explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2474: First Time Since Early 2020

2021-06-16T03:04:35Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 2474
| date = June 9, 2021
| title = First Time Since Early 2020
| image = first_time_since_early_2020.png
| titletext = Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FERRIS WHEEL OPERATOR. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is yet another comic part of the [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] on the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic|2020-21 pandemic}} caused by the {{w|COVID-19|coronavirus disease 2019}} (COVID-19).

This comic is a chart that orders things based on the level of alarm that would occur if it were revealed that someone had not done a given thing since early 2020. Many of the items, but not all, are linked to new constraints due to the pandemic.

The title text serves as another chart point, though it isn't given where it is on the chart.

;Been to a birthday party
Going to a birthday party was a normal task before the pandemic, and it's normal to say you haven't gone to one since early 2020.

;Eaten at a restaurant
Eating at a restaurant was also common before governments instated lockdowns, but during the lockdowns many restaurants had to limit their service to delivery and take-out.

;Seen my family
Seeing your family was fairly common before the governments instated lockdowns. However, there were emergency visits during the lockdown period.

;Been on a plane
Governments around the world cancelled commercial flights during the pandemic. However, businessmen like Bill Gates used private jets during the pandemic.

;Gone to a movie
Many cinema halls around the world closed due to the pandemic. Several movies were instead released directly to TV via OTT platforms.

;Gone to a store
Although some stores were closed during the lockdown period, others were open for essential commodities. Therefore, going to a store for the first time since early 2020 is little strange.

;Installed software updates
Regularly installing software updates is recommended, mainly for security reasons. However, many people don't follow these recommendations (mostly by fear of software inconsistency or instability), although a delay of more than one year is quite long. Mentioning software updates is weird, because it is not directly related to the COVID pandemic. On the contrary, since many people spent much more time at home and worked at home, it was all the more important to keep software up to date.

;Eaten a vegetable
Since vegetables are essential to a healthy diet, not eating a single vegetable in a whole year is not recommended. Anxiety due to the pandemic, disruption of social relations, may have caused people to consume more junk food than usual.

;Opened the fridge
This is quite weird, since most people use their refrigerators to store fresh food. Maybe some people became anorexic because of anxiety due to the pandemic or stopped consuming fresh food and relied more on junk food. Moreover, most food products will alter or rot if stored in a fridge for more than one year, and become dangerous to eat.

;Paid taxes
Although some people, depending on where they live and their income, may not pay taxes in an immediately obvious way, there are some taxes, such as {{w|VAT}} in many countries and {{w|sales tax}} in the United States or Canada, which almost everyone would pay in the natural course of everyday life, though may not be 'obvious' in the paying, or even be extracted at source (withheld from payroll) in the simpler cases.. (Randall lives in {{w|Massachusetts}}, which does not have a VAT, but does have a 6.25% sales tax.) It is therefore strange that someone could have gone a year without paying any taxes, implying they made almost no monetary transactions in the period, nor are made (directly) responsible for any residential or property-owning taxations that might otherwise be payable to one or other layer of government.

If the statement refers specifically to income taxes (which is often the case when people refer to "taxes", because the paperwork and large sums of money transferred at once makes the income tax highly noticeable and memorable), it might describe someone who filed a tax return for 2019 early in 2020 and then waited until later in 2021 to file a return for 2020.

;Washed my hands
One of the main pieces of advice during the pandemic was to wash one's hands, frequently. Even in normal circumstances, washing hands is a good idea to remain hygienic, and not do so for a year would be disgusting to most people, and a good way of catching diseases.

;Seen another person
Despite the restrictions, most people will have seen another person during the pandemic.

;Seen a ghost
The fact that the speaker apparently has seen a ghost, both now and presumably before early 2020 (else they would simply say it was the 'first time' they saw a ghost) is unusual.

;Served as a decoy
Similar to the previous point, this is not a normal activity, so the specificity is unusual.

;Sighted land
Most people live on land{{fact}}, so sighting land should not be unusual, even during a pandemic. The fact that someone has gone over a year without sighting land suggests they have been lost at sea for the duration. There are several reported cases of ships' crews refused permission to disembark, due to local restrictions and/or because their scheduled relief were unable to embark, but the unluckily held-on persons forced to remain beyond their originally planned obligations should never have been left permanently beyond any tantalisingly unreachable view of the shore.

Taken more literally, it could simply mean that the person remained indoors and did not look outside, or that the person was temporarily blind.

;Checked the news
If someone has not checked the news since early 2020, they will likely be in for a shock upon checking. Noting that this could possibly (if increasingly absurdly) still apply to someone like [[Ponytail]] (as portrayed in strip #[[2396:_Wonder_Woman_1984|2396]]).

;Checked on the customers in the {{w|escape room}}
The implication is that the customers in question have been trapped in the escape room since early 2020. Most escape rooms are not equipped to support a person for that length of time, so unless the customers actually escaped, they would likely not have survived.

;Contracted a novel bat virus
As a 'novel bat virus' is what kicked off the whole pandemic, contracting another one may send the whole world into a repeat of the pandemic.

;Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention (title text)
It seems that the speaker has been stuck in a {{w|Ferris wheel}} for a year. It is unclear how they may have survived.

Alternately, it would be perfectly normal that the speaker has not been at an amusement park with a working Ferris wheel since early 2020 - but it would be unusual to focus on interacting with the operator versus enjoying the attraction.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
: [Heading:]
: "This is actually the first time I've _____ since early 2020."
: [Below showing a vertical arrow with the words "normal" and "alarming" at the top and the bottom of the arrow respectively. At the right side of the arrow showing a long list of text starts with a triangle.]
: ◀ been to a birthday party
: ◀ eaten at a restaurant
: ◀ seen my family
: ◀ been on a plane
: ◀ gone to a movie
: ◀ gone to a store
: ◀ installed software updates
: ◀ eaten a vegetable
: ◀ opened the fridge
: ◀ paid taxes
: ◀ washed my hands
: ◀ seen another person
: ◀ seen a ghost
: ◀ served as a decoy
: ◀ sighted land
: ◀ checked the news
: ◀ checked on the customers in the escape room
: ◀ contracted a novel bat virus

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Charts]]

1589: Frankenstein

2021-06-02T00:18:53Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 1589
| date = October 12, 2015
| title = Frankenstein
| image = frankenstein.png
| titletext = "Wait, so in this version is Frankenstein also the doctor's name?" "No, he's just 'The Doctor'."
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Frankenstein|Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus}}'' is a novel by Mary Shelley published in 1818. In it, Victor Frankenstein is a human who creates a {{w|Frankenstein%27s_monster#Namelessness|monster}} (who is never named). In popular culture, however, "Frankenstein" is taken to be the name of the monster, not its creator.

While this is an often-corrected "error", it has been argued that it is not technically incorrect to call the monster "Frankenstein" as well, since he is the "offspring" of his "father", Victor Frankenstein. Since a child usually takes on the last name of their father, it may be said that the monster's last name actually ''is'' "Frankenstein". He also refers to himself in the novel as "the Adam of your labors" - a reference to the Biblical Adam, the first of his kind - and some have taken to calling the monster "Adam Frankenstein" to differentiate him from the scientist, Victor Frankenstein.

Others have argued that the monster's namelessness is an important part of his characterization in the story, since it reflects the doctor's complete rejection of his creation. While the monster identifies Victor as his "father" in the novel, Victor does not consider the creature to be his "son".

[[Randall]] apparently finds this argument tedious and pedantic, so he has created his own work of fiction, in which the monster is named Frankenstein. He rationalizes that it is now correct to call the monster Frankenstein, assuming that his comic strip is as authoritative as the original novel. "{{w|Canon (fiction)|Canonical}}" (rule, standard) means that this comic should be used as the authoritative work on the naming of the monster.

However, xkcd's ''Frankenstein''' would be unlikely to be accepted by anyone as canonical, except for its stated purpose of settling the naming argument. The original version of any story is usually assumed to be the canonical one, and any derivative work would have to have widespread influence and recognition to supplant it in the popular imagination. This is not likely to happen with xkcd's ''Frankenstein,'' as it makes almost no effort to stand on its own; it exists only to be a version of ''Frankenstein'' where the monster is named "Frankenstein." It emphasizes this point several times, and ends within a single panel, having accomplished its only goal. Almost no readers would find this version entertaining or substantive enough to displace Mary Shelley's original as the definitive version of the story.

The {{w|Public_domain|copyright}} on Mary Shelley's novel has expired long ago, so it is perfectly legal to create works derived from the original story. It should be noted however, that Universal holds the copyright on the common [https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/24/how-universal-re-copyrighted-frankensteins-monster/ image of the monster] (green skin, flat top head, scar, bolts on the neck and protruding forehead). To qualify as a {{w|derivative work}} the story needs to be substantially different from the original. The monster believing in {{w|moon landing conspiracy theories}} would probably qualify. Additionally, the original Frankenstein's monster was seen by its creator as hideous and repulsive due to its physical appearance despite the project being a success. Randall makes the same correlation in his version by having Frankenstein claim the moon landings were faked, which produces the same feelings in The Doctor.

Alternatively, the monster being a moon landing denier is meant as a throwaway absurdist non sequitur. As the only point of this story is to make a canonical version of ''Frankenstein'' where "Frankenstein" is the monster's name, it should logically end once it has finished making that point clear. However, Randall throws a curveball by having the monster blurt out an uncomfortable and controversial point of view before the ending, then ending the story abruptly before the monster's statements can be addressed.

It is also possible that Randall is making reference to the fact that the kind of people who become engrossed in the debate that is attempted to be resolved in this comic and would bother to create a piece like this (which incidentally, complicates matters further rather than simplifying it, similar to the effect of many pieces of evidence in internet discussions) could be compared to the kind of people who deny the Moon Landings in obscure forums. He is drawing attention to how inane and uneccesary the comic is.

The title text raises the question of what the monster's creator is named in this version, since the name "Frankenstein" is instead given to the monster. The canonical answer is that the creator is simply "The Doctor", like the title character of the series {{w|Doctor_Who|"Doctor Who"}}. This might be a reference to similar pedantic nitpicking that occurs when that character is incorrectly referred to as "Doctor Who" rather than "The Doctor" which is in turn referenced in comic [[1221: Nomenclature]]. As it happens, people who make that mistake can also claim canonical support, in that some early episodes of the series list the character's name as "Doctor Who" in the credits.

==Transcript==
:[A text only panel. Between the last two lines is a lightning bolt.]
:Like many people, I'm tired of the nitpicking about Frankenstein's monster's name.
:Luckily, ''Frankenstein'' is public domain.
:Therefore, I present
:xkcd's
:'''''Frankenstein'''''
:(''The monster's name'')

:[Cueball is turning down a lever while looking at a monster with black hair that is lying on a bed under a bedsheet. There are two wires connecting to the neck of the monster.]
:Frankenstein: ''Graaar''!
:Cueball: Frankenstein is alive! I am a modern Prometheus!
:Frankenstein: ''Raaaar''!
:Cueball: To be clear, your name is ''Frankenstein'', canonically.
:Frankenstein: ''Graaaaar''!
:Frankenstein: ''The moon landings were faked''!
:Cueball: Wait, what?

:[Another text only panel. The first word is written between two curvy lines.]
:'''Fin.'''
:There.
:Feel free to call the monster "Frankenstein."
:If anyone tries to correct you, just explain that this comic is your canonical version.
:Thank you.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Doctor Who]]

2137: Text Entry

2021-04-26T22:55:49Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 2137
| date = April 15, 2019
| title = Text Entry
| image = text_entry.png
| titletext = I like to think that somewhere out there, there's someone whose personal quest is lobbying TV providers to add an option to switch their on-screen keyboards to Dvorak.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Randall remarks upon something that he considers to be an absurdity of modern living; that in spite of our amazing advances in technology, there still exist user interfaces in 2019 where a person has to "pick letters" to type, a somewhat clunky and inefficient method of text entry. This can be seen when doing searches in a TV guide menu or in menus for streaming options like {{w|Netflix}} or {{w|Hulu}}. Some of these menus may allow for voice searches or support {{w|bluetooth keyboard}}s, but the traditional method is still to select letters via a cursor. Many controllers for devices only have a few buttons, which makes it necessary to use schemes such as scrolling around a picture of a keyboard to laboriously select letters, making this extremely inconvenient and annoying to users. The fact that these haven't been replaced with better interfaces comes as a surprise to Randall, hence him believing it to be the second most weird thing in 2019. [[Cueball]] is probably looking up ''{{w|Our Planet}}'' which was a popular Netflix series when this comic was released. Cueball has spelled out "O U R [space] P L" so far.

Randall references the "{{w|Score (game)|high score}}" in an {{w|arcade game}}. When achieving a high score in an arcade game, the user typically is able to enter their name or initials into the machine. These are entered by picking letters one by one (and usually under a time limit, for extra stress and/or fun), as the comic mentions.

The title text mentions the keyboard system {{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}}, a [[:Category:Dvorak|recurrent theme]] on xkcd, which is a keyboard layout patented by {{w|August Dvorak}} and {{w|William Dealey}}. As the Dvorak layout is optimized for more efficient typing with two hands, it is unlikely that using it would be more efficient than a standard {{w|Qwerty}} when limited to cursor entry methods. Another drawback would be that the Dvorak layout is visually unfamiliar to most people, even to many Dvorak typists who rarely look at their keyboard and instead rely on muscle-memory to find keys. As such it could be confusing for users to use for TV selection menus compared to either the more visually familiar {{w|Qwerty}} layout or showing letters in alphabetical order. Alternately, Randall may be referring to Dvorak’s placement of frequently used letters clustered in the center as a potential slight improvement over the linear A-Z layout of such interfaces (a half-measure offered ironically, of course).

Although the focus of this comic is on the text entry method, Randall prefaces the comic with what he considers to be the actual weirdest thing about 2019: that {{w|Donald Trump}} is the president of the United States of America. Randall had previously expressed support for Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the comic [[1756: I'm With Her]] which preceded the 2016 US Presidential Election.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Cueball are sitting on a couch, with Megan standing behind them. Cueball is pointing a remote at a television. The word space is written inside a frame.]
:Television: O...U...R...SPACE...P...L...
:Remote: Click Click Click

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The weirdest thing about 2019 is obviously that Donald Trump is president, but I think the second weirdest is that you sometimes ''still'' have to type stuff in by picking letters on a screen one at a time with a cursor like you're entering a high score in a 1980s arcade game.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Dvorak]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Donald Trump]]

544: Pep Talk

2021-03-12T21:42:09Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number =544
| date =February 16, 2009
| title =Pep Talk
| image =pep_talk.png
| titletext =Listen! They said a team of chess players coached by someone with no understanding of basketball would never be competitive in the NBA! Well, it turns out they're pretty perceptive.
}}

==Explanation==
Another comic where [[Randall]] takes a less than serious look at sports.

The halftime {{w|Motivational speaker|pep talk}} of a {{w|basketball}} game is commonly used by coaches to inspire their team to either turn the game around, or to defend the lead, and to make strategic changes that will help them do so. Unfortunately, the basketball coach [[Cueball]] has absolutely no fundamental understanding of the sport, and has pulled his team (of Cueball-like players) into the locker room while the game is still in progress, not during halftime, enabling the other team to score at will.

He could have tried to get a {{w|Time-out (sport)|time-out}}, but still he would not have been allowed to take his team down to the locker room.

The title text parodies a common plot of, especially US, {{w|List_of_sports_films#Basketball|sports movies}} in which {{tvtropes|UnderdogsNeverLose|an inexperienced team (and sometimes coach) still manage to win}} a title after a highly motivational pep talk (see for instance {{w|Hoosiers}}). These Pep talks usually take place during regular pauses of the game, and can lead to a come back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit. In this case the players are not even just poor basketball players but rather {{w|chess}} players and the coach knows nothing of the sport, the opposite of what is usually the case in said movies. And, of course, in this case those pessimistic about their chances were proven right.

==Transcript==
:[Coach-Cueball stands at the end of a double row of benches in the players locker room. He speaks to his team of five Cueball-like players, two are sitting with towels on the left bench, one stands behind them, and two are sitting on the right bench, one of them resting his head on his hands.]
:Coach-Cueball: Okay, team. We're sixteen points down. If we want to come back from this—
:Offscreen: Woo!! Score!!!
:Coach-Cueball: Okay, now we're eighteen points down. ...Listen—I'm starting to think we should only take these breaks at halftime.

==Trivia==
*In [[1392: Dominant Players]] Randall compares basketball with chess.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Basketball]]

2094: Short Selling

2021-01-09T19:21:20Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 2094
| date = January 4, 2019
| title = Short Selling
| image = short_selling.png
| titletext = "I'm selling all my analogies at auction tomorrow, and that witch over there will give you 20 beans if you promise on pain of death to win them for her." "What if SEVERAL people promised witches they'd win, creating some kind of a ... squeeze? Gosh, you could make a lot of–" "Don't be silly! That probably never happens."
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Short (finance)|Shorting stocks}} (short selling stocks) is a stock market practice. If we think of normal investing where we buy into a stock as betting on the stock rising in value then shortselling is a corresponding betting on a stock to fall in value. This inverse procedure is accomplished by getting the stock on a loan or "front" basis to begin with, then selling the stock that isn't actually owned, so that when the stock loses value you're able to pay back a lower amount and keep the difference. We could say someone takes a risk because they believe that a certain stock's price is going to drop. The risk-taker borrows stock from someone, and then sells the stock that they've just borrowed, keeping the money from the sale. They then owe that stock to the lender. But the risk-taker believes that they will be able to buy the same stock back on the stockmarket later on at a lower price, and then give it to the lender to replace what they borrowed. If everything goes according to plan and the stock drops in price, the risk-taker will walk away with a profit. Of course, if things don't go according to plan and the stock rises in price instead, the risk-taker winds up losing money, because they have to buy back the stock for more than they sold it.

Cueball asks Ponytail to explain shorting stocks. Ponytail starts out with a fairy tale story that falls apart almost before she even starts.

The process of short selling a stock functions similarly to the initial parts of the story. The major steps in normal shorting are described here alongside the analogous (sort of) parts of the story:
:An investor decides that stock S is likely to decrease in value, and wants to make money from this difference. Stock S is currently selling for $5, but the investor believes it will drop in value to $1 or $2 in the near future.
:The person in the story is going to have a child, and believes that the child will be worth one or two magic beans. They have been offered a price of five beans for the child, and they see this as a benefit.

:The investor finds a person willing to allow them to borrow stock S now. This is usually done through a broker. The investor then sells the stock they borrowed, adding $5 to their account. They plan on waiting until stock S is selling for $1, then buying it again. They will have made $4 in profit, and can return the stock they borrowed.
:The parent in the story sells the rights to their child for five beans. Even if their child is worth one or two beans to them, they will end up making a profit of three or four beans.

:Stock S does not decrease in price, but increases dramatically to $200. The investor has promised to return the stock within a specific timeframe, and they must do this or they will be in violation of various laws and contracts. They can wait in the hopes that the value will drop again, but they will eventually have to buy the stock for the new price of $200. They will lose $195 on this transaction.
:The child is born, and the parent involved decides that they love the child. They would put a valuation of this child at two hundred magic beans, and would prefer not to turn the child over to the witch. They have no choice, however, as they have formerly agreed to do this.

This part of the story somewhat matches the process of short selling a stock, except that there is a convenient market for buying and selling stocks at a common price, while a network of witches buying children or a method of valuing them does not exist.{{Citation needed}}

Ponytail's version does not make exact analogies to the process of short selling. The first major difference occurs when the parent sells a child they haven't had yet to a witch. Like short selling, the parent is selling something they don't own. But unlike short selling, the parent is selling something that doesn't exist yet. The somewhat broken analogy breaks further when Ponytail says the parent now is going to fight the witch instead of paying the witch with the child. There is no legal option to "fight" the other person if a shorted stock or call-writing strategy fails. You simply lose money.

Our now definitely broken analogy breaks down even further (if possible) by sending the kid up the beanstalk to fight the giant - a giant that Ponytail says represents high interest rates. Interest rates have nothing to do with shorting stocks. (Technically they can, but the short seller would have / should have calculated that when determining if their investment strategy would work.) In addition, it is not possible for the investor, on their own, to fight interest rates that are harming their strategy, as those rates are set by lenders and are based on the credit worthiness of the borrower, the stated use case for the funds, and the nation's government's monetary policy.

Cueball comments that the analogy is rapidly losing its value to him. Ponytail fires back with the comment that he should have shorted her advice before asking for it, thus making a profit. The decreased helpfulness of her wisdom is analogous to the decreased value of a shorted stock price. She once again proves that she lacks the knowledge of how short selling functions, or at least the knowledge to explain it, as her advice does not have a price to anyone, was presumably given to Cueball for free, and cannot be traded.

Her story appears to be based on plot elements of multiple fairy tales. It begins by mixing up the story of {{w|Rapunzel|Rapunzel}} with {{w|Jack and the Beanstalk|Jack and the Beanstalk}}.

In one version of {{w|Rapunzel|Rapunzel}} a Father breaks into a witch's garden to steal the Rapunzel plant for his pregnant wife. The Witch catches him and agrees to let him go and not punish him in exchange for the child.

In one version of the "{{w|Jack and the Beanstalk|Jack and the Beanstalk}}" fairy tale story, Jack sells a cow for magic beans. His mother, thinking the beans are fake, is angry with Jack. Jack plants the beans and a magic beanstalk grows up into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and explores the land above the clouds. He finds the home of a cruel giant and proceeds to steal from the giant. The giant discovers the theft and chases Jack back down the beanstalk. Jack reaches the bottom of the beanstalk first and cuts the beanstalk down. The giant falls to his death, and Jack uses his stolen wealth to take care of himself and his mother.

The combination of the two stories is similar to the story from the musical "{{w|Into the Woods|Into the Woods}}," in which a Father sneaks into the Witch's garden to steal vegetables, then trades his soon to be born child for the vegetables, but also steals beans in the process.

The title text is actually the most useful part of this comic when it comes to investment advice. The witch (the broker) is offering the father (short seller) 20 magic beans now if the father/short seller buys all of the analogies (stocks) later. However, multiple witches/stock brokers trick multiple people into this strategy. Since every father/seller now needs the same analogies/stocks, and multiple witches need the exact same complete set of analogies, a bidding war erupts and it's impossible to please all the witches. The "winner" pays a much higher price than expected (limiting how much of a win it really is). And the losers wind up either dead or enslaved (bankrupt). In the stock market the corresponding phenomenon is known as a {{w|short squeeze}}, hence Cueball's comment. However, if the witches implement this strategy by discussing among themselves to orchestrate the phenomenon, it would be in violation of various trading regulations, and brokers rarely have a reason to hope for their clients to go bankrupt.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are walking together, talking.]
:Cueball: I don't understand shorting stocks.
:Ponytail: It's like when you promise your firstborn to a witch for five magic beans.

:[Ponytail close up]
:Cueball (off-panel): Is that a common–
:Ponytail: She's a sucker, right? You know your awful kid will be worth one or two beans at ''best''.

:[Ponytail and Cueball stopped, facing each other]
:Ponytail: But then it turns out you ''love'' your kid, a love worth 200 beans! You can't afford that loss!
:Ponytail: There's only one way out:
:Ponytail: You gotta fight the witch.

:[Ponytail and Cueball stopped, facing each other]
:Ponytail: So you send your kid up the beanstalk to battle the giant, who represents interest rates.
:Cueball: This analogy is getting less helpful by the minute.
:Ponytail: If only you'd somehow shorted my wisdom before you asked.

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

954: Chin-Up Bar

2021-01-01T21:47:34Z

Lizard953694:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

:[Black Hat goes upwards holding his pole.]

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

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

:[Close up on Cueball on the escalator.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

{{comic discussion}}

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

2403: Wrapping Paper

2020-12-28T05:47:02Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 2403
| date = December 25, 2020
| title = Wrapping Paper
| image = wrapping_paper.png
| titletext = Wow, rude of you to regift literally every gift that you or anyone else has ever received.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE ONLY THING NOT IN THE PRESENT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic was published on Christmas Day, 2020. On this day many people open presents.{{Citation needed}}

In this comic, Megan is unwrapping a present while Cueball looks on (perhaps it's the present he gave her). The premise is that the definition of a present is not what's inside the box, but what's inside the region of space that the blank side of the wrapping paper faces. So if you wrap the box with the printed side towards the box, everything in the universe outside the box is the gift. Apparently the box contains a pair of headphones, which would be a nice present, but not nearly as impressive as nearly ''everything'' in the universe. And since the rest of the universe contains millions of headphones, many of which are probably nicer than the ones in this box, she still gets headphones as well.

The title text extends this to [[wikipedia:Regift|regifting]], which is the practice of using a received present (usually unwanted and hopefully unused) as a present for someone else. This is often considered rude because you don't have to spend much effort or any money on the regift. But if you wrap an ordinary present inside out, all the gifts you've ever received in the past are part of the entire universe except for that present, so you're actually doing an enormous amount of regifting ''including stuff belonging to other people'', which is as rude as regifting can get.

{{w|Douglas Adams}}' novel ''{{w|So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish}}'', the fourth in the {{w|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}} series, contains a similar joke. A man living in an inside-out room in a desert treats the rest of Earth as an insane asylum, with himself living outside of it as the only sane man.

This may also refer to a math joke about how to create the smallest fence around a group of animals. Rather than finding the obvious fence, a mathematician would build a small, circular fence around themselves and declare the region on the other side of the fence, "inside". Thusly enclosing all the animals!

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing at the left of a decorated Christmas tree, with present boxes underneath it. The presents are wrapped with the undecorated side of the wrapping paper facing out. Megan is kneeling at the right side, unwrapping a gift, revealing stripes on the inside.]

:Megan: Cool! I got the entire universe and every object within it except for a pair of headphones!

:[Caption below the panel]:
:Presents get a lot more impressive if you turn the wrapping paper inside out

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

2303: Error Types

2020-12-24T23:48:40Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 2303
| date = May 6, 2020
| title = Error Types
| image = error_types.png
| titletext = Type IIII error: Mistaking tally marks for Roman numerals
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

The comic is inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, as there is a lot of medical testing for the disease being done, including detection of the virus itself, usually by qPCR, or of antibodies present in people who have had the disease (sometimes unknowingly). The quality of these tests is often mediocre and never perfect, leading to discussion of different types of errors that can occur, including "false positives" (calling presence of the virus/antibodies when they are not really there) or false negatives (failing to see the virus/antibodies which are present).
The comic is riffing on {{w|Type I and type II errors}}, also known as "false positive" and "false negative", respectively. The first two rows of the comic's table are correct definitions for established terms in statistics. Further rows contain suggestions for new terminology.

{|class = "wikitable"
|+Explanation of error types
|-
!Type
!Description
!Explanation
|-
|Type I
|{{w|False_positives_and_false_negatives#False_positive_error|False positive}}
|A false positive is a result that indicates a correlation, when there is no correlation in reality. For example, a person may test positive (indicating that they have a disease), but in actuality they ''do not'' have the disease. Most diseases are only present in a small fraction of a population, so a test for that disease will usually produce more false positives than false negatives; this is why tests are usually not administered universally but only to patients with other diagnostic criteria, and sometimes multiple tests are used for additional certainty before embarking on serious, invasive treatments.
|-
|Type II
|{{w|False_positives_and_false_negatives#False_negative_error|False negative}}
|A false negative is a result that indicates no correlation, when there is a correlation in reality. For example, a person may test negative (indicating that they do not have a disease), but in actuality they ''do'' have the disease. Several previous XKCD comics have been about trivial "tests" for rare conditions that always return a negative result (e.g. [[2236: Is it Christmas?]] and [[937: TornadoGuard]]). Because most days it is not Christmas, and most people are not near a tornado, the "test" is technically correct a high percentage of the time, but for those circumstances when the condition is true, a false negative may be extremely costly.
|-
|Type III
|True positive for incorrect reasons
|"{{w|Type III error}}" is a nonstandard term meant to build off the notion of type I and II errors. Randall's explanations of this and of Type IV errors line up with some relatively common definitions of them, but others have also been proposed. None have yet been widely adopted. The Type III and Type IV definitions given here correspond to the {{w|Gettier_problem|Gettier Problem}} in philosophy. In the case of COVID-19, this type of error might be committed by a person who correctly believes themselves to have COVID-19 but incorrectly believes so on the basis of living near a 5G tower.
|-
|Type IV
|True negative for incorrect reasons
|Randall's proposed Type III and Type IV errors refer to when a correct correlation or lack thereof is determined, but on faulty grounds. Although harmless in the present, this may lead to false faith in the results at a later date, as the faulty grounds of the result may lead to a type I or type II error in different circumstances. In the case of COVID-19, this type of error might be committed by a person who correctly believes themselves to not have COVID-19 but incorrectly attributes this result to wearing a tinfoil hat.
|-
|Type V
|Incorrect result which leads you to a correct conclusion due to unrelated errors
|Here we get into errors entirely made up by Randall. The idea behind this one is that a botched statistical test might accidentally result in a true conclusion due to completely unrelated errors in the other direction--perhaps during data collection or aggregation. This could be the type of error experienced by a person whose test result is a false positive or negative, but which is then mis-typed into the electronic medical record, so that the correct result is returned to the doctor and patient after all.
|-
|Type VI
|Correct result which you interpret wrong
|An unfortunately common occurrence. For example, statistical tests on observational data can only determine correlation, not causation, yet press releases and subsequent popular articles often imply or explicitly state a causal relationship ([[882: Significant|"Jelly beans cause acne!"]] or whatnot). This has actually been [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_III_error#Marascuilo_and_Levin proposed as a definition of a Type IV error]. Coincidentally, "Type VI" could be misread as "Type IV", making an incorrect reading be interpreted as the older definition of Type IV (which would, ironically, be a Type V error). Some kinds of coronavirus antibody tests have been found to return positive if the patient has ever had an infection by ''any'' coronavirus (e.g. some common colds), not just SARS-CoV-2, so the patient could test positive but incorrectly attribute that result to COVID-19.
|-
|Type VII
|Incorrect result which produces a cool graph
|It is commonly believed that [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/ data is beautiful]. Sometimes, that's still true even when the data is bogus! A few days after this comic was released (May 9th), the Georgia Department of Public Health published a graph [http://www.joeydevilla.com/2020/05/17/georgia-department-of-healths-master-class-on-misinforming-with-statistics/ purporting to show a decline] in cases of COVID-19 over the previous two weeks, but which had actually been arranged so that the days were ordered by decreasing cases, rather than by time.
|-
|Type VIII
|Incorrect result which sparks further research and the development of new tools which reveal the flaw in the original results while producing novel correct results
|A hypothetical example might be if the Fleischmann–Pons {{w|cold fusion}} experiment, discredited as it was, had by its investigation successfully prompted the discovery of a truly usable alternate technique. (So far, in reality, it seems not to have.)
|-
|Type IX
|The Rise of Skywalker
|''{{w|Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker}}'' is the ninth and final film in the ''Star Wars'' Skywalker saga. It received far less critical acclaim than the previous two films in the sequel trilogy. The poor reviews suggest that the movie as a whole could be considered an error. Closing with an "error" that refers to Star Wars and has no discussion of statistics also serves as a non sequitur punchline.
|-
|Type IIII
|Mistaking tally marks for Roman numerals
|Title text. "I", "II", and "III" could be representations of the numbers one, two, and three in either {{w|tally marks}} or {{w|Roman numerals}}. It's only when you get to "IV" or "IIII" that it becomes apparent which system is being used. Some clocks use Roman numerals but with "IIII" instead of "IV" at the four o'clock position; the exact reason for this is unknown, but [https://www.electrictime.com/news/roman-iiii-vs-iv-on-clock-dials/ several plausible hypotheses] have been advanced.
Coincidentally, Randall seemed to have initially made a typographical error of his own in this title text spelling the word "numerals" as "neumerals". The error has since been corrected.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A list with nine entries. The left side has 9 types of errors numbered with Roman numerals. The right side has a description of each type of error:]
:Type I Error: False positive
:Type II Error: False negative
:Type III Error: True positive for incorrect reasons
:Type IV Error: True negative for incorrect reasons
:Type V Error: Incorrect result which leads you to a correct conclusion due to unrelated errors
:Type VI Error: Correct result which you interpret wrong
:Type VII Error: Incorrect result which produces a cool graph
:Type VIII Error: Incorrect result which sparks further research and the development of new tools which reveal the flaw in the original results while producing novel correct results
:Type IX Error: The Rise of Skywalker

==Trivia==
*Randall seems to have, ironically, made a typographical error of his own when spelling the word "numerals" in the title text.
**This was corrected later, but initially, the title text was: "Type IIII error: Mistaking tally marks for Roman '''neumerals'''."
**This may be intentionally mispronouncing, because of [[148: Mispronouncing|his hobby]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

2303: Error Types

2020-12-24T23:48:03Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 2303
| date = May 6, 2020
| title = Error Types
| image = error_types.png
| titletext = Type IIII error: Mistaking tally marks for Roman numerals
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

The comic is inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, as there is a lot of medical testing for the disease being done, including detection of the virus itself, usually by qPCR, or of antibodies present in people who have had the disease (sometimes unknowingly). The quality of these tests is often mediocre and never perfect, leading to discussion of different types of errors that can occur, including "false positives" (calling presence of the virus/antibodies when they are not really there) or false negatives (failing to see the virus/antibodies which are present).
The comic is riffing on {{w|Type I and type II errors}}, also known as "false positive" and "false negative", respectively. The first two rows of the comic's table are correct definitions for established terms in statistics. Further rows contain suggestions for new terminology.

{|class = "wikitable"
|+Explanation of error types
|-
!Type
!Description
!Explanation
|-
|Type I
|{{w|False_positives_and_false_negatives#False_positive_error|False positive}}
|A false positive is a result that indicates a correlation, when there is no correlation in reality. For example, a person may test positive (indicating that they have a disease), but in actuality they ''do not'' have the disease. Most diseases are only present in a small fraction of a population, so a test for that disease will usually produce more false positives than false negatives; this is why tests are usually not administered universally but only to patients with other diagnostic criteria, and sometimes multiple tests are used for additional certainty before embarking on serious, invasive treatments.
|-
|Type II
|{{w|False_positives_and_false_negatives#False_negative_error|False negative}}
|A false negative is a result that indicates no correlation, when there is a correlation in reality. For example, a person may test negative (indicating that they do not have a disease), but in actuality they ''do'' have the disease. Several previous XKCD comics have been about trivial "tests" for rare conditions that always return a negative result (e.g. [[2236: Is it Christmas?]] and [[937: TornadoGuard]]). Because most days it is not Christmas, and most people are not near a tornado, the "test" is technically correct a high percentage of the time, but for those circumstances when the condition is true, a false negative may be extremely costly.
|-
|Type III
|True positive for incorrect reasons
|"{{w|Type III error}}" is a nonstandard term meant to build off the notion of type I and II errors. Randall's explanations of this and of Type IV errors line up with some relatively common definitions of them, but others have also been proposed. None have yet been widely adopted. The Type III and Type IV definitions given here correspond to the {{w|Gettier_problem|Gettier Problem}} in philosophy. In the case of COVID-19, this type of error might be committed by a person who correctly believes themselves to have COVID-19 but incorrectly believes so on the basis of living near a 5G tower.
|-
|Type IV
|True negative for incorrect reasons
|Randall's proposed Type III and Type IV errors refer to when a correct correlation or lack thereof is determined, but on faulty grounds. Although harmless in the present, this may lead to false faith in the results at a later date, as the faulty grounds of the result may lead to a type I or type II error in different circumstances. In the case of COVID-19, this type of error might be committed by a person who correctly believes himself to not have COVID-19 but incorrectly attributes this result to wearing a tinfoil hat.
|-
|Type V
|Incorrect result which leads you to a correct conclusion due to unrelated errors
|Here we get into errors entirely made up by Randall. The idea behind this one is that a botched statistical test might accidentally result in a true conclusion due to completely unrelated errors in the other direction--perhaps during data collection or aggregation. This could be the type of error experienced by a person whose test result is a false positive or negative, but which is then mis-typed into the electronic medical record, so that the correct result is returned to the doctor and patient after all.
|-
|Type VI
|Correct result which you interpret wrong
|An unfortunately common occurrence. For example, statistical tests on observational data can only determine correlation, not causation, yet press releases and subsequent popular articles often imply or explicitly state a causal relationship ([[882: Significant|"Jelly beans cause acne!"]] or whatnot). This has actually been [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_III_error#Marascuilo_and_Levin proposed as a definition of a Type IV error]. Coincidentally, "Type VI" could be misread as "Type IV", making an incorrect reading be interpreted as the older definition of Type IV (which would, ironically, be a Type V error). Some kinds of coronavirus antibody tests have been found to return positive if the patient has ever had an infection by ''any'' coronavirus (e.g. some common colds), not just SARS-CoV-2, so the patient could test positive but incorrectly attribute that result to COVID-19.
|-
|Type VII
|Incorrect result which produces a cool graph
|It is commonly believed that [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/ data is beautiful]. Sometimes, that's still true even when the data is bogus! A few days after this comic was released (May 9th), the Georgia Department of Public Health published a graph [http://www.joeydevilla.com/2020/05/17/georgia-department-of-healths-master-class-on-misinforming-with-statistics/ purporting to show a decline] in cases of COVID-19 over the previous two weeks, but which had actually been arranged so that the days were ordered by decreasing cases, rather than by time.
|-
|Type VIII
|Incorrect result which sparks further research and the development of new tools which reveal the flaw in the original results while producing novel correct results
|A hypothetical example might be if the Fleischmann–Pons {{w|cold fusion}} experiment, discredited as it was, had by its investigation successfully prompted the discovery of a truly usable alternate technique. (So far, in reality, it seems not to have.)
|-
|Type IX
|The Rise of Skywalker
|''{{w|Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker}}'' is the ninth and final film in the ''Star Wars'' Skywalker saga. It received far less critical acclaim than the previous two films in the sequel trilogy. The poor reviews suggest that the movie as a whole could be considered an error. Closing with an "error" that refers to Star Wars and has no discussion of statistics also serves as a non sequitur punchline.
|-
|Type IIII
|Mistaking tally marks for Roman numerals
|Title text. "I", "II", and "III" could be representations of the numbers one, two, and three in either {{w|tally marks}} or {{w|Roman numerals}}. It's only when you get to "IV" or "IIII" that it becomes apparent which system is being used. Some clocks use Roman numerals but with "IIII" instead of "IV" at the four o'clock position; the exact reason for this is unknown, but [https://www.electrictime.com/news/roman-iiii-vs-iv-on-clock-dials/ several plausible hypotheses] have been advanced.
Coincidentally, Randall seemed to have initially made a typographical error of his own in this title text spelling the word "numerals" as "neumerals". The error has since been corrected.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A list with nine entries. The left side has 9 types of errors numbered with Roman numerals. The right side has a description of each type of error:]
:Type I Error: False positive
:Type II Error: False negative
:Type III Error: True positive for incorrect reasons
:Type IV Error: True negative for incorrect reasons
:Type V Error: Incorrect result which leads you to a correct conclusion due to unrelated errors
:Type VI Error: Correct result which you interpret wrong
:Type VII Error: Incorrect result which produces a cool graph
:Type VIII Error: Incorrect result which sparks further research and the development of new tools which reveal the flaw in the original results while producing novel correct results
:Type IX Error: The Rise of Skywalker

==Trivia==
*Randall seems to have, ironically, made a typographical error of his own when spelling the word "numerals" in the title text.
**This was corrected later, but initially, the title text was: "Type IIII error: Mistaking tally marks for Roman '''neumerals'''."
**This may be intentionally mispronouncing, because of [[148: Mispronouncing|his hobby]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

1988: Containers

2020-12-19T23:42:54Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number = 1988
| date = May 2, 2018
| title = Containers
| image = containers.png
| titletext = All services are microservices if you ignore most of their features.
}}

==Explanation==

{{w|Docker (software)|Docker}} is a computer program that performs {{w|Operating-system-level virtualization|operating-system-level virtualization}} also known as containerization. [[White Hat]] notices that many people are using Docker for "everything," implying that he does not understand what all the fuss is about. [[Cueball]] then explains the fundamental idea behind Docker with a simple story.

He notes how difficult it can be to combine two programs and have them work together as one. This is something all programmers can relate to. His specific example is to get two separate programs to display side-by-side on a tablet. The main joke is that Cueball's solution is a surprising twist to solving the problem. Instead of writing a lot of complicated code to deal with the problem at hand, he sidesteps the problem by using two separate devices, literally gluing them together. Containerization software, like Docker, uses the same general idea but the "glue" and the "multiple computers" are done in software, instead of literally gluing two computers together.

Cueball states that he achieved "software enlightenment" when he "solved" the problem by sidestepping it.

White Hat's initial confusion comes from the fact that Cueball did not write any software, yet achieved "software enlightenment." A good programmer doesn't necessarily need to be able to write programs or even understand how they work, provided that they have the skills needed to combine existing programs to solve tasks. An alternate interpretation is that someone with little programming experience is able to create a working program simply by copy/pasting code snippets from a coding site such as Stack Overflow and "gluing" them together without really understanding how they work.

The title text makes a joke about developers writing code for use in a containerized environment. The ideal is to only write "{{w|microservices}}" which are modules that do just one thing and do it well. The joke here is that even when a module does many different things, you can pretend it is a "microservice" by just ignoring all of its features but one (hopefully one that it does well).

==Transcript==
:[White Hat is sitting at a laptop. Cueball is standing behind him.]
:White Hat: Man, Docker is being used for everything.
:White Hat: I don't know how I feel about it.
:Cueball: Story time!

:[Cueball is standing by himself.]
:Cueball: Once, long ago, I wanted to use an old tablet as a wall display.

:[A picture of Cueball's imagined tablet with two applications open side by side. The app on the left is "LiveCam". The app on the right is Google Calendar.]
:Cueball: I had an app and a calendar webpage that I wanted to show side by side, but the OS didn't have split-screen support.
:Cueball: So I decided to build my own app.

:[White Hat and Cueball as before, but White Hat has turned to face Cueball.]
:Cueball: I downloaded the SDK and the IDE, registered as a developer, and started reading the language's docs.

:[A picture of two smartphones glued together side by side, held on a backing board. The same two applications shown earlier are open on different phones.]
:Cueball: ...Then I realized it would be '''way''' easier to get two smaller phones on eBay and glue them together.
:Cueball: On that day, I achieved software enlightenment.

:[White Hat and Cueball still facing each other, with White Hat's arm resting on the back of the chair.]
:White Hat: But you never learned to write software.
:Cueball: No, I just learned how to glue together stuff that I don't understand.
:White Hat: I...OK, fair.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

212: Brain

2020-12-04T02:17:58Z

Lizard953694:

{{comic
| number =212
| date =January 19, 2007
| title =Brain
| image =brain.png
| titletext =The rest is fear of raptors.
}}
==Explanation==
{{w|The Swiss Family Robinson}} is a novel by the Swiss pastor and writer {{w|Johann David Wyss}}. In the novel, a shipwrecked family builds a tree house as good as a normal house complete with library and mechanical contraptions.

Growing up, many children grow a fascination with tree houses. Tree houses are a child's own special place to do stuff away from their parents, have some autonomy, perhaps form a club. The obsession with tree houses usually fades once a child reaches their teenage years, but of course some of us never grow up. Being an adult geek/scientist who still enjoys childish things, Randall wants to build a sophisticated tree house rather than a simple one, taking the theme from the above-mentioned novel.

The title text makes reference to the regular [[xkcd]] joke about how terrifying {{w|Velociraptors}} from the movie {{w|Jurassic Park}} are. But they never can reach a tree house, just because it's too high, as you can see here [[87: Velociraptors]].
"Raptors" might refer to the informal bird group, hawks and owls and such, a joke relying on the pervious infatuation with velociraptors.

==Transcript==
:[Picture of Brain. Line points at a highlighted point.]
:Section that is devoted, no matter where I go in life, to planning the ultimate tree house*.
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>Oh man, it would be like Swiss Family Robinson, but with multiple trees connected by... hey come up to my room and see the blueprints!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]

2225: Voting Referendum

2020-11-23T00:29:26Z

Lizard953694: /* Explanation */ Removed inaccurate gendering of pronoun in "Cumulative Voting" section, since non-male voters exist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

{{comic discussion}}

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