explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2916: Machine

2024-04-07T00:21:28Z

Leo: General grammar changes

{{comic
| number = 2916
| date = April 5, 2024
| title = Machine
| image = machine_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x740px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The Credible Machine
}}* To experience the interactivity, visit the [https://xkcd.com/2916/ original comic].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a WELL OILED ROBOT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is the 13th [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall]]. The previous April fools' comic was [[2601: Instructions]] from 2022, which was released on Thursday, April 1st, 2022. There was no fools' comic in 2023.

Once again an April Fool's Day Comic came out late, as Randall did not release this on April 1st, even though April 1st did fall on a Monday, a normal release day. It first came four days later with the Friday release on April 5th. That this is to be considered an April fools' comic, in spite of the later release, was confirmed on the xkcd Facebook page, see the [[#Trivia|trivia section]] below.

This is a spin on the game {{w|The Incredible Machine}}.

Upon loading the page, you are presented with marbles being added to a box by geared wheels, with a button to open a “tool panel”. You are encouraged by Cueball to direct the marbles into a little “output” gear, and that marbles have a lifespan of 30 seconds to reduce clutter. There are large and small boards available for use, as well as some gimmicky stuff like prisms that sort marbles by color, and fans that blow marbles around.

The comic starts in a main screen where the user can create a {{w|Rube Goldberg machine}} in a "Cell" where the goal is to route a constant stream of colored balls from an input on the ceiling or a wall to outputs of a matching color on the walls or floor. After the comic is first opened a window pops up over the machine where Cueball in a lab coat tells you to route the balls from the inputs to the outputs. If any balls are left in your cell for more than 30 seconds, they fade away. The first time a ball fades away another popup informs you that the balls are removed for security reasons. When you have built a machine which succeeds in routing enough balls to the output, a popup will prompt you to submit your cell to be added to the public machine.

[Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/41510c.png]
[Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/4ec76a.png]
[Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/96a68a.png]

The different colors balls have slightly different masses: red is the lightest, followed by yellow, blue, and then green. Balls with less mass can be moved more easily by tools but are also slowed down more by drag.

The button in the bottom right corner brings you to a page where you can drag around to view all of the machines that have been submitted, with a title for each in the upper left corner. In this view you can see that all of the outputs are also inputs for another cell, except for the top row where the inputs come from off screen and the lowest row which output through a launcher of some kind to a set of four colored-coded containers far below. Any empty cells are marked off by yellow tape with the words "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" as well as "DJIA ↑ 31415" once in each cell.

When you press submit, you will see your creation placed on the grid. However if you refresh that cell will likely be under construction or replaced with someone else's machine. However, other people's machines are consistently placed, so it appears that there is some moderation process selecting a machine for each cell out of the machines submitted by users.

The grid is 12 cells wide, and grows in height. The largest size observed so far is 12x44, for a total of 528 cells. The machine's height is determined by the lowest cell; This can be either your submitted cell, or a cell created by another user.

Whenever balls reach the bottom of the grid, they are directed towards 4 containers, one of each color. Below the containers is a pit. If no balls are entering the containers or pit, it will be empty. If one stream of balls is making it, Cueball and Megan sit in a small boat named the USS Buoyancy. More streams of balls are likely to add more changes.

The page header credits several people for helping to create the comic:
<blockquote>"Today's comic was created with [https://chromakode.com/ Max Goodhart], [https://github.com/spyhi Ed White], [https://twitter.com/uh_oh_thats_bad Alex Garcia], [https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin Cotrone], [http://burningcandle.io/ Conor & Ami Stokes], [https://liranuna.com/ Liran Nuna], [https://www.instagram.com/fading_interest/ Patrick], [https://manishearth.github.io/ Manish Goregaokar], [https://github.com/benley Benjamin Staffin], [https://github.com/ayust Amber], and [https://github.com/dyfrgi Michael Leuchtenburg] with physics by [https://rapier.rs/ Rapier]."</blockquote>
----
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|+ List of objects
|-
! Description !! Effect !!
|-
| Plank || Static || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/a8b809.png]
|-
| Hammer || Static || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/2d6deb.png]
|-
| Sword || Static || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/f245b2.png]
|-
| Hinged scoop || Rotates around its hinge, tries to stay upright with a springy effect || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/1b1e79.png]
|-
| Anvil || Static || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/81ef42.png]
|-
| Brick || Static || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/7b3961.png]
|-
| Fan || Blows away balls in front of it. Different colours are affected by differing amounts (red balls are lightest, and can be levitated above an upward-facing fan).|| [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/4d5467.png]
|-
| Pillow || Balls will not bounce if they hit it || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/e2cc7d.png]
|-
| Round bumper || Bounces balls away at significantly higher speed || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/67d78e.png]
|-
| Triangle bumper left || Bounces balls away at significantly higher speed || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/7c8f8d.png]
|-
| Triangle bumper right || Bounces balls away at significantly higher speed || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/625a2e.png]
|-
| Attractor/Black Hole || Pulls balls toward center, can be resized || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/88f05f.png]
|-
| Repulsor || Repels balls away from center, can be resized || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/f2a087.png]
|-
| Prism || "Refracts" balls as they enter and exit || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/bc114c.png]
|-
| Wheel || Spins normally (anticlockwise), deflects balls, can jam with enough resistance (e.g. glut of balls or against other elements). || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/f31887.png]
|}

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|+ Characters
|-
! Description !! Image
|-
| Ponytail with raised arms || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/85dcb9.png]
|-
| Ponytail standing || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/120110.png]
|-
| Cueball with raised arms || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/b6e607.png]
|-
| White Hat || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/079478.png]
|-
| Knit Cap sliding? || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/bcbc01.png]
|-
| Knit Cap || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/0bb944.png]
|-
| Helmet? || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/406d05.png]
|-
| Probably Deterministic sign || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/10b2dc.png]
|-
| Squirrel || [Media:https://xkcd.com/2916/client/static/f5efa6.png]
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Cueball with lab coat, intro popup]
Cueball: Balls falling into your cell should be routed to the outputs at a steady rate.

[Cueball with lab coat, warning popup]
Cueball: For security reasons, balls that remain in your device for more than 30 seconds will be removed and destroyed.

[Cueball with lab coat, submit popup]
Cueball: Congratulations! Your contraption has passed all tests. Press [submit button] to submit it to be added to the machine!

==Trivia==
*When Randall posted a [https://www.facebook.com/TheXKCD/posts/pfbid0Cs97awQZi1ZiaEXouAex9tXrwAS3qJV3RmAiuCq5uvZQwqZVMgDmcqJ7JU9LYodYl link to this comic] on his [https://www.facebook.com/TheXKCD Facebook feed], he directly wrote that it was a late April Fools' Day!
**MACHINE
**Happy Belated April Fool's Day!
*This thus ends any discussion of whether this should be seen as an April Fool's comic or not.
**It just came out 4 days late. This has also happened several times since [[Garden]].
[[File:2916 Machine Facebook April fools' confirmation.png]]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Comics with animation]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]

Talk:2916: Machine

2024-04-07T00:15:34Z

Leo: Added to chat

rather late for an april fools comic innit? also there doesn't seem to be anything exciting in this one lol, none of the usual cool exploration easter eggs, as far as i could tell at least [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.76|172.71.178.76]] 16:41, 6 April 2024 (UTC)Erfaniom

: We're exploring crowdsourced human creativity here, in a way, so it can be a lot more interesting then Randall's exploration comics, at least for me, because i did take two years of GCSE psychology and enjoyed it. [[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.130|172.64.238.130]]

Just popped over using Chrome on Android and all I see is four "missing picture" logos spinning around, plus another down the bottom right... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.193|141.101.68.193]] 18:13, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
:Okay, followup: it behaves quite differently on the non mobile site. You get two entry points with red balls and yellow balls and you need to place the various gizmos to direct the balls to the correct exit point. Once enough have correctly passed to turn the red X into a green tick, you have the option to submit. If you do, once you have named your design it will be added to the grid with other submissions all of which exist to push red and yellow balls around. (if you come across "Memories of Ragnarok", that's mine) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.207|172.71.134.207]] 18:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
::The number of inputs appears to vary between 1 and 4, each of a different color, with one color-coded output for each. [[User:Claire Kholin|Claire Kholin]] ([[User talk:Claire Kholin|talk]]) 18:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

On the "machine" section, you see lots of "under construction cells". Perhaps this will develop as more are submitted. I notice the "under construction tape" has "DJIA" and "31415", perhaps a reference to "dow jones industrial average" and the first five digits of pi. [[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 18:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
:Whenever someone submits a cell, it fills in one of the under construction cells. [[User:Claire Kholin|Claire Kholin]] ([[User talk:Claire Kholin|talk]]) 18:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I wanted to add an image for each object, but do not have the necessary access, can someone who has access add the images that I linked in the table so they can be included? [[User:Claire Kholin|Claire Kholin]] ([[User talk:Claire Kholin|talk]]) 18:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I found a discussion with some guy talking about the API at https://euphoria.leet.nu/room/xkcd/ ; this could be useful for the wiki.

<code>
[c+1] now time to try fucking with the api
[c+1] https://incredible.xkcd.com/
[userwithnoaccount] 404
[c+1] it seems there are numbered machines under incredible.xkcd.com/machine/x
[c+1] returns a grid of individual machinlets
[c+1] which are uids like 3a7af27c-5389-5dcb-b660-3feab6be2ceb
[c+1] they're stored at urls like incredible.xkcd.com/folio/3a7af27c-5389-5dcb-b660-3feab6be2ceb
[c+1] there appear to be 33 machines total
[c+1] the json it returns seems to refer to these as "versions"
[c+1] $ curl -s https://incredible.xkcd.com/machine/21 | jq ".version"
21
[c+1] there is a machine/0, but it's all null
[c+1] going to https://incredible.xkcd.com/machine/current redirects to the current machine
[c+1] $ curl -sL https://incredible.xkcd.com/machine/current | jq ".version"
35
[c+1] wait, is that the *total* number of mahcines?
[c+1] i would've thought there'd be more
[c+1] this whole think is rather esoteric
[c+1] Written in rust, too: https://rapier.rs/
[c+1] Uh oh.
https://i.hypercone.us/?v=8e283d
[c+1] HMMM
https://i.hypercone.us/?v=079f8f
[c+1] it seems there is no limit
[c+1] i've uploaded a ~50M title
</code>

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.57.146|172.70.57.146]]

Had quite a lot of fun, added a few 'successful' machines to the grid. Noted that whenever I try to use the Prism that (after a short delay) the comic-pane blanks and I need to refresh the page/get a completely new 'challenge' to start from scratch, so I'm just not using the prism at all (used most of the other items, in combination or 'just the one across the whole board', whichever seems most fun). But it doesn't seem to do what I'd like it to do, which is sort multiple colours from the same inflow into different outflow directions. Which would be ''very'' useful in a 'crossroads' situation, the general solution of directing them cross-path being too prone to random collisions. Also might be useful in the 'submitted machine grid', as I note that errors propagate, whereas adding a filter on all inputs would clean out (dispose of/send off to a valid gate?) the rogue balls. Anyway, gonna have to come back to this later when there's more time... Maybe then I'll even have something useful to add to the Explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.31|172.70.163.31]] 19:03, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The balls appear to be different weights. I just saw a machine that used fans to separate yellows from greens and blues in a sort of 'wheat from the chaff' manner to direct them to their correct outputs. I wonder what other hidden tricks are included. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.1.159|172.68.1.159]] 19:40, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

They're not all accepted, though it makes you think they are. Or something else more complex is going on we haven't realized yet. I made a machine that was working reliably, submitted it, and saw it on the overall grid. Reloading from a different browser I found the same location of the machine, with the same surroundings, but my machine had been replaced. It's nowhere else on the grid either. The first browser still shows it (but not after a reload with a cache clear). I'm not sure if there's some kind of "save" event that needs to happen beyond seeing your machine in the broader one, or if all user collaboration is an illusion, or if the system changes its mind about us somehow.

: Yeah, i've been seeing this too. Please tell me if you find any of my machines, images at https://i.hypercone.us/?v=22d562 , https://i.hypercone.us/?v=ad8e3a , and https://i.hypercone.us/?v=8d4d6a . I want to be one of the few to have added Catalan and Spanish to the grid. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.164|172.71.134.164]] 20:56, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I've added some more observations to the page. Also, a guess which is too uncertain to put on the main page: The ball launcher for the yellows on the far left side misses a lot, and the yellow container isn't the one on the left. So I think the whole machine with crossing streams will result in the colors being sorted in their container order, and possibly have the streams combined and deposited at the bottom just above the containers. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.100|172.71.147.100]] 21:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

has anyone seen the boat at the very bottom? [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 21:21, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

trying to see it on Firefox for Ubuntu and it just tells me to "visit xkcd.com to view" - THAT'S WHERE I AM?! Tried clearing website data (but not my entire cache) and that didn't help. Is there something I'm missing?

Oooh, just had one with four ball-entries (four colours) and ''three'' exits (one caters for two arrows). Pity it's rather complicated to get entries to exits (even if I can merge two of the streams). Might have to give up on it, but I'd like to have seen how it fits in with the 'submited grid'. i.e. someone else gets a two-colour introduction spot. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.119|162.158.74.119]] 22:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

If you combine a bunch of these silly claw things in the middle by just spamming it, it begins to lag and do some chaotic collisions, even without balls colliding on it. It's curious how it does that seemingly randomly though. I wonder how calculations are added and if there's a tiny sprinkle of RNG. (Also, errors occur and say something about damaging recursion in the Rust programming language, so I guess we know how it was made. It's also pretty weird how there's not a lot of opening combinations? It's possible that the machine loops over in chunks of gears or something (that's what I'll call them). ([[User talk:Leo|talk]]) 13:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

937: TornadoGuard

2023-12-21T20:36:00Z

Leo: Grammar edits

{{comic
| number = 937
| date = August 12, 2011
| title = TornadoGuard
| image = tornadoguard.png
| titletext = The bug report was marked 'could not reproduce'.
}}

==Explanation==
This is a comic with a take on an {{w|App store|application store}} - the most common app stores are for iPhones and Android devices. App stores take all the reviews and average the ratings for the overall star rating.

In this comic, we see why this is sometimes a bad idea, especially with something as important as an app called ''TornadoGuard'' that should alert the user if there is a {{w|tornado warning}} for an area, an announcement indicating that a tornado is approaching. In this case, there are three 5 star reviews about the stability and user interface features of the app, left by users who actually never experienced its core functionality (simply because they never used it in a place where there was a tornado since they got it); however, the only review related to whether the app really works is given the same weight as the others, and sadly for that user, the TornadoGuard app failed in alerting the user to an upcoming tornado. Tornadoes are a [[:Category:Tornadoes|recurring subject]] on xkcd. Also see the future comics [[1098: Star Ratings]] and [[1754: Tornado Safety Tips]].

In [[2615: Welcome Back]], [[Cueball]] returns to the app after almost 11 years to find that he has to walk through all kinds of info before getting to know if the visible tornado is likely to head his way...

The title text is software-developer humor, the same as used in [[583: CNR]] which contains further explanation. It is a note from the developer's {{w|Bug tracking system|bug report}}, which said they could not reproduce the error. Of course, they could only reproduce such a failure if there were a tornado coming towards their area, and if a tornado warning was issued. This is a fairly rare situation, especially in certain areas of the world. This lack of suitable testing conditions explains why the actual alert portion of their code appears to be faulty.

This is a common problem with code that cannot be easily tested -- that when finally needed, it does not actually work. This is the reason for emergency drills.

In [[2219: Earthquake Early Warnings]] an app for warning of Earthquakes was the main topic, but tornado warnings was mentioned in the title text.

In [[2236|2236: Is it Christmas?]] being right most of the time, except when it matters was the topic.

==Transcript==
:[The comic is a single panel which resembles a reviews page for a mobile phone application. Next to the app title is a pictogram of a tornado touching the ground]

:----App store----
:TornadoGuard
:From DroidCoder2187
:-----------------
:Plays a loud alert sound
:when there is a tornado
:warning for your area.
:-----------------
:Rating:
:★★★★☆
:Based on 4 reviews
:-----------------
:User Reviews:
:[The first three reviews show five black stars. The last review shows one black and four white stars.]
:Reviewer 1 (Dark silhouette): ★★★★★ Good UI! Many alert choices.
:Reviewer 2 (Helicopter without rotors): ★★★★★ Running great, no crashes
:Reviewer 3 (White square with black triangles at the top left and bottom right corner): ★★★★★ I like how you can set multiple locations
:Reviewer 4 (White car): ★☆☆☆☆ App did not warn me about tornado.

:[Caption below the comic:]
:The problem with averaging star ratings

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Tornadoes]]
[[Category:Online reviews]]