendar) with two major differences:

* The Julian calendar's leap years vastly overestimated the length of a year. The Gregorian calendar's leap years are much more accurate at tracking the seasons. (Contrary to popular belief, the Julian calendar did ''have'' leap years, they were just incorrect.)
* September 14th, 1752 immediately follows September 2nd, 1752 in the Gregorian calendar; there was no September 3rd-13th in that year.

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}} in 1582, after scholars began noticing the drift in the solstices and equinoxes that occurred as a result of the Julian calendar's leap year tracking. By the time the British empire adopted the calendar, it was necessary to skip 11 days to reset the seasons to their correct dates, which is why the gap in September 1752 exists.

Cueball is bringing up the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars because it might make a difference in how he calculates the age of the yogurt. In reality, if the yogurt had been packaged while civilization was using the Julian calendar, it would have long ago stopped being yogurt.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a cup at arm's length. Waves of stink are rising from it.]
:Cueball: Oh God, how old is this yogurt in your fridge?
:[Someone speaks from off-panel.]
:Person: What's the expiration date?

:[Cueball holds up the cup to look at the bottom.]
:Cueball: May 12th, but there's no year.
:[From off-panel again.]
:Person: It's May 7th. So it's fine.

:[Now the second person is on panel, and Cueball speaks from off-panel. The second person is sitting down working on a laptop.]
:Cueball: I'm not sure. When it was packaged, was civilization using the Gregorian or Julian calendar?
:Person: Okay, I'll throw it out.
:Cueball: No, it might still be good!

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

737: Yogurt

2013-02-18T17:33:45Z

Curtmack: Note: "Expiration date" is a disambiguation page, the actual page on the expiration date of food is called "shelf life." I don't know why either.

{{comic
| number = 737
| date = May 7, 2010
| title = Yogurt
| image = yogurt.png
| titletext = I am firmly of the opinion that if something doesn't have a year on it, every time the expiration date rolls around it is good again for the two weeks preceding that date.
}}

==Explanation==
Most packaged food has an {{w|shelf life|expiration date}} that indicates when the food will probably no longer be suitable for consumption. This could be due to any number of reasons; most products will rot or grow mold after their expiration date passes, but some processed foods will dry out or just generally become unpleasant long before they actually spoil. (The expiration date is sometimes called a "best by" or "use by" date for this reason.)

Some products don't list the year as part of the expiration date, on the assumption that by the time the year becomes an issue, the food will obviously be spoiled. [[Cueball]] is encountering this issue; clearly the yogurt has gone bad - it's raising "stink lines" and appears to have visible mold - but the expiration date only lists "May 12th" and it's currently May 7th, so the characters reason that it must still be good since the expiration date hasn't passed yet.

The {{w|Julian calendar}} is identical to the {{w|Gregorian calendar}} (our current calendar) with two major differences:

* The Julian calendar's leap years vastly overestimated the length of a year. The Gregorian calendar's leap years are much more accurate at tracking the seasons. (Contrary to popular belief, the Julian calendar did ''have'' leap years, they were just incorrect.)
* September 14th, 1752 immediately follows September 2nd, 1752 in the Gregorian calendar; there was no September 3rd-13th in that year.

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}} in 1582, after scholars began noticing the drift in the solstices and equinoxes that occurred as a result of the Julian calendar's leap year tracking. By the time the British empire adopted the calendar, it was necessary to skip 11 days to reset the seasons to their correct dates, which is why the gap in September 1752 exists.

Cueball is bringing up the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars because it might make a difference in how he calculates the age of the yogurt. In reality, if the yogurt had been packaged while civilization was using the Julian calendar, it would have long ago stopped being yogurt.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a cup at arm's length. Waves of stink are rising from it.]
:Cueball: Oh God, how old is this yogurt in your fridge?
:[Someone speaks from off-panel.]
:Person: What's the expiration date?

:[Cueball holds up the cup to look at the bottom.]
:Cueball: May 12th, but there's no year.
:[From off-panel again.]
:Person: It's May 7th. So it's fine.

:[Now the second person is on panel, and Cueball speaks from off-panel. The second person is sitting down working on a laptop.]
:Cueball: I'm not sure. When it was packaged, was civilization using the Gregorian or Julian calendar?
:Person: Okay, I'll throw it out.
:Cueball: No, it might still be good!

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

765: Dilution

2013-02-08T20:02:15Z

Curtmack: Created page with "{{comic | number = 765 | date = July 12, 2010 | title = Dilution | image = dilution.png | titletext = Dear editors of Homeopathy Monthly: I have two small corr..."

{{comic
| number = 765
| date = July 12, 2010
| title = Dilution
| image = dilution.png
| titletext = Dear editors of Homeopathy Monthly: I have two small corrections for your July issue. One, it's spelled "echinacea", and two, homeopathic medicines are no better than placebos and your entire magazine is a sham.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Homeopathy}} is the belief that poisons, bacteria, and other disease-causing substances can actually cure the diseases they'd normally cause after going through several rounds of dilution. (There's also a "succussion" step in between rounds, which basically consists of shaking or striking the mixture, but no serious mechanism for how this would affect anything has been provided.) In the medical world, it's widely believed to be total bunk, with countless scientific studies repeatedly showing it to have no more effectiveness than a {{w|placebo}}.

Here we find [[Cueball]], a firm believer in homeopathy, applying the idea to fertility by diluting his semen. 30X means that the semen has been diluted with water at a 1:10 ratio 30 times, so the solution contains 1 part semen to one-novillion parts water. Since the average ejaculation contains 200 to 500 million sperm cells, this means the solution Cueball is holding has a 0.000000000000000000035% chance of containing even a single sperm cell. Clearly, [[Megan]] will not be getting pregnant from this, so Cueball will not be passing on his genes, which is why the comic states that the belief in homeopathy is not selected for.

{{w|Echinacea}} is a genus of flowers commonly used in herbal remedies to stimulate the immune system. Scientific studies have not shown that such an effect exists.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands at a desk with a beaker in one hand and a turkey baster in the other. Megan lies in a bed in the same room.]

:Cueball: Okay, this time I've diluted the semen 30x.
:Woman: We'll be ''sure'' to get pregnant now!

:Caption: Belief in homeopathy is not, evolutionarily, selected for.

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

602: Overstimulated

2013-02-06T20:36:25Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ redundance

{{comic
| number = 602
| date = June 26, 2009
| title = Overstimulated
| image = overstimulated.png
| titletext = My favorite thing to do at parties is to talk judgementally about people who aren't there.
}}

== Explanation ==
After being cooped up working on papers, Cueball goes to a party, only to find himself tuning out the chatter of his friends in order to work on math problems in his head. He writes down the prime numbers on cards, and then stretches them out such that the area of the card is the same (say, 1), but one of the sides has been elongated to a length equal to the number on the card. This reduces the length on the other dimension to the reciprocal of the number on the card (i.e. 1/''n'', with ''n'' being the number on the card), according to the area formula for rectangles.

Stacking these reciprocals all up will eventually diverge, meaning the sum will be infinite without ever leveling off. This is unimaginatively referred to as the {{w|divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes}}, and was proven by {{w|Euler}} in 1737.

This may be an Asperger's refererence.
[http://aq.server8.org/ The Cambridge Apergers Test] includes questions on preferences for, and ability to cope with, social situations. It also asks the person taking the taking the test if they have an affinity for numbers and do they see patterns in every day objects.
Cueball would score high on the Asperger's scale.

==Transcript==

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

602: Overstimulated

2013-02-06T19:47:44Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ wat. I'll leave the Asperger's stuff alone for now, but I'll add an actual explanation.

{{comic
| number = 602
| date = June 26, 2009
| title = Overstimulated
| image = overstimulated.png
| titletext = My favorite thing to do at parties is to talk judgementally about people who aren't there.
}}

== Explanation ==
After being cooped up working on papers, Cueball goes to a party, only to find himself tuning out the chatter of his friends in order to work on math problems in his head. The specific problem he is working on is the {{w|divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes}}. He writes down the prime numbers on cards, and then stretches them out such that the area of the card is the same (say, 1), but one of the sides has been elongated to a length equal to the number on the card. This reduces the length on the other dimension to the reciprocal of the number on the card (i.e. 1/''n'', with ''n'' being the number on the card), according to the area formula for rectangles.

Stacking these reciprocals all up will eventually diverge, meaning the sum will be infinite without ever leveling off. This is unimaginatively referred to as the {{w|divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes}}, and was proven by {{w|Euler}} in 1737.

This may be an Asperger's refererence.
[http://aq.server8.org/ The Cambridge Apergers Test] includes questions on preferences for, and ability to cope with, social situations. It also asks the person taking the taking the test if they have an affinity for numbers and do they see patterns in every day objects.
Cueball would score high on the Asperger's scale.

==Transcript==

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

622: Haiku Proof

2013-02-06T19:34:52Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ whoops

{{comic
| number = 622
| date = August 12, 2009
| title = Haiku Proof
| image = haiku_proof.png
| titletext = After somewhere around 40 hours, there's no academic reason to go to the class. Only go for the hallucinations.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Euclid's theorem}} states that there are an infinite number of primes. (In case it's been a while, remember that prime numbers are numbers that are only divisible by themselves and 1.) The most notable proof of this theorem, and the one presented in this comic, was first given by Euclid himself in his ''{{w|Euclid's Elements|Elements}}''. A more traditional form of this proof follows:

:If we suppose that there are a finite number of primes, then they must have a product, i.e. ''p''1''p''2...''p''n = ''q''. Now consider ''q'' + 1. Since each ''p''k is a factor of ''q'', they cannot be a factor of ''q'' + 1. So ''q'' + 1 has no prime factors, which means it must be prime itself; however, we assumed we had listed every prime number, which means a contradiction has occurred. Then our supposition is false, so there must be an infinite number of primes.

The comic essentially takes this proof and states it in the form of a {{w|haiku}}, which is a traditional form of Japanese poetry where the three lines must have 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively. Actually, the proof given is slightly off, as the first line talks about the "top prime's divisors," which makes no sense because the top prime doesn't have any divisors besides itself and one. You need to take the product of ''all'' primes, not just one. But, hey, it's a hallucination.

The comic and title-text conclude that going to class while sleep-deprived is an interesting, but entirely noneducational, experience.

==Transcript==


{{comic discussion}}

622: Haiku Proof

2013-02-06T19:33:49Z

Curtmack: Created page with "{{comic | number = 622 | date = August 12, 2009 | title = Haiku Proof | image = haiku_proof.png | titletext = After somewhere around 40 hours, there's no acade..."

{{comic
| number = 622
| date = August 12, 2009
| title = Haiku Proof
| image = haiku_proof.png
| titletext = After somewhere around 40 hours, there's no academic reason to go to the class. Only go for the hallucinations.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Euclid's theorem}} states that there are an infinite number of primes. (In case it's been a while, remember that prime numbers are numbers that are only divisible by themselves and 1.) The most notable proof of this theorem, and the one presented in this comic, was first given by Euclid himself in his ''{{w|Euclid's Elements|Elements}}''. A more traditional form of this proof follows:

:If we suppose that there are a finite number of primes, then they must have a product, i.e. ''p''1''p''2...''p''n = ''q''. Now consider ''q'' + 1. Since each ''p''k is a factor of ''q'', they cannot be a factor of ''q'' + 1. So ''q'' + 1 has no prime factors, which means it must be prime itself; however, we assumed we had listed every prime number, which means a contradiction has occurred.

The comic essentially takes this proof and states it in the form of a {{w|haiku}}, which is a traditional form of Japanese poetry where the three lines must have 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively. Actually, the proof given is slightly off, as the first line talks about the "top prime's divisors," which makes no sense because the top prime doesn't have any divisors besides itself and one. You need to take the product of ''all'' primes, not just one. But, hey, it's a hallucination.

The comic and title-text conclude that going to class while sleep-deprived is an interesting, but entirely noneducational, experience.

==Transcript==


{{comic discussion}}

712: Single Ladies

2013-02-01T21:44:51Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ I noticed this while I was creating the page, I guess it's worthy of a brief mention

{{comic
| number = 712
| date = March 10, 2010
| title = Single Ladies
| image = single_ladies.png
| titletext = Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted world? Wow, just got the subtext there. Also, the apparently eager Beyoncé would've made one badass Nazgûl.
}}

==Explanation==
The character in armor is {{w|Sauron}}, the main villain in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' trilogy. In the backstory, he takes control of Middle-earth using a Ring of great power, but is eventually defeated by a human who cuts off his ring finger. The books tell the story of a small group of adventurers who rediscover the lost Ring and attempt to destroy it, as Sauron's army gathers its forces to attempt to reclaim the Ring for their master.

{{w|Gil-galad}} is a high Elven-king, and {{w|Galadriel}} is an Elf of royal blood who serves as a matriarch of sorts to the remnants of the Elven race. Lindon is a location on the westernmost side of the continent, serving as the final transition point for Elves passing on to the Undying lands. Sauron refers to an actual event in the first panel, when he tried to gain control of Lindon through deceit; Galadriel and Gil-galad saw through his disguise and cast him out.

The song playing in the background is "All the Single Ladies" by Beyoncé, which includes the line "If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it," referring to ''wedding'' rings. This, evidently, is what inspired Sauron to devise his "One Ring" plan.

The title text refers to an often-suggested fan theory that the One Ring ''is'' actually meant to be symbolic of marriage. The {{w|Nazgûl}}, also known as ringwraiths, are a band of nine servants to Sauron who constantly seek out the Ring for him. As a bit of trivia, Randall used the wrong "û" character when editing the title text; the character he used was U+0217 LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH INVERTED BREVE, but the correct character is U+00FB LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX. They look very similar at standard font sizes, but the inverted breve is curved, while the circumflex is pointed.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is talking to Sauron; Sauron is wearing his trademark helmet, but his head is downcast. Music plays in the background.]
:''Music: All the single ladies, All the single ladies''
:Beret Guy: Hey Sauron, why so glum?
:Sauron: Gil-galad saw through me and threw me out of Lindon. Galadriel as well. I'll never rule ''anyone'' at this rate.

:''Music: All the single ladies, All the single ladies''
:Sauron: Eru created such beautiful creatures - Elves and men and dwarves - and all I've got are these stupid orcs.

:''Music: 'Cause if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it''
:Sauron: I mean, I -

:[Sauron is suddenly quiet]
:''Music: If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:LOTR]]

712: Single Ladies

2013-01-31T19:48:03Z

Curtmack: It has been a tragically long time since I read the books OR saw the movies, so feel free to correct any mistakes I might have made.

{{comic
| number = 712
| date = March 10, 2010
| title = Single Ladies
| image = single_ladies.png
| titletext = Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted world? Wow, just got the subtext there. Also, the apparently eager Beyoncé would've made one badass Nazgûl.
}}

==Explanation==
The character in armor is {{w|Sauron}}, the main villain in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' trilogy. In the backstory, he takes control of Middle-earth using a Ring of great power, but is eventually defeated by a human who cuts off his ring finger. The books tell the story of a small group of adventurers who rediscover the lost Ring and attempt to destroy it, as Sauron's army gathers its forces to attempt to reclaim the Ring for their master.

{{w|Gil-galad}} is a high Elven-king, and {{w|Galadriel}} is an Elf of royal blood who serves as a matriarch of sorts to the remnants of the Elven race. Lindon is a location on the westernmost side of the continent, serving as the final transition point for Elves passing on to the Undying lands. Sauron refers to an actual event in the first panel, when he tried to gain control of Lindon through deceit; Galadriel and Gil-galad saw through his disguise and cast him out.

The song playing in the background is "All the Single Ladies" by Beyoncé, which includes the line "If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it," referring to ''wedding'' rings. This, evidently, is what inspired Sauron to devise his "One Ring" plan.

The title text refers to an often-suggested fan theory that the One Ring ''is'' actually meant to be symbolic of marriage. The {{w|Nazgûl}}, also known as ringwraiths, are a band of nine servants to Sauron who constantly seek out the Ring for him.

==Transcript==

:[Beret Guy is talking to Sauron; Sauron is wearing his trademark helmet, but his head is downcast. Music plays in the background.]
:''Music: All the single ladies, All the single ladies''
:Beret Guy: Hey Sauron, why so glum?
:Sauron: Gil-galad saw through me and threw me out of Lindon. Galadriel as well. I'll never rule ''anyone'' at this rate.

:''Music: All the single ladies, All the single ladies''
:Sauron: Eru created such beautiful creatures - Elves and men and dwarves - and all I've got are these stupid orcs.

:''Music: 'Cause if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it''
:Sauron: I mean, I -

:[Sauron is suddenly quiet]
:''Music: If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

830: Genetic Analysis

2013-01-23T20:07:44Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ why the flaming heck did I think this word order made sense

{{comic
| number = 830
| date = December 6, 2010
| title = Genetic Analysis
| image = genetic_analysis.png
| titletext = There's still a chance you were conceived via IVF. But we've checked your mom's college yearbook photos, and whether or not she and your father had sex, it's clear that ... listen, I know this is hard for you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Genetic testing}} is a real medical procedure, where researchers analyze your DNA and family history to determine if you have any elevated risk factors for things like heart conditions and cancer. Here, the doctor appears to be delivering the results of [[Cueball]]'s genetic test, but instead tells him that his parents had sex at some point.

People generally don't like thinking about their parents having sex, but it obviously happened, since having sex is usually the precondition for having children. So this test result is completely unsurprising.

The title text notes that he could be an {{w|in-vitro fertilization}} baby, which does not require the parents to directly have sex, but concludes that his mother has probably had sex anyway, given how attractive she was in college.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Did my genetic tests come back?
:Woman: Yeah. Sit down.
:Cueball: Is it bad news? What are my risk factors?

:[Cueball is now sitting in the chair awaiting her answer. The woman looks down at the clipboard.]
:Woman: We can't be sure about this, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes and it's hard to avoid the conclusion:

:[The woman puts down the clipboard and looks at Cueball as she delivers her news. Cueball puts his hands to his face in dismay.]
:Woman: At some point, your parents had sex.
:Cueball: Oh God!
:Woman: Stay calm! It's possible it was just once!
:Cueball: I... I need to be alone.

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

830: Genetic Analysis

2013-01-23T20:07:04Z

Curtmack: Is this Romance? I think it's Romance.

{{comic
| number = 830
| date = December 6, 2010
| title = Genetic Analysis
| image = genetic_analysis.png
| titletext = There's still a chance you were conceived via IVF. But we've checked your mom's college yearbook photos, and whether or not she and your father had sex, it's clear that ... listen, I know this is hard for you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Genetic testing}} is a real medical procedure, where researchers analyze your DNA and family history to determine if you have any elevated risk factors for things like heart conditions and cancer. Here, the doctor appears to be delivering the results of [[Cueball]]'s genetic test, but instead tells him that his parents had sex at some point.

People generally don't like thinking about their parents having sex, but it obviously happened, since having sex is usually the precondition for having children. So this test result is completely unsurprising.

The title text notes that he could be an {{w|in-vitro fertilization}} baby, which does not require the parents to directly have sex, but concludes, given how attractive his mother was in college, that she's probably had sex anyway.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Did my genetic tests come back?
:Woman: Yeah. Sit down.
:Cueball: Is it bad news? What are my risk factors?

:[Cueball is now sitting in the chair awaiting her answer. The woman looks down at the clipboard.]
:Woman: We can't be sure about this, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes and it's hard to avoid the conclusion:

:[The woman puts down the clipboard and looks at Cueball as she delivers her news. Cueball puts his hands to his face in dismay.]
:Woman: At some point, your parents had sex.
:Cueball: Oh God!
:Woman: Stay calm! It's possible it was just once!
:Cueball: I... I need to be alone.

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

820: Five-Minute Comics: Part 2

2013-01-18T20:09:49Z

Curtmack: It's been like this for like five edits and no one noticed...?

{{comic
| number = 820
| date = November 17, 2010
| title = Five-Minute Comics: Part 2
| image = five_minute_comics_part_2.png
| titletext = Dear Wiccan readers: I understand modern Wiccans are not usually all about the curses and hexes. But Darth Vader was recently converted from Episcopalianism and he's still figuring it all out.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the second of three "five-minute comics" posts Randall made during November 2010. The introduction to the comic explains everything you need to know about the circumstances behind it, so let's get started!

* The first comic pokes fun at improbable conspiracy theories. {{w|Dealey Plaza#Grassy knoll|The grassy knoll}} is a location famous among conspiracy theorists who believe it to be the location of an unknown accomplice in the {{w|assassination of John F. Kennedy}}.
:It turns out that, somehow, this will all lead up to a theory that perfectly explains the {{w|September 11 attacks}}.

* When a woman described as having a "glow" about them, it's usually just a vague sentiment of attractiveness, specifically during pregnancy, which very suddenly reaches its conclusion as a baby is unceremoniously plopped into the world.

* "{{w|Cogito ergo sum}}" is philosophical statement in Latin, formulated by {{w|René Descartes}}, translated as "I think, therefore I am". Descartes wanted to build a philosophy from scratch, starting with something he could be absolutely certain of. "Cogito ergo cogito", is Latin for "I think, therefore I think." This can even beat "cogito ergo sum" in uncontroversiality, (it is a {{w|tautology}}), which is why Cueball describes it as "playing it safe."

* Besides the cute kids in sheets, the comic on the far right could just be a joke on horror movie tropes and the phrase "buckets of blood."

* To bail out of a plane means to escape the plane, usually via the cockpit's eject mechanism. To bail out a boat means to manually drain water coming onto the ship with buckets. The pilots here have confused the two, although if a plane was somehow taking on a large amount of water, bailing out that water would be a reasonable course of action.

* Sometimes, TV shows will tell true stories while playing up the drama angle for ratings purposes. In these cases, they will often air a notice similar to "The following program is a dramatization of real events" before the show, to indicate that the story they're about to tell is true, albeit not as a literally accurate retelling of events. But how do your dramatize the utterly mundane - say, making a sandwich? The answer is screaming. Senseless, inexplicable screaming.

* {{w|Black light}}s are a kind of lamp that filters out sub-purple light. This means that the only light it gives off is a small amount of purple light, plus plenty of ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light is invisible to humans, but it is noticeable in a few ways; it hurts the eyes, which is why it's hard to focus on things under a black light; it causes sunburns, although the amount given off by a black light is far too insignificant to do this in a realistic time; and it causes a phosphorescent reaction in some bacteria, which is why it causes dust and some food stains to glow in the dark (which is why the robes look dirty). As such, a "blacklightsaber" would, indeed, be a bad idea.

* Most judicial systems have a {{w|jury}}, a panel of impartial laymen that, primarily, determines the guilt or innocence of a suspected criminal. "Ladies and gentlemen" is a formal way of addressing a crowd, and so Cueball addresses the jury as "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury."
:However, it turns out the jury consists only of women, so the "gentlemen" part is not needed. This poses a problem to Cueball's defense, which apparently relied on somewhat sexist tactics. (This, sadly, is not too uncommon in real life.)

* The commander's first line is a line from ''{{w|Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope}}''. In the original film, the commander was cut off by Darth Vader using the Force to strangle him, delivering the rebuttal "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
:Instead of belief in the Force as in the movie, the "ancient religion" referred to here is actually {{w|Wicca}}, a modern pagan religion with two deities that is most notable for practicing magic. So, naturally, Darth Vader puts a hex on the commander's family.
:The title-text notes that modern Wiccans don't really practice the whole "putting hexes on people" thing, which is true. Episcopalianism probably refers to the {{w|Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church of the United States}}, which was founded during the American Revolution to replace the Church of England in the colonies.

==Transcript==
Because of a family illness, instead of regular comics, this week I'll be sharing some strips that I drew as part of a game I played with friends. Each comic had to be written and drawn in five minutes.

-- Randall

====Comic #1====
:[A ninja is hiding under a diving board as a man runs along it.]

:[The man jumps on the end of the board and hits the ninja in the head, knocking him into the pool.]

:[The ninja floats in the water. A bullet passes through the man's head.]
:''thwipp''

:[The man is lying bleeding on the diving board, the ninja is still unconscious on the pool.]

:[A sniper is at the top of a hill. The sign in front of the hill says "Grassy Knoll".]

:[Someone is pointing at the diagram of the previous panel.]
:Off-panel voice: Wait, so what does this have to do with 9/11, again?
:Cueball: I said I'm getting there!

====Comic #2====
:[Cueball is studying Megan.]
:Cueball: You look different.

:Cueball: You have this... ''glow'' about you.

:[They stare in silence.]

:[A baby falls out of Megan.]
:''plop''

====Comic #3====
:Megan: Cogito ergo cogito.
:Off-panel voice: Playing it safe, huh?

====Comic #4====
:[Two ghosts are standing in front of Megan at a door, each carrying a bag. They are children dressed up.]
:Children: Trick or treat!

:[Megan doesn't move.]

:Child: Um hi. Why are you just standing there?
:Other Child: Candy?

:[Another silent panel as the children stare up at Megan.]

:[The second child looks in their bag.]
:Other Child: Oh God, my bag of candy.

:Other Child: It's filling with blood.
:Child: We should go.

====Comic #5====
:[A jet is flying across the panel.]
:Pilot: Bail out! Bail out! Bail out!

:[The pilot and copilot have buckets, and are bailing water out of the cockpit.]

====Comic #6====
:The following is a dramatization of real events.

:[Cueball is at a counter, with several jars.]
:Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAA I'm making a sandwich! AAAAAAAAAA!

====Comic #7====
:[Two people are carrying lightsabers and wearing robes.]
:Cueball: Oh God. My eyes won't focus right! And your robe looks... really dirty!

:My blacklightsaber was not a success.

====Comic #8====
:[Cueball is standing.]
:Cueball: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
:Off-screen voice: It seems we happen to be all ladies, actually.
:Cueball: ... in that case, this defense is going to appear _extremely_ ill-advised.

====Comic #9====
:[Darth Vader is sitting between two people, at a table.]
:Cueball: Your sad devotion to that ancient religion hasn't helped you conjur up the stolen data tapes, or given you --
:Darth Vader: HEY. Wicca is a legitimate belief system!

:[Darth Vader is drawing a pentagram on the table.]
:Cueball: What are you --
:Darth Vader: Putting a hex on your family.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Five-minute comics]]

529: Sledding Discussion

2013-01-09T19:24:20Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 529
| date = January 12, 2009
| title = Sledding Discussion
| image = sledding_discussion.png
| titletext = If you get your hands on that one, it's the worst place to have a breaking-up conversation.
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Calvin and Hobbes}}'' is an acclaimed newspaper comic strip that ran from 1985 to 1995. Calvin is a six-year-old child with an active imagination, and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger who Calvin perceives to be alive. The two frequently had philosophical conversations, often while sledding. Calvin sledded on densely-wooded hills near where he lived, and the ride would often serve as a perfect parallel to the conversation they were having; for example, in one strip, Calvin talks about how seemingly mundane decisions can nonetheless have lasting consequences, by pointing out how all of the things they see as they continue down the hill (and eventually crash into a ravine) are a direct result of him having taken a particular fork early on.

[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], on the other hand, have a perfectly normal sled ride down a perfectly normal hill.

The title text notes that it's a bad place to have a breaking up conversation, presumably because the sled itself would literally ''break up'' during the journey, with potentially dangerous consequences.

==Transcript==
:[Megan looks out window through blinds]
:Megan: It's snowing!
:Cueball: [from off-screen] Sled time!
:[Megan and boy outside with sled, at the top of a hill]
:Cueball: It depresses me that I'm too old to learn another language fluently. My brain's solidified.
:[Megan and Cueball sledding down the hill]
:Megan: Is there one you wish you knew?
:Cueball: No, I just hate having options closed to me. Like I've given up a life that was once possible.
:[At the bottom of the hill, sled has stopped]
:Megan: Which reminds me -- our anniversary is coming up.
:Megan: Man, that ride failed to be a metaphor for our conversation.
:Cueball: Guess this isn't the Calvin & Hobbes-model toboggan.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

651: Bag Check

2013-01-02T21:31:45Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ Adding the direct link. Although I don't blame you, they don't make it easy to get that anchor. I had to view source to find it.

{{comic
| number = 651
| date = October 19, 2009
| title = Bag Check
| image = Bag_check.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = A laptop battery contains roughly the stored energy of a hand grenade, and if shorted it ... hey! You can't arrest me if I prove your rules inconsistent!
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] argues with a {{w|Transportation Security Administration|TSA}} agent at an airport security checkpoint over the TSA policy of prohibiting airline passengers from bringing liquids or gels in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces (100 ml) in their carry on items. To prove his point, Cueball points out that modifying the lithium ion battery in his laptop computer to be an explosive poses a more plausible risk to the aircraft than carrying an innocuous bottle of water. The joke is that now the security team is even MORE worried about him specifically and will take away his laptop and most likely detain him for questioning.

The TSA [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html responded to this comic] in a blog post and Randall Monroe [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html#c9173728821851325302 expounded on his intent] in its comments.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are at a security checkpoint in an airport. A guard is holding an open backpack and a bottle of water, and Cueball is arguing with him.]
:Cueball: But if you're worried about bombs, why are you letting me keep my laptop batteries? If I overvolted them and breached the cells, it would make a sizeable explosion.
:Megan: Oh god.
:Cueball: It's okay, dear. In a moment he'll realize I have a good point and return my water.

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

463: Voting Machines

2013-01-02T21:17:29Z

Curtmack: Created page with "{{comic | number = 463 | date = August 15, 2008 | title = Voting Machines | image = voting_machines.png | titletext = And that's *another* crypto conference I'..."

{{comic
| number = 463
| date = August 15, 2008
| title = Voting Machines
| image = voting_machines.png
| titletext = And that's *another* crypto conference I've been kicked out of. C'mon, it's a great analogy!
}}

==Explanation==
In the 2008 Ohio primary elections, there were numerous problems with electronic voting machines, which eventually required many districts to revert to pen and paper. Premier Election Solutions, the company that handled the machines, blamed these problems on {{w|McAfee}} anti-virus software.

From a computer programming standpoint, having anti-virus software on an electronic voting machine doesn't make sense because the machine shouldn't be accessing the Internet in a way that would leave it open to virus attacks. While there are a lot of ways that viruses can propagate, ultimately the computer still has to download an executable file and run it, which is something that ''no election machine should do'' in normal operation. Rather than use anti-virus software, it makes more sense to simply disable the downloading of files, which is very doable.

There's a principle in computer science that having more layers of defense is always better than having fewer. This is true, but one should take care not to introduce defenses against a nonexistent adversary when doing so might impede normal function. The comic makes an analogy to a teacher who reassures you that he always wears a condom when teaching. Theoretically it's always good to have protection, but the situation where a condom is useful shouldn't arise during class. The comment is more likely to make people worried about why the condom is there and what purpose it's serving.

==Transcript==
:Article: Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) has blamed Ohio voting machine errors on problems with the machines' McAfee antivirus software.
:First Man: Wait. "Antivirus software"? On voting machines? ''You're doing it wrong.''
:[Second Man enters the frame and speaks to First Man]
:Second Man: Why? Security is good, right?
:First Man: Of course. But, well-
:First Man: Imagine you're at a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher reassures you that he always wears a condom while teaching.
:Second Man: Ah. Strictly speaking, it's better than the alternative.
:First Man: -Yet someone is clearly doing their job horribly wrong.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers]]

529: Sledding Discussion

2013-01-02T20:35:33Z

Curtmack: The official explanation is that Calvin's perception of reality includes Hobbes as a living tiger. He's not "imaginary" and he doesn't "come to life" whenever only Calvin is around. Also I nerd out about C&H far too much.

{{comic
| number = 529
| date = January 12, 2009
| title = Sledding Discussion
| image = sledding_discussion.png
| titletext = If you get your hands on that one, it's the worst place to have a breaking-up conversation.
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Calvin and Hobbes}}'' is a critically-acclaimed newspaper comic strip that ran from 1985 to 1995. Calvin was a six-year-old child with an overactive imagination, and Hobbes was his stuffed tiger who Calvin perceived to be alive. The two frequently had philosophical conversations, often while sledding. Calvin sledded on densely-wooded hills near where he lived, and the ride would often serve as a perfect parallel to the conversation they were having; for example, in one strip, Calvin talks about how seemingly mundane decisions can nonetheless have lasting consequences, by pointing out how all of the things they see as they continue down the hill (and eventually crash into a ravine) are a direct result of him having taken a particular fork early on.

Cueball and Megan, on the other hand, have a perfectly normal sled ride down a perfectly normal hill.

==Transcript==
:[Megan looks out window through blinds]
:Megan: It's snowing!
:Cueball: [from off-screen] Sled time!
:[Megan and boy outside with sled, at the top of a hill]
:Cueball: It depresses me that I'm too old to learn another language fluently. My brain's solidified.
:[Megan and Cueball sledding down the hill]
:Megan: Is there one you wish you knew?
:Cueball: No, I just hate having options closed to me. Like I've given up a life that was once possible.
:[At the bottom of the hill, sled has stopped]
:Megan: Which reminds me -- our anniversary is coming up.
:Megan: Man, that ride failed to be a metaphor for our conversation.
:Cueball: Guess this isn't the Calvin & Hobbes-model toboggan.

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

566: Matrix Revisited

2013-01-02T20:15:39Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 566
| date = April 8, 2009
| title = Matrix Revisited
| image = matrix_revisited.png
| titletext = I actually remember being entertained by both the sequels while in the theater. They just don't hold up nearly as well in later comparison.
}}

==Explanation==
In the movie ''The Matrix'', all of humanity lives in a computer simulation. Many years ago, robots took over the real world (not the simulation), and placed humans into the simulation while their body heat generated power for the robots. A few characters (Morpheus, male with glasses; Neo, male without glasses; and Trinity; female) have escaped from the Matrix, and are on a mission to free the human race from the robots. In this comic, a number of famous scenes from ''The Matrix'' have been parodied:

1. Morpheus wants to explain the Matrix to Neo, but says it can't be explained (you must see it for yourself to understand). In the comic, Trinity tells Morpheus that he is wrong, and the Matrix is in fact easy to explain.

2. Morpheus shows Neo two pills, one red and one blue, and tells Neo that he can either take the blue pill and wake up, never to hear about the Matrix again, or he can take the red pill and leave the Matrix, and "see how deep the rabbit hole goes" (a reference to "Alice in Wonderland"). In the movie, Neo takes the red pill, and is then briefed on what will happen to him by Morpheus. In the comic, he mixes to two pills and winds up in a non-existent dimension.

3. Neo and Trinity must save Morpheus, so they obtain many guns and load them into trenchcoats. They are stopped at a security checkpoint in a building in the Matrix. A security guard tells them to remove any metallic items, such as keys, and place them in a bin, then walk through the scanner. In the movie, they open their trenchcoats, revealing their myriad of weapons. In the comic, Neo opens his trenchcoat, and it is implied that he has no other clothing underneath, to which the guard replies, "eww."

4. There are two sequels to ''The Matrix'', but they are widely regarded as inferior to the original, with some fans pretending they don't exist.

==Transcript==
Narrator: Today was the ten-year anniversary of the release of "The Matrix". I sat down to watch it again.

Woman: Holy Fuck, ten years ago?

{Replay of various scenes from The Matrix..}

[Scene 1]

Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can explain what the matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

Trinity (correcting Morpheus): Sure you can. It's a computer simulation in which you live, thinking it's reality.

Neo: Oh.

Trinity (to Morpheus, who is glaring at her): ... What? Look, maybe you just suck at explaining.

[Scene 2]

Morpheus (to Neo): ...Or you take the red pill, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

[Neo takes BOTH pills from Morpheus...]

[Neo crushes both the red and blue pills into purple powder on a table top...]

[Neo snorts the purple powder...]

[Morpheus and Neo are shown upside down in a frame with inverted colors, i.e., black background with white lines]

Morpheus: NOW look what you've done.

Neo: Where are we?

Morpheus: I have no idea.

[Scene 3]

[Neo, wearing the long black trench coat, at a metal detector, is accosted by the security guard.]

Guard: Please remove any keys, metallic items, weapons--

[Neo opens his trench coat, his back to the reader, towards the guard, who is facing the reader. The reader can't see what Neo has under his coat.]

[Same scene as above, but side view: Neo, on the left, is opening his coat toward the guard, who is on the right. Nobody speaks.]

[Side view again.]

Guard: Eww.

{End of scene replays}

[View of room, where three characters have obviously just finished watching The Matrix. Man1 is sitting on the floor nearest to the TV. Woman is sitting on the floor, farther from the TV. Man2 is sitting on a chair, farthest from the TV.]

Man1: I forgot how good that movie was.

Man2: Wanna put on the other two?

[Man1 has turned to face Woman. They exchange looks without speaking.]

[View of room, which is now empty, as is the chair.]

Sounds from off panel: Crash

Wham

Someone saying "Ow! Ow!"

[Man1 and Woman are back in the room, but the chair is still empty. Man2 is nowhere to be seen.]

Man1: I forgot how good that movie was.

Woman: Too bad they never made any sequels.

Man1: True.

{{comic discussion}}

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

191: Lojban

2012-12-27T15:49:58Z

Curtmack: Created page with "{{comic | number = 191 | date = December 1, 2006 | title = Lojban | image = lojban.png | titletext = zo'o ta jitfa .i .e'o xu do pendo mi }} ==Explanation== {..."

{{comic
| number = 191
| date = December 1, 2006
| title = Lojban
| image = lojban.png
| titletext = zo'o ta jitfa .i .e'o xu do pendo mi
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Lojban}} is an invented language specifically designed to have no ambiguous constructs at all. The authors mainly wanted to see if such a thing was possible, but it has a number of fans who believe the lack of ambiguities is a substantial benefit, making the language easier to use with fewer misunderstandings. However, anyone actually willing to learn a new language for this is someone [[Black Hat]] would rather avoid.

Clicking on the original comic brought you to a Lojban translation.

The title-text is also written in Lojban. It translates roughly as: "That was a joke. Really. Wanna be friends with me?"

==Transcript==
:Cueball: If you learned to speak Lojban, your communication would be completely unambiguous and logical.
:Black Hat: Yeah, but it would all be with the kind of people who learn Lojban.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]

901: Temperature

2012-12-18T21:31:50Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 901
| date = May 20, 2011
| title = Temperature
| image = temperature.png
| titletext = And the baby has a fever.
}}

==Explanation==
This is a simple play on the fact that many {{w|digital thermometers}} look similar to {{w|pregnancy tests}}. [[Cueball]], feeling ill, is using a thermometer to determine whether he has a fever or not, and is surprised to learn that, apparently, he is pregnant.

The two bars on the thermometer are similar to the two lines that appear on a traditional pregnancy tests. One bar is the control line; it will become visible given any normal urine sample. If it doesn't appear, the test is invalid. The other bar, the test line, reacts to {{w|human chorionic gonadotropin}}, a hormone that's released during pregnancy. If both lines become visible, the test result is positive; if only the control line becomes visible, the test result is negative. (Other results are invalid, since the control line didn't appear.)

Since thermometers are typically used to measure fevers, the title text notes that, apparently, the thermometer gave this reading because it detected a fever in the baby.

==Transcript==
:[A close up of Cueball with a thermometer in his mouth.]

:[The thermometer beeps.]
:Thermometer: BEEP

:[A full-body shot of Cueball looking down at the thermometer.]

:[A close-up of the thermometer's read-out.]
:Thermometer: PREGNANT

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

901: Temperature

2012-12-18T21:20:48Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ I felt like expanding this a little bit.

{{comic
| number = 901
| date = May 20, 2011
| title = Temperature
| image = temperature.png
| titletext = And the baby has a fever.
}}

==Explanation==
This is a simple play on the fact that many {{w|digital thermometers}} look similar to {{w|pregnancy tests}}. [[Cueball]], feeling ill, is using a thermometer to determine whether he has a fever or not, and is surprised to learn that, apparently, he is pregnant.

The two bars on the thermometer are similar to the two lines that appear on a traditional pregnancy tests. One bar is the control line; it will become visible given any normal urine sample. If it doesn't appear, the test is invalid. The other bar, the test line, reacts to {{w|human chorionic gonadotropin}}, a hormone that's released during pregnancy. If both lines become visible, the test result is positive; if only the control line becomes visible, the test result is negative. (Other tests are invalid, since the control line didn't appear.)

Since thermometers are typically used to measure fevers, the title text notes that, apparently, the thermometer gave this reading because it detected a fever in the baby.

==Transcript==
:[A close up of Cueball with a thermometer in his mouth.]

:[The thermometer beeps.]
:Thermometer: BEEP

:[A full-body shot of Cueball looking down at the thermometer.]

:[A close-up of the thermometer's read-out.]
:Thermometer: PREGNANT

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

497: Secretary: Part 4

2012-12-17T22:29:06Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 497
| date = October 30, 2008
| title = Secretary: Part 4
| image = secretary_part_4.png
| titletext = It's time to draw the line.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Ron Paul}} is an American physician, author, and politician who is a {{w|US House of Representatives|House Representative}} for {{w|Texas}} and is a three-time Presidential candidate, running as a {{w|Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian}} and a {{w|Republican Party (United States)|Republican}}. He has a very dedicated and vocal base of supporters who believe he is [[1083|the only true alternative]] to either side of [[661|the Two-Party System]].

{{w|Tron (film)|Tron}} is a movie made by {{w|Disney}}, inspired by the {{w|Tron (video game)|Tron}} {{w|Video arcade|arcade}} game. The alt-text refers to the line of virtual light that streams out from the back of Tron's light grid vehicles. Normally it is a single, solid color, but in the comic it is the color of the American flag to show Ron's patriotism. There is also a joke about {{w|Pokemon}} in the phrase "... evolves into ...". Pokémon is a game where the player, a "Trainer", has their Pokémon battle other Pokémon to level the Pokémon up. As the Pokémon levels up, they evolve into the next, more powerful, form of the Pokémon.

Why Ron Paul and Cory Doctorow appear to be fighting, is only because Ron Paul favors down-sizing the US government over anything else, whereas Cory Doctorow feels there should be an American Secretary of the Internet. That may not be the case. Do your own political research before you go to vote, kids.

There is a subtle joke in the panel where Ron Paul and Cory Doctorow are firing at each other; the sound effect for Cory's guns is "Boing! Boing!," which is the name of [http://boingboing.net Cory Doctorow's blog].

The reference to gold touches on Ron Paul's desire to see monetary policy once again be driven by the gold standard, namely that a country's currency value be driven not by its economic activity, but by the amount of physical gold it owns. Earlier in American history, this was the case; owning a dollar would (in theory) be owning one dollar's worth of gold somewhere in the treasury. This is in contrast with the current international practice, where countries are able to print an arbitrary quantity of paper money that is not necessarily backed by physical gold. Adherence to the gold standard is an extreme minority view; most economists, and the population at large, agree that the current system is much better.

All comics in the [[:Category:Secretary|Secretary]] series:
* [[494: Secretary: Part 1]]
* [[495: Secretary: Part 2]]
* [[496: Secretary: Part 3]]
* [[497: Secretary: Part 4]]
* [[498: Secretary: Part 5]]

==Transcript==
:[The Ron Paul Revolution blimp floats]
:Pilot: Sir! The balloon is hailing us!

:[Cory Doctorow's balloon appears]
:Cory: Ahoy.
:Ron Paul: Doctorow!
:Cory: I won't let you stop this nomination. We bloggers watch out for our own.

:Ron Paul: Stand aside, Cory.
:Cory: Nay!
:Ron Paul: Very well. Battle stations!

:[The Ron Paul Revolution blimp's gun takes aim]
:''Whirrr kachunk''

:[Cory Doctorow's balloon's gun takes aim]
:''Whirrrr kachunk''

:[Both airships open fire]
:''Pew pew pew''
:''Pew pew''
:''Boing! Boing!''

:[Inside the Ron Paul Revolution blimp's control room]
:Pilot: We're taking damage!
:Ron Paul: Keep firing!
:Pilot: No good! We're losing altitude!

:[Outside the Ron Paul Revolution blimp, it hangs smoking in the air]
:Ron Paul: All engines full! Pull up!
:Pilot: Can't, sir!

:[The Ron Paul Revolution blimp begins to sink, smoking more heavily]

:[The blimp sinks further]
:Pilot: Sir, maybe if we dropped all this gold...
:Ron Paul: Never!

:[Inside the control room, tilted slightly]
:Pilot: We've lost, sir. We have to abort.
:Ron Paul: Not yet, we don't! Open the loading bay doors.

:[Camera zooms out slightly]
:Ron Paul: You take the blimp and fall back.
:''click''
:Ron Paul: I've got a message to deliver.
:''Whirr''

:[Ron Paul tosses his cane aside]

:[Ron Paul steadily transforms into Tron Paul]
:Narrator: RON PAUL evolves into TRON PAUL

:[Light cycle begins to form]

:[Tron Paul bends over the light cycle]

:[Light cycle finishes its formation]

:[Light cycle speeds off, trailing an American flag]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cory Doctorow]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ron Paul]]
[[Category:Secretary|04]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Airships]]

799: Stephen Hawking

2012-12-13T19:41:04Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ felt like this was worth adding, for people who don't click the Wikipedia links and don't know about Stephen Hawking

{{comic
| number = 788
| date = September 27, 2010
| title = Stephen Hawking
| image = stephen_hawking.png
| titletext = Guys? The Town is supposed to be good, and I thou--' 'PHYSICIST STEPHEN HAWKING DECLARES NEW FILM BEST IN ALL SPACE AND TIME' 'No, I just heard that--' 'SHOULD SCIENCE PLAY A ROLE IN JUDGING BEN AFFLECK?' 'I don't think--' 'WHAT ABOUT MATT DAMON?'
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Stephen Hawking}} is a renowned theoretical physisist, and quite possibly the world's smartest human being. He is almost completely paralyzed due to {{w|amyotrophic lateral sclerosis}} and communicates with a speech generation box, as shown in the first panel. In this comic, [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are asked by him if they want to see a movie later, and they run to tell the papers about his "announcement", but he actually just wanted to see a movie with his friends.

==Transcript==
:[Stephen Hawking is facing a pair of people. His voice appears in a square machine readable font.]

:Stephen Hawking: I thought maybe later we should go see a movie.

:[The two people are running.]

:[The front page of a newspaper appears instead of a third panel.]
:Name of the paper - The Times
:Main headline. - Physicist Stephen Hawking Suggests We See More Films
:[A picture of Stephen Hawking is in the center of the page.]
:Picture's caption. - Smartest Man Alive
:Secondary headline. - What Does He Know That We Don't?
:Large quote in article body. - Is this a warning?

:[Stephen Hawking is sitting alone, looking depressed.]

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

821: Five-Minute Comics: Part 3

2012-12-12T16:23:57Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ Maybe I overthink these things too much.

{{comic
| number = 821
| date = November 19, 2010
| title = Five-Minute Comics: Part 3
| image = five_minute_comics_part_3.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = Resulting in The Little Rock 9x + C.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the third and final "five-minute comics" post Randall made during November 2010. The introduction to the comic explains everything you need to know about the circumstances behind it, so let's get started!

* {{w|Pearl Harbor}} is a US Navy base that was {{w|Attack on Pearl Harbor|attacked}} in 1941 by Japanese airplanes, which prompted the US to join World War II. Of the attacks, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is claimed to have said "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" (although this claim is disputed, as the quote first appeared in the 1970 film ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' and isn't substantiated by any sources that would have heard him say it).
:The attacks were made on ''December'' 7, 1941, not November 7. Thus, Randall is correct in depicting a Navy base going about its usual business.

* {{w|Breastfeeding in public}} is a touchy subject in parts of the world. In the US, it is considered by some to be inconsiderate to others who would prefer not to see such a display. Of course, women breastfeeding in public are generally feeding their infants, not other adults. The situation presented in the comic is an absurd exaggeration of the debate.

* "s" is the command in {{w|sed}} to perform a pattern search-and-replace; the syntax has also been adopted by other text-processing utilities, including {{w|Perl}} (a favorite subject of xkcd), and has entered into the geek lexicon as something that could appear in general conversation. The specific command "s/I think that/I saw a study once that said/g" means "Find all occurrences of the phrase 'I think that', and replace it with the phrase 'I saw a study once that said'." This will, indeed, improve the persuasiveness of an article, as the existence of scientific evidence will make people more likely to believe what's said, while most people won't even think to actually look up the study in question.

* Arson is the crime of intentionally setting fire to a structure. {{w|Billy Joel}} will no doubt claim {{w|We Didn't Start the Fire|he didn't start the fire}}.

* Coca-Cola is a fizzy cola-flavored soft drink, commonly abbreviated as "coke." {{w|Pop Rocks}} are a candy that contain tiny bubbles of gas, so that as the sugary candy dissolves on your tongue, it creates a popping sensation. For a long time, it was claimed that drinking the two together would cause one's stomach to explode; this was finally put to rest as some people (the Mythbusters in particular) started actually trying it, and discovered that nothing happened.
:Randall, of course, just thinks outside the box.

* After ''{{w|Brown v. Board of Education}}'' ruled that schools could not segregate based on race, nine African American students from Little Rock, Arkansas enrolled in the previously-segregated Little Rock Central High School. The school board could not officially deny them attendance, but members of the community (and, after Arkansas governor Orval Faubus intervened, the Arkansas National Guard) formed a blockade to physically prevent them from entering the school building. The governor claimed this was within his power even after ''Brown v. Board'', because the students were enrolled without issue, they were just physically blocked from entering the school building. After determining that the right to enroll in a school does, implicitly, include the right to actually attend classes there, president Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to accompany the students and force the National Guard to stand down, thus integrating the school. This incident became known as the {{w|Little Rock Nine}}.
:However, {{w|Integral|integration}} also has a meaning in mathematics. This is indicated in the comic with the soldiers lifting up a giant integral sign to place beside the school, in order to (mathematically) integrate it. Normally, an integral only makes sense on functions; however, since this is the Little Rock ''Nine'', if we take the integral of the constant function ''f''(''x'') = 9, we do, in fact, get 9''x'' + ''C'', as stated in the title text.

* Cell phones with advanced computing capabilities (typically at least requiring fully-featured Internet browsing, multimedia capabilities, and the ability to run software applications) are called "smartphones." Most cell phones also have a "vibrate" function that allows someone in a public situation to receive calls without alerting others; the phone will discreetly vibrate rather than activate a ringtone, thus privately notifying the owner that a call is incoming. A semi-common problem with this feature is that a vibrating phone on a table that has a slight slope will slowly (or, if the slope is bad enough, rather quickly) slide down the slope, possibly falling off the table and breaking.
:If our smartphones ever decided to kill us, this would possibly be their only method of attack.

* The Three Little Pigs is a children's fairy tale about three pigs who build their houses out of, respectively, straw, sticks, and bricks. A wolf comes along and eats the pigs living in the straw and stick houses, but he can't knock down the brick house, because his only method for breaking them down is to blow on them until the material falls to pieces. The lesson is somewhat confused and seems to be "Don't build your house in such a way that a semi-strong wind can blow it down," which is sound advice but somewhat bizarre for a children's story.
:The 119 Little Pigs seems to be a variant where the pigs build their houses out of the 119 chemical elements. The 38th little pig builds his house out of {{w|strontium}}, which is, of course, the 38th element on the Periodic Table. One wonders what happened to the pigs who are stuck making their houses out of elements that are gaseous or liquid at room temperature, or those whose houses would react with the air and/or undergo nuclear decay.
:Although given the water content in exhaled breath, it's {{w|Alkali metal#Reaction with water (alkali metal hydroxides)|easy to see}} how the wolf would huff, puff, and blow down the houses made of {{w|lithium}}, {{w|sodium}}, {{w|potassium}}, {{w|rubidium}}, {{w|caesium}}, and {{w|francium}}.

* "Fastest gun in the West" is a boast commonly made in Western movies, where it is used to mean that a person is the fastest at drawing his gun in a duel (or, alternatively, can fire his gun the fastest). It doesn't actually describe the gun itself, and certainly doesn't describe how fast the gun can gallop across the land.

* "It's what separates the ''men'' from the ''boys''" is a phrase used to describe "macho" activities that, apparently, only "real men" will participate/do well in; all the other men haven't grown up yet, and are thus "boys." {{w|Centrifuge}}s are used to rapidly separate a material from the liquid it's dissolved in, so apparently they can also be used to separate men from boys.

* Narnia is the mythical land in ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}''. In the books, time passes differently in Narnia, such that one can spend many years in Narnia and come out to find that almost no time at all has passed on Earth (and, conversely, during a short trip back to Earth, hundreds of years could pass in Narnia). Lucy is taking advantage of this by putting a computer in Narnia to perform extremely fast computation. {{w|Folding@home}} and {{w|SETI@home}} are distributed computing projects that aim to solve extremely large computational problems by pooling together computer resources of thousands of home computers who volunteer for the project; Folding@home looks at how proteins are folded, which has applications in medical science, and SETI@home analyzes EM waves from space, looking for signs extraterrestrial intelligent life amongst the cosmic background noise. Running through all of that data in a few hours would be quite an accomplishment indeed, although, as Peter points out, the idea has many problems:
** The book was written in 1957 and it occurs even earlier than that, long predating personal computers, so Lucy shouldn't even have one.
** Even if it occurs in an alternate universe where the PC was invented before 1957, the storage that would be needed to store the entire Folding@home and SETI@home databases would be far beyond her means, since the characters in the book are foster kids who don't have any money.
** Even if she somehow pulled that much storage space together, the time needed for one computer to run through those databases is on the order of millenia. A computer would not continuously run for that long without careful treatment, which Narnia is not equipped for.
** Even if we handwave around that issue (''"Aslan, use your power to keep all dust away from this computer for the next ten thousand years, please"''), the wall socket powering the computer is on the Earth side. Mains power outlets in the UK provide alternating current with an amplitude of 230 volts and a frequency of 50 hertz. The 50hz part is what's important here: all devices designed to work with UK mains power expect a 50hz sine wave. The time difference between Earth and Narnia would substantially elongate the sine wave in a method similar to the Doppler effect, which would probably prevent the computer from functioning at all.

* ''{{w|The Honeymooners}}'' is a classic American sitcom. The show stars Ralph and Alice Kramden, and Ralph frequently makes empty threats of the form "One of these days, Alice...," followed by a combination of onomatopoeia. For example: "One of these days, Alice... BANG! ZOOM! Straight to the moon!" (Alice inevitably replies "Ahhh, shut up.")
:Here, Randall takes the pattern to a ridiculous and not-at-all threatening place.

==Transcript==
Because of a family illness, instead of regular comics, this week I'll be sharing some strips that I drew as part of a game I played with friends. Each comic had to be written and drawn in five minutes.

-- Randall

====Comic #1====
:Pearl Harbor. November 7th, 1941.
:[There is a beach, with some ships floating in a crescent shaped harbor.]

:[The same bay, again.]

:[The boats continue to move about the harbor.]

:[The boats do their thing. A title explains.]
:(We're going to be here a while, since the attack wasn't until December.)

====Comic #2====
:[Cueball is sitting on a bus, Megan in front of him.]
:I know it's natural and all, but I really wish women on the bus wouldn't try to breastfeed me.
:Woman: C'mon, have some milk. Right here.
:Me: I'm ''reading''.

====Comic #3====
:s/I think that/I saw a study once that said that/g
:Instant persuasiveness multiplier!

====Comic #4====
:[A newspaper front page. Billy Joel is between two policemen.]
:Times
:Billy Joel Arrested for Arson

====Comic #5====
:[One person has a cord leaving their mouth, the other is holding a handset on the end of it to their ear.]
:Handset: Hee hee hee... *giggle*
:I hear that if you drink coke and eat pop rocks, you vomit up a corded telephone handset on which you hear creepy little girls giggling.

====Comic #6====
:[Three soldiers are holding a large integral sign, while a fourth points a gun at the Little Rock High School.]
:1957: Eisenhower orders the military to integrate Little Rock High School.

====Comic #7====
:[A smartphone is vibrating across a table, towards a person.]
:The smartphones got ''too'' smart... and developed a taste... for BLOOD!
:Fortunately, the only way they could move was by turning on their vibrate while on a sloped table.

====Comic #8====
:[Cueball is reading to his child.]
:Cueball: And the wolf went to see the 38th little pig, who had built his house out of strontium.
:Cueball: And the wolf was all, "Ok, what is ''with'' this shit?"
:The 119 Little Pigs

====Comic #9====
:[Cueball is holding up a gun.]
:Cueball: Fastest gun in the west!

:[The gun is galloping across the desert.]
:''gallop gallop''

:[There is a podium, with a gun in each position.]
:Winner!

====Comic #10====
:[A picture of a centrifuge dominates the panel.]
:Centrifuges: They're what separate the men from the boys.

====Comic #11====
:[A computer monitor is plugged in, and cables run into a wardrobe.]
:Lucy: Time passes differently in Narnia, so by putting the CPU and storage for my machine there, I was able to run through the Folding@Home and Seti@Home databases in about an hour.
:Peter: There are _so_ many problems with that.

====Comic #12====
:[Someone is talking to Alice.]
:Person: One of these days, Alice... Wham, zoom, sploosh, fwoom, splash, gurlle, wheeeee, fwoosh, aren't waterslides fun?!

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Five-minute comics]]

177: Alice and Bob

2012-12-11T21:05:59Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */ Some general improvements

{{comic
| number = 177
| date = October 30, 2006
| title = Alice and Bob
| image = alice_and_bob.png
| titletext = Yet one more reason I'm barred from speaking at crypto conferences.
}}

==Explanation==
Any good cryptography presentation will include at least one story about {{w|Alice and Bob}}. They are the canonical "protagonists" of the crypto world, frequently used in illustrations to demonstrate how a cryptographic system works. (The names were mostly chosen to abbreviate to A and B.)

Here, Randall casts the story in a different light. Instead of Alice and Bob being perfectly innocent people who just want to communicate in private, Bob is actually having an affair with Alice, and his former partner, upset, cracked the encryption to see what the message contained. Nevertheless, the "gossipy cryptographic protocol specs" all took Alice's side (since the goal of any good crypto system is, of course, to ''succeed'' in this struggle).

The rest of the comic makes a few other allusions to cryptography:

* {{w|Bruce Schneier}} and {{w|Ron Rivest}} are two well-known cryptographers. They have written lots of papers that use Alice and Bob as examples (Alice / Bob fanfic, if you will).
* Public and private keys are two extremely large numbers, chosen such that there's a mathematical relation between them, and yet it's extremely hard (i.e. would take many billions of years) to derive the private key from the public key. They're the basis of {{w|asymmetric cryptography}}. A public-key authenticated signature is a way of cryptographically proving that a certain person created a file, as only that person could have possibly generated that signature. One downside is that anybody who has the public key can verify who a message is from, so it removes plausible deniability; Bob's partner clearly knew that Alice and Bob were communicating, on disks marked by lipstick hearts no less.
* A known-plaintext attack is a type of cryptographic attack where the plaintext (i.e. unencrypted text) of a message is known, and the attacker wants to figure out the keys used to encrypt the message. The woman is saying that she should have known all along that the messages were adulterous in nature.

Finally, in a twist ending, the girlfriend is revealed to be none other than Eve, the ''eave''sdropper, who is also ubiquitous in Alice and Bob stories. Hell hath no fury, indeed.

The title text continues the theme of Randall getting barred from speaking at conferences due to his unusual take on certain topics.

To further spice things up, there are many other characters in the Alice/Bob canon, including Mallory, the ''mal''icious, who wants to actually ''alter'' the message with nefarious intent; Craig, the ''cr''acker, who doesn't particularly care about the message but ''does'' care about the passwords used; and Chuck, a third party in the communication who secretly has a villainous intent.

==Transcript==
:[Girl with black hair stands in the frame, talking to the reader]
:Girl: I'm sure you've heard all about this sordid affair in those gossipy cryptographic protocol specs with those busybodies Schneier and Rivest, always taking Alice's side, always labeling me the attacker.
:Girl: Yes, it's true. I broke Bob's private key and extracted the text of her messages. But does anyone realize how much it hurt?
:Girl: He said it was nothing, but everything from the public-key authenticated signatures on the files to the lipstick heart smeared on the disk screamed "Alice."
:Girl: I didn't want to believe. Of course on some level I realized it was a known-plaintext attack. But I couldn't admit it until I saw it for myself.
:[Girl places her hands on her hips]
:Girl: So before you so quickly label me a third party to the communication, just remember: I loved him first. We had something and she tore it away. She's the attacker, not me. Not Eve.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Security]]

651: Bag Check

2012-12-11T16:45:19Z

Curtmack: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 651
| date = October 19, 2009
| title = Bag Check
| image = Bag_check.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = A laptop battery contains roughly the stored energy of a hand grenade, and if shorted it ... hey! You can't arrest me if I prove your rules inconsistent!
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] argues with a {{w|Transportation Security Administration|TSA}} agent at an airport security checkpoint over the TSA policy of prohibiting airline passengers from bringing liquids or gels in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces (100 ml) in their carry on items. To prove his point, Cueball points out that modifying the lithium ion battery in his laptop computer to be an explosive poses a more plausible risk to the aircraft than carrying an innocuous bottle of water. The joke is that now the security team is even MORE worried about him specifically and will take away his laptop and most likely detain him for questioning.

TSA [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html responded to this comic].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are at a security checkpoint in an airport. A guard is holding an open backpack and a bottle of water, and Cueball is arguing with him.]
:Cueball: But if you're worried about bombs, why are you letting me keep my laptop batteries? If I overvolted them and breached the cells, it would make a sizeable explosion.
:Megan: Oh god.
:Cueball: It's okay, dear. In a moment he'll realize I have a good point and return my water.

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