explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3198: Double-Pronged Extension Cord

2026-01-24T05:56:13Z

Mneme: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3198
| date = January 23, 2026
| title = Double-Pronged Extension Cord
| image = double_pronged_extension_cord_2x.png
| imagesize = 698x267px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Oh, and can I borrow 50 sacks of loose flour, a pile of lithium-ion batteries, a bucket of bleach, and a bucket of vinega--' 'NO!!!!!!'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by THE EXTENSION CORD FROM COMIC #509. I can't explain the anchoring it to the wall part yet, and I didn't do the title text. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
As Ponytail correctly points out, extension cords with prongs on both ends are lethally dangerous. They are also known as [https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/generators/why-suicide-extension-cords-are-so-dangerous-a1189731437/ suicide cords] for this reason.

Ponytail seems to relax when she persuades Cueball to use a regular extension cord instead. But then he elaborates that rather than wanting the cord to carry electricity, he actually intends to use it as a makeshift support similar to the screwdriver in Louis Slotin's infamous "Tickling the dragon's tail" experiment, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotin#Criticality_accident which proved fatal]. Understandably, this horrifies Ponytail even more.

The title text escalates the innocently mentioned hazards...though arguably not as much as the radioactivity. Loose flour is a well known fire hazard and the key to a flour-air explosion; 50 bags of it plus some way to get it into the air could blow up a sizable building. Lithium batteries are well known fire hazards when overcharged, which is why the TSA restricts them in checked luggage and there have been numerous fires caused by the lithium batteries in "hoverboards" leading them to be oft-banned in cities, airports, and by retailers who might otherwise sell them. A bank of 50 might be overkill, but if charged in parallel (serial probably wouldn't work as well), could likely cause a noticable explosion or fire once one of them hit its limit. And while vinegar and bleach aren't a particular fire hazard, they do release chlorine gas when combined, which is rather unfortunately lethal. As such, the theme appears to be "innocuous-appearing substances which are actually quite dangerous" -- except for the plutonium, of course.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball is approaching Ponytail from off, who is sitting at a desk, with a laptop.]
:Cueball: Do you have an extension cord with prongs at both ends? Can I borrow it?
:Ponytail: '''''No'''''!!!

:[Close up of Ponytail raising her arms in an exasperated fashion]
:Ponytail: No one should '''''ever''''' buy or make those!
:Ponytail: They start fires, destroy equipment, and risk electrocuting you or grid workers!
:Cueball: OK, OK, I get it.

:[The view zooms back out, showing Ponytail handing Cueball an extension cord.]
:Cueball: Can I just borrow a regular cord, then?
:Ponytail: Sure. Here.
:Cueball: The prongs aren't important. I just thought they'd help anchor it to the wall.
:Ponytail: Wait, what are you-

:[Cueball is walking away from Ponytail, who sits at her desk with her hands to her head.]
:Cueball: I need it to help hold up the top half of the reflector for this plutonium core that I'm-
:Ponytail: '''''AAAAAAAA!!!!'''''

==Trivia==
Two days before this comic's publication, Randall Munroe released an xkcd "What-If?" video on YouTube, [https://youtu.be/s3oLIDaElaE "How long would you survive with no DNA?"], which suggests that the hypothetical instantaneous removal of all of a person's DNA would be similar in its effects to those of receiving a massive dose of ionizing radiation. Slotin's accident was one of the most notable such events known.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

3198: Double-Pronged Extension Cord

2026-01-24T05:55:13Z

Mneme: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3198
| date = January 23, 2026
| title = Double-Pronged Extension Cord
| image = double_pronged_extension_cord_2x.png
| imagesize = 698x267px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Oh, and can I borrow 50 sacks of loose flour, a pile of lithium-ion batteries, a bucket of bleach, and a bucket of vinega--' 'NO!!!!!!'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by THE EXTENSION CORD FROM COMIC #509. I can't explain the anchoring it to the wall part yet, and I didn't do the title text. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
As Ponytail correctly points out, extension cords with prongs on both ends are lethally dangerous. They are also known as [https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/generators/why-suicide-extension-cords-are-so-dangerous-a1189731437/ suicide cords] for this reason.

Ponytail seems to relax when she persuades Cueball to use a regular extension cord instead. But then he elaborates that rather than wanting the cord to carry electricity, he actually intends to use it as a makeshift support similar to the screwdriver in Louis Slotin's infamous "Tickling the dragon's tail" experiment, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotin#Criticality_accident which proved fatal]. Understandably, this horrifies Ponytail even more.

The title text escalates the innocently mentioned hazards...though arguably not as much as the radioactivity. Loose flour is a well known fire hazard and the key to a flour-air explosion; 50 bags of it plus some way to get it into the air could blow up a sizable building. Lithium batteries are well known fire hazards when overcharged, which is why the TSA restricts them in checked luggage and there have been numerous fires caused by the lithium batteries in "hoverboards" leading them to be oft-banned in cities, airports, and by retailers who might otherwise sell them. A bank of 50 might be overkill, but if charged in parallel (serial probably wouldn't work as well), could likely cause a noticable explosion or fire one one of them hit its limit. And while vinegar and bleach aren't a particular fire hazard, they do release chlorine gas when combined, which is rather unfortunately lethal. As such, the theme appears to be "innocuous-appearing substances which are actually quite dangerous" -- except for the plutonium, of course.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball is approaching Ponytail from off, who is sitting at a desk, with a laptop.]
:Cueball: Do you have an extension cord with prongs at both ends? Can I borrow it?
:Ponytail: '''''No'''''!!!

:[Close up of Ponytail raising her arms in an exasperated fashion]
:Ponytail: No one should '''''ever''''' buy or make those!
:Ponytail: They start fires, destroy equipment, and risk electrocuting you or grid workers!
:Cueball: OK, OK, I get it.

:[The view zooms back out, showing Ponytail handing Cueball an extension cord.]
:Cueball: Can I just borrow a regular cord, then?
:Ponytail: Sure. Here.
:Cueball: The prongs aren't important. I just thought they'd help anchor it to the wall.
:Ponytail: Wait, what are you-

:[Cueball is walking away from Ponytail, who sits at her desk with her hands to her head.]
:Cueball: I need it to help hold up the top half of the reflector for this plutonium core that I'm-
:Ponytail: '''''AAAAAAAA!!!!'''''

==Trivia==
Two days before this comic's publication, Randall Munroe released an xkcd "What-If?" video on YouTube, [https://youtu.be/s3oLIDaElaE "How long would you survive with no DNA?"], which suggests that the hypothetical instantaneous removal of all of a person's DNA would be similar in its effects to those of receiving a massive dose of ionizing radiation. Slotin's accident was one of the most notable such events known.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

3141: Mantle Model

2025-09-12T21:56:30Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 3141
| date = September 12, 2025
| title = Mantle Model
| image = mantle_model_2x.png
| imagesize = 527x317px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Mantle plumes explain Hawaii, Yellowstone, Iceland, the East African Rift, the Adirondack uplift, the Permian extinction, the decline of Rome, the DB Cooper hijacking, and the balrog in Moria. Those little hills of sand in your yard are caused by antle plumes.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by {{w|Pele (deity)|PELE}}, THE GODDESS OF VOLCANOES AND FIRE. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

A {{w|mantle plume}} is a flow of {{w|magma}} upward from deep in the Earth toward the surface. Some plumes are thought to come close to the surface and result in hotspots that produce volcanoes, such as the hotspot that formed the {{w|Hawaiian Islands}} chain. Here Randall says the plumes account for every surface feature on Earth that we can't otherwise account for, due to the little knowledge of them, which is absurd.

The title text extends this further, suggesting with increasing absurdity that mantle plumes account for other things:
* Hawaii. A hotspot, hypothesized to sit atop a mantle plume, did indeed create the Hawaiian Islands.
* {{w|Yellowstone}}. This area of hot springs, geysers, and other geothermal phenomena is in the {{w|Yellowstone Caldera}}, which some geologists believe sits atop a mantle plume.
* The {{w|East African Rift}}. This area in East Africa is a developing divergent {{w|tectonic plate}} boundary where the African plate is in the process of splitting into two tectonic plates.
* The {{w|Adirondack_Mountains#Geology|Adirondack uplift}}. The Adirondack Mountains were raised by the collision of tectonic plates. Some geologists believe that tectonic plates are in turn driven, in part, by mantle plumes.
* The {{w|Permian extinction}}, also called the 'Great Dying' and more formally as the Permian-Triassic extinction event, is the largest of the {{w|List of extinction events|"big five" mass extinctions}} since vertebrate life appeared on Earth. There are several hypotheses as to why it happened, once of which, {{w|Siberian Traps}} volcanism, could have happened because of a mantle plume.
* The decline of Rome refers to the end of the {{w|Roman Empire}}, which had nothing to do with mantle plumes{{cn}}.
* The {{w|DB Cooper}} airplane hijacking occurred in 1971 and remains unsolved. Dan B. Cooper is an alias of the hijacker, whose real name is unknown. The hijacking had nothing to do with mantle plumes{{cn}}.
* The {{w|balrog}} in {{w|Moria, Middle-earth|Moria}} is a fictional beast in {{w|J.R.R. Tolkien}}'s {{w|legendarium}} that first appeared in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}''. It too has nothing to do with mantle plumes{{cn}}, but it was revealed by the dwarves, who "delved too greedily and too deep." If we were to delve sufficiently greedily and deep that we dug into a mantle plume, a balrog would be the least of our problems.
* Ants often create anthills, which, depending on the species, can look like little plumes of sand. The title text refers to ants as "antle plumes".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[A diagram of the Earth’s inner structure is shown with the caption “Standard geophysical model of the mantle”. Dotted lines forming structures that appear to be moving through and between various layers of the mantle are labeled with arrows. The arrows either point to the base of the structures on the inside of the planet or formations on the outside.]

:[In the center around the Earth’s core are vertical columns rising up away from the core through cracks in lower layers of mantle. At different layers the structure either branches out horizontally between layers or again vertically through additional cracks. This process might yield a single vertical column, or several branching horizontal and vertical branches.]
:[These structures are labeled:]
:Hypothesized mantle plumes

:[On the Earth’s surface are various rock formations that align with the locations of plumes just below.]
:[The formations are labeled:]
:Every feature of the Earth surface that we have a hard time explaining

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Standard geophysical model of the mantle

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

3109: Dehumidifier

2025-06-30T19:29:30Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 3109
| date = June 30, 2025
| title = Dehumidifier
| image = dehumidifier_2x.png
| imagesize = 295x327px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's important for devices to have internet connectivity so the manufacturer can patch remote exploits.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created WITHOUT INTERNET ACCESS. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Randall]] mocks the recent trend of various appliances, such as induction stoves or juicers, that traditionally do not require an internet connection to work, being connected to the internet. A {{w|dehumidifier}} has a relatively simple function which does not obviously offer any possibility for improvements to its operation that could be achieved without changes to its hardware, so it's unclear what benefit being able to receive updates via the internet would confer. [[Cueball]]'s sarcastic reply underlines the unlikeliness of a situation occurring where an update would be necessary. The implication is that many of these internet-connected devices are examples of over-engineering a solution to do things 'because we can' or because it makes it sound advanced to the customer, rather than because it offers any real added value.

The title text says that authorized internet access is required to patch remote exploits (i.e. harmful unauthorized access from the internet). If this is the only use case that requires internet access, it would be much simpler to remove the attack vector for remote exploits by not having it connected to the internet in the first place. It is conceivably possible that remote access could be attained with a carefully crafted atmosphere, but seems unlikely. But more particularly, the most likely source of remote access, even given a different case for internet access, would probably be the remote updater itself.

A related device was previously refered to in [[3044: Humidifier Review]], and the issue of possibly considering online protection of devices that (arguably) should not be so easily exploitable was looked at in [[463: Voting Machines]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

: [A salesman is showing Cueball a dehumidifier, with a "SALE" label on it.]

: Salesman: This dehumidifier model features built-in WiFi for remote updates.
: Cueball: Great! That will be really useful if they discover a new kind of water.

==Trivia==

Technically, there are many different kinds of liquid water, based on the possible isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen atoms that its molecules are composed of. There are 3 naturally-occurring {{w|isotopes of hydrogen}}, with 6 possible combinations for its two atoms in a water molecule, and 4 naturally-occurring {{w|isotopes of oxygen}}. This gives 6 × 4 = 24 kinds of naturally-occurring water molecules, which could be present in liquid water in any proportions, although 99.7% of all such molecules will be the 'normal' version of water. (The isotopic ratios in "natural" water are relatively stable, so there's very little variation in water found in nature.) There are also synthetic isotopes of each, all radioactive, most having short half-lives. How many of these could be used to constitute water would depend in part on one's definition of whether a molecule of water could be said to have been formed prior to the decay of its constituent atoms. Each isotopically-distinct version of water has very slightly different physical and chemical properties, though the differences are small and the versions hard to separate. There are also 26 known {{w|phases of ice}} (solid water), each of which could be made from any combination of the isotopically-distinct versions of water in any proportions.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

Talk:3019: Advent Calendar Advent Calendar

2024-12-02T16:35:28Z

Mneme:

Would this basically be triangle numbers? So on Christmas Eve you would open 300 windows?[[User:Tommyds|Tommyds]] ([[User talk:Tommyds|talk]]) 16:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes and no. It's not 12 days of Christmas (as mentioned in the title text), so only the overall number of gifts are a triangle number; you open 30 windows on Christmas Day. The 12 days ref is key as the song generates more gifts if taken literally even in 12 days -- 78 on the last day, 66 on the previous day, etc, for a total of 364. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 16:35, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:3016: Cold Air

2024-11-25T23:01:28Z

Mneme:

Back In The Day, one of the idiot youngsters in a first-year chemistry lab, before leaving at the end of the afternoon, connected a water faucet to a natural-gas line (used for Bunsen burners) with a rubber hose, and opened both taps. By the next morning, much of the natural-gas network in the heart of the city was flooded. It took a while to get everything working again, and the cleanup wasn't cheap. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Anyone understand the physics here? It seems clear that adding tanks of cool, dry air will make storms (and particularly tornados) far worse, not better, as the incoming hot, wet air will react with any released air to make even worse/dramatic weather patterns. But is there more to it? If the tanks are sealed, then effect could be muted by simply not releasing the stored air once the problem is realized, but this would be countered by at least two factors: First, the title text indicates that an additonal error was made resulting in it beingg impossible to seal the stored air completely (it escapes through the water system). But also, any time weather got bad enough to open leaks in the system, I think this would produce a catastrophic result as the storm mixed with all the cold dry air at once? [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 23:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:3016: Cold Air

2024-11-25T23:01:05Z

Mneme:

3013: Kedging Cannon

2024-11-19T02:37:03Z

Mneme: clarifying text, mostly

{{comic
| number = 3013
| date = November 18, 2024
| title = Kedging Cannon
| image = kedging_cannon_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x259px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The real key was inventing the windmill-powered winch.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HEADCANNON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

One can, in fact, sail upwind -- via the technique known as {{w|Tacking_(sailing)|tacking against the wind or tacking}}. But the comic presupposes a ship's captain who has never heard of or learned how to tack, and instead has invented his or her own method of moving a ship against the wind based on kedging -- by repeatedly firing a "kedging canon", {{w|kedging}} being an historical technique of moving a ship when tacking or normal sailing wouldn't be appropriate (such as in a becalmed sea, or when very fine motions are required to avoid obstacles, or against strong adverse currents or winds) via, yes, hauling it via a rope or chain. Normally, kedging (or warping) is a rare enough technique that it's applied either manually, by throwing an object and then pulling against it (and often this uses surfaced objects to do so, like trees or reefs) for small ships, or by using a smaller boat to place the kedge anchor and then haul it in. But since the captain sees kedging as the only way to move against the wind, he has invented a cannon for the purpose of sending an anchor a sufficient distance from the ship.

The title text shows that the inventive captain has been doing this long enough to invent new refinements -- adding a windmill to the process to allow the wind itself to haul in the rope. Which in fact is, mechanically, a not dissimilar process (albeit far more laborious) to how tacking works, with the angled sail moving the ship sideways (and slightly into the wind) as it tacks back and forth.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A two-masted sailing ship is floating on the sea. Two tiny figures can be seen at the ship's bow.]
:Captain: I hope someday someone invents a way to sail upwind.
:Captain: Using the kedging cannon just wastes so much gunpowder.
:[Close-up on the deck of the ship. Cueball is talking to the ship's captain, who is aiming a cannon containing an anchor. Chains are draped from the cannon.]
:Cueball: The ''what?''
:Cueball: Wait, do you not know how to sail upwind? Is that why your ship takes forever to--
:Captain: Stand by...''FIRE!''
:[Distant shot showing the anchor and its chain being launched out in front of the ship, towards the right of the panel.]
:SFX: BOOM
:[The line becomes taut and the ship is dragged forwards, towards the right of the panel.]
:SFX: Click click click

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

Talk:3013: Kedging Cannon

2024-11-19T02:10:51Z

Mneme:

First? [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:05, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Good essay on real-life (or this-world) kedging-- http://www.sailmagazine.com/cruising/cruising-tips/the-lost-art-of-kedging-how-to-set-a-kedge-anchor/ [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:07, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Nice. I think I managed to somehow get in first (before I logged in); first time I've done so, so apologies for not knowing all the conventions. I think the title text is the main non-obvious thing, since the simile between a windmill's mechanical function and that of tacking seems clearly intentional,but I'm sure that could be edited to be clearer than my hasty writup. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 02:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

3013: Kedging Cannon

2024-11-19T01:54:08Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 3013
| date = November 18, 2024
| title = Kedging Cannon
| image = kedging_cannon_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x259px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The real key was inventing the windmill-powered winch.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HEADCANNON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

One can, in fact, sail upwind -- via the technique known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_(sailing) "tacking against the wind" or "tacking"]. But the comic presupposes a ships captain who has never heard of or learned how to tack, and instead has invented his or her own method of moving a ship against the wind -- by repeatedly firing a "kedging canon", [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warping_(sailing) kedging] being a technique of moving ship in a becalmed sea via, yes, hauling it via a rope. Normally, kedging (or warping) is a rare enough technique that it's applied either manually, by throwing an object and then pulling against it (and often this uses surfaced objects to do so, like trees or reefs) for small ships, or by using a smaller boat to place the kedge anchor and then haul it in. But since the captain sees kedging as the only way to move against the wind, he has invented a cannon for the purpose of sending an anchor a sufficient distance from the ship.

The hover text shows that the inventive captain has been doing this long enough to invent new refinements -- adding a windmill to the process to allow the wind itself to haul in the rope. Which in fact is a not dissimilar process (albeit far more laborious) to how tacking works, with the angled sail moving the ship sideways (and slightly into the wind) as it tacks back and forth.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Panel 1: I hope someday someone invents a way to sail upwind. Using the kedging cannon just wastes so much gunpower.
:Panel 2: Cueball: The what? Wait, do you not know how to sail upwind? Is that why your ship takes forever to-- // Captain: Stand by...FIRE!
:Panel 3: BOOM
:Panel 4: CLICK CLICK CLICK

Hover Text: The real key was inventing the windmill-powered winch.

{{comic discussion}}

2957: A Crossword Puzzle

2024-07-10T22:49:55Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 2957
| date = July 10, 2024
| title = A Crossword Puzzle
| image = a_crossword_puzzle_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x937px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hint: If you ever encounter this puzzle in a crossword app, just [term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality].
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|CreAAAAAAAAAted by AAAAAAAAAAA BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a crossword puzzle where every single answer consists only of the letter "A". On a surface level, however, the answers seem extremely difficult, with some involving base conversions, and some involving the wordplay typical of the crossword style.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Location !! Clue !! Explanation
|-
| 1-Across || Famous Pvt. Wilhelm quote || Reference to the {{w|Wilhelm scream}}.
|-
| 11-Across || IPv6 address record || An IPv4 record is an "A" record, an IPv6 record is four times the length and is designated an "AAAA" record.
|-
| 15-Across || “CIPHERTEXT” decrypted with Vigenère key “CIPHERTEXT” || A "{{w|Vigenère Cipher}}" translates the original text by the distance from A from the key, letter by letter. For instance, if the plaintext is "XK" and the key is "CD", the C shifts X 2 forward to become Z, and the D shifts K 3 forward to become N, yielding a ciphertext of "ZN". Since the ciphertext and the key are the same in this case, decryption just shifts all the letters back to A, akin to subtracting a number from itself and getting 0.
|-
| 16-Across || 8mm diameter battery || A {{w|AAAA battery}} is a 1.5V battery that measures 8.3mm in diameter, 2.2mm smaller than the more common AAA battery.
|-
| 17-Across || “Warthog” attack aircraft || The {{w|A-10 Warthog}} is a well-known attack aircraft. Here, A-10 has been turned into AAAAAAAAAA (ten As).
|-
| 18-Across || Every third letter in the word for “inability to visualize” || Aphantasia is the inability to visualize. Following the instruction, we determine that '''A'''ph'''a'''nt'''a'''si'''a''' gives us the word "aaaa".
|-
| 19-Across || An acrostic hidden on the first page of the dictionary || The first page of the dictionary (if you ignore the copyright page and the index) is the list of words starting with A. An acrostic of this page, taking the first letter of each line and arranging them in order, would just be a sequence of A's, as most of the answers to this crossword are {{citation needed}}.
|-
| 21-Across || Default paper size in Europe || {{w|A4 paper}} (here written as AAAA) is the default size in Europe. At 210x297mm, it is approximately 0.24" narrower and 0.71" longer than the 8.5"x11" paper used in the United States, and due to having an aspect ratio of 1:sqrt(2), can be cut in half to create two half-sized sheets with exactly the same aspect ratio.
|-
| 22-Across || First four unary strings || Unary's when you get to use just the one symbol. E.g. 32 in unary would be 11111111111111111111111111111111. The first four strings in unary, if you used A as the first (and only) symbol, would be A, AA, AAA, AAAA.
|-
| 23-Across || Lysine codon || {{w|Lysine}} is an amino acid, with codons AAA and AAG (presumably the former is meant here).
|-
| 24-Across || 40 CFR Part 63 subpart concerning asphalt pollution || [https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-63?toc=1 "40 CFR Part 63"] refers to federal air pollutant regulations. The subpart for "asphalt processing and asphalt roofing manufacturing" is AAAAAAA.
|-
| 25-Across || Top bond credit rating || The highest {{w|credit rating}} for bonds is AAA.
|-
| 26-Across || Audi coupe || First of three Audi references. {{w|List_of_Audi_vehicles|Audi's car models}} range from A1 (subcompact hatchback) to A8 (full-size luxury sedan); the A5 is a compact executive coup.
|-
| 27-Across || A pair of small remote batteries, when inserted || A reference to two AAA batteries (AAAAAA), placed end-to-end when inserted into a device requiring two of them.
|-
| 29-Across || Unofficial Howard Dean slogan || A reference to Howard Dean, an American Democrat who ran for the party's nomination in 2004. He famously [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6i-gYRAwM0 yelled at a rally] in a way that was thought to be bizarre and which, it is thought, doomed his campaign.
|-
| 32-Across || A 4.0 report card || A 4.0 GPA, at least {{w|Academic_grading_in_the_United_States|in the USA}}, is all A's. This clue assumes seven classes.
|-
| 33-Across || The “Harlem Globetrotters of baseball” (vowels only) || The {{w|Savannah Bananas}}, the vowels for whom are aaaaaa.
|-
| 34-Across || 2018 Kiefer song || [https://genius.com/Kiefer-aaaaa-lyrics AAAAA].
|-
| 35-Across || Top Minor League tier || The top {{w|Minor League Baseball}} tier is AAA.
|-
| 36-Across || Reply elicited by a dentist || Dentists ask patients to "say aaaaaaa", i.e. "open up". This could also be an expression of pain; particularly the only kind you can make with dental tools in your mouth. (As Autechre put it: [https://youtu.be/UppsLKz1iD4 "Now, I don't want you to panic... just lean back and relax."])
|-
| 38-Across || ANAA’s airport || AAA the IATA code for the airport
|-
| 41-Across || Macaulay Culkin’s review of aftershave || Macaulay Culkin's review of aftershave: Famously in the movie {{w|Home Alone}} he puts it on because he's home all alone and dislikes it, emitting a scream, which could be transcribed like A's.
|-
| 43-Across || Marketing agency trade grp. || The {{w|American Association of Advertising Agencies}}, also called the 4A's (here AAAA).
|-
| 44-Across || Soaring climax of Linda Elder’s Man of La Mancha ||
|-
| 46-Across || Military flight community org. ||
|-
| 47-Across || Iconic line from Tarzan || When he’s swinging on a vine, yelling “Aaaaaaaaaa!”
|-
| 48-Across || Every other letter of Jimmy Wales’s birth state || The birth state of {{w|Jimmy Wales}}, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is Alabama. Taking every other letter of '''A'''l'''a'''b'''a'''m'''a''' gives "Aaaa".
|-
| 49-Across || Warthog’s postscript after “They call me mister pig!” ||
|-
| 50-Across || Message to Elsa in Frozen 2 || The call which Elsa hears in Frozen 2 is a sequence of four notes which resemble the Dies Irae. The sequence is sung entirely with an open rounded vowel sound, or a soft "a" sound.
|-
| 51-Across || Lola, when betting it all on Black 20 in Run Lola Run || In ''Run Lola Run'', Lola (Franka Potente) [https://youtu.be/OTSz1w-cuZM?si=2vc51WCWvn20Hjoo&t=116 screams loud enough to affect the outcome] of a roulette wheel where she has just bet all her money on Black 20. The scream could be transcribed as "AAAAAAAAAAA"
|-
| 1-Down || Game featuring “a reckless disregard for gravity” || {{w|AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity}} - notably the title is commonly extended in promotional material beyond 6 A's.
|-
| 2-Down || 101010101010101010101010(2->16) || 10101010 10101010 10101010 in binary is equivalent to "AAAAAA" in hexadecimal.
|-
| 3-Down || Google phone released July ’22 || the Pixel 6a was released in July 22. Stylized in this puzzle as "AAAAAA"
|-
| 4-Down || It’s five times better than that other steak sauce || 5 times better than {{w|A1 steak sauce}} would be A5, stylized in this puzzle as "AAAAA"
|-
| 5-Down || ToHex(43690) || The decimal number 43690 converted to hexadecimal is AAAA
|-
| 6-Down || Freddie Mercury lyric from Under Pressure ||
|-
| 7-Down || Full-size Audi luxury sedan || Second of three Audi references. As mentioned previously, the A8 is their full-size luxury sedan.
|-
| 8-Down || Fast path through a multiple choice marketing survey || The "fast path" is just to select the first option over and over again. Usually the options are labeled A, B, C, and D (or more) - choosing the first option for every question would be answering entirely with A's.
|-
| 9-Down || 12356631 in base 26 ||
|-
| 10-Down || Viral Jimmy Barnes chorus || A reference to the music video for Kirin J Callinan's song 'Big Enough', which features Jimmy Barnes in a cowboy hat screaming "Aaaaaaa!" while in the sky over mountain scenes.
|-
| 11-Down || Ruby Rhod catchphrase || Ruby Rhod is a radio host in the film 'The Fifth Element'; he has a scene with a memorable scream.
|-
| 12-Down || badbeef + 9efcebbb || In hexadecimal badbeef and 9efcebbb add together to equal AAAAAAAA (195,935,983, 2,667,375,547, and 2,863,311,530 in decimal respectively)
|-
| 13-Down || In Wet Let’s Ur Mum, what the singer has been practicing || In the song "Ur Mum" by Wet Leg, the bridge starts with "Okay, I've been practicing my longest and loudest scream", which is apparently eight As long
|-
| 14-Down || Refrain from Nora Reed bot ||
|-
| 20-Down || Mario button presses to ascent Minas Tirith’s walls || {{w|Minas Tirith}}. In Mario games you typically use the A button to jump. In games where you don't press a button to move (e.g. games with a joystick) then the button presses required to ascend a vertical structure would probably all be A. This clue might have been inspired by the {{w|A-button challenge}} / [https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge A Button Challenge], which tallies the amount of A presses needed to beat ''Super Mario 64''. Additionally, Minas Tirith is a city with seven concentric rings, each with a wall around it and higher than the last ring. Presumably, it takes seven jumps to get to the highest area of the city, so the answer is "AAAAAAA"
|-
| 24-Down || Vermont historic route north from Bennington || {{w|Vermont Route 7A}}, or AAAAAAA
|-
| 26-Down || High-budget video game || A high budget video game is usually referred to as a Triple-A game, or AAA
|-
| 28-Down || Unorthodox Tic-Tac-Toe win || Tic-Tac-Toe is usually won by getting either three Xs or three Os in a row, making XXX and OOO normal Tic-Tac-Toe wins. The unorthodox win expected here is most likely AAA.
|-
| 29-Down || String whose SHA-256 hash ends “…689510285e212385” || `echo -n AAAAAAAA <nowiki>|</nowiki> sha256sum` outputs `c34ab6abb7b2bb595bc25c3b388c872fd1d575819a8f55cc689510285e212385`.
|-
| 30-Down || Arnold’s remark to the Predator ||
|-
| 31-Down || The vowels in the fire salamander’s binomial name || The vowels in Salamandra salamandra are aaaaaaaa
|-
| 32-Down || Janet Leigh Psycho line || The iconic scene in Psycho is the shower scene, in which Janet Leigh gives a long piercing scream as she is murdered, which can be written as 8 "As" if one wishes.
|-
| 34-Down || Seven 440Hz pulses || 440Hz is an "A" note. 7 pulses would be AAAAAAA
|-
| 37-Down || Audi luxury sports sedan || Third of three Audi references. The A6 is their executive car. Actually, the A7, their executive liftback sedan, would fit the prompt of "luxury sports sedan" better, but 37 Down only has room for six As.
|-
| 38-Down || A half-dozen eggs with reasonably firm yolks || Eggs can be [https://www.saudereggs.com/blog/egg-grading-system/ "graded on a veriety if aspects"], with grades B, A, or AA. Eggs with a reasonably firm yolk are graded A, so having halve a dozen of them gives you AAAAAA eggs.
|-
| 39-Down || 2-2-2-2-2-2 on a multitap phone keypad || A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-tap "multitap keyboard"] is a text entry system for mobile phones. Most numbers are associated with three letters, and tapping the same number multiple times in rapid succession selects the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd number. 2 is "a", 22 is "b", 222 is "c", 3 is "d", etc. 2-2-2-2-2-2 translates to "aaaaaa"
|-
| 40-Down || .- .- .- .- .- .- || .- is Morse Code for A. It reads out as AAAAAA
|-
| 42-Down || Rating for china’s best tourist attractions ||
|-
| 43-Down || Standard drumstick size || 5A is a common, middle-range size for drumsticks. Here, it's written as AAAAA.
|-
| 45-Down || “The rain/in Spain/falls main-/ly on the plain” rhyme scheme || AAAA rhyme scheme means each line ends with the same sounds
|-
| Title text || Term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality || Type A
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A crossword puzzle image, with the following clues:]

:Across
:1. Famous Pvt. Wilhelm quote
:11. IPv6 address record
:15. "CIPHERTEXT" decrypted with Vigenère key "CIPHERTEXT"
:16. 8mm diameter battery
:17. "Warthog" attack aircraft
:18. Every third letter in the word for "inability to visualize"
:19. An acrostic hidden on the first page of the dictionary
:21. Default paper size in Europe
:22. First four unary strings
:23. Lysine codon
:24. 40 CFR Part 63 subpart concerning asphalt pollution
:25. Top bond credit rating
:26. Audi coupe
:27. A pair of small remote batteries, when inserted
:29. Unofficial Howard Dean slogan
:32. A 4.0 report card
:33. The "Harlem Globetrotters of baseball" (vowels only)
:34. 2018 Kiefer song
:35. Top Minor League tier
:36. Reply elicited by a dentist
:38. ANAA's airport
:41. Macaulay Culkin's review of aftershave
:43. Marketing agency trade grp.
:44. Soaring climax of Linda Elder's ''Man of La Mancha''
:46. Military flight community org.
:47. Iconic line from ''Tarzan''
:48. Every other letter of Jimmy Wales's birth state
:49. Warthog's postscript after "They call me ''mister'' pig!"
:50. Message to Elsa in ''Frozen 2''
:51. Lola, when betting it all on Black 20 in ''Run Lola Run''
:Down
:1. Game featuring "a reckless disregard for gravity"
:2. 1010101010101010101010102->16
:3. Google phone released July '22
:4. It's five times better than that ''other'' steak sauce
:5. ToHex(43690)
:6. Freddie Mercury lyric from ''Under Pressure''
:7. Full-size Audi luxury sedan
:8. Fast path through a multiple choice marketing survey
:9. 12356631 in base 26
:10. Viral Jimmy Barnes chorus
:11. Ruby Rhod catchphrase
:12. badbeef + 9efcebbb
:13. In Wet Let's ''Ur Mum'', what the singer has been practicing
:14. Refrain from Nora Reed bot
:20. Mario button presses to ascend Minas Tirith's walls
:24. Vermont historic route north from Bennington
:26. High-budget video game
:28. Unorthodox Tic-Tac-Toe win
:29. String whose SHA-256 hash ends "...689510285e212385"
:30. Arnold's remark to the Predator
:31. The vowels in the fire salamander's binomial name
:32. Janet Leigh ''Psycho'' line
:34. Seven 440Hz pulses
:37. Audi luxury sports sedan
:38. A half-dozen eggs with reasonably firm yolks
:39. 2-2-2-2-2-2 on a multitap phone keypad
:40. .- .- .- .- .- .-
:42. Rating for China's best tourist attractions
:43. Standard drumstick size
:45. "The rain/in Spain/falls main-/ly on the plain" rhyme scheme

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2869: Puzzles

2023-12-18T22:58:10Z

Mneme:

Aunt Alice is obviously a reference to the standard Alice / Bob / Eve crypto protocol characters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.219|162.158.158.219]] 20:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Anyone know if this is an actual scene from an actual children's book? Or is it just sort of an ad hoc representation of how these things might typically go? -- MeZimm [[Special:Contributions/172.68.2.107|172.68.2.107]] 20:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:"Aunt Gertrude" suggests *The Hardy Boys* series of children's novels. I don't recall this particular scene. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 20:38, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

::I don't think Aunt Gertrude ever set Frank and Joe a puzzle herself, but it is certainly evocative of several puzzles in the Hardy Boys. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.136|172.71.151.136]] 21:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:::Can anyone with stronger Hardy Boys knowledge add some examples? I never read the Hardy Boys books or similiar kid mysteries, so it's hard to imagine how thin those mysteries got, to be compared to "character name -> random letter/word association -> answer" as used here without some examples. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 22:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Could someone add a category for "Alice and Bob" comics? Right now, the list seems to be 177, 1323, 2440, 2691, 2869. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.38|162.158.233.38]] 22:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'm not convinced that [[2440]] should be in the list; at best, it's using similar naming patterns. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:48, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2869: Puzzles

2023-12-18T22:57:35Z

Mneme:

Aunt Alice is obviously a reference to the standard Alice / Bob / Eve crypto protocol characters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.219|162.158.158.219]] 20:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Anyone know if this is an actual scene from an actual children's book? Or is it just sort of an ad hoc representation of how these things might typically go? -- MeZimm [[Special:Contributions/172.68.2.107|172.68.2.107]] 20:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:"Aunt Gertrude" suggests *The Hardy Boys* series of children's novels. I don't recall this particular scene. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 20:38, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

::I don't think Aunt Gertrude ever set Frank and Joe a puzzle herself, but it is certainly evocative of several puzzles in the Hardy Boys. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.136|172.71.151.136]] 21:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:::Can anyone with stronger Hardy Boys knowledge add some examples? I never read the Hardy Boys books or similiar kid mysteries, so it's hard to imagine how thin those mysteries got, to be compared to "character name -> random answer association -> answer" as used here without some examples. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 22:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Could someone add a category for "Alice and Bob" comics? Right now, the list seems to be 177, 1323, 2440, 2691, 2869. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.38|162.158.233.38]] 22:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'm not convinced that [[2440]] should be in the list; at best, it's using similar naming patterns. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:48, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2739: Data Quality

2023-02-21T02:25:07Z

Mneme:

Hash tables aren't lossy, maybe Randall means hash functions? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:06, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I was thinking more a (subset of) a {{w|Rainbow table}}, than an associative array... Although such things tend not to preserve/respect item order (in reading, writing and altering in general), which is potentially information-lossy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.185|172.69.79.185]] 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::Hash tables have an ultra-low collision rate, as compared to the transforms used in packetwise error-correction... Since the comic is primarily focused on contrasting media fidelity with direct alteration of the content, ciphers seem a less direct association than content distribution networks? Given the context presented, my immediate association was the use of both piece & whole-pack hash verification, which has a collision rate so low terms like "number of particles in the universe" start entering the conversation. Upon further consideration, I wonder if Randall is referring to plain old CRC32 hash checking? Or the SHA hashes commonly used to verify disc downloads? (If it passes SHA *and* torrent content checking, I'd say you've probably got better chances of 1:1 integrity, than any original medium has of retaining it?)
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:51, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
: Maybe it was to be about '''cuckoo filters''', which are probabilistic data structure alternative to classic Bloom filter, which are based on space-efficient variants of cuckoo hashing? --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 14:05, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
::Hash tables don't have to store the original data at all, technically; they are commonly done as hash table->KEY:DATA or hash table->KEY:Pointer to data (or suchlike), but hash table->present is a valid hashing scheme, which results in a likely verification that you have the right data (but not guarunteed because collisions) but no way of reconstructing the data itself. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 02:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

GIF's aren't lossy either, though often other formats can't be converted to GIF without discarding information. [[User:Bemasher|Bemasher]] ([[User talk:Bemasher|talk]]) 18:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I think that's the point. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.203|172.68.50.203]] 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:GIFs are lossy in the very act of creating them: the actual colors of the real object have to be smashed down into (I think it’s) 256 different colors, resulting in an image that even human perception recognizes as crappy. Even the so-called ‘lossless’ formats such as PNG are lossy in the act of creation, just not as drastically as GIFs. A truly ‘lossless’ format would have to specify the exact intensity of every wavelength of electromagnetic radiation emanating from every atom of the original object. Good luck with that. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.99|172.71.151.99]] 01:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
::It's subjective whether formats (even .gif) can be recognised as 'crappy'. The display format may further tune down everything so that something defined with 65536 colours is more like 256, or it could work well with any given stippling/halftoning/dithering to produce something more like the better original than the file data strictly allows (even from 6bits-per-pixel, or 3) when viewed at sufficient remove. And a .gif of a block-coloured diagram is notably better than a typical .jpg of one, despite the technically superior palette the later has. (Nobody says that an image has to be from a real-life subject, with all kinds of missing data, such as photons thst happen to hit the gap between CCD pixels but might be considered important and might well have been captured with the Mk 1 Eyeball and significantly 'noticed' by the nerves and ultimately the respective processing usters of the brain behind it... Which has a complete set of 'analogue lossiness' to it, anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.203|172.71.242.203]] 16:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Someone needs to add a table describing all the formats in the chart. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:Yep. It needs a description of each point on the graph. I'm on my phone though... and feeling lazy after shoveling snow.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::I'm tempted, but it would require learning how to MAKE a table, and my ideal table would be 5 columns, '''''TOO WIDE!''''', LOL! Table label, what scale (data quality or item quality), a description (the main thing needed), the cat version from the Title Text, and finally how the cat example applies/parallels the comic version. I could lose the "what scale" as only one isn't data quality, and I guess I could see two tables, Comic and Title/Cat (adding to cat also the Table Label column).[[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
:::Tables are actually [https://mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables quite easy to do] (if you don't intend to do much complex stuff), but also very easy to slightly mess up (temporarily - Preview is your friend, especially if you need to rowspan/colspan at all). For this purpose, nothing fancy. Header row, other rows, nothing particar special in alignment, sorting, colour (foreground and/or background), etc. It'll be fairly intelligently fitted to the browser window, according to the contents.
:::However, here (when you might have large amounts of narrative in one column), perhaps just ";"-prefix a mini-header (can include "(in Title text)" or other shorthand details) and then have ":"-prefixed 'definition' prose that rambles on about each item in freehand text. I would suggest that's as complicated as you need it, no real need for tabling at all. (But, without wanting to show you how to use a hammer, then making every problem now look like a nail to you, I think you could handle ''learning'' the basic table-markup/learning where to get the more complex stuff. So there you are.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.197|172.70.91.197]] 16:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems there are two definitions of data quality that Randall is juxtaposing for comic effect: in one, quality data is data that represents the original phenomenon without error or degradation. In the other, he's applying the concept of quality to the phenomenon itself – data is better if it describes a better phenomenon. My cat is better than your cat, therefore data about my cat is better than data about your cat. I'd like to see this concept in the explanation of the page but don't know how to add into the flow of the current text.[[User:K95|K95]] ([[User talk:K95|talk]]) 19:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I already put that in earlier. See the second sentence of the second paragraph, I called it "general excellence". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

"Data are transferred in bits"...Hear, hear. I'm over 60, I still remember of stuff that is called "analog" ;-) {{unsigned|172.71.160.37|20:07, 17 February 2023 (UTC)}}
:Note, however, that we are transferring data digitally for over four thousand years. That's how long is technically possible to make a lossless copy of written story. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::That's only if you're lucky enough to be still reading it in the original <s>Klingon</s> language, etc... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.184|172.69.79.184]] 22:53, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:::'''"It is a Klingon name!"''' 😾
:::Transcription definitely suffers from a Darmok & Jalad type contextual dependency.
::: [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I think that "Better data" is a reference to gainful compression, and that "my better cat" doesn't specifically refer to the author but to the lyrical subject (as in poems). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.203|172.68.50.203]] 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

TIFF can contain a JPEG, which makes it technically a lossy format. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.33|172.69.109.33]] 23:26, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
:And an actual JPEG ''may'' be {{w|Lossless JPEG|lossless}}. (I still remember JPEG2000 being 'a thing', amongst the other situations mentioned there, but that wasn't even what I was thinking of whn I started this reply!) Yet, I think we're talking broad sweeps here. Not strict accuracy. There's Randall's trolling of us with GIF as 'lossy', frexample... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]]

The opening sentence of the explanation, about data loss in transit, seems a bit irrelevant to the comic, which is only concerned with lossiness in information due to format. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.197|172.70.91.197]] 10:40, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
:''Very'' relevent to the parity ones. (Leads me to believe it's a scale of "amount of provided data to represent original data". You send less than you really ought to, the more left you go, you send more than you should ''technically'' need to as you go to the right. Checksums add a little bit extra, once you get to them, and ''correcting'' checksums (hamming bits, etc) are significantly extra overhead. The whole 'better data' is basically "send a similar amount of newer information, or even more, on top of the original".) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.71|162.158.34.71]] 12:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio

2022-03-28T23:03:25Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 2599
| date = March 28, 2022
| title = Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
| image = spacecraft_debris_odds_ratio.png
| titletext = You say this daily walk will reduce my risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30%, but also increase my risk of death by bear attack by 300%? That's a 280% increased! I'm not a sucker; I'm staying inside.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PERSON WHO'S NEVER WRITTEN ON THIS WIKI BEFORE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a misunderstanding of statistics very similar to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1252:_Increased_Risk 1252: Increased Risk]. It explains that going outside for more than 5 hours a day significantly increases your risk of head injury from falling spacecraft, and advises to limit outside activity to avoid this risk. However, since the odds of being hit in the head by (part of) a falling spacecraft are astronomically low anyway.

The specific reference to falling spacecraft is likely inspired by current events. Around a month before this was posted, the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, warned that sanctions against Russia (mostly those over the Russia-Ukraine war) could result in the ISS crashing. Since the Russian section of the space station is the one provides propulsion (although it is built to rely on the power generated by the other sections), this was taken seriously and as of when this was posting, NASA was trying to come up with alternative stablizion strategies in case the situation worsened.

The title text makes a similar joke: while the increase to chances of death by bear are greater than the decrease to chances of death by cardiovascular disease, it is incorrect to add them together, since cardiovascular disease has a much higher starting chance of death, and reducing it by 30% has a much more significant effect on overall life expectancy than quadrupling the very very small chance of death by bear.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-26T11:57:58Z

Mneme: removed incorrect/accidental attribution

Is this comic in reaction to some specific recent event? It seems like it might be related to vaccine trials, given the pandemic the world has been dealing with for the last 2 years... if so, it then seems to be a condemnation... am I reading too much into this?
[[User:Ericfromabeno|Ericfromabeno]] ([[User talk:Ericfromabeno|talk]]) 21:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
:That's exactly how I understood it as well. Maybe that wasn't Randall's intent, but it does seem to convey a skeptical tone about the untested vaccines and their related mandates? [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.0]] 18:56, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
::Except the vaccines HAVE gone through clinical trials? Calling the vaccines "untested" is quite a reach, since they have actually been very well tested. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.228|172.68.132.228]] 18:56, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I would say this in relation to the mutiple treatments for Covid19 some of which have great clinical evaluation, others less so. I'll make a first draft [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 21:53, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
:On this website there are far too many people who think everything is about Covid19. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.219|162.158.88.219]] 06:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
::It comes to mind after a year full of iterations of the "3-step clinical trial procedure" shown in the comic. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproven_methods_against_COVID-19

Note that a proper clinical trial does not "prove" its treatment to be effective, but it actually should do its damnedest to show that any observed (net) benefits are down to simple statistical fluke, but then fail, leaving the positive result 'proven'. And obviously extract every possible risk factor in the process. (Thalidomide fell down badly on this, many years ago, partly because of the numbers involved and the fact that susceptible mothers were often taking a cocktail of multiple 'remedies' over much of the nine months, which made the reality slow to be teased out. But the lessons learnt mean that authorising ''anything'' for pregnant women are tortuous, and testing on (non-pregnant) women in general is hampered by having to account for menstral cycles, so we end up with far too many man-tested drugs that say "not for use in pregnancy" just to keep far to the safe-side, plus still far more unknown levels of efficacy/etc in the 'generic' female body than we should have. But it's being addressed. Onward, ever onward!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.49|162.158.159.49]] 23:14, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The way I understood the title text was that the "change" was the one written in red, that is "now we have to do clinical trials". The title text's joke is thus that, because before that change clinical trials weren't part of the procedure ("standard of care"), you don't have to test the idea of testing ideas. Closely related to that "joke" is https://existentialcomics.com/comic/404 (but seriously this isn't a simple problem). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.101|108.162.229.101]] 01:21, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't Test if it works be step 2? Have idea, see if it works, impliment? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.137|172.68.129.137]] 01:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:No. Steps 1 and 2 both include elements of testing and exploration; you need to perform experiments to come up with a good idea and convince -yourselves- that it is, in fact, good, and then you likely need to perform or at least show more tests to convince others that it is, in fact a good idea. But the addition of clinical trials added a further "and then you need to double triple check that your idea actually works rather than that it seemed to work in your initial experiments" step to (try to) avoid bad side effects and false correlation.
:I'm of the opinion that it was part of the joke... since it does seem to follow the actual behavioral pattern of "do thing, promote thing, [justify thing], propagate thing"... which makes this thread of conversation both topical and meta (kudos to Randall if ''this'' result was intended)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.4|162.158.107.4]] 21:14, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
: I'm guessing you've never written a grant proposal. To get money to test something, you have to convince people it's worth testing. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.103|172.68.133.103]] 19:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Mention of "anti-worming treatments" in the explanation. This is misleading, and gives the impression that drugs can only have a single function. It's like talking about the use of "headache medicine" for preventing heart attacks. If you want to refer to a specific medicine, do so by name but make damn sure that your claims about that medicine are accurate

:Ivermectin, the drug in question, has only been approved for use by humans for parasites, and for rosacea (cause unknown, but appears to be linked to mites). It doesn't seem misleading to me to refer to it as a deworming agent when it is probably only ever prescribed as an anti-parasitic. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.16|172.68.132.16]] 19:18, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

While the awareness of clinical trials is of course more relevant because of COVID, I don't think this is intended to be topical. The title is very straightforwards-- "the invention of clinical trials" and is almost joke-less (basically just the format). The real joke is in the title text, where it's pointed out that because the "standard of care" before the invention of clinical trials was not to do clinical trials, we didn't need to go through this step to start doing them; just convince people it was a good idea. 02:40, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
: I think it's *extremely* topical, with the relatively recent debunking of ivermectin as (yet another) substance that has been widely claimed, distributed, and mis-used as a supposed COVID preventative/cure. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 03:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:: If you like, it is topical by -context-, but not by content. Which is an interesting (but important) line to draw. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A recent editor pulled out my comment about how there isn't a joke, but I'd argue that that's necessary in some form. One of the reasons people go to Explain XKCD is that they're going "wait, did I miss a joke?" So explaining that as far as the community is concerned the main text is in-earnest education rathar than a missed joke does have an important purpose. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:37, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

This list looks like the difference between philosophy, particularly ancient Greek and Indian philosophy (probably others, but I do not know them as well), and science. The philosophical ideas were adopted based on who was able to convince more people that they had a better idea. When the scientific revolution rolled around in the 15th and 16th century in Europe, many of these ancient ideas were actually tested and only those that really worked were retained as true. Many well known and well respected ideas that failed testing were finally abandoned. That sure sounds like the elements of this list. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 07:11, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The Covid-19 paragraph seems a bit misleading. Arguments advanced in favour of vaccine skepticism have mostly been not so much to do with treatments being used before clinical trials were complete, as with clinical trials being brought forward to accelerate the process, which has been misinterpreted as them being 'rushed'. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.206|162.158.154.206]] 10:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-26T11:56:31Z

Mneme: pullec

Is this comic in reaction to some specific recent event? It seems like it might be related to vaccine trials, given the pandemic the world has been dealing with for the last 2 years... if so, it then seems to be a condemnation... am I reading too much into this?
[[User:Ericfromabeno|Ericfromabeno]] ([[User talk:Ericfromabeno|talk]]) 21:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
:That's exactly how I understood it as well. Maybe that wasn't Randall's intent, but it does seem to convey a skeptical tone about the untested vaccines and their related mandates? [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.0]] 18:56, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
::Except the vaccines HAVE gone through clinical trials? Calling the vaccines "untested" is quite a reach, since they have actually been very well tested. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.228|172.68.132.228]] 18:56, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I would say this in relation to the mutiple treatments for Covid19 some of which have great clinical evaluation, others less so. I'll make a first draft [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 21:53, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
:On this website there are far too many people who think everything is about Covid19. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.219|162.158.88.219]] 06:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
::It comes to mind after a year full of iterations of the "3-step clinical trial procedure" shown in the comic. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproven_methods_against_COVID-19

Note that a proper clinical trial does not "prove" its treatment to be effective, but it actually should do its damnedest to show that any observed (net) benefits are down to simple statistical fluke, but then fail, leaving the positive result 'proven'. And obviously extract every possible risk factor in the process. (Thalidomide fell down badly on this, many years ago, partly because of the numbers involved and the fact that susceptible mothers were often taking a cocktail of multiple 'remedies' over much of the nine months, which made the reality slow to be teased out. But the lessons learnt mean that authorising ''anything'' for pregnant women are tortuous, and testing on (non-pregnant) women in general is hampered by having to account for menstral cycles, so we end up with far too many man-tested drugs that say "not for use in pregnancy" just to keep far to the safe-side, plus still far more unknown levels of efficacy/etc in the 'generic' female body than we should have. But it's being addressed. Onward, ever onward!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.49|162.158.159.49]] 23:14, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The way I understood the title text was that the "change" was the one written in red, that is "now we have to do clinical trials". The title text's joke is thus that, because before that change clinical trials weren't part of the procedure ("standard of care"), you don't have to test the idea of testing ideas. Closely related to that "joke" is https://existentialcomics.com/comic/404 (but seriously this isn't a simple problem). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.101|108.162.229.101]] 01:21, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't Test if it works be step 2? Have idea, see if it works, impliment? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.137|172.68.129.137]] 01:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:No. Steps 1 and 2 both include elements of testing and exploration; you need to perform experiments to come up with a good idea and convince -yourselves- that it is, in fact, good, and then you likely need to perform or at least show more tests to convince others that it is, in fact a good idea. But the addition of clinical trials added a further "and then you need to double triple check that your idea actually works rather than that it seemed to work in your initial experiments" step to (try to) avoid bad side effects and false correlation.
:I'm of the opinion that it was part of the joke... since it does seem to follow the actual behavioral pattern of "do thing, promote thing, [justify thing], propagate thing"... which makes this thread of conversation both topical and meta (kudos to Randall if ''this'' result was intended)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.4|162.158.107.4]] 21:14, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
: I'm guessing you've never written a grant proposal. To get money to test something, you have to convince people it's worth testing. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.103|172.68.133.103]] 19:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Mention of "anti-worming treatments" in the explanation. This is misleading, and gives the impression that drugs can only have a single function. It's like talking about the use of "headache medicine" for preventing heart attacks. If you want to refer to a specific medicine, do so by name but make damn sure that your claims about that medicine are accurate [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:36, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:Ivermectin, the drug in question, has only been approved for use by humans for parasites, and for rosacea (cause unknown, but appears to be linked to mites). It doesn't seem misleading to me to refer to it as a deworming agent when it is probably only ever prescribed as an anti-parasitic. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.16|172.68.132.16]] 19:18, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

While the awareness of clinical trials is of course more relevant because of COVID, I don't think this is intended to be topical. The title is very straightforwards-- "the invention of clinical trials" and is almost joke-less (basically just the format). The real joke is in the title text, where it's pointed out that because the "standard of care" before the invention of clinical trials was not to do clinical trials, we didn't need to go through this step to start doing them; just convince people it was a good idea. 02:40, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
: I think it's *extremely* topical, with the relatively recent debunking of ivermectin as (yet another) substance that has been widely claimed, distributed, and mis-used as a supposed COVID preventative/cure. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 03:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:: If you like, it is topical by -context-, but not by content. Which is an interesting (but important) line to draw. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A recent editor pulled out my comment about how there isn't a joke, but I'd argue that that's necessary in some form. One of the reasons people go to Explain XKCD is that they're going "wait, did I miss a joke?" So explaining that as far as the community is concerned the main text is in-earnest education rathar than a missed joke does have an important purpose. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:37, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

This list looks like the difference between philosophy, particularly ancient Greek and Indian philosophy (probably others, but I do not know them as well), and science. The philosophical ideas were adopted based on who was able to convince more people that they had a better idea. When the scientific revolution rolled around in the 15th and 16th century in Europe, many of these ancient ideas were actually tested and only those that really worked were retained as true. Many well known and well respected ideas that failed testing were finally abandoned. That sure sounds like the elements of this list. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 07:11, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The Covid-19 paragraph seems a bit misleading. Arguments advanced in favour of vaccine skepticism have mostly been not so much to do with treatments being used before clinical trials were complete, as with clinical trials being brought forward to accelerate the process, which has been misinterpreted as them being 'rushed'. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.206|162.158.154.206]] 10:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T06:33:43Z

Mneme:

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T04:37:14Z

Mneme:

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T04:36:48Z

Mneme:

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T04:36:34Z

Mneme:

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T04:31:28Z

Mneme:

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T04:31:16Z

Mneme:

2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T02:48:51Z

Mneme: Basically tossing half the entire original explaination as unsourced rubbish to replace it with something that seems to be more directly related to the comic.

{{comic
| number = 2530
| date = October 18, 2021
| title = Clinical Trials
| image = clinical_trials.png
| titletext = We don't need to do a clinical trial of this change because the standard of care is to adopt new ideas without doing clinical trials.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by MEDICAL PROCEDURE STEP DERF - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The purpose of clinical trials in medicine is to make sure that a new medicine works and doesn't have serious side-effects. One example of the dangers of failing to make sure that it doesn't have serious side effects is {{w|thalidomide}}, which caused a lot of birth defects. In a clinical trial, the effect of a treatment is compared to the effect to a placebo to make sure it has a benefit.

Before the invention of clinical trials, people generally didn't know, or at least had no way of confirming, whether medicines actually worked. Although a some herbs and medicines were stumbled upon, most medicine was no better than a placebo. A lot of medical treatments such as trepanation and bloodletting not only had no benefit, but were very likely to be harmful.

At the time that this comic was published, the world was in the middle of the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}, which made the existence of clinical trials more relevant to the public, who waited eagerly for what sounded like good ideas to get through clinical trials and available to the general public...or fail clinical trials and not do that.

This is one of the few examples of an XKCD that doesn't really have a joke (although the presentation is reasonably amusing) in the main comic. The adoption of clinical trials was exactly a matter of going from idea -> sell it -> this is what we do now to adding "wait, formal tests first" between steps 2 and 3.

However, the title text is a nice bit of Monroean humor -- because we didn't have clinical trials as part of the "standard of care" before their adoption, we didn't need to do testing before we started using them. If we had had them as the standard of care, then we would have had to perform tests before we switched over (in concept; in practice of course that kind of political change is still not tested) and it would have taken longer.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A list in a box.]

:1. Come up with new idea

:2. Convince people it's good

:[Scrawled in red handwriting, as an afterthought, an arrow indicating it is between item 2 and the original item 3] 3. Check whether it works

:3. [Now scribbled over and amended to "4."] New idea is adopted

:[Caption below the box] The invention of clinical trials.
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-19T02:40:55Z

Mneme:

2522: Two-Factor Security Key

2021-09-30T22:50:01Z

Mneme: cleanup, mostly

{{comic
| number = 2522
| date = September 29, 2021
| title = Two-Factor Security Key
| image = two_factor_security_key.png
| titletext = The bruises on my fingertips are my proof of work.
}}

==Explanation==
Two factor security authentication is a semi-recent (about 20-30 years old at least, but only used on popular websites since around 2011) development in security to make it harder to compromise accounts by requiring two disparate authentication forms to be used in tandem. Typically, these days, this is done via a second email address or phone (to receive texts), with authentication programs like Okta and Google Authenticator being somewhat more secure and also pretty popular (and some sites include other approaches; for instance, Google's 2FA allows a method where you have them give you a number of one-time-use alphanumeric secondary keys you can print out on paper), but early two factor authentication mostly made use of physical "keys" that would, most often, display a periodically changing number that had to be entered along with your password. "Something you have, something you know" are the usual two factors referred to (but "something you are" is a third option for either that usually isn't used online since it's harder to implement without physical presence).

In this strip, Cueball is discussing two factor security keys with Ponytail, telling her that he has finally buckled down and gotten the two factor security keys that she keeps pestering him to get. He goes through (panel 2) the trials that he endured in "installing" the key, all of which seem like plausible trials for setting up two-factor authentication properly. However (in panel 3) it is then revealed that all his work was just the task of installing the key (which looks like several [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token common brands of physical two-factor keys] on the market) onto his metal keyring.

Metal keyrings are reliably secure as far as keeping a key attached, but this is in part because of how notoriously difficult it is to add a key to or remove a key from them. The rings must be forced apart and ''held'' apart while the key traverses however many layers the ring has (usually two or three, though keyrings with more layers are not unheard of). Cueball confidently asserts (to off-screen Ponytail, who from her response probably hasn't yet gotten the joke) that his key is ''not'' coming off, indicating both a (well-founded) faith in the keyring's ability to keep his key, and a desire to not go through the same process in reverse. However, presumably, since all his effort was in "installing" the key onto his keychain, he probably hasn't actually set it up on any of his accounts, rendering them just as insecure as they were before he got a two factor key.

The title text has a similar double meaning. Cueball would of course use it to the "proof" of his efforts installing the key--though difficult, metal keyrings can be forced apart physically by human hands, at least if the human in question has fingernails sturdy enough to slip between the rings, at which point the insertion of a finger would be enough to keep it apart until the key is inserted. However, keeping the rings apart can be strenuous on the fingers, and can result in bruising, which Cueball is all too familiar with. {{w|Proof of work}} alludes to the cryptographic concept, which ties (sideways, as proof of work is a security term for a concept intended to deter denial of service and similar volume-based attacks but not directly related) back into the two-factor authentication.

Additionally a third meaning could be that while he spend a lot of time setting up 2FA he totally overlooked the possibility of him loosing his whole keychain thus locking him out of all the services that requires 2FA if he didn't set up yet another layer of backup.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing each other.]
:Cueball: I got one of those two-factor security keys you've been bugging me about.
:Ponytail: Great!

:Cueball: It took a lot of work, fiddling with configurations, annoying setbacks, and general pain,

:[Closeup on Cueball holding a keychain.]
:Cueball: ... but I '''finally''' got it onto the metal ring of my keychain.
:Ponytail [off-panel]: At least now it's secure.
:Cueball: Yeah, this thing is '''not''' coming off.

{{comic discussion}}

2522: Two-Factor Security Key

2021-09-30T07:36:25Z

Mneme: /* Explanation */ Corrected the original explaination about what two factor authentication was and made it more correct and historically accurate.

{{comic
| number = 2522
| date = September 29, 2021
| title = Two-Factor Security Key
| image = two_factor_security_key.png
| titletext = The bruises on my fingertips are my proof of work.
}}

==Explanation==
Two factor security authentication is a semi-recent (about 20-30 years old at least, but only used on popular websites since around 2011) development in security to make it harder to compromise accounts by requiring two disparate authentication forms to be used in tandem. Typically, these days, this is done via a second email address or phone (to receive texts), with authentication programs like Okta and Google Authenticator being somewhat more secure and also pretty popular (and some sites include other approaches; for instance, Google's 2FA allows a method where you have the give you a number of alphanumeric secondary keys you can print out on paper, but each can only ever be used once), but early two factor authentication mostly made use of physical "keys" that would, most often, display a periodically changing number that had to be entered along with your password. "Something you have, something you know" are the usual two factors referred to.

In this strip, Cueball is discussing two factor security keys with Ponytail, telling her that he has finally buckled down and gotten the two factor security keys that she keeps pestering him to get. He goes through (panel 2) the trials that he endured in "installing" the key, all of which seem like plausible trials for setting up two-factor authentication properly. However (in panel 3) it is then revealed that all his work was just the task of installing the key (which looks like several common brands of physical two-factor keys on the market) onto his metal keyring.

Metal keyrings are reliably secure as far as keeping a key attached, but this is in part because of how notoriously difficult it is to add a key to or remove a key from. The rings must be forced apart and ''held'' apart while the key traverses however many layers the ring has (usually two or three, though keyrings with more layers are not unheard of). Cueball confidently asserts (to off-screen Ponytail, who from her response probably hasn't yet gotten the joke) that his key is ''not'' coming off, indicating both a (well-founded) faith in the keyring's ability to keep his key, and a desire to not go through the same process in reverse. However, presumably, since all his effort was in "installing" the key onto his keychain, he probably hasn't actually set it up on any of his accounts, rendering them just as insecure as they were before he got a two factor key.

The title text has a similar double meaning. Cueball would of course use it to the "proof" of his efforts installing the key--though difficult, metal keyrings can be forced apart physically by human hands, at least if the human in question has fingernails sturdy enough to slip between the rings, at which point the insertion of a finger would be enough to keep it apart until the key is inserted. However, keeping the rings apart can be strenuous on the fingers, and can result in bruising, which Cueball is all too familiar with. {{w|Proof of work}} alludes to the cryptographic concept, which ties (sideways, as proof of work is a security term for a concept intended to deter denial of service and similar volume-based attacks but not directly related) back into the two-factor authentication.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing each other.]
:Cueball: I got one of those two-factor security keys you've been bugging me about.
:Ponytail: Great!

:Cueball: It took a lot of work, fiddling with configurations, annoying setbacks, and general pain,

:[Closeup on Cueball holding a keychain.]
:Cueball: ... but I '''finally''' got it onto the metal ring of my keychain.
:Ponytail [off-panel]: At least now it's secure.
:Cueball: Yeah, this thing is '''not''' coming off.

{{comic discussion}}

2522: Two-Factor Security Key

2021-09-30T07:27:18Z

Mneme: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2522
| date = September 29, 2021
| title = Two-Factor Security Key
| image = two_factor_security_key.png
| titletext = The bruises on my fingertips are my proof of work.
}}

==Explanation==
Two factor security authentication is a semi-recent development in security to prevent people from logging in on new devices without having created the account, by forcing them to be logged in elsewhere, or posses some kind of method of contact from the company that only they would have access to. This can make creating accounts or logging in an absolute pain in the neck, especially for simple services that most people wouldn't be as concerned over security.

In this strip, Cueball is discussing two factor security keys with Ponytail, telling her that he has finally buckled down and gotten the two factor security keys that she keeps pestering him to get. He goes through (panel 2) the trials that he endured in "installing" the key, all of which seem like plausible trials for setting up two-factor authentication properly. However (in panel 3) it is then revealed that all his work was just the task of installing the key (which looks like several common brands of physical two-factor keys on the market) onto his metal keyring.

Metal keyrings are reliably secure as far as keeping a key attached, but this is in part because of how notoriously difficult it is to add a key to or remove a key from. The rings must be forced apart and ''held'' apart while the key traverses however many layers the ring has (usually two or three, though keyrings with more layers are not unheard of). Cueball confidently asserts (to off-screen Ponytail, who from her response probably hasn't yet gotten the joke) that his key is ''not'' coming off, indicating both a (well-founded) faith in the keyring's ability to keep his key, and a desire to not go through the same process in reverse. However, presumably, since all his effort was in "installing" the key onto his keychain, he probably hasn't actually set it up on any of his accounts, rendering them just as insecure as they were before he got a two factor key.

The title text has a similar double meaning. Cueball would of course use it to the "proof" of his efforts installing the key--though difficult, metal keyrings can be forced apart physically by human hands, at least if the human in question has fingernails sturdy enough to slip between the rings, at which point the insertion of a finger would be enough to keep it apart until the key is inserted. However, keeping the rings apart can be strenuous on the fingers, and can result in bruising, which Cueball is all too familiar with. {{w|Proof of work}} alludes to the cryptographic concept, which ties (sideways, as proof of work is a security term for a concept intended to deter denial of service and similar volume-based attacks but not directly related) back into the two-factor authentication.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing each other.]
:Cueball: I got one of those two-factor security keys you've been bugging me about.
:Ponytail: Great!

:Cueball: It took a lot of work, fiddling with configurations, annoying setbacks, and general pain,

:[Closeup on Cueball holding a keychain.]
:Cueball: ... but I '''finally''' got it onto the metal ring of my keychain.
:Ponytail [off-panel]: At least now it's secure.
:Cueball: Yeah, this thing is '''not''' coming off.

{{comic discussion}}

2317: Pinouts

2020-06-09T00:03:41Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 2317
| date = June 8, 2020
| title = Pinouts
| image = pinouts.png
| titletext = The other side of USB-C is rotationally symmetric except that the 3rd pin from the top is designated FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN. Should include a column for the actual purpose of the pin. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Electronics connecters are designed to transport both information and power. A pinout describes the function of each pin such as to communicate data, transport power, physical function (keying), etc. In this comic there is an absurd alternative to the actual pins used in connectors.

=== HDMI ===

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| Data
| Most digital communications cables contain at least one wire that carries data. Typically there will be a more descriptive name if there are multiple data pins.
|-
| +5V
| Many actual pin configurations use +5 volts to supply power to a device. That's not what this means.
|-
| +6VI
| V is usually used to represent volts, but here, VI represents the Roman numeral 6.
|-
| +7VII
| V is usually used to represent volts, but here, VII represents the Roman numeral 7, continuing the pattern from above.
|-
| Antidata
| Some ports use differential signaling, where a signal and its inverse are sent over a pair of pins (e.g. D+ and D-). This mixes that practice with a humorous reference to the notion of matter versus antimatter. There is no such thing as antidata.
|-
| Water
| Labs often have ports connecting to common supplies of various supplying (Oxygen, water, fuel, vacuum).
|-
| Vacuum
| Labs often have ports connecting to common supplies of various supplying (Oxygen, water, fuel, vacuum).
|-
| Amazon Copyright Pin
| HDMI can optionally be protected by a digital rights management (DRM) scheme, known as HDCP. This pin humorously implies the presence of a different DRM scheme specific to Amazon.com, as well as poking fun at the fact that copyright is an explicit part of the HDMI protocol (although it is not assigned to a specific pin).
|-
| Decorative
| Decorative elements are pieces of an assembly that serve only an aesthetic purpose without any technical function. This would not be particularly useful inside a connector, as almost no one will ever see it--however, in HDMI, pin 14 was reserved for future use in versions 1.0–1.3a (and was only assigned an official use in 1.4).
|-
| +3.3V DC
| As with the +5V pin, this could be used to supply power to a device. 3.3V is a typical voltage in digital electronics.
|-
| -3.3V DC
| Negative voltages were used more frequently in the past, however modern systems typically generate any negative voltages they might require internally from the given positive voltages.
|-
| Tx
| "Tx" typically refers to pins used to transmit as opposed to "Rx"/receive
|-
| Wx
| "Wx" does not typically exist in the "Tx"/"Rx" scheme. In the weather forecasting community, Wx means "weather" .
|-
| Rx Only
| "Rx" typically refers to pins used to receive as opposed to "Tx"/transmit. In this case "Rx" is used as part of a pun on "Rx (prescription) only"
|-
| Unknown
| Occasionally extra pins will be included for future use, however they will typically be labeled "reserved" to point out that their usage is not yet defined.
|-
| +240V DC
| High voltage DC is not typically used in small communications connectors. It would need to be low current to avoid generating excess heat.
|-
| 5V AC
| Pins often supply low voltage direct current to devices. This pin supplies 5V alternating current, which is not typically supplied.
|-
| GND
| GND typically refers to "ground" on pinout diagrams.
|-
| Ground
| Compared to the above pin, this appears to be the same ground pin. However, the presence of both GND and Ground seems to imply that GND represents something other than the standard "ground" pin. Some systems have different grounds for analog and digital sections, but they would typically be disambiguated by terms like AGND.
|}

=== Micro USB ===

A ground pin is commonly found on USB and other pin connectors. At least one ground is necessary to complete the circuit, and some cables use multiple ground lines to distribute current or to support {{w|twisted pair}}s. However, there is no purpose served by having many more ground pins than data pins. Therefore, it seems rather silly for the micro USB to have 4 ground pins and only 1 functional "USB" pin. It also does not give much information about what the "USB" pin would do, as opposed to a standard pinout diagram. This diagram also leaves out the +5V power pin that is present in the real micro USB connector, which would render most USB peripherals unable to function.

The ordering and count of the pins may be an allusion to {{w|Monty Python}}'s {{w|Spam (Monty Python)|"Spam"}} sketch, in which one of the many Spam-related menu items is "Spam, Spam, Spam, egg, and Spam".

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| GND
| A ground pin
|-
| GND
| A second ground pin
|-
| GND
| A third ground pin
|-
| USB
| Apparently the only data pin in this connector.
|-
| GND
| A fourth ground pin. A real micro USB only has one ground pin.
|}

=== USB-C ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| +5V DC
| A common electronics supply voltage.
|-
| +3.3V DC
| Another common electronics supply voltage. This pin is not present on USB type C, mostly because the voltage is too low to supply useful levels of power at the current limit of the pins.
|-
| +120V AC
| Residential supply voltage in the United States; its use on an electronics connector would be very unusual, as it would burn out any unguarded transistor-logic electronics.
|-
| Boobytrap Pin (Pure Solder)
| Solder is a metal alloy with a low melting temperature, used to bond electronic components together permanently. Making a connector pin out of it would likely result in the pin overheating and melting, thus bonding the connector to its receptacle, and thereby "trapping" the receptacle.
|-
| Mechanical
| All connectors include portions whose job is to ensure a solid connection between the cable and the port. This is typically not the job of the pins, however. In real USB type C connectors, this task is performed by the center tongue of the female connector.
|-
| +3.3eV/C
| Electron-volts per coulomb would be a very unusual unit to see in a pinout. It is equivalent to volts, however, so technically this pin would be a +3.3V pin.
|-
| Candlepin
| Randall is making a pun on the word ''pin'', which refers to a electrical connector pin as well as a thing to knock down in bowling. "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_pin#Candlepins candlepins]" is a form of bowling.
|-
| Facebook use
| This would imply that Facebook had a hand in specifying USB type C, and had a pin dedicated to their use. This would be strange given Facebook's primary business is web technology and would have little need for a dedicated pin in the USB standard.
|-
| +5V (Positrons)
| Positrons are the antimatter counterparts to electrons. So this pin is supplying +5V, but does so by sourcing positrons into the device rather than sinking electrons out. NOTE: Positrons cannot be conducted through normal matter conductors as they would annihilate with the electrons.
|-
| Pin Roulette
| Presumably in the same vein as "Chat Roulette", this pin's purpose is not rigidly defined and is instead left to chance. According to the title text, this pin's counterpart on the other side of the connector is the "FireWire Tribute Pin", so this cable would only be truly rotationally symmetric (which is the whole point of the USB-C connector) when the pin roulette ball lands on that same function.
|-
| GND
| Ground pin. Typically denoted as "GND".
|-
| SKY
| Reference to the ground pin, which refers to the common grounding on the larger metal body. There is no corresponding "sky" pin, although sky is often thought as the opposite of ground.
|-
| FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN
| ''In Title text:'' Firewire is Apple's version of IEEE 1394 which is a 6 pin connector that has a ground pin a power pin and two pairs of data pins. How this pin is a tribute to firewire is unclear
|}

=== Coax ===

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| Pin
| A coax connector has two contacts - one pin, and the shield; typically the whole connector is labeled with whatever function/signal is carried by the pair.
|}

==Transcript==

:[Caption at top]
:Pinouts
:Quick Reference Guide

:[Four common connectors are depicted - vertically, rather than the usual horizontal orientation.]

:[The first connector is a 19-pin HDMI connector.]
:[The nine pins on the left are labeled:]
:*Data
:*+5V
:*+6VI
:*+7VII
:*Antidata
:*Water
:*Vacuum
:*Amazon Copyright Pin
:*Decorative
:[The ten pins on the right are labeled:]
:*+3.3V DC
:*-3.3V DC
:*Tx
:*Wx
:*Rx Only
:*Unknown
:*+240V DC
:*5V AC
:*GND
:*Ground

:[The second connector is a 5-pin Micro USB connector.]
:[The five pins are labeled:]
:*GND
:*GND
:*GND
:*USB
:*GND

:[The third connector is a 24-pin USB-C connector, with only the right side labeled.]
:[The twelve pins on the right are labeled:]
:*+5V DC
:*+3.3V DC
:*+120V AC
:*Boobytrap Pin (Pure Solder)
:*Mechanical
:*+3.3eV/C
:*Candlepin
:*Facebook Use
:*+5V (Positrons)
:*Pin Roulette
:*GND
:*SKY

:[The fourth and final connector is a 1-pin COAX connector.]
:[The one pin in the center is labeled:]
:*Pin

{{comic discussion}}

2317: Pinouts

2020-06-08T23:21:08Z

Mneme:

{{comic
| number = 2317
| date = June 8, 2020
| title = Pinouts
| image = pinouts.png
| titletext = The other side of USB-C is rotationally symmetric except that the 3rd pin from the top is designated FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Connecters are designed to transport both data and power. Each pin on a connecter can only carry either 1 bit at a time or 1 voltage of power. In this comic there is an absurd alternative to the actual pins used in connecters

=== HDMI ===

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| Data
| Most digital communications cables contain at least one wire that carries data. Typically there will be a more descriptive name if there are multiple data pins.
|-
| +5V
| Many actual pin configurations use +5 volts to supply power to a device. That's not what this means.
|-
| +6VI
| V is usually used to represent volts, but here, VI represents the Roman numeral 6.
|-
| +7VII
| V is usually used to represent volts, but here, VII represents the Roman numeral 7, continuing the pattern from above.
|-
| Antidata
| A humorous reference to the notion of matter verses antimatter. There is no such thing as antidata.
|-
| Water
| Labs often have ports connecting to common supplies of various supplying (Oxygen, water, fuel, vacuum).
|-
| Vacuum
| Labs often have ports connecting to common supplies of various supplying (Oxygen, water, fuel, vacuum).
|-
| Amazon Copyright Pin
| HDMI can optionally be protected by a DRM scheme known as HDCP. This pin humorously implies the presence of a different DRM scheme specific to Amazon.com.
|-
| Decorative
| Decorative elements are pieces of an assembly that serve only an aesthetic purpose without any technical function. This would not be particularly useful inside a connector, as almost no one will ever see it.
|-
| +3.3V DC
| As with the +5V pin, this could be used to supply power to a device. 3.3V is a typical internal voltage, however it is not usually sent across long cabling due to the losses inherent in low voltage.
|-
| -3.3V DC
| Negative voltages were used more frequently in the past, however modern systems typically generate any negative voltages they might require internally from the given positive voltages.
|-
| Tx
| "Tx" typically refers to pins used to transmit as opposed to "Rx"/receive
|-
| Wx
| "Wx" does not typically exist in the "Tx"/"Rx" scheme, it might imply a possible W for "write" next to the R of "Rx" which might be read as "read" instead of "receive".
|-
| Rx Only
| "Rx" typically refers to pins used to receive as opposed to "Tx"/transmit, in this case "Rx" is used as part of a pun on "Rx (prescription) only"
|-
| Unknown
| Occasionally extra pins will be included for future use, however they will typically be labeled "reserved" to point out that their usage is not yet defined.
|-
| +240V DC
| High voltage DC is not typically used in small communications connectors. It would need to be low current to avoid generating excess heat.
|-
| 5V AC
| Pins often supply low voltage direct current to devices. This pin supplies 5V alternating current, which is not typically supplied.
|-
| GND
| GND typically refers to "ground" on pinout diagrams.
|-
| Ground
| Compared to the above pin, this appears to be the same ground pin. However, the presence of both GND and Ground seems to imply that GND represents something other than the standard "ground" pin. Some systems have different grounds for analog and digital sections, but they would typically be disambiguated by terms like AGND.
|}

=== Micro USB ===

A ground pin is commonly found on USB and other pin connectors. At least one ground is necessary to complete the circuit, however having many more ground pins than data pins serves no purpose. Therefore, it seems rather silly for the micro USB to have 4 ground pins and only 1 functional "USB" pin. It also does not give much information about what the "USB" pin would do, as opposed to a standard pinout diagram. This diagram also leaves out the +5V power pin that is present in the real micro USB connector, which would render most USB peripherals unable to function.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| GND
| TODO
|-
| GND
| TODO
|-
| GND
| TODO
|-
| USB
| TODO
|-
| GND
| TODO
|}

=== USB-C ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| +5V DC
| A common electronics supply voltage.
|-
| +3.3V DC
| Another common electronics supply voltage.
|-
| +120V AC
| Residential supply voltage in the United States; its use on an electronics connector would be very unusual, as it would burn out any unguarded transistor-logic electronics.
|-
| Boobytrap Pin (Pure Solder)
| Solder is a metal alloy with a low melting temperature, used to bond electronic components together permanently. Making a connector pin out of it would likely result in the pin overheating and melting, thus bonding the connector to its receptacle, and thereby "trapping" the receptacle.
|-
| Mechanical
| TODO
|-
| +3.3eV/C
| TODO
|-
| Candlepin
| Unlike the bowling pins used in ten-pin bowling, "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_pin#Candlepins candlepins]" are almost cylindrical, and could in theory be used as connector pins. If your connector needed a pin 7.5 cm wide and 40 cm long, that is.
|-
| Facebook Use
| TODO
|-
| +5V (Positrons)
| Positrons are the antimatter counterparts to electrons. So this pin is supplying +5V, but using antimatter instead of regular matter. NOTE: Positrons cannot be conducted through normal matter conductors as they would annihilate with each other.
|-
| Pin Roulette
| TODO
|-
| GND
| Ground pin. Typically denoted as "GND".
|-
| SKY
| Reference to the ground pin, which refers to the common grounding on the larger metal body. There is no corresponding "sky" pin, although sky is often thought as the opposite of ground.
|}

=== Coax ===

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Label !! Explanation
|-
| Pin
| A coax connector has two contacts - one pin, and the shield; typically the whole connector is labeled with whatever function/signal is carried by the pair.
|}

==Transcript==

:[Caption at top]
:Pinouts
:Quick Reference Guide

:[Four common connectors are depicted - vertically, rather than the usual horizontal orientation.]

:[The first connector is a 19-pin HDMI connector.]
:[The nine pins on the left are labeled:]
:*Data
:*+5V
:*+6VI
:*+7VII
:*Antidata
:*Water
:*Vacuum
:*Amazon Copyright Pin
:*Decorative
:[The ten pins on the right are labeled:]
:*+3.3V DC
:*-3.3V DC
:*Tx
:*Wx
:*Rx Only
:*Unknown
:*+240V DC
:*5V AC
:*GND
:*Ground

:[The second connector is a 5-pin Micro USB connector.]
:[The five pins are labeled:]
:*GND
:*GND
:*GND
:*USB
:*GND

:[The third connector is a 24-pin USB-C connector, with only the right side labeled.]
:[The twelve pins on the right are labeled:]
:*+5V DC
:*+3.3V DC
:*+120V AC
:*Boobytrap Pin (Pure Solder)
:*Mechanical
:*+3.3eV/C
:*Candlepin
:*Facebook Use
:*+5V (Positrons)
:*Pin Roulette
:*GND
:*SKY

:[The fourth and final connector is a 1-pin COAX connector.]
:[The one pin in the center is labeled:]
:*Pin

{{comic discussion}}

1741: Work

2016-10-04T02:28:34Z

Mneme: Added context to parenthetical

{{comic
| number = 1741
| date = October 3, 2016
| title = Work
| image = work.png
| titletext = Despite it being imaginary, I already have SUCH a strong opinion on the cord-switch firing incident.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Table still needs to be filled out.}}
This comic details a set of theoretical examples of how much work went into the design and manufacture of everyday objects. The joke centers around the fact that most people in modern times are constantly surrounded with human-built objects, which we generally use without giving them much thought. [[Randall]] implies that he occasionally imagines what went into seemingly simple objects around him (like water glasses and desk lamps), and finds it overwhelming. This is because there are so many built items around us, many of which are inexpensive and mass-produced, which nonetheless resulted from a great deal of human effort. (This is similar to the thesis of the classic essay ''[http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html I, Pencil]'', except that while I, Pencil idealizes manufacture and commerce to argue for the free market and against regulation, the strip focuses on details that are far more human or based in bureaucratic or government red tape). Presumably, this kind of realization is more likely for people who've worked in design and engineering, like Randall, because they have some insight into what's involved in bringing a product to market. Also people who sit around all day wondering what could be funny, like Randall, could also end up in such a thought spiral. The comment about California recalls is based on the tags on products that often state "This item has been known by the state of California to cause..."

There's a double joke in the title as the first thing most people will think of when seeing such a table with such a [[w|Balanced-arm lamp]], they will think of a work desk rather than the work put into making the desk and lamp. The potential implication is that Randall is so distracted imagining the work that went into creating his workspace that he can't get his own work done, hence the title.

The title text hits another aspect of the design issue. Companies that design and manufacture goods will inevitably have human conflicts, where decisions will be argued over, and human personalities and office politics will impact the final design. Randall has apparently come up with an entire fictional narrative about a conflict over whether to put the lamp's switch on the lamp body itself, or to attach it to the lamp's power cord, and developed a strong opinion about who was right, and is angry that the other party was fired, since he really seems to dislike lamps with the switch on the cord as in this comic. Randall's distaste for lamps where the switch is on the cord is also mentioned in the title text of [[1036: Reviews]].

A similar theme of the unseen contributions of engineers is found in [[277: Long Light]], including the title text: "You can look at practically any part of anything manmade around you and think 'some engineer was frustrated while designing this.' It's a little human connection." This fits in well with Randall's annoyance with a switch on the cord.

==Individual Design Elements==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Individual Design Elements
!Description
!Explanation
|-
|An engineer worked late drawing this curve in AutoCAD || AutoCAD is a popular software package for doing computer-aided design. Curves are notable for being much more difficult than straight lines.
|-
|Extra vents added to avoid California safety recall || Lamps can get very hot, especially if an incandescent bulb is installed, possibly causing injury. Additional vents can improve air circulation, allowing the lamp to run cooler. The US state of California is known for its many safety regulations. California is notable for having strict safety requirements for every product, to the point that Disneyland's front entrance is recently required to have a cancer warning.
|-
|9 hours of meetings || Any product development requires several meetings about coordination for any aspect of the design, especially critical ones that can affect other subsystems in the device, such as the flexible stem in this lamp. Its size is affected by the wiring requirements, strength requirements, intersections with both the base and the lamp head. The material, properties, color, manufacturing process, and so on also have to be determined for something as simple as this.
|-
|Ongoing debate || Designers frequently disagree about what is important enough to be put on the label, where the label needs to be put, which laws apply, and so on.
|-
|Years-long negotiation with glass supplier || Many products have to go through many stages of negotiations before the company can have the required supplies to build the product. The joke here is that glass is a common material{{Citation needed}} and thus, no company should have had to spend years on something that trivial. Or, more likely, it's just a commentary on how long it takes to negotiate with other supplier businesses about things that the average consumer sees trivial: it ''can'' take months or years when outsourcing to determine and contract which kind of glass, how much, what price, what happens when base materials change in price, what other kinds of glass are acceptable, what compounds are allowed around the glass during production, &c &c.
|-
|4 hours of meetings || It takes several meetings for the design team to fully determine and justify what size is best for the market, and to relay this information to the rest of the company. Then, they receive feedback on what is or isn't acceptable, frequently by people who don't know exactly ''why'', so they have to return again for another meeting for further clarification.
|-
|Months of tip-over testing || The thicker the base of a glass is, the lower its center of gravity is, and the heavier it is. A balance between stability and ease of handling must be reached. In addition, testing generally takes longer than the consumer expects, and every variation must be tested to determine which one performs the most acceptably.
|-
|Wood source changed due to 20 year legal fight over logging in the Great Bear rainforest || The Great Bear rainforest is a temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The government of British Columbia recently announced an agreement to protect 85% of this forest from commercial logging.
|-
|Argument over putting switch on cord got someone fired || Some people are really passionate about how convenient cord-switches are (or any other minor feature), while other people see those features as useless or that they make the product worse. If the designers can't come to a compromise or a consensus, the disagreement will eventually escalate into an argument until the supervisor eventually figures the heated and passive-aggressive disagreements aren't worth the value of the passionate designers.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A table is shown with a glass of water to the left and a lamp standard type desk lamp on the right. There are nine labels in relation to different parts of these three items. For each label, one or two arrows points to the relevant part. Five labels are written above the table, two on the table and two below the table between the front legs. These last two labels are causing the table legs to the rear to disappear, and also cuts the lamp cord, going beneath the table, in two. Below each label will be written under a description of what they point to going in normal reading order from left to right, two lines above, one line on and one line below the table.]

:[Arrow points a line that follow the curve of the lamps shade:]
:An engineer worked late drawing this curve in AutoCAD

:[Arrow points to back of lamp shade just above the stem. The shade has four visible vents on the front. The part the arrow points to is not visible:]
:Extra vents added to avoid California safety recall

:[Arrow points to glass:]
:Years-long negotiation with glass supplier

:[A double arrow is placed above the center of the glass, ending on two lines above the edges of the glass:]
:4 hours of meetings

:[Two arrow points on either side of the lamp's stem:]
:9 hours of meetings

:[Two arrow, one pointing up at the bottom and the other down at the inside bottom of the glass:]
:Months of tip-over testing

:[An arrow points to the lamp information sticker on the bottom part of the lamps base. Unreadable text can be seen as thins lines on the sticker:]
:Ongoing debate

:[An arrow points to the front edge of the desk, ending in a starburst on the edge:]
:Wood source changed due to 20 year legal fight over logging in the Great Bear rainforest

:[Arrow points to the switch on the lamps cord which can be seen going over the right edge of the table and hanging down below the table. The switch can be seen just under the table edge:]
:Argument over putting switch on cord got someone fired

:[Caption under the panel:]
:Sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking about the amount of work that went into the ordinary objects around me.

{{comic discussion}}