explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1374: Urn

2014-05-28T22:44:32Z

The urn could contain both the ashes and the balls, as the teacher does not use any modifiers like "only". IE: Meg could have imagined these balls being added to an urn are already has knowledge of. It would be nice if the explanation clarified this possibility. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.68|199.27.128.68]] 10:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC) Adam

I interpreted the "with replacement" part of the title text as Megan wanting to have her grandfather back.--[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 08:31, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
: I now realize she just wants to put the ashes back, it's so obvious it hurts. #overthinkingit --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 09:44, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The calculation for "with replacement" is substantially shorter (and thus easier and less tedious) than without. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 09:14, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
: Depends on whether you disregard the order in which the balls are drawn or not. -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 10:09, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

A bot wrote all of these?!--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.46|108.162.215.46]] 09:50, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
: I guess I'll have to remove "understanding xkcd" from my list of working Turing tests then... -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 10:09, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I'm off base, but it seems to be a commentary on [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/us/warning-the-literary-canon-could-make-students-squirm.html Trigger Warnings] {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.14}}

:Could be. I can see that, with the standard science/math/Randall twist. Only in this case, the content is totally unexpected based on the perceived topic that is to be covered. Unlike possibly expecting racism from a civil war era novel, brutality from an ancient Greek historical account; or peanuts in a can of, peanuts... [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:23, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
:I'm going throwing in my vote here - I'm well aware of the concept of "trigger warnings," but I '''don't''' think this is a reference to them. Is there any actual evidence of this? This seems like a particularly editorial comment, that isn't really backed up by the content of the comic. --[[User:Overand|Overand]] ([[User talk:Overand|talk]]) 18:02, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
::I really don't see it --[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 22:44, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd suggest that Megan could identify her grandfathers ashes by the urn (shape, colour, identification), but there's no clear indication of that in the panel. She clearly recognizes the ashes as her grandfathers ''after'' she sticks her hand in. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:25, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the key here is that for some people the word "urn" is a neutral word, while for other people "urn" is only associated with funerals and cremation and the ashes of a loved one. The fact that the title for the drawing is "Urn" could also imply that it is all about the word "urn" and how some people react emotionally to it. --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 13:49, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems very clear to me that this comic is mostly about "trigger warnings". [[User:J Milstein|J Milstein]] ([[User talk:J Milstein|talk]]) 13:55, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Reading the title I firstly thought it would have had a "uniform resource name" joke in... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.31|108.162.219.31]] 16:48, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I find trigger warnings to be ridiculous (thanks in no small part to Tumblr) and unnecessary (why not just call them plain warnings? jeez), but I think the "trigger warning" explanation is really reaching, honestly. I don't find any indications in Randall's comic to suggest this. I think Megan is just trying to play a cruel, cruel prank on Cueball. It's a funny one at that. No need to over-analyze it, IMO.

Oh, and to the user above Jarod997... thanks a lot for linking that NYT article. Now I have a headache from reading that... Ugh! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.42|108.162.219.42]] 18:08, 28 May 2014 (UTC)Mudkip3DS

It may also be related to the recent Django drama about terminology: https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692 --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.78|173.245.53.78]] 18:42, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

My first thought about "drawing with replacement" was that actual remains were replaced with squirrel, as in recent what-if) {{unsigned ip|141.101.80.202}}

Talk:1350: Lorenz

2014-04-01T18:03:45Z

I've had the story loop back to the first frame, so it wouldn't surprise me if this could go on infinitely if it had the available dialogue options.

This is going to be a hell of a thing. Good luck... [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 15:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:I think this is one of those times when the custom field might come in handy. Duplicating Randall's code seems like it might be difficult, and it might just be easier to link to the original page. Probably. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

There's always new story lines, even when you think you've read them all, new ones appear to replace them. I don't think it'll ever be possible to record them all. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.192|108.162.212.192]] 15:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The text changes, but there are recurring themes with the panels. The rocket, the big hole, the little hole, Dinosaurcomics, pokemon, waking up, stranded swimming.........[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:03, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

When I go to XKCD, all I see is the comic from Monday... weird. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Same here... and a lot of space below it. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: I think that happens when you have refreshed the page too many time -- kind of an anti spam for user submissions. I simply create an anonymous browser window and I got back to the real page once xkcd was not able to track me as a returning user. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Currently there appears to be a bug. Instead of the evolving, crowd-sourced comic, I just see an off-center copy of the previous comic, 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard. [http://i.imgur.com/pw2OfOL.png Screenshot here].
UPDATE: it appears to be a bug in the XSRF-blocking code. Chrome console shows me the error "XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://c1.xkcd.com/graph/1/. The 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header has a value 'http://xkcd.com' that is not equal to the supplied origin. Origin 'http://www.xkcd.com' is therefore not allowed access."
FURTHER UPDATE: you can work around this bug by going to http://xkcd.com instead of http://www.xkcd.com!
It also doesn't work if you have HTTPS Everywhere enabled.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 16:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

** I can confirm this bug in Firefox. Weirdly, the work-around functioned one time for me, but now going to "xkcd.com" rather than "www.xkcd.com" just gives me a copy of 1349 as well. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The workaround didn't work for me, I still got monday's comic on either URL. (Chromium 36.0.1919.0 (260611), Mac OS 10.9.2) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This comic introduced(?) a font of its own of Randalls comic type. I don't know if it has been sitting there for long, but I just noticed it: http://xkcd.com/fonts/xkcd-Regular.eot -- phiarc [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.12|108.162.219.12]] 17:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Is it the same as was used in Externalities? [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Does everyone have these options in some order for the first tile?
*Refresh... No New Email... Refresh .. No New Tweets... Refresh...
*These Stupid Tiles... I'll Just Play One More Game
*Oh. Hey. There's Some Kind Of Politicial Thing Going On.
*Let's See If BSD Is Any Easier to Install Nowadays
--[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
If so, we can begin to build a map of at least the first set of options before the crowd-sourced ones. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Yes, though the second-tier options have changed [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1350: Lorenz

2014-04-01T18:00:06Z

I've had the story loop back to the first frame, so it wouldn't surprise me if this could go on infinitely if it had the available dialogue options.

This is going to be a hell of a thing. Good luck... [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 15:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:I think this is one of those times when the custom field might come in handy. Duplicating Randall's code seems like it might be difficult, and it might just be easier to link to the original page. Probably. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

There's always new story lines, even when you think you've read them all, new ones appear to replace them. I don't think it'll ever be possible to record them all. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.192|108.162.212.192]] 15:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

When I go to XKCD, all I see is the comic from Monday... weird. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Same here... and a lot of space below it. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: I think that happens when you have refreshed the page too many time -- kind of an anti spam for user submissions. I simply create an anonymous browser window and I got back to the real page once xkcd was not able to track me as a returning user. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Currently there appears to be a bug. Instead of the evolving, crowd-sourced comic, I just see an off-center copy of the previous comic, 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard. [http://i.imgur.com/pw2OfOL.png Screenshot here].
UPDATE: it appears to be a bug in the XSRF-blocking code. Chrome console shows me the error "XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://c1.xkcd.com/graph/1/. The 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header has a value 'http://xkcd.com' that is not equal to the supplied origin. Origin 'http://www.xkcd.com' is therefore not allowed access."
FURTHER UPDATE: you can work around this bug by going to http://xkcd.com instead of http://www.xkcd.com!
It also doesn't work if you have HTTPS Everywhere enabled.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 16:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

** I can confirm this bug in Firefox. Weirdly, the work-around functioned one time for me, but now going to "xkcd.com" rather than "www.xkcd.com" just gives me a copy of 1349 as well. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The workaround didn't work for me, I still got monday's comic on either URL. (Chromium 36.0.1919.0 (260611), Mac OS 10.9.2) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This comic introduced(?) a font of its own of Randalls comic type. I don't know if it has been sitting there for long, but I just noticed it: http://xkcd.com/fonts/xkcd-Regular.eot -- phiarc [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.12|108.162.219.12]] 17:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Is it the same as was used in Externalities? [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Does everyone have these options in some order for the first tile?
*Refresh... No New Email... Refresh .. No New Tweets... Refresh...
*These Stupid Tiles... I'll Just Play One More Game
*Oh. Hey. There's Some Kind Of Politicial Thing Going On.
*Let's See If BSD Is Any Easier to Install Nowadays
--[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
If so, we can begin to build a map of at least the first set of options before the crowd-sourced ones. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Yes, though the second-tier options have changed [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1350: Lorenz

2014-04-01T15:39:36Z

H: Created page with "I've had the story loop back to the first frame, so it wouldn't surprise me if this could go on infinitely if it had the available dialogue options. This is going to be a hel..."

User:H

2013-05-11T02:30:53Z

I'm not a regular contributor but certainly a regular reader since the blog days. Here to give an English perspective on things.

Lurking on the official forums as [http://forums.xkcd.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=407222 HES]

Talk:1210: I'm So Random

2013-05-10T18:08:40Z

;"Random"
Are the numbers in the speech bubble truely random (as in is there a real pattern)? Can someone check?
--[[User:Charlesisbozo|Charlesisbozo]] ([[User talk:Charlesisbozo|talk]]) 08:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

:I was wondering that myself. I did a quick tally of the digits and for 0..9 I have frequencies of {24,9,18,18,14,17,14,8,9,14} respectively for the readily identifiable digits (YMMV, and while I counted the probable 5 behind Hairy's left ear, I didn't count the ''possible'' five behind his left knee, for example.) It doesn't seem to have fallen for the "too many 3s and 7s" trap, nor "too ''few'' 3s and 7s, because I know I'll pick them if I try to be random" one, because one is 'high' and one is 'low'. Ditto the "avoiding zero and using nine a lot", says I, vaguely half remembering something from the New Scientists a decade or two ago... While it's not a ''flat'' distribution, I'd also suspect it as 'constructed' if it ''was'' nearly equal tallies. Someone else can probably tell me if this sample of 145 is within variation limits but I'm still going on intuition.
:What I was originally going to do is also go so far as to compare neighbours-on-neighbours. It appeared to me that there were two many like-like neighbours. It's not as easy as in if a grid-system (without holes, etc), but I trivially count a couple of dozen (probably more) and even some 'triples' and that 'stripe' of zeros (from top down to his right knee) is interesting.
::That's a sign that it probably is random. Over 100 digits, let's say average 5 neighbours (in a hex grid the internal ones would each have 6 but the ones on the edge fewer), there must be close to 300 or more pairs of neighbours. One-tenth of those would be identical. Truly random sequences have far more identical neighbours than sequences that seem random to us. [[User:MGK|MGK]] ([[User talk:MGK|talk]]) 10:44, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:::Yup, that's where I was heading with that fact (see "Preliminarily", below). Also, I don't have much more free time today, but if you're interested the ''corrected'' frequencies are {24,9,19,19,14,17,14,8,9,15} (I'd missed some!) and the guide to which marks I counted as which numbers is at http://i43.tinypic.com/awc602.png if anyone wants to do the more aesthetic job, like I was originally planning on doing... [[Special:Contributions/178.98.253.89|178.98.253.89]] 10:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:Preliminarily, I choose to believe that Randall used a PRNG or even a noise source and stuck to it (''even when'' patterns may have become apparent). Also that, on examining the image closely, he pasted Hairy's anti-aliased image over the top of the numbers then did a little extra editing. ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.253.89|178.98.253.89]] 10:24, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:They are all copied directly from the first few lines of [http://www.amazon.com/Million-Random-Digits-Normal-Deviates/dp/0833030477 A Million Random Digits (and 100000 Normal Deviates)] [[Special:Contributions/87.64.94.247|87.64.94.247]] 14:26, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The irony though, is that for a human being to be able to ''create'' truly random content, is indeed interesting. We are pattern forming machines [[User:Boxy|Boxy]] ([[User talk:Boxy|talk]]) 11:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

This is Black Hat. I'd personally believe he'd have an (unhackable) /dev/random stream personally available on tap for whenever he needs some significant entropy. Although I imagine he'd use the /dev/urandom one in this instance, knowing that the 'fuller' randomness wouldn't be appreciated enough...

Anyway, I found some free time, and ''this'' is the result: http://i39.tinypic.com/nm13dc.png If there's nothing better and it helps at all then anyone please feel free to tidy up (or correct?) and I naturally grant the whole Creative Commons doolally (i.e. to the extent that came with the original source material and what I can personally grant by dint of it being a derivative work by myself) to anyone with a Wiki account who thinks its worthwhile to officially upload it. Or just do it better yourself.

I decided to plump for what another few part-hidden numbers were, as well, while I was at it. Some 9s and a 4, in particular. Now all that is left uncoloured is one possible 5/possible 6 number at the knee area, one that ''might'' be a zero behind the head and a smaller fragment behind his lower leg that I imagine is either a 6 ''or'' 0, due to the hint of a curve emerging the other side. The 5 behind the left ear is now coloured, but it's possible you might disagree and think it's a 6. (However, I believe Hairy's hair was drawn on ''after'' his general bodyplan was moved into position over the numbers, and there is a possible hint of the top-stroke for the 5 emerging from behind the head's anti-aliasing.)

So, while doing this I additionally quanitified the frequencies of neighbouring numbers as I had originally intended.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! # !! Freq !! ->0 !! ->1 !! ->2 !! ->3 !! ->4 !! ->5 !! ->6 !! ->7 !! ->8 !! ->9 !! ->?
|-
| 0 || 24 || 20 || 8 || 16 || 11 || 11 || 16 || 11 || 4 || 10 || 19 || 4
|-
| 1 || 9 || 9 || 4 || 3 || 3 || 3 || 7 || 5 || 1 || 1 || 9 || -
|-
| 2 || 19 || 15 || 3 || 12 || 13 || 11 || 12 || 8 || 7 || 5 || 13 || 1
|-
| 3 || 21 || 9 || 2 || 12 || 18 || 8 || 8 || 12 || 10 || 8 || 6 || 5
|-
| 4 || 15 || 11 || 3 || 14 || 8 || 6 || 10 || 10 || 6 || 8 || 11 || -
|-
| 5 || 17 || 16 || 9 || 11 || 7 || 10 || 10 || 10 || 7 || 3 || 11 || 4
|-
| 6 || 15 || 10 || 4 || 10 || 11 || 12 || 11 || 9 || 4 || 4 || 7 || -
|-
| 7 || 10 || 5 || 1 || 8 || 9 || 6 || 8 || 5 || 3 || 5 || 3 || 2
|-
| 8 || 9 || 8 || 1 || 5 || 9 || 8 || 4 || 4 || 5 || 3 || 7 || -
|-
| 9 || 18 || 19 || 8 || 13 || 7 || 13 || 10 || 8 || 3 || 6 || 12 || -
|}

(That came out better than I expected. Not used Wiki table markup for a ''long'' time...)

Not included, but analysed, is that average neighbours ranged from 4.67 for 3s to 6.00 for 8s. I'm not sure if that helps any though.

Note that it isn't ''perfectly'' symmetrical around the x=y line. I used a strict, but entirely visual, method for deciding whether A neighboured B, and sometimes it did by that measure and yet B did not really neighbour A when later assessed in return. Or vice-versa. Digit size differences and packing of nearby neighbours may have been the prime cause. Input errors also possible of course.

Taking into account the differing frequencies of the (known) numbers, I came up with following table of "actual / theoretical" pairing frequency ratios:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|-
! # !! Dif !! ->0 !! ->1 !! ->2 !! ->3 !! ->4 !! ->5 !! ->6 !! ->7 !! ->8 !! ->9
|-
| 0 || || 1.01 || 1.08 || 1.02 || 0.63 || 0.89 || 1.14 || 0.89 || 0.48 || 1.35 || 1.28
|-
| 1 || || 1.21 || 1.44 || 0.51 || 0.46 || 0.65 || 1.33 || 1.08 || 0.32 || 0.36 || 1.61
|-
| 2 || || 0.96 || 0.51 || 0.97 || 0.95 || 1.12 || 1.08 || 0.82 || 1.07 || 0.85 || 1.1
|-
| 3 || || 0.52 || 0.31 || 0.87 || 1.19 || 0.74 || 0.65 || 1.11 || 1.38 || 1.23 || 0.46
|-
| 4 || || 0.89 || 0.65 || 1.43 || 0.74 || 0.78 || 1.14 || 1.29 || 1.16 || 1.72 || 1.18
|-
| 5 || || 1.14 || 1.71 || 0.99 || 0.57 || 1.14 || 1.01 || 1.14 || 1.2 || 0.57 || 1.04
|-
| 6 || || 0.81 || 0.86 || 1.02 || 1.02 || 1.55 || 1.25 || 1.16 || 0.78 || 0.86 || 0.75
|-
| 7 || || 0.61 || 0.32 || 1.22 || 1.25 || 1.16 || 1.37 || 0.97 || 0.87 || 1.61 || 0.48
|-
| 8 || || 1.08 || 0.36 || 0.85 || 1.38 || 1.72 || 0.76 || 0.86 || 1.61 || 1.08 || 1.26
|-
| 9 || || 1.28 || 1.44 || 1.1 || 0.54 || 1.4 || 0.95 || 0.86 || 0.48 || 1.08 || 1.08
|}

The highest values are 1.72 more frequent than ought to be by chance (4<->8, with others not far behind), the lowest is 0.31 what should have occured by chance (3->1, 1<->7 next, 1<->8 then 1->3), and it seems to be an unremarkable progression, end-to-end with no surprising leaps and jumps that grossly disobey any 'meta-frequency' distribution expectations. Note that the 0<->0 value (which stood out on visual inspection) is 1.01, with the median being 1.02, on what should have normalised somewhere around 1.00 anyway. I find the higher frequency not too large for belief, and the lower can be explained by disconnectedness (hole and edge-effect, which wouldn't have occured on a larger, or infinite, array without gaps) but I really should have quantified "missing/unknown neighbours" (after actually excluding the remaining unknowns from analysis), perhaps something like weighting each neighbour's significance according to rarity for the original number to ''have'' neighbours, rather than just straight tallying. Too late now without redoing the count from scratch. I'd also considered weighting every instance against ''every'' other by inverse-square of distance, or similar, to be somewhat immune from the larger effects, but I'll leave that as an exercise for someone else who wishes to look into it...

Does someone want to calculate P for all of this, anyway? ;)

Finally, I also attempted to discover any embedded steganography. Odd numbers vs even numbers, for a start, but then looking for how "XKCD" or smiley faces or heart-shapes could be marked down in patterns. There are several non-linear sequences of sequential numbers, I noted (can't find anything longer than 4..8 now that I look for them again), but nothing stands out particularly as being above and beyond chance. Yet something might still exist that is far simpler but I managed to overlook it... Unless Black Hat(/Randall) has been so ub3r-1447 as choose such 'randomness' as to encode something into the ''derivative'' data!

Anyway, that's it. HTH, HAND, and I'm not spending any more time on this analysis from now on. Probably... [[Special:Contributions/178.98.253.89|178.98.253.89]] 15:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

;"I'm so Random"
Is it just me, or does this sound like those people at parties who drink a tiny bit, and then spend the whole party saying, "Oh my god I'm soooo drunk right now!"
[[Special:Contributions/99.237.74.83|99.237.74.83]] 11:13, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I would argue that if Google finds the phrase, it's not random enough. Monkey tacos fails miserably by that measure. It took me several tries [1], but I came up with platypus vindaloo. You have to google with quotes around it to get no matches. Many pages have those words, but none have the phrase. ''— [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 11:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)'' (Practicing structured procrastination. I have code to write! But this is so fun.)

[1] kitten cupcakes, kitten falafel, snail falafel, snail corn, aardvark corn, aardvark baklava, aardvark vindaloo

:Of course, now that you've written it here, that is no longer the case. Although surprisingly, the only result that came up was an unrelated Italian blog with a generic link back to this wiki. For the time being, however, you are the proud owner of a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack Googlewhack]. --[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

;"lexical white noise"
Interesting, since Black Hat speaks only digits! No letters, words, diacritical marks, silly unicode characters, or Fred Flintstone outbursts. The blast of numbers seems to come out in a 2D bubble, yet speech is strictly sequential (each character can have at most two neighbors). The noise is uninteresting at best and likely unwanted, but not unnecessary (sic). It did seem to do the trick. The pesky kid was squelched, Black Hat resumed his work (or whatever).[[User:Galois|Galois]] ([[User talk:Galois|talk]]) 14:45, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
In fact randomness contains more information as it can't be compressed; I have no idea what Randall means by saying that in information theory randomness is uninteresting.[[User:Yehoshua2|Yehoshua2]] ([[User talk:Yehoshua2|talk]]) 17:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1180: Virus Venn Diagram

2013-03-03T16:21:13Z

If nothing else, defragging the Singularity would keep it busy for a few hours. ~ [[User:Quackslikeaduck|Quackslikeaduck]] ([[User talk:Quackslikeaduck|talk]]) 13:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if defragging the Singularity would actually erase/ruin it. Just imagine what would have happened to the first multi-cellular organism if someone had rearranged its molecules in what it considered to be a more "efficient" manner!--[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 15:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

And for a minute I was asking myself what black holes had to do with it... --[[Special:Contributions/65.222.165.65|65.222.165.65]] 16:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

: Well, beyond borrowing the name from the black-hole concept, there's something else too. You could say defragging decreases entropy. Decreasing the entropy of a black-hole would lead to what? Not a black hole? Bear in mind that black holes are tricky from a physics POV, and to top that, entropy, in the context of gravitation is a tricky thing. Also, the entire concept of "efficiency" is governed by the second law. So... Damn. I've tied this into all sorts of knots. But I'm going to say, if you tried defragging the singularity, it would actually prevent it from acting (since any action increases entropy), and therefore, IS a viable method to slow down the AI takeover. [[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 22:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I've managed to put someone in the "Maybe it has a Virus" category. I added an implementation of "{{w|Neko_(computer_program)|neko}}" to an application we where working on, and the little cat following the mouse just confused a user who had never seen it before. [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 19:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

It's actually an Euler diagram, not a Venn diagram. --[[Special:Contributions/23.17.150.29|23.17.150.29]] 21:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
:I looked it up and agree. I wonder if someone has told Randall. I know he would appreciate it ([[1053: Ten Thousand]]). I'm not sure whether or not to change the "a Euler diagram" to "an Euler diagram" though. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
:It's no less a Venn Diagram than it is a Euler. --[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 05:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
::Since Euler is pronounced "Oiler" the "an" is appropriate no matter what your thoughts are regarding it's conventions.[[User:Schmammel|Schmammel]] ([[User talk:Schmammel|talk]]) 03:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:Also, one of the most fascinating things from the Euler Wiki article was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Euler_diagram_of_triangle_types.svg this image] on a Euler diagram of traingles. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
:Actually, this IS a Venn Diagram, not an Euler diagram. In an Euler diagram, one thins is a subset of another, which in this case would suggest that either all suspected cases of computer viruses are a subset of actual computer viruses, or the reverse, which I really don't think Randall is trying to imply, or rather NOT imply by his joke. For one thing, the joke is that problems that are caused by computer viruses and problems that people suspect are caused by computer viruses should have some overlap, but don't. This does not fit with an Euler interpretation of the graph as that would say (if one of the circles was inside the other) that every time the problem is a computer virus, people always correctly identify them but also assume other non-computer virus problems are viruses - or the reverse - all problems are caused by a computer virus but only a few are identified as computer viruses. Secondly, and more importantly, in an Euler diagram one circle is always SMALLER than the other, where as in a Venn diagram they are always the SAME size. Oh, and last but not least, I'd be very surprised if Randall didn't know the difference between a Venn and an Euler diagram, since I'm sure he's had to use both many times.--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 07:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

:I was about to make a post about unnecessary amounts of pedantry, but after reading both wikipedia articles, I've decided that this is exactly the kind of "Learn something new every day" material that I really liked about the old explain xkcd blog, and I'm happy that its continuing. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

:I'm not so sure whether this really is a standard Venn diagram. According to quite some sources ([1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram, section "Overview"; as well as these papers: [2] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.6452 arXiv:1207.6452], [3] [http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0603068 arXiv:math/0603068], have a look at p. 1 and pp. 1/2 respectively, also: [4] [http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0512001 arXiv:cs/0512001], Wolfram MathWold agrees: [5] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/VennDiagram.html), a Venn diagram is "[...] a set of n [– in this case 2 – ...] closed curves [– circles –] that subdivide the plane into 2^n connected regions [...]." [3, p. 1]. So we would actually expect to see 4 regions – in a standard Venn diagram. Obviously here the intersection is supposed to be empty (yielding only three regions), making this effectively an Euler diagram, in which circles are allowed to be the same size -- why should they not (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamilton_1881_example.jpg). Additionally, Euler diagrams are not only used to illustrate "(for all x) if A, then B" or "all A are B", but also "no A are B" etc. You might also want to have a look at this blogpost concerning Euler vs. Venn: [http://blog.stevemould.com/venn-vs-euler-diagrams/ Venn Vs Euler: The Diagrams]. As this comic is titled "Virus Venn Diagram" one expects to see a classical Venn diagram, one does, however, not get to see one, but rather an Euler diagram showing very drastically that there is no intersection of the set of problems that make one think there might be a virus causing it and the set of problems actually caused by a virus. That's my amount of unnecessary pedantry for today. [[Special:Contributions/89.182.242.115|89.182.242.115]] 12:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

: Either way, "Virus Euler" doesn't alliterate --[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 16:21, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Haha, how often do I have this conversation with my parents! They: "I think we are being hacked." Me: "?!" They: "Yeah, this morning when I started my computer, X wasn't working and now Y is acting all weird." ... Yes, of course. --[[Special:Contributions/83.84.33.170|83.84.33.170]] 08:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh my god, we all see the source, MATRIX MUST BE RIGHT! (011010100111010101110011011101000010000001101011011010010110010001100100011010010110111001100111001000000011101000101001) - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 03:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Quick, Download instructions how to proceed, complete the game (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/612107) - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 09:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
:Just curious, how is this relevant to the comic? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
::It's not, I was just making fun at our (as in society) fascination with simple things, I hope in the future we would be able figure out how to download instructions from movies (learn on mistakes of others) before we jack ourselves in (learn from our own mistakes, as in Matrix, congratulations I've explained you the inside joke, hope it's still funny). - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 10:27, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
::More shortcuts to knowledge in the matrix: Everything you know is wrong, Anybody else is part of the system until you explain yourself to them, our new phylosophers need to adopt faster to real-world conditions then industrial machine can change our rules. - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 10:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Engineer's view of 0 => 0% chance of being right, conclusion avoid 0 in calculations. - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 09:42, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

User:H

2013-02-27T13:34:13Z

H: Created page with "I'm not a regular contributor but certainly a regular reader since the blog days. Here to give an English perspective on things."

I'm not a regular contributor but certainly a regular reader since the blog days. Here to give an English perspective on things.

Talk:1179: ISO 8601

2013-02-27T13:20:20Z

Apparently there are some mistakes in the Roman numerals in the comic, the year MMXII is 2012. Also LVII/CCLXV = 57/265, whereas February 27th is the 58th day of the year (which has 365 days). --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 07:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:Another error: Obviously 1330300800 is intended to be Unix time, but it corresponds to 2012-02-27 00:00:00 UTC. --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 08:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone explain 01237 (last interpretation before the cat)? Thanks [[Special:Contributions/68.230.38.154|68.230.38.154]] 08:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:The small numbers above and below the larger ones show which digit is used where. For example, the 2nd and 5th digit is a 0, the 3rd digit is a 1 etc. [[Special:Contributions/82.115.151.1|82.115.151.1]] 08:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:01237 are the digits used in the date, and the numbers above and below them reflect the order in which they are written; 0 is the second and fifth digit, 1 is the third digit, 2 is the first, sixth and seventh digit, 3 is the fourth digit, and 7 is the eighth digit: 20130227 [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 08:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Someone can explain me what means: ((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33? {{unsigned|95.23.147.48}}
:Read the comic explanation. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

A strange thing is that he forgot the form mostly used in Europe: 27.01.2013. --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:: That form is mostly used in Germany. Belgium and France use 27/01/2013 more, Netherlands use 27-01-2013. No idea what the UK prefers although I could imagine 01.27.2013.[[Special:Contributions/62.159.14.62|62.159.14.62]] 12:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::: The UK prefers 27/02/2013 --[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 13:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)