https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=NiceGuy1 2026-04-18T09:19:51Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.30.0 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&diff=384213 2025-08-15T07:44:54Z

<p>NiceGuy1: &quot;Revolutionary girl euclid&quot; screwed up the Trivia and undid the error where it was named, repairing the Trivia again. Also removing the unnecessary uncertainty.</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3028<br /> | date = December 23, 2024<br /> | title = D&amp;D Roll<br /> | image = dnd_roll_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 312x313px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = Under some circumstances, if you throw a D8 and then a D12 at an enemy, thanks to the D8's greater pointiness you actually have to roll a D12 and D8 respectively to determine damage.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> This comic is a scene from a tabletop roleplaying game, probably {{w|Dungeons &amp; Dragons}}. In [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]], the same people, [[Cueball]], [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]], [[White Hat]] and [[Knit Cap]], are seated playing D&amp;D in the same seats, where Cueball seems to represent [[Randall]].<br /> <br /> Here Cueball announces &quot;I roll D20... 18,&quot; referring to rolling a 20-sided die and getting the relatively high score of 18, presumably while in a fight with a {{w|kobold (Dungeons &amp; Dragons)|kobold}} (a small reptilian humanoid creature in D&amp;D.) The {{w|gamemaster|Dungeon Master}} (DM, or game master), Ponytail, responds that the kobold is unaffected, but suggests using a sword instead, pointing out the absurdity of trying to defeat an enemy by rolling dice at them. (Ponytail was also the dungeon master in the previous D&amp;D comic).<br /> <br /> Cueball made the mistake of assuming that Ponytail would understand which of his weapons or other {{w|melee}} attacks he intended to use, but she had no way of knowing that, so she decided to gently tease him about the omission. This is a common mistake, and being gently made fun of is a common result. The player will usually be allowed to state the specific attack intended and roll again.{{acn}} It could also have to do with the idea that some people forget D&amp;D is a roleplaying game and just roll dice without explaining, for example, ''how'' they charm the shopkeeper.<br /> <br /> However, the possibility exists that the players' characters have actual dice, such as those which were role-played as being produced in [[244: Tabletop Roleplaying]]. The title text suggests that if you literally threw dice as weapons, an eight-sided die (D8) would do more damage than a twelve-sided die (D12) because of its {{w|Dice#Common variations|pointier shape}}, so ironically, you might need to roll the D12 to determine the D8's damage and vice versa, in &quot;some circumstances.&quot; As per the Background below, those circumstances are considerably slight. The effectiveness of the [[2626: d65536|d65536]] in this context has yet to be determined.<br /> <br /> ===Background===<br /> When attacking an enemy in D&amp;D, regardless of the weapon used, the attack starts with a d20 roll to see if it lands a solid hit. If a sufficiently high (or in the earliest editions, sufficiently low) number is rolled, the attack hits, and then further dice (chosen depending on the weapon's form and any magic it might possess) are rolled to determine damage. Before any dice can be rolled at all, however, the player must declare which enemy they are attacking and what with. This is trivial if the attacking character always uses the same weapon and is facing a single enemy, but becomes an important question if the fight is more complex. Consider a case where there are two kobolds present, one wearing plate armor while the other has only a loincloth on (the armor requiring a better d20 roll to defeat), and the player carries both a greatsword (dealing heavy general damage) and the magical &quot;Icepick of Instant Kobold Death&quot; (normally ignored but in this case very useful) and also has magic item that can shoot a destructive [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scorchingRay.htm ''Scorching Ray'']. There are also certain weapons that deal subpar damage on a typical attack, but trigger a powerful extra effect on a very good roll such as 18, making it even more important to specify which weapon one is using before making the roll. A cheating player might roll first, and then decide which weapon they were using and on which target. This could also be used to avoid wasting a weapon (or [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics|particular ammunition]]) with limited uses.<br /> <br /> By D&amp;D 5 rules, a stone hurled from a sling does [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#simpleWeapons 1d4 bludgeoning damage]. A sling bullet typically weighs [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/equipment.htm#tableAdventuringGear &lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;/&lt;sub&gt;40&lt;/sub&gt; pound (1.2 oz, 35 g)], a plausible weight for a normal-sized die made of a moderately dense material. Presumably, an object of similar weight that's thrown &quot;by hand&quot; rather than with a sling would do less damage, though a heavier object might do similar damage (albeit with less range). The D&amp;D 3.5 spell [https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicStone.htm ''Magic Stone''] enhances ordinary small stones so they do 1d6+1 damage when hurled, or 2d6+2 when striking undead creatures. So depending on the setup, a D&amp;D character throwing a die at an enemy could theoretically cause considerable harm, but would normally be much better served with an intentionally crafted weapon.<br /> <br /> Alternately, DMs may take umbrage at a player's presumption to roll dice for actions before being asked to, and this could be interpreted as a chiding. Sometimes rolls are not necessary in cases where success is automatic (the kobold is effectively helpless) or impossible (the kobold is magically immune to physical attacks), although it should be the DM's own choice whether to still test for a meaningful critical [https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_failure failure] or [https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_hit success], despite it being an apparently foregone conclusion of either kind. There are also other circumstances where the required dice is(/are) different ''in this instance'' from that which the player may assume. From a practical perspective, if the performed rolling of the dice is not required (or correctly composed) for the DM's purposes, they can choose to ignore it and/or ask for some other roll(s) to be made. It may then be the player that might be most upset by having rolled a 'good' roll that has been 'wasted', on the principle that they would have liked it to have it happen later, when it actually mattered, despite this being statistically irrelevant, assuming that the DM doesn't keep any such details mysteriously hidden.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :[Cueball, Megan, Ponytail, White Hat, and Knit Cap are sitting around a table in a tabletop gaming session. Both Cueball and Knit Cap are sitting in office chairs at the ends of the table, with Cueball leaning forward and holding his hand above the table and Knit Cap leaning back on her arm. Behind the table, Megan sits to the left of Ponytail and White Hat to the right. They are both looking at Ponytail, while Ponytail is looking at Cueball. Objects such as dice, miniatures, a map, and papers are on the table.]<br /> :Cueball: I roll D20... 18.<br /> :Ponytail: The kobold is unaffected.<br /> :Ponytail: Honestly, I don't know why you thought dice would help. You should probably try a sword or something instead.<br /> <br /> ==Trivia==<br /> When this comic was first released, its title was mistakenly displayed as &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll.&quot; This would be a technical error in how the ampersand character (“&amp;”) was processed by the system that generated the title. It seems the software misinterpreted &quot;&amp;D&quot; as the beginning of an HTML character entity, even though &quot;&amp;D&quot; is not a valid one. Seeing as the browser title for this comic's page on xkcd is likewise &quot;D Roll&quot;, the wiki may have copied the error, otherwise it was caused by making the same error. This has not been fixed.<br /> <br /> The earlier comic [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] also had similar issues.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]<br /> [[Category:Dungeons &amp; Dragons]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3048:_Suspension_Bridge&diff=383120 2025-08-03T06:45:08Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3048<br /> | date = February 7, 2025<br /> | title = Suspension Bridge<br /> | image = suspension_bridge_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 362x365px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = As a first step, they can put in a secondary deck, to help drivers try it out and find out how fun the jumps are. After a while no one will use the old flat deck and they can remove it.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> <br /> A {{w|suspension bridge}} works by exploiting the strength in tension of a cable, or series of links, in what is ''usually'' described as a {{w|catenary}} curve (but see later) suspended between towers or other elevated positions and firmly anchored to the ground at either end. Such a cable, or parallel cables, can span a large gap, across which an {{w|Arch_bridge|arch}} (with compressive forces) or {{w|Cantilever_bridge|cantilever}} (with compression below and tension above) bridge structure would be more difficult. The slung droop of the connection, and various other issues (the susceptibility to resonance from moving loads, as well as the sheer impracticality of travelling along this link) means that the surface of the usual road itself (or footway, in the case of a {{w|Arouca 516|non-vehicular bridge}}) is suspended from this cable by vertical (and perhaps diagonal) suspending stringers of suitable lengths to maintain a more level track. This usually means that the greatest clearance beneath the traversable part of the bridge is not far below the middle of the main curve of the cable, which has the closest (or direct) attachment to the bridging 'deck'. Unlike the free-hanging cable, the addition of the weight of the road and the large number of vertical cables required now forces the cable to take the path of a similar parabolic curve, rather than a true catenary, and may also have to further flex significantly according to wind, temperature and the changing loads of passing traffic with significant mass.<br /> <br /> Randall suggests 'improving' the suspension bridge by having ''just'' the catenary curve, needing much less structure, and giving an increased clearance for anything passing beneath (in this case, a tall-masted sailboat) if they pass closer to the supporting towers. This, of course, means that the traffic can ''only'' cross where the upper cables themselves were, seemingly having been replaced by the road deck judging by the double lines in this side-section view. Due to the steep nature of the way the new road deck must pass over the supports, this produces a steep gradient up to and then down from the tower which sends traffic temporarily onto a free ballistic trajectory, assuming it has enough speed. This is described as &quot;fun jumps&quot;, {{w|Bug (engineering)#&quot;It's not a bug, it's a feature&quot;|as if it is how bridges ''should'' work}}. This would likely inflict damage on the car, and might result in unfortunate accidents. Some bridges are designed for traffic to go on top with a {{w|Stressed ribbon bridge|cable underneath}}, but these are only used for shorter spans and can flex significantly.{{cn}}<br /> <br /> The title text suggests a gradual introduction of this new form of bridge, a practice which is common when introducing new large-scale societal changes. According to Randall, the bridges would at first be a sort of hybrid between the old and new design, where any driver could choose between taking the catenary curve or driving along the tried-and-true flat road. As more and more people sample the &quot;fun jumps&quot; path, he claims, word will spread about how much 'better' this path is, and once it's been widely adopted, the flat road will be discontinued. In reality, a more likely result would be that drivers who take the catenary curve quickly spread word about how ''dangerous'' this path is (and/or spread themselves, and their wrecked vehicles, all around the terrain that the bridge is supposed to cross), and any usage would quickly disappear.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :[In one panel two different designs of suspension bridges are shown in cross section one above the other.] <br /> <br /> :[At the top a normal suspension bridge is drawn. It spans a water way with two towers about a quarter of the way from the banks on either side. The distance from the road part of the bridge to the water is about a third of the total distance from the bridge to the bottom of the water. The suspension cables goes above the straight road up to the top of the towers in a curve and almost down to the road in between the towers. Vertical suspenders (cables) hangs down from the suspension cables holding the road in place (8 on either side and 17 between the towers). On the road there are ten vehicles going either way, evenly spread out across the part of the bridge that are over water. There is a large truck, a smaller truck, a van and then 7 regular cars. Above the drawing is a caption:]<br /> :Traditional suspension bridge:<br /> <br /> :[Beneath this a different version of a suspension bridge is drawn. It spans the same water way, and also has the same two towers. But here ends the similarities. Instead of suspension cables holding a straight road, the road is now build in the same curve that the cables had in the first drawing. So the cars need to drive up to the top of the towers along a curves road and then down again in the middle between the towers. There are thus no cables of any kind. And no straight road at a fixed height above the water. On this hilly road there are also ten vehicles going either way. To the left three regular cars are driving up the steep incline toward the left tower. A fourth car has just past over the top, and a dotted line behind it indicates that it is flying above the road after having speed over the top. In the middle of the road between the towers where it is closest to the water, there is a large truck also going towards the right. The road is clearly bending under the weight of the truck. Near the top of the right tower another regular car is driving up the incline. Just above it near the top of the right tower another car has made a large jump out from the top of the tower going left, a dotted line indicating a quite high jump taking it a couple of car heights above the top of the tower. On the right side of the tower, two cars (one very small) drives left up towards the tower and behind them a final car drives down towards the right bank. There are three labels. The first is beneath the first section of the bridge to the left, where three arrows points to the underside of the road with the label beneath these arrows. The second is just right of the left tower where a double arrow indicate the height of the road above the water. An arrow point up to this arrow from the label that are written down in the water. Near the right tower, in the same spot as the double arrow is near the left tower, there is a sail boat with a high sail that can pass under the road near the tower, where the road is higher up than in the middle (or all the way in the normal version drawn above). The third label is written above the right tower, where an arrow points from the label to the dotted line of the car that makes the high jump from the top of the tower. Above the drawing is a caption:]<br /> :Improved suspension bridge:<br /> :[Label 1:] Less cable<br /> :[Label 2:] More clearance<br /> :[Label 3:] Fun jumps<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Engineering]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3048:_Suspension_Bridge&diff=383119 2025-08-03T06:43:35Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3048<br /> | date = February 7, 2025<br /> | title = Suspension Bridge<br /> | image = suspension_bridge_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 362x365px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = As a first step, they can put in a secondary deck, to help drivers try it out and find out how fun the jumps are. After a while no one will use the old flat deck and they can remove it.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> <br /> A {{w|suspension bridge}} works by exploiting the strength in tension of a cable, or series of links, in what is ''usually'' described as a {{w|catenary}} curve (but see later) suspended between towers or other elevated positions and firmly anchored to the ground at either end. Such a cable, or parallel cables, can span a large gap, across which an {{w|Arch_bridge|arch}} (with compressive forces) or {{w|Cantilever_bridge|cantilever}} (with compression below and tension above) bridge structure would be more difficult. The slung droop of the connection, and various other issues (the susceptibility to resonance from moving loads, as well as the sheer impracticality of travelling along this link) means that the surface of the usual road itself (or footway, in the case of a {{w|Arouca 516|non-vehicular bridge}}) is suspended from this cable by vertical (and perhaps diagonal) suspending stringers of suitable lengths to maintain a more level track. This usually means that the greatest clearance beneath the traversable part of the bridge is not far below the middle of the main curve of the cable, which has the closest (or direct) attachment to the bridging 'deck'. Unlike the free-hanging cable, the addition of the weight of the road and the large number of vertical cables required now forces the cable to take the path of a similar parabolic curve, rather than a true catenary, and may also have to further flex significantly according to wind, temperature and the changing loads of passing traffic with significant mass.<br /> <br /> Randall suggests 'improving' the suspension bridge by having ''just'' the catenary curve, needing much less structure, and giving an increased clearance for anything passing beneath (in this case, a tall-masted sailboat) if they pass closer to the supporting towers. This, of course, means that the traffic can ''only'' cross where the upper cables themselves were, seemingly having been replaced by the road deck judging by the double lines in this side-section view. Due to the steep nature of the way the cable must pass over the supports, this produces a steep gradient up to and then down from the tower which sends traffic temporarily onto a free ballistic trajectory, assuming it has enough speed. This is described as &quot;fun jumps&quot;, {{w|Bug (engineering)#&quot;It's not a bug, it's a feature&quot;|as if it is how bridges ''should'' work}}. This would likely inflict damage on the car, and might result in unfortunate accidents. Some bridges are designed for traffic to go on top with a {{w|Stressed ribbon bridge|cable underneath}}, but these are only used for shorter spans and can flex significantly.{{cn}}<br /> <br /> The title text suggests a gradual introduction of this new form of bridge, a practice which is common when introducing new large-scale societal changes. According to Randall, the bridges would at first be a sort of hybrid between the old and new design, where any driver could choose between taking the catenary curve or driving along the tried-and-true flat road. As more and more people sample the &quot;fun jumps&quot; path, he claims, word will spread about how much 'better' this path is, and once it's been widely adopted, the flat road will be discontinued. In reality, a more likely result would be that drivers who take the catenary curve quickly spread word about how ''dangerous'' this path is (and/or spread themselves, and their wrecked vehicles, all around the terrain that the bridge is supposed to cross), and any usage would quickly disappear.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :[In one panel two different designs of suspension bridges are shown in cross section one above the other.] <br /> <br /> :[At the top a normal suspension bridge is drawn. It spans a water way with two towers about a quarter of the way from the banks on either side. The distance from the road part of the bridge to the water is about a third of the total distance from the bridge to the bottom of the water. The suspension cables goes above the straight road up to the top of the towers in a curve and almost down to the road in between the towers. Vertical suspenders (cables) hangs down from the suspension cables holding the road in place (8 on either side and 17 between the towers). On the road there are ten vehicles going either way, evenly spread out across the part of the bridge that are over water. There is a large truck, a smaller truck, a van and then 7 regular cars. Above the drawing is a caption:]<br /> :Traditional suspension bridge:<br /> <br /> :[Beneath this a different version of a suspension bridge is drawn. It spans the same water way, and also has the same two towers. But here ends the similarities. Instead of suspension cables holding a straight road, the road is now build in the same curve that the cables had in the first drawing. So the cars need to drive up to the top of the towers along a curves road and then down again in the middle between the towers. There are thus no cables of any kind. And no straight road at a fixed height above the water. On this hilly road there are also ten vehicles going either way. To the left three regular cars are driving up the steep incline toward the left tower. A fourth car has just past over the top, and a dotted line behind it indicates that it is flying above the road after having speed over the top. In the middle of the road between the towers where it is closest to the water, there is a large truck also going towards the right. The road is clearly bending under the weight of the truck. Near the top of the right tower another regular car is driving up the incline. Just above it near the top of the right tower another car has made a large jump out from the top of the tower going left, a dotted line indicating a quite high jump taking it a couple of car heights above the top of the tower. On the right side of the tower, two cars (one very small) drives left up towards the tower and behind them a final car drives down towards the right bank. There are three labels. The first is beneath the first section of the bridge to the left, where three arrows points to the underside of the road with the label beneath these arrows. The second is just right of the left tower where a double arrow indicate the height of the road above the water. An arrow point up to this arrow from the label that are written down in the water. Near the right tower, in the same spot as the double arrow is near the left tower, there is a sail boat with a high sail that can pass under the road near the tower, where the road is higher up than in the middle (or all the way in the normal version drawn above). The third label is written above the right tower, where an arrow points from the label to the dotted line of the car that makes the high jump from the top of the tower. Above the drawing is a caption:]<br /> :Improved suspension bridge:<br /> :[Label 1:] Less cable<br /> :[Label 2:] More clearance<br /> :[Label 3:] Fun jumps<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Engineering]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3048:_Suspension_Bridge&diff=383118 2025-08-03T06:42:27Z

<p>NiceGuy1: The cables are obviously depicted as being replaced by a road deck, who thought this wasn't explained?</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3048<br /> | date = February 7, 2025<br /> | title = Suspension Bridge<br /> | image = suspension_bridge_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 362x365px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = As a first step, they can put in a secondary deck, to help drivers try it out and find out how fun the jumps are. After a while no one will use the old flat deck and they can remove it.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> <br /> A {{w|suspension bridge}} works by exploiting the strength in tension of a cable, or series of links, in what is ''usually'' described as a {{w|catenary}} curve (but see later) suspended between towers or other elevated positions and firmly anchored to the ground at either end. Such a cable, or parallel cables, can span a large gap, across which an {{w|Arch_bridge|arch}} (with compressive forces) or {{w|Cantilever_bridge|cantilever}} (with compression below and tension above) bridge structure would be more difficult. The slung droop of the connection, and various other issues (the susceptibility to resonance from moving loads, as well as the sheer impracticality of travelling along this link) means that the surface of the usual road itself (or footway, in the case of a {{w|Arouca 516|non-vehicular bridge}}) is suspended from this cable by vertical (and perhaps diagonal) suspending stringers of suitable lengths to maintain a more level track. This usually means that the greatest clearance beneath the traversable part of the bridge is not far below the middle of the main curve of the cable, which has the closest (or direct) attachment to the bridging 'deck'. Unlike the free-hanging cable, the addition of the weight of the road and the large number of vertical cables required now forces the cable to take the path of a similar parabolic curve, rather than a true catenary, and may also have to further flex significantly according to wind, temperature and the changing loads of passing traffic with significant mass.<br /> <br /> Randall suggests 'improving' the suspension bridge by having ''just'' the catenary curve, needing much less structure, and giving an increased clearance for anything passing beneath (in this case, a tall-masted sailboat) if they pass closer to the supporting towers. This, of course, means that the traffic can ''only'' cross where the upper cables themselves were, seemingly having been replaced judging by the double lines in this side-section view. Due to the steep nature of the way the cable must pass over the supports, this produces a steep gradient up to and then down from the tower which sends traffic temporarily onto a free ballistic trajectory, assuming it has enough speed. This is described as &quot;fun jumps&quot;, {{w|Bug (engineering)#&quot;It's not a bug, it's a feature&quot;|as if it is how bridges ''should'' work}}. This would likely inflict damage on the car, and might result in unfortunate accidents. Some bridges are designed for traffic to go on top with a {{w|Stressed ribbon bridge|cable underneath}}, but these are only used for shorter spans and can flex significantly.{{cn}}<br /> <br /> The title text suggests a gradual introduction of this new form of bridge, a practice which is common when introducing new large-scale societal changes. According to Randall, the bridges would at first be a sort of hybrid between the old and new design, where any driver could choose between taking the catenary curve or driving along the tried-and-true flat road. As more and more people sample the &quot;fun jumps&quot; path, he claims, word will spread about how much 'better' this path is, and once it's been widely adopted, the flat road will be discontinued. In reality, a more likely result would be that drivers who take the catenary curve quickly spread word about how ''dangerous'' this path is (and/or spread themselves, and their wrecked vehicles, all around the terrain that the bridge is supposed to cross), and any usage would quickly disappear.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :[In one panel two different designs of suspension bridges are shown in cross section one above the other.] <br /> <br /> :[At the top a normal suspension bridge is drawn. It spans a water way with two towers about a quarter of the way from the banks on either side. The distance from the road part of the bridge to the water is about a third of the total distance from the bridge to the bottom of the water. The suspension cables goes above the straight road up to the top of the towers in a curve and almost down to the road in between the towers. Vertical suspenders (cables) hangs down from the suspension cables holding the road in place (8 on either side and 17 between the towers). On the road there are ten vehicles going either way, evenly spread out across the part of the bridge that are over water. There is a large truck, a smaller truck, a van and then 7 regular cars. Above the drawing is a caption:]<br /> :Traditional suspension bridge:<br /> <br /> :[Beneath this a different version of a suspension bridge is drawn. It spans the same water way, and also has the same two towers. But here ends the similarities. Instead of suspension cables holding a straight road, the road is now build in the same curve that the cables had in the first drawing. So the cars need to drive up to the top of the towers along a curves road and then down again in the middle between the towers. There are thus no cables of any kind. And no straight road at a fixed height above the water. On this hilly road there are also ten vehicles going either way. To the left three regular cars are driving up the steep incline toward the left tower. A fourth car has just past over the top, and a dotted line behind it indicates that it is flying above the road after having speed over the top. In the middle of the road between the towers where it is closest to the water, there is a large truck also going towards the right. The road is clearly bending under the weight of the truck. Near the top of the right tower another regular car is driving up the incline. Just above it near the top of the right tower another car has made a large jump out from the top of the tower going left, a dotted line indicating a quite high jump taking it a couple of car heights above the top of the tower. On the right side of the tower, two cars (one very small) drives left up towards the tower and behind them a final car drives down towards the right bank. There are three labels. The first is beneath the first section of the bridge to the left, where three arrows points to the underside of the road with the label beneath these arrows. The second is just right of the left tower where a double arrow indicate the height of the road above the water. An arrow point up to this arrow from the label that are written down in the water. Near the right tower, in the same spot as the double arrow is near the left tower, there is a sail boat with a high sail that can pass under the road near the tower, where the road is higher up than in the middle (or all the way in the normal version drawn above). The third label is written above the right tower, where an arrow points from the label to the dotted line of the car that makes the high jump from the top of the tower. Above the drawing is a caption:]<br /> :Improved suspension bridge:<br /> :[Label 1:] Less cable<br /> :[Label 2:] More clearance<br /> :[Label 3:] Fun jumps<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Engineering]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3038:_Uncanceled_Units&diff=381950 2025-07-26T06:48:58Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> DUDE I'M STILL IN SCHOOL RN, WHAT?<br /> (also, the joke is that energy is power*time, so kWh is kJ/s... in an hour [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 13:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I guess not every comic can be a winner. Talking about an appliance using a certain amount of kWH per day is clear and normal. Power gets billed by the kWh, not the Joule. While technically not wrong, wanting &quot;cancel&quot; a sub-part of the commonly-used energy unit kWh and leaving it in deliberately-obscured units most people are less familiar with is the sort of insanity I'd more expect from White Hat than Cueball. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.171|172.70.35.171]] 13:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :Maybe that is a meta-joke? To frame kWh/day as something crazy by giving that line to whitehat --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Even if the consumer is technically more familiar with the watt, for example from lightbulbs, they absolutely have no idea how much a watt costs on their monthly bill, so the salesperson is unquestionably correct to quote the use in kwh/time. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.130|172.70.210.130]] 05:11, 19 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :There's a difference between instantaneous power draw, and the total &quot;volume&quot;(/area, really) of power over time. Though a fridge is &quot;always on&quot;, it is still only irregularly at full-draw. But, to the power company (or to the gas company, who will generally give a kWh measure of 'energy taken from the network'), they don't (generally) care whether you used twice as many kW over half the time or half as many over twice the time, within any given total billing period, even if it affects what you think. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.46|172.70.163.46]] 14:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Using joule as if it was an everyday unit of energy would be weird but I don't agree that watt is crazy. It's a normal unit of energy consumption that does mean something to people, e.g. 1000W microwave, 100W (incandescent) light bulb. Don't get me wrong kWh/day is also useful to translate it to your energy bill, but I do feel slightly uncomfortable every time I see that time divided by time :-) [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 14:40, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I don't think the complaint is that it's unclear, it's that Cueball/Randall instinctively wants units simplified - as they would be in a science context rather than a useful-for-normal-people's-everyday-needs context. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.183|108.162.238.183]] 02:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :Yes, it is normal, but to people who know what it means it hurts to look at. kWh are a measure of energy that is technically SI-friendly and at a useful scale, but from an scientific perspective there isn't a great reason (to my knowledge) other than convention to not just use megajoules (1 kWh is 3.6 MJ). That on its own bothers me, and probably Randal based on a lot of his other comics. The added complaint here is that by making them per/day it is back to a measure of power (which kW measure) [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This is especially funny with US units. My car needs about 5l/100km, or 0.05mm². Now I am wondering how many ft^(-2) my car does... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> : You make a good point about the units (at least in one instance). Shouldn't the reduced units for fuel economy be inverse area? Effectively, it is a measure of the distance the vehicle could travel while consuming a column of fuel with a specific height and specific top (or bottom) surface area. Or, The better the fuel economy, the less the surface area that is necessary to move a specific distance. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 20:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::It depends on what the original unit is. In my country (Germany) we measure it in volume/distance, which would reduce to area. North American convention is in distance/volume which would reduce to inverse area. Good thing about distance/volume is that &quot;high number = good&quot;. However I think outside of escaping from a nuclear disaster or in a zombie apocalypse it isn't a really helpful thing to know. Because how often do you know &quot;I got x amount of fuel. Wonder how far I can get.&quot; But you will likely be in the situation where you quickly want to see &quot;How much fuel do I need to get to place x which is y distance from here&quot;. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 21:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::: how often do you know &quot;I got x amount of fuel. Wonder how far I can get.&quot; Quite often, because the question I'm really asking is whether I can get where I'm going with some margin built in before I need to refuel my car. When I do refuel or recharge the car, I'll go to 100% of capacity. I just want to know whether I have to do that now or if I can wait and do it later because later would be more convenient. The only time I want the number the other way is when I'm buying a car and want to make it as efficient as possible. Once I have it, the amount of fuel I need isn't going to change.[[User:Yttrium|Yttrium]] ([[User talk:Yttrium|talk]]) 09:02, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::::Mhh... probably a question of what one is used to. If I need to go 400 km, and I know my car uses 5l/100km, I just multiply 4*5 to see that I need 20l, and will know if what I have is enough or not. But I guess with mpg you can do a just as easy calc: If my car gets 50mpg (roughly 5l/100km) and I have 5 gallons (roughly 20l), I can go 50*5=250 miles, which is roughly 400km. My nitpick is: My car, and I think all cars I ever drove just shows me a dial from empty to full. Knowing how much &quot;full&quot; is, I can estimate how much gas I have, while my GPS will tell me a pretty exact number of km I need to go. So if I am fuelling up on a monday morning (where gas tends to be more expensive in my area than on other times), or fuel up right before I get my next salary, I might just put in as much as I need right now. But yes, maybe/probably it is mostly a thing about habits and what you are used to. And might be more of an European issue, since fuel is basically free in North America in comparison. So I guess everyone just fuels up fully all the time, but has to be cautious to reach the next gas station when travelling through the more sparely-populated areas...--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 10:19, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :: More usefully imagined as the front (or back) end of a horizontal column (or, twisting as it may, a pipeline) that traverses the journey made by the vehicle. As if (instantaneous variations excepted) you consume precisely the fuel that your vehicle passes 'through/around'. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.92|141.101.76.92]] 20:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::: Yeah. Maybe we should express fuel consumption in terms of the speed fuel needs to be drawn through a standard fuel line. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 21:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> fridge [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.147|172.70.126.147]] 14:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The late [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay Sir David MacKay] wrote an excellent book, [http://www.withouthotair.com/ Sustainable Energy – without the hot air] (which is available free online).<br /> On [http://www.withouthotair.com/c2/page_24.shtml this page] he talks about the units he uses in the book: kWh for energy (&quot;one unit&quot;) and kWh/day for power - becuase it's simple for lay-people to understand - how many units does this appliance use per day.<br /> It's a good book if any of you are interested in sustainable energy (although it was written in 2008, so some bits might be out of date by now) {{unsigned ip|172.70.85.33|14:33, 15 January 2025}}<br /> <br /> If anyone's curious, I found an online gallons per square foot calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/gallons-per-square-foot [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.6|172.71.223.6]] 15:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The answer to Cueball's question is likely NO in the US and YES in the UK, due not just to gallon size but also fridge size (a model like that is a particularly large fridge, when I bought one 10 years ago going for the smallest available I had to modify my cabinet above the fridge as there wasn't one less than 6'8&quot;- the fridge hole was 6' previous).[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 16:02, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I disagree with this comic, and I think the final paragraph in the explanation about Hubble's constant best explains why. [[User:Beanie|&lt;span style=&quot;text-shadow:0 0 5px black;font-size:11pt;color:#dddddd&quot;&gt;Beanie]]&lt;/span&gt; [[User talk:Beanie|&lt;sup&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;text-shadow:0 0 3px black;font-size:8pt;color:#dddddd&quot;&gt;talk]]&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; 15:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :It doesn't make any sense to 'disagree' with an observation.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.245|141.101.98.245]] 09:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::&quot;[My] Pet peeve&quot; so the comic is expressing an opinion [[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.36|172.68.3.36]] 03:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hubble's constant can be expressed in reciprocal seconds, but it should not be expressed in Hz. Hz are reserved for repeating phenomenon. There is insufficient evidence of a cyclic universe. Using Hz could be an attempt to insert an unwarranted assumption into cosmology. This type of subtle &quot;propaganda through choice of units&quot; happens fairly often. Changing units can give a different perspective. Usually this will be through simplification because there is no algorithmic method to choose useful complex units.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.69|172.71.167.69]] 18:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :So you think we should represent it with {{w|Becquerel|becquerels}}? [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you desire conversing]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 02:06, 22 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Technically, kWh should be written as kW⋅h or kW h, because it literally means &quot;kilowatts multiplied by one hour&quot;, not &quot;kilowatts per hour&quot; as many people assume. However, almost nobody writes it correctly. (kW/h is sometimes also seen, but egregiously incorrect.) Also, particularly now that electric vehicles are becoming more popular, people often get confused between kW and kW h. The car can charge at a peak or average rate expressed in kW, but energy billed by a charging service provider is expressed in kWh. People frequently either add or remove the &quot;h&quot; incorrectly because they don't understand the difference. In some places like India, a kilowatt-hour is simply referred to as a &quot;unit&quot; to avoid confusion. In my opinion, it was an enormous mistake to use kWh when we could be using mJ instead, which I think is probably something close to the point Randall may have been trying to make. Anyway, I wasn't sure if there was a place for any of this random trivia in the article itself, but feel free to use it. [[User:Equites|Equites]] ([[User talk:Equites|talk]]) 17:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> : No!. TF?. ms is meter times seconds, m/s is meter per second. There is NOTHING wrong with kWh, it literally means kW times hours, and CANNOT mean anything else. kW per hour would be kW/h.. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.34|172.71.160.34]] 12:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :: Technically, the SI would have you write m s for meter-seconds and ms for milliseconds. Thus, similarly, it should be kW h for kilowatt-hours, not kWh. It is unambiguous either way, but the standard is the standard. But that is a totally bizarre thing to get hung up on. Also, Equites's suggestion to use millijoules instead was maybe not well thought-out. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.15.234|172.68.15.234]] 17:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Relevant XKCD… I mean relevant YouTube video: &quot;Cursed units&quot; 1 and 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkfIXUjkYqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg7xe8MkJHs [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 17:31, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : Highly relevant, in fact. The first video referred to the kilowatt-hour as &quot;cursed&quot;, which became a highly polarizing issue in the comments, something that was addressed at the beginning of part 2. Assuming these responses weren't cherry-picked, I get the impression that there are a lot of people on both sides of this. It seems like the same kind of thing we're seeing in this very comment section. [[User:ISaveXKCDpapers|ISaveXKCDpapers]] ([[User talk:ISaveXKCDpapers|talk]]) 18:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I always wonder why people here prefer liter/m^2 for the amount of rain. Where the same number as mm is way easier to imagine. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.99|172.68.50.99]] 18:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> : At first, I was wondering if you would have rather had it in microliters/mm^2, but you meant the column height of the rain, like inches are used in the US. Along the line of L/m^2, something like mL/cm^2 might be nice considering the density of water, although the value also would be different by a factor. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 20:51, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> : That's the neat thing about the metric system, they are trivially simple to convert. 1l/m² is exactly 1mm. The fact that the meteorology uses the former just stems from the fact that that's how they measure it. The catch the rain on an area of 1m² into a beaker that contains some volume which is measured in liters. What annoys me though, is that noone seems to be talking about how terribly inefficient the fridge in the comic is. Mine only needs a tenth of the one that Whitehat tries to sell, and that's not even particularly good. --{{unsigned ip|162.158.203.28}} 21:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :: UK measurements, once it gets to weather reports/forecasts, tend to be in millimetres (or centimetres, where more for the layperson who don't need mm-resulution; or occasionally recast as 'old money' inches, with ''really'' bad rain events summarised in relation to whole feet), which is implicitly the depth to which ''any'' area would be filled (in a case where large catchment + funnelling valley situation is concerned, suffering from the run-off, might be ''reported'' as &quot;equivalent to ''N'' feet of rain&quot;, down where the bad effects get concentrated, but this is not a meteorological measure as such).<br /> :: Not sure I've ever seen volume/area as an end-result figure (might be relevent as an intermediate for measurement/calculation, especially when discussing the funelling effects of the given local geography), but of course it's trivially relatable.<br /> :: Density of water would only figure in from replacing litres with kilogrammes (litres are 1/1000th of metres³ and any m² is 10,000 times the cm² (or millilitre), so a factor of 10 between L/m² and mL/cm²; divide L to mL by 1000, times m² to cm² by 10,000, =&gt; 10x) but I always find it useful to know that three 2L bottles of pop are (very close to, going by the nominal water content alone) 6kg... makes me feel better about lugging the weekly shopping home, where these might be the single most significant part of the weight. More usefully than cross-converting into length-cubed measure. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.69|141.101.98.69]] 21:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Isn't the point that KwH/day can be simplified to Watts (an average perhaps, but still) {{unsigned ip|162.158.41.72|21:24, 15 January 2025}}<br /> : Yes, the joke seems pretty clearly about watts or kilowatts, not megajoules. Using megajoules doesn't result in any units being canceled; the denominator remains &quot;/day&quot;. [[User:BatmanAoD|BatmanAoD]] ([[User talk:BatmanAoD|talk]]) 23:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If the argument for kWh/day is that it's easy for the consumer to understand how it will affect their electricity bill – then kWh/month would be the right choice, because I doubt anyone receives an electricity bill every day. But the salesman prefers 3 kWh/day because it sounds like a smaller number than 90 kWh/month. And of course, if electricity bills were written in joules instead of illogical watt-hours, then MJ/month would be the easiest for the consumer. {{unsigned ip|162.158.134.90|22:31, 15 January 2025}}<br /> :Per-month is tricky. You seem to assume month=30 days, when it can be 28-31 and is only 30 days a third of the time. Per quarter(-year) is a bit more consistent, less fractionally variant ''and'' closer to most utility bill frequencies as well, if you're looking for something not as eye-wateringly frightening as an annual estimate (which 'only' varies every 4.1237... years, on average). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.47|172.70.163.47]] 00:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :: &quot;''Per-month is tricky. You seem to assume month=30 days, when it can be 28-31...''&quot; My electric bill for December 2024 is 33 days. The company closes the book when it is convenient, not per some calendar. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 05:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::Which is why electric consumption per month is even more tricky. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::It's still per some calendar. Just a calendar<br /> of the electric company, that you're not privy to.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.245|141.101.98.245]] 09:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::: facepalm and yes you are right, if you include that the meter reader may be a week late because of healing from pet related off work time from reading an electric meter in a back yard. And usually the person who turns the reading into a bill isn't sick. ... Pretty sure my electric company really loves the &quot;phones home every 83 seconds&quot; new meter they installed a few yag. The old and new meters are pretty much a wall wart with a screw on shield. I was surprised by no dead spiders in the socket on the replace.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.72|172.70.34.72]] 00:23, 18 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::It's an average. We're not talking specifically about February. You could multiply by 365.24/12 and get 91.31 kWh/month on average – but there's only one significant figure in 3 kWh/day. White Hat doesn't say 3.000 kWh/day. You have to round 91.31 to 90 to avoid false precision.<br /> ::The stated average is an estimate based on assumptions about how much you'll fill the fridge, how often you'll open the door, how long you'll leave the door open, the room temperature in your kitchen, how much surrounding cabinets will restrict air flow across the condenser, et cetera. The combined uncertainties make it meaningless to state a highly precise power consumption. The length of the month is just one of many sources of variation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.90|162.158.134.90]] 10:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::Ahem... &quot;multiply by 365.24'''25'''/12&quot;. As anyone with a fridge at least 125-years-old would appreciate... ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.178|141.101.98.178]] 12:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I suspect this comic is inspired by the much more common pet peeve of incorrect/nonsensical units, frequently encountered in similar contexts. I'm so used to hearing kWh mistakenly written simply as kW, that I initially misread and assumed that's what the comic is about. That's a particularly common example, where you'll hear battery capacities listed in kW, or instantaneous power described in watt-hours. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 09:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :{{w|Calorie#Chemistry and physics|Calories}} vs. {{w|Calorie#Nutrition|calories}}, also... ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.178|141.101.98.178]] 12:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> : Yeah, get it straight people! Instantaneous battery discharge rate should be in some scale of watt-hours per second :P All this hassle because apparently nobody likes Joules or Coulombs as a unit. Besides the obvious unit cancelation thing, why would kilowatt-hours be more of a thing than watt-seconds anyway, since they are the same general order of magnitude? {{unsigned|SammyChips}} SammyChips 16:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It could be worse.. I keep seeing TVs marked in kWh per 1000 hours... That is just insanity pure and simple.. It is in fact Watts!!![[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.34|172.71.160.34]] 12:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :This is even some kind of a &quot;standard&quot;, officially. See first image in here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_4484 <br /> :Also, world power consumption is almost exclusively represented in TWh per year, because TW is obviously not a thing. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.6|172.68.50.6]] 13:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :That whole kerfluffle is mentioned in the &quot;Cursed Units 2&quot; video linked above. [[User:AdmiralMemo|Admiral Memo]] ([[User talk:AdmiralMemo|talk]]) 01:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Can I be the obnoxious arse that points out that a 125W fridge will NOT be pulling 3kWh (or 3 units?) per day? Fridges run a compressor which makes the cold happen (via science and magic) and when there's enough cold in the box, it'll click off until cold is lacking. The durations will depend on ambient temperature, however observing my (oldish) fridge, it seems to run for about fifty seconds every four or five minutes.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.92|141.101.69.92]] 18:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :Fridge is actually heating device: it heats up your kitchen by pumping the heat from inside to outside. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :: It's actually a heat pump, moving heat from one location to another. Whether a heat pump is a heating device or a cooling device depends entirely on your perspective. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.148|172.69.246.148]] 23:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::: It heats your kitchen more than it cools the inside. QED. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:13, 30 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There is actually a good reason to differentiate between Wh/h (energy over time) and W (power): Non-constant consumption. If the fridge consumes 3kWh/d, its compressor will be rated in the 300-400W nominal range (the thermostatic controller will cycle the compressor on and off; for a modern fridge-freezer combination, a typical duty cycle would be in the 25-30% range). The unit nameplate will say &quot;400W&quot; because that's the rated power the electrical installation will have to be designed for (how many of these fridges can you put on a 20A breaker etc.). This is only determined by the physical properties of the compressor motor. The energy consumption additionally depends on insulation, internal space of the cabinet etc. etc. and only makes sense as a time average (due to the intermittent operation of the compressor). Not sure about US rules, but here in Europe, there's a standard energy class label for fridges which specifies kWh/a as a primary means of comparison. (Averaging over a year has the advantage that you can test against a standardized profile of ambient temperature change between summer and winter).<br /> [[User:Ogehrke|Ogehrke]] ([[User talk:Ogehrke|talk]]) 21:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> : Instead of overcomplexificationing the units, all you need to do is write &quot;&lt;em&gt;average&lt;/em&gt; power consumption&quot; on the label. Also, none of that is an argument against using joules per year instead of joules per second times hour per year.<br /> <br /> The explanation incorrectly states that fuel efficiency in the metric system is measured in km/l. It's not. It's measured in l/km, so it reduces to area, not 1/area.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.77|172.71.182.77]] 22:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I recall seeing a book in my youth about &quot;understanding units&quot; that included great things like viscosity and explanations for why E=mc² cancels units properly. But they got to gasoline consumption, and used the analogy that the &quot;area&quot; represented here is the equivalent of the area of an adjacent trough of gas that would have to be scooped up by your car to keep it running. Very interesting way of illustrating unit cancellation. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 23:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Am I the only one bothered by the low ceiling? I hate rooms where I can't stretch without bumping. I had to come here to make sure I hadn't miscalculated the ceiling height. [[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 00:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :Just assume that Cueball is using british gallons to further mess with the units. As the explanation that makes the room 2.44m which is a pretty standard - although still not very high - room height. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Isn't there a joke about the salesman as well? Maybe I'm thinking too european, but kWh x 365 days = 1095 kWh/year seems ridiculously high to me. {{unsigned ip|172.70.247.41|12:10, 17 January 2025}}<br /> <br /> German weather forecasts report rain as liters per square meter instead of millimeters. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.87|172.69.109.87]] 12:55, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> re &quot;there are cases where uncancelled units can be helpful to understanding the concept&quot;, something about mixing ratios could be added. E.g. 10g/kg and 10mL/L are both 1% ratios, but expressing them as uncancelled makes it clear that one is a ratio by mass and one is a ratio by volume. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.208.76|172.70.208.76]] 21:12, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :also dosages for medicine. At least for pets it is often mg/kg. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :If a railroad company wants to build track across my farm, I want to know how many ACRES of good arable farmland I will lose PER MILE of track they build. Oh sure, you could tell me how many millimeters, or how many fathoms, furlongs, or light years, but doing so would only force me to convert it to something useful: how many acres per mile. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.215.42|172.70.215.42]] 23:02, 25 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Sounds like you know how many miles &quot;across your farm&quot; is. If you've got a square/rectangular plot and you know the angle the track will go, edge to opposite edge (not clipping corners, not twisting or turning), then the result of the &quot;acres per mile&quot; of any given cut-across (more for a multilane highway, less(+temporary?) for digging a pipeline in, somewhere in-between for railway, depending upon any spread from the rail-bed for how much of a cutting/embankment they might need to add).<br /> ::I think I'd rather work it out from the other direction. Tell me the effective (mean) width of the intrusive works, and then look at what path they're proposing to go over (what may be more important, even than the pure quantified footprint, is it it requires demolishing some or all of a building/utility feature - and what, if any, plans they have for bridges/underpasses/on-grade-crossings to unsever each side's now separate areas) and total area derives at least as easily as from a width*length calculation as for an (area/length)*length.<br /> ::Being very near to a (first proposed, then vastly realigned, now totally cancelled) new railway project, myself, I studied the early/later proposals a lot (initially, it impacted some urban and rural bits of land quite near me, the revamped version went through other bits that I knew well and went so close to some new-build housing that some residents had their places compulsarily purchased with a view to having to be demolished, with neighbours and even others on the furthest edges finding their effective house-prices plunging to more than 50% loss in just the teo or three years since they'd been built as premium housing). Apart from just the total fuss of having a railway (intended to be) built across one's land, and the attendant construction-disruption, it seemed that both farmer and homeowner mostly had to concern themselves with the spread (temporary, during construction, and permanent once the true boundaries had been eventually been established) as the biggest factor, once the path was known to either cross or straddle your personal land-boundaries.<br /> ::Or maybe I don't appreciate your own personal priorities. Perhaps you're thinking area/length ≈ compensation_factor, and you don't care how long/if it crosses, so long as the return from surrendering is commensurate against alternative schemes' compensating factors? But even that seems like it's be better discussed using $/acre, or similar measures. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.116|172.70.85.116]] 01:03, 26 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I used to tell people I work 7.5 hours per day, but after reading this comic I'm going to switch to saying I work 0.3125 with no units. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.36|172.70.162.36]] 22:48, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> :Go the other way and ''add'' combinable units... 0.3125 Hertz-seconds. Or go ''really'' wild with the ratio. I'm sure you could work out how many &quot;lumen per hectare-luxes&quot; it would be (3125?)... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.119|162.158.74.119]] 23:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> TOO MANY COMMENTS to read through so I can't be sure, but I suspect this hasn't been mentioned: the height in gallons, the explanation says if they're US gallons (which they logically would be, Randall usually skews to American things due to being in America) that works out to 6' 8&quot; (6 feet, 8 inches). That is SHORT for a ceiling (and tall for a fridge space). I'm 6' 2&quot;, if I hopped I could hit my head on such a ceiling. It also says a UK gallon would work out to around 8', which is a much more reasonable ceiling height. Is it possible Randall was actually meaning UK gallons? Maybe just to be extra ridiculous for the U.S.? (Or the Occam's Razor explanation that 50 is a nice round number)... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:48, 26 July 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&diff=381949 2025-07-26T05:33:32Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that &lt;code&gt;title&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;safe_title&lt;/code&gt; differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/title&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;amp;D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/div&gt;&lt;/code&gt;! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&amp;D but was supposed to enter D&amp;amp;amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded &amp; normalized D&amp;D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> ::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &amp;amp;) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}<br /> :By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&amp;D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Clever, but dice rolls in D&amp;D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Arrows are &quot;loosed&quot;, even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.<br /> <br /> The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.<br /> <br /> I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> My simple-minded approach:<br /> * Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;<br /> * Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)<br /> * I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There seems to be doubt that a &quot;N locks and M keys to unlock them&quot; system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1&lt;M&lt;N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, &quot;complicated lock mechanics&quot; and/or &quot;magic&quot; were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single &quot;chest&quot;. I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as &quot;we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)&lt;(owned keys)&lt;(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure&quot;, unless designed to not work like that.<br /> :::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as &quot;I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?&quot; puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. &quot;you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof&quot;), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.<br /> :::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests (&quot;A&quot;, needs #1+2, contains #3; &quot;B&quot; needs 1+3, contains 2; &quot;C&quot; need 2+3, contains 1).<br /> :::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order &quot;M-of-N&quot; combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created &quot;M&gt;N&quot; requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B). <br /> :::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.<br /> :::And, if you're open to add an intermediate &quot;locked box&quot;, you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of &quot;3 needed to open 23&quot;. Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.<br /> :::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it).&quot; - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&amp;D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a &quot;d100&quot; dice pair, with one reading 0-9 &amp; the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of &quot;Combinatorics&quot; or &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; (e.g. &quot;Optimisation&quot;) degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).<br /> :At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::So &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::I shall do my degree in &quot;Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)&quot;... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a &quot;good enough&quot; roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical &quot;higher is better&quot; rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be &quot;extremely cumbersome&quot;. For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With up to three D&amp;D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 &gt;= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With four D&amp;D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 &gt;= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 &gt;= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of &gt; 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.<br /> [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It's &gt;= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Scales for locking<br /> Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==<br /> <br /> You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)<br /> <br /> There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.<br /> <br /> You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}<br /> <br /> == Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==<br /> <br /> This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:<br /> :When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;, due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]<br /> <br /> :Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.<br /> <br /> Am i the only one who sees the issue? <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the &quot;Created by a BOT&quot; script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.<br /> ::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.<br /> ::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and &quot;&amp;D&quot; (and/or &quot;&amp;D;&quot;) and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD &lt;!ENTITY ...&gt; settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the &quot;&lt;ampersand&gt;&lt;NAME&gt;&lt;semicolon&gt;&quot; format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.<br /> ::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)<br /> ::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.<br /> ::With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones &quot;D Combinatorics&quot; if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.<br /> ::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> {{Outdent|:::}}<br /> (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)<br /> In Chrome at least, you can type &quot;thisisunsafe&quot; to bypass security prompts.<br /> <br /> With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.<br /> I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.<br /> <br /> Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. <br /> All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, &quot;Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?&quot;, not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still &quot;D&quot;, not &quot;D&amp;D&quot;, while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> &lt;span id=&quot;help&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;<br /> '''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''<br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> *Our RSS feed was broken: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]<br /> <br /> * I don't know if there were other errors.<br /> **Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Or just explainxkcd's?<br /> **Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was released?<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:<br /> <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> :It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as &quot;I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it&quot;. I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is &quot;[ampersand]amp;&quot; (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is &quot;[ampersand]nbsp;&quot; (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> <br /> :Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.<br /> <br /> :Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so &quot;this page&quot; is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.<br /> <br /> :In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Welcome back!<br /> <br /> Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> ::To me, it doesn't seem like that's everything. Randall's site was broken in two different ways for two different comics on two different occasions, and only one of the two issues was later fixed in both comics, while the other one was never fixed in both comics. Also, we know it broke this wiki's RSS feed. Did it break Randall's RSS feed too? Did our RSS break ''again'' when Randall released the second broken comic [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]]? I don't know because the Trivia sections for these two comics are ambiguous.<br /> <br /> Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily.<br /> :: I wish that were the case, but many editors here oftentimes use &quot;this page&quot; to refer to this wiki's page, &quot;the one you're reading right now&quot;, '''especially''' in trivia sections.<br /> <br /> When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA.<br /> ::That's true, but we sometimes use the trivia sections to talk about explainxkcd, such as the trivia section for comics {{cn}} and [[Papyrus]]. In these 2 D&amp;D comics, I think the errors on both sites are relevant, but they should be clearly defined in their respective Trivia sections and currently they are not.<br /> <br /> ::We can now either rephrase the current trivia sections, or write up new ones. Since you seem to be the only person actively engaged in this discussion, could you give it a try, even if the details about the RSS feeds aren't known yet? You can use [[#help|this list I made earlier]] if you want. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::: Funny, I just reached 3028, with the same issue. I note down a list of which comics I've edited/commented on, to try to remember to check for replies, and seeing the issue there I realized I forgot to note this one so came back to double-check if I had done anything here, and saw your replies :) I feel fairly sure that once upon a time I got some familiarity with the terms &quot;RSS&quot; and &quot;RSS feed&quot;, possibly in a class, but that'd be 20, 25 years ago. I now have '''NOTHING'''. I don't know what it is, what it does, how to check if it's broken, why to care, or even how to look at it. Therefore I am completely unable to speak about it, and all I'm getting here about it is that's the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia! Meaning, no, I'm not the one to write/edit the Trivia. What I know is what I said, that the issue is obvious to those of us who have handwritten webpages: Ampersand is an escape character used in HTML, to do special things, like display itself, non-breaking spaces, even an alternate way to show special characters like accented characters, music notes, things that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. It's worth noting that in programming for Windows, ampersand marks a character to underline, usually for menus to identify the hotkey, like &quot;&lt;u&gt;F&lt;/u&gt;iles&quot; means Alt-F opens the Files menu, the name would be typed programmatically &quot;&amp;Files&quot;. I've seen programs that don't sanitize their input that would render the name of this comic as &quot;D&lt;u&gt;D&lt;/u&gt; Combinatorics&quot;. BTW, for this I went to the Wiki Editing help to check what I had to do for an ampersand (turns out: nothing, it's generally fine), and the Wiki editor ALSO makes use of the ampersand for such things as special characters, so you could look there to see examples - I spotted one was to display such a code instead of interpret it, like &amp;amp;nbsp; [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Our RSS didn't break twice. It was made broken, due to [[3015]]'s error making it invalid, and was still broken by the time [[3028]] added its own example.<br /> :If you do whatever you need to look at the RSS 'raw' (e.g. by using &lt;code&gt;view-source:https://explainxkcd.com/rss.xml&lt;/code&gt;, if that's what works in your browser), you'll note that the first problematic ampersands are in 3028's data, in data which is ordered in newest-to-oldest order. Before that existed, it would have been 3015's initial-breaking ampersanding, which is still wrong. If someone went in and &quot;ampersand-coded&quot; the ampersand, they could 'fix' 3028 and it would still fail on 3015, or vice-versa. You (or someone who could) would of course have to solve both, to get it working. And it was made broken (thanks to being served 'bad' data, without anything having any instruction to re-present it in the 'good' form) consistently from 3015's time onwards. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 16:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Makes sense! Thanks. Did Randall's also break? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::His site? Probably not so that casual browsing would notice. There are more strict and less strict ways to deal with HTML data, and a lone ampersand can probably sneak through a standard web-page and be intepreted normally if it doesn't match an &quot;&amp;entity;&quot; code. And xkcd.com's RSS feed only features the last three comics. I assume, therefore, only last week's... but ask me again when we get an additional special comic, not Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and we either get a four-deep history (being set to a week) or a three-deep history (drops the &quot;just under one week ago&quot; one out, early). But it means that the feed is absent of either 3015 or 3028 data, and is short and sweet and working ''at the moment''. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 23:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::...but, doing the research tha you could have done:<br /> :::*Google for &quot;xkcd 3015&quot; and &quot;D: Combinatrics&quot; (no ampersand-D at all) is the 'hit' title, directly above &quot;3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot; of this site.<br /> :::**Google is probably being consistent with the target page data for xkcd (see below) ''and'' the current site of the target explainxkcd page, which we've changed to be 'right'.<br /> :::*Within the source for xkcd's 3015 comic, there's &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&lt;/title&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; (no ampersand-D, probably because the ampersand-D was considered invalid and fell out of the publishing process for the title-tag).<br /> :::*Next up, there's a meta-tag: &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, which I had to make work here (it's an amp-entity, which I've had to write as amp-entity-for-amp, etc). This was either 'corrected' automatically, or later sanitised manually.<br /> :::*There's then &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;D Combinatorics&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; with a 'raw' ampersand(-D), seemingly happily being treated as entirely literal, not broken-entity.<br /> :::*Within the img-tag for the comic, there's &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;... alt=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot; ...&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; (again, I had to meta-it, in this edit, to outwardly show as the simple ampersand entity that it is). Sanitised/corrected/whatever, who knows.<br /> :::Either tag-parameters derived from composed data are automatically sanitised, by whatever publishing mechanism Randall employs, or he got enough errors when it was wrong to go back in and change the othem so that they wouldn't error on him.<br /> :::Neither inducing an error, nor getting corrected (even automatically), the content of the title-tag is in a zone of uncaring-strictness where it 'is wrong' but fails-safe in a way that nobody has done anything about, rather than ever having halted the page-rendering.<br /> :::Meanwhile, all other 'plaintext' non-tag (but of course extenrally tagged) content is happily working with no strictness worries.<br /> :::This is my &quot;took two minutes to actually look at this issue&quot; answer, of course, and maybe you've looked and deduced alternative explanations for what I see. But then probably you wouldn't have been asking any of these questions in the first place. I don't usually specifically read any of your contributions here (too much work, deciding whether your latest blitz on the wiki was worth it or not), but you got my attention as it's part of a larger conversation with other people. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 00:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::::Sure! That's also what the IP at the top of this talk page pointed out, but you were more detailed. I guess that's also trivially related to the comic, which eans we should probably place that TOO in the trivia section. Argh it never ends! At least your comment is relatively easy to parse and could be just inserted in the articles directly with a few tweaks. But, we should probably change it a bit to connect it to the first issue in the to-do list for the trivia sections.<br /> <br /> ::::So, to recap, what we need to add to the trivia section is:<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. '''&lt;u&gt;This is also what appears in Google results.&lt;/u&gt;''' This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. '''&lt;u&gt;This is also what appears in Google results.&lt;/u&gt;''' This was never fixed.<br /> **We now know these issues are caused by the... thing you described in your comment. <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> **I'm not sure if you covered this in your reply? &quot;D&amp;D;&quot; seems a weird failure, why would the semicolon be after the &quot;D&quot;? This was fixed but I guess you could do your magic by inspecting the source of the archived version to see what went wrong.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> **Caused by the issue in the first bullet<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> *Our RSS feed was broken (and remained broken after [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]]): [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]<br /> <br /> *Randall's RSS feed didn't noticeably break.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> ::::And i think that's everything? Now we just need to actually polish it and put it in the two articles. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&diff=381948 2025-07-26T05:25:34Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that &lt;code&gt;title&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;safe_title&lt;/code&gt; differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/title&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;amp;D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/div&gt;&lt;/code&gt;! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&amp;D but was supposed to enter D&amp;amp;amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded &amp; normalized D&amp;D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> ::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &amp;amp;) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}<br /> :By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&amp;D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Clever, but dice rolls in D&amp;D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Arrows are &quot;loosed&quot;, even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.<br /> <br /> The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.<br /> <br /> I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> My simple-minded approach:<br /> * Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;<br /> * Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)<br /> * I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There seems to be doubt that a &quot;N locks and M keys to unlock them&quot; system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1&lt;M&lt;N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, &quot;complicated lock mechanics&quot; and/or &quot;magic&quot; were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single &quot;chest&quot;. I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as &quot;we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)&lt;(owned keys)&lt;(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure&quot;, unless designed to not work like that.<br /> :::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as &quot;I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?&quot; puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. &quot;you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof&quot;), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.<br /> :::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests (&quot;A&quot;, needs #1+2, contains #3; &quot;B&quot; needs 1+3, contains 2; &quot;C&quot; need 2+3, contains 1).<br /> :::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order &quot;M-of-N&quot; combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created &quot;M&gt;N&quot; requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B). <br /> :::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.<br /> :::And, if you're open to add an intermediate &quot;locked box&quot;, you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of &quot;3 needed to open 23&quot;. Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.<br /> :::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it).&quot; - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&amp;D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a &quot;d100&quot; dice pair, with one reading 0-9 &amp; the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of &quot;Combinatorics&quot; or &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; (e.g. &quot;Optimisation&quot;) degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).<br /> :At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::So &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::I shall do my degree in &quot;Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)&quot;... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a &quot;good enough&quot; roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical &quot;higher is better&quot; rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be &quot;extremely cumbersome&quot;. For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With up to three D&amp;D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 &gt;= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With four D&amp;D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 &gt;= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 &gt;= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of &gt; 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.<br /> [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It's &gt;= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Scales for locking<br /> Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==<br /> <br /> You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)<br /> <br /> There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.<br /> <br /> You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}<br /> <br /> == Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==<br /> <br /> This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:<br /> :When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;, due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]<br /> <br /> :Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.<br /> <br /> Am i the only one who sees the issue? <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the &quot;Created by a BOT&quot; script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.<br /> ::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.<br /> ::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and &quot;&amp;D&quot; (and/or &quot;&amp;D;&quot;) and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD &lt;!ENTITY ...&gt; settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the &quot;&lt;ampersand&gt;&lt;NAME&gt;&lt;semicolon&gt;&quot; format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.<br /> ::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)<br /> ::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.<br /> ::With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones &quot;D Combinatorics&quot; if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.<br /> ::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> {{Outdent|:::}}<br /> (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)<br /> In Chrome at least, you can type &quot;thisisunsafe&quot; to bypass security prompts.<br /> <br /> With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.<br /> I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.<br /> <br /> Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. <br /> All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, &quot;Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?&quot;, not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still &quot;D&quot;, not &quot;D&amp;D&quot;, while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> &lt;span id=&quot;help&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;<br /> '''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''<br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> *Our RSS feed was broken: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]<br /> <br /> * I don't know if there were other errors.<br /> **Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Or just explainxkcd's?<br /> **Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was released?<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:<br /> <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> :It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as &quot;I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it&quot;. I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is &quot;[ampersand]amp;&quot; (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is &quot;[ampersand]nbsp;&quot; (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> <br /> :Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.<br /> <br /> :Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so &quot;this page&quot; is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.<br /> <br /> :In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Welcome back!<br /> <br /> Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> ::To me, it doesn't seem like that's everything. Randall's site was broken in two different ways for two different comics on two different occasions, and only one of the two issues was later fixed in both comics, while the other one was never fixed in both comics. Also, we know it broke this wiki's RSS feed. Did it break Randall's RSS feed too? Did our RSS break ''again'' when Randall released the second broken comic [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]]? I don't know because the Trivia sections for these two comics are ambiguous.<br /> <br /> Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily.<br /> :: I wish that were the case, but many editors here oftentimes use &quot;this page&quot; to refer to this wiki's page, &quot;the one you're reading right now&quot;, '''especially''' in trivia sections.<br /> <br /> When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA.<br /> ::That's true, but we sometimes use the trivia sections to talk about explainxkcd, such as the trivia section for comics {{cn}} and [[Papyrus]]. In these 2 D&amp;D comics, I think the errors on both sites are relevant, but they should be clearly defined in their respective Trivia sections and currently they are not.<br /> <br /> ::We can now either rephrase the current trivia sections, or write up new ones. Since you seem to be the only person actively engaged in this discussion, could you give it a try, even if the details about the RSS feeds aren't known yet? You can use [[#help|this list I made earlier]] if you want. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::: Funny, I just reached 3028, with the same issue. I note down a list of which comics I've edited/commented on, to try to remember to check for replies, and seeing the issue there I realized I forgot to note this one so came back to double-check if I had done anything here, and saw your replies :) I feel fairly sure that once upon a time I got some familiarity with the terms &quot;RSS&quot; and &quot;RSS feed&quot;, possibly in a class, but that'd be 20, 25 years ago. I now have '''NOTHING'''. I don't know what it is, what it does, how to check if it's broken, why to care, or even how to look at it. Therefore I am completely unable to speak about it, and all I'm getting here about it is that's the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia! Meaning, no, I'm not the one to write/edit the Trivia. What I know is what I said, that the issue is obvious to those of us who have handwritten webpages: Ampersand is an escape character used in HTML, to do special things, like display itself, non-breaking spaces, even an alternate way to show special characters like accented characters, music notes, things that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. It's worth noting that in programming for Windows, ampersand marks a character to underline, usually for menus to identify the hotkey, like &quot;&lt;u&gt;F&lt;/u&gt;iles&quot; means Alt-F opens the Files menu, the name would be typed programmatically &quot;&amp;Files&quot;. I've seen programs that don't sanitize their input that would render the name of this comic as &quot;D&lt;u&gt;D&lt;/u&gt; Combinatorics&quot;. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Our RSS didn't break twice. It was made broken, due to [[3015]]'s error making it invalid, and was still broken by the time [[3028]] added its own example.<br /> :If you do whatever you need to look at the RSS 'raw' (e.g. by using &lt;code&gt;view-source:https://explainxkcd.com/rss.xml&lt;/code&gt;, if that's what works in your browser), you'll note that the first problematic ampersands are in 3028's data, in data which is ordered in newest-to-oldest order. Before that existed, it would have been 3015's initial-breaking ampersanding, which is still wrong. If someone went in and &quot;ampersand-coded&quot; the ampersand, they could 'fix' 3028 and it would still fail on 3015, or vice-versa. You (or someone who could) would of course have to solve both, to get it working. And it was made broken (thanks to being served 'bad' data, without anything having any instruction to re-present it in the 'good' form) consistently from 3015's time onwards. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 16:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Makes sense! Thanks. Did Randall's also break? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::His site? Probably not so that casual browsing would notice. There are more strict and less strict ways to deal with HTML data, and a lone ampersand can probably sneak through a standard web-page and be intepreted normally if it doesn't match an &quot;&amp;entity;&quot; code. And xkcd.com's RSS feed only features the last three comics. I assume, therefore, only last week's... but ask me again when we get an additional special comic, not Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and we either get a four-deep history (being set to a week) or a three-deep history (drops the &quot;just under one week ago&quot; one out, early). But it means that the feed is absent of either 3015 or 3028 data, and is short and sweet and working ''at the moment''. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 23:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::...but, doing the research tha you could have done:<br /> :::*Google for &quot;xkcd 3015&quot; and &quot;D: Combinatrics&quot; (no ampersand-D at all) is the 'hit' title, directly above &quot;3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot; of this site.<br /> :::**Google is probably being consistent with the target page data for xkcd (see below) ''and'' the current site of the target explainxkcd page, which we've changed to be 'right'.<br /> :::*Within the source for xkcd's 3015 comic, there's &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&lt;/title&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; (no ampersand-D, probably because the ampersand-D was considered invalid and fell out of the publishing process for the title-tag).<br /> :::*Next up, there's a meta-tag: &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, which I had to make work here (it's an amp-entity, which I've had to write as amp-entity-for-amp, etc). This was either 'corrected' automatically, or later sanitised manually.<br /> :::*There's then &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;D Combinatorics&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; with a 'raw' ampersand(-D), seemingly happily being treated as entirely literal, not broken-entity.<br /> :::*Within the img-tag for the comic, there's &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;... alt=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot; ...&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; (again, I had to meta-it, in this edit, to outwardly show as the simple ampersand entity that it is). Sanitised/corrected/whatever, who knows.<br /> :::Either tag-parameters derived from composed data are automatically sanitised, by whatever publishing mechanism Randall employs, or he got enough errors when it was wrong to go back in and change the othem so that they wouldn't error on him.<br /> :::Neither inducing an error, nor getting corrected (even automatically), the content of the title-tag is in a zone of uncaring-strictness where it 'is wrong' but fails-safe in a way that nobody has done anything about, rather than ever having halted the page-rendering.<br /> :::Meanwhile, all other 'plaintext' non-tag (but of course extenrally tagged) content is happily working with no strictness worries.<br /> :::This is my &quot;took two minutes to actually look at this issue&quot; answer, of course, and maybe you've looked and deduced alternative explanations for what I see. But then probably you wouldn't have been asking any of these questions in the first place. I don't usually specifically read any of your contributions here (too much work, deciding whether your latest blitz on the wiki was worth it or not), but you got my attention as it's part of a larger conversation with other people. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 00:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::::Sure! That's also what the IP at the top of this talk page pointed out, but you were more detailed. I guess that's also trivially related to the comic, which eans we should probably place that TOO in the trivia section. Argh it never ends! At least your comment is relatively easy to parse and could be just inserted in the articles directly with a few tweaks. But, we should probably change it a bit to connect it to the first issue in the to-do list for the trivia sections.<br /> <br /> ::::So, to recap, what we need to add to the trivia section is:<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. '''&lt;u&gt;This is also what appears in Google results.&lt;/u&gt;''' This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. '''&lt;u&gt;This is also what appears in Google results.&lt;/u&gt;''' This was never fixed.<br /> **We now know these issues are caused by the... thing you described in your comment. <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> **I'm not sure if you covered this in your reply? &quot;D&amp;D;&quot; seems a weird failure, why would the semicolon be after the &quot;D&quot;? This was fixed but I guess you could do your magic by inspecting the source of the archived version to see what went wrong.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> **Caused by the issue in the first bullet<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> *Our RSS feed was broken (and remained broken after [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]]): [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]<br /> <br /> *Randall's RSS feed didn't noticeably break.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> ::::And i think that's everything? Now we just need to actually polish it and put it in the two articles. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&diff=381947 2025-07-26T05:22:41Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that &lt;code&gt;title&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;safe_title&lt;/code&gt; differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/title&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;amp;D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/div&gt;&lt;/code&gt;! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&amp;D but was supposed to enter D&amp;amp;amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded &amp; normalized D&amp;D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> ::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &amp;amp;) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}<br /> :By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&amp;D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Clever, but dice rolls in D&amp;D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Arrows are &quot;loosed&quot;, even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.<br /> <br /> The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.<br /> <br /> I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> My simple-minded approach:<br /> * Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;<br /> * Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)<br /> * I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There seems to be doubt that a &quot;N locks and M keys to unlock them&quot; system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1&lt;M&lt;N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, &quot;complicated lock mechanics&quot; and/or &quot;magic&quot; were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single &quot;chest&quot;. I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as &quot;we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)&lt;(owned keys)&lt;(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure&quot;, unless designed to not work like that.<br /> :::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as &quot;I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?&quot; puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. &quot;you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof&quot;), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.<br /> :::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests (&quot;A&quot;, needs #1+2, contains #3; &quot;B&quot; needs 1+3, contains 2; &quot;C&quot; need 2+3, contains 1).<br /> :::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order &quot;M-of-N&quot; combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created &quot;M&gt;N&quot; requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B). <br /> :::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.<br /> :::And, if you're open to add an intermediate &quot;locked box&quot;, you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of &quot;3 needed to open 23&quot;. Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.<br /> :::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it).&quot; - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&amp;D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a &quot;d100&quot; dice pair, with one reading 0-9 &amp; the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of &quot;Combinatorics&quot; or &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; (e.g. &quot;Optimisation&quot;) degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).<br /> :At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::So &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::I shall do my degree in &quot;Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)&quot;... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a &quot;good enough&quot; roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical &quot;higher is better&quot; rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be &quot;extremely cumbersome&quot;. For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With up to three D&amp;D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 &gt;= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With four D&amp;D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 &gt;= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 &gt;= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of &gt; 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.<br /> [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It's &gt;= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Scales for locking<br /> Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==<br /> <br /> You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)<br /> <br /> There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.<br /> <br /> You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}<br /> <br /> == Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==<br /> <br /> This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:<br /> :When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;, due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]<br /> <br /> :Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.<br /> <br /> Am i the only one who sees the issue? <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the &quot;Created by a BOT&quot; script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.<br /> ::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.<br /> ::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and &quot;&amp;D&quot; (and/or &quot;&amp;D;&quot;) and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD &lt;!ENTITY ...&gt; settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the &quot;&lt;ampersand&gt;&lt;NAME&gt;&lt;semicolon&gt;&quot; format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.<br /> ::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)<br /> ::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.<br /> ::With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones &quot;D Combinatorics&quot; if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.<br /> ::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> {{Outdent|:::}}<br /> (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)<br /> In Chrome at least, you can type &quot;thisisunsafe&quot; to bypass security prompts.<br /> <br /> With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.<br /> I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.<br /> <br /> Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. <br /> All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, &quot;Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?&quot;, not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still &quot;D&quot;, not &quot;D&amp;D&quot;, while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> &lt;span id=&quot;help&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;<br /> '''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''<br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> *Our RSS feed was broken: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]<br /> <br /> * I don't know if there were other errors.<br /> **Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Or just explainxkcd's?<br /> **Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was released?<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:<br /> <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> :It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as &quot;I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it&quot;. I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is &quot;[ampersand]amp;&quot; (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is &quot;[ampersand]nbsp;&quot; (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> <br /> :Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.<br /> <br /> :Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so &quot;this page&quot; is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.<br /> <br /> :In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Welcome back!<br /> <br /> Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> ::To me, it doesn't seem like that's everything. Randall's site was broken in two different ways for two different comics on two different occasions, and only one of the two issues was later fixed in both comics, while the other one was never fixed in both comics. Also, we know it broke this wiki's RSS feed. Did it break Randall's RSS feed too? Did our RSS break ''again'' when Randall released the second broken comic [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]]? I don't know because the Trivia sections for these two comics are ambiguous.<br /> <br /> Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily.<br /> :: I wish that were the case, but many editors here oftentimes use &quot;this page&quot; to refer to this wiki's page, &quot;the one you're reading right now&quot;, '''especially''' in trivia sections.<br /> <br /> When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA.<br /> ::That's true, but we sometimes use the trivia sections to talk about explainxkcd, such as the trivia section for comics {{cn}} and [[Papyrus]]. In these 2 D&amp;D comics, I think the errors on both sites are relevant, but they should be clearly defined in their respective Trivia sections and currently they are not.<br /> <br /> ::We can now either rephrase the current trivia sections, or write up new ones. Since you seem to be the only person actively engaged in this discussion, could you give it a try, even if the details about the RSS feeds aren't known yet? You can use [[#help|this list I made earlier]] if you want. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::: Funny, I just reached 3028, with the same issue. I note down a list of which comics I've edited/commented on, to try to remember to check for replies, and seeing the issue there I realized I forgot to note this one so came back to double-check if I had done anything here, and saw your replies :) I feel fairly sure that once upon a time I got some familiarity with the terms &quot;RSS&quot; and &quot;RSS feed&quot;, possibly in a class, but that'd be 20, 25 years ago. I now have '''NOTHING'''. I don't know what it is, what it does, how to check if it's broken, why to care, or even how to look at it. Therefore I am completely unable to speak about it, and all I'm getting here about it is that's the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia! Meaning, no, I'm not the one to write/edit the Trivia. What I know is what I said, that the issue is obvious to those of us who have handwritten webpages: Ampersand is an escape character used in HTML, to do special things, like display itself, non-breaking spaces, even an alternate way to show special characters like accented characters, music notes, things that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. It's worth noting that in programming for Windows, ampersand marks a character to underline, usually for menus to identify the hotkey, like &quot;&lt;u&gt;F&lt;/u&gt;iles&quot; means means Alt-F opens the Files menu, the name would be typed programmatically &quot;&amp;Files&quot;. I've seen programs that don't sanitize their input that would render the name of this comic as &quot;D&lt;u&gt;D&lt;/u&gt; Combinatorics&quot;. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Our RSS didn't break twice. It was made broken, due to [[3015]]'s error making it invalid, and was still broken by the time [[3028]] added its own example.<br /> :If you do whatever you need to look at the RSS 'raw' (e.g. by using &lt;code&gt;view-source:https://explainxkcd.com/rss.xml&lt;/code&gt;, if that's what works in your browser), you'll note that the first problematic ampersands are in 3028's data, in data which is ordered in newest-to-oldest order. Before that existed, it would have been 3015's initial-breaking ampersanding, which is still wrong. If someone went in and &quot;ampersand-coded&quot; the ampersand, they could 'fix' 3028 and it would still fail on 3015, or vice-versa. You (or someone who could) would of course have to solve both, to get it working. And it was made broken (thanks to being served 'bad' data, without anything having any instruction to re-present it in the 'good' form) consistently from 3015's time onwards. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 16:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Makes sense! Thanks. Did Randall's also break? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::His site? Probably not so that casual browsing would notice. There are more strict and less strict ways to deal with HTML data, and a lone ampersand can probably sneak through a standard web-page and be intepreted normally if it doesn't match an &quot;&amp;entity;&quot; code. And xkcd.com's RSS feed only features the last three comics. I assume, therefore, only last week's... but ask me again when we get an additional special comic, not Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and we either get a four-deep history (being set to a week) or a three-deep history (drops the &quot;just under one week ago&quot; one out, early). But it means that the feed is absent of either 3015 or 3028 data, and is short and sweet and working ''at the moment''. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 23:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> :::...but, doing the research tha you could have done:<br /> :::*Google for &quot;xkcd 3015&quot; and &quot;D: Combinatrics&quot; (no ampersand-D at all) is the 'hit' title, directly above &quot;3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot; of this site.<br /> :::**Google is probably being consistent with the target page data for xkcd (see below) ''and'' the current site of the target explainxkcd page, which we've changed to be 'right'.<br /> :::*Within the source for xkcd's 3015 comic, there's &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&lt;/title&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; (no ampersand-D, probably because the ampersand-D was considered invalid and fell out of the publishing process for the title-tag).<br /> :::*Next up, there's a meta-tag: &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, which I had to make work here (it's an amp-entity, which I've had to write as amp-entity-for-amp, etc). This was either 'corrected' automatically, or later sanitised manually.<br /> :::*There's then &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;&lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;D Combinatorics&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; with a 'raw' ampersand(-D), seemingly happily being treated as entirely literal, not broken-entity.<br /> :::*Within the img-tag for the comic, there's &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;... alt=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot; ...&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; (again, I had to meta-it, in this edit, to outwardly show as the simple ampersand entity that it is). Sanitised/corrected/whatever, who knows.<br /> :::Either tag-parameters derived from composed data are automatically sanitised, by whatever publishing mechanism Randall employs, or he got enough errors when it was wrong to go back in and change the othem so that they wouldn't error on him.<br /> :::Neither inducing an error, nor getting corrected (even automatically), the content of the title-tag is in a zone of uncaring-strictness where it 'is wrong' but fails-safe in a way that nobody has done anything about, rather than ever having halted the page-rendering.<br /> :::Meanwhile, all other 'plaintext' non-tag (but of course extenrally tagged) content is happily working with no strictness worries.<br /> :::This is my &quot;took two minutes to actually look at this issue&quot; answer, of course, and maybe you've looked and deduced alternative explanations for what I see. But then probably you wouldn't have been asking any of these questions in the first place. I don't usually specifically read any of your contributions here (too much work, deciding whether your latest blitz on the wiki was worth it or not), but you got my attention as it's part of a larger conversation with other people. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 00:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::::Sure! That's also what the IP at the top of this talk page pointed out, but you were more detailed. I guess that's also trivially related to the comic, which eans we should probably place that TOO in the trivia section. Argh it never ends! At least your comment is relatively easy to parse and could be just inserted in the articles directly with a few tweaks. But, we should probably change it a bit to connect it to the first issue in the to-do list for the trivia sections.<br /> <br /> ::::So, to recap, what we need to add to the trivia section is:<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. '''&lt;u&gt;This is also what appears in Google results.&lt;/u&gt;''' This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. '''&lt;u&gt;This is also what appears in Google results.&lt;/u&gt;''' This was never fixed.<br /> **We now know these issues are caused by the... thing you described in your comment. <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> **I'm not sure if you covered this in your reply? &quot;D&amp;D;&quot; seems a weird failure, why would the semicolon be after the &quot;D&quot;? This was fixed but I guess you could do your magic by inspecting the source of the archived version to see what went wrong.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> **Caused by the issue in the first bullet<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> *Our RSS feed was broken (and remained broken after [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]]): [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]<br /> <br /> *Randall's RSS feed didn't noticeably break.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> ::::And i think that's everything? Now we just need to actually polish it and put it in the two articles. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3028:_D%26D_Roll&diff=381946 2025-07-26T04:35:09Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> Dice comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.181|172.69.22.181]] 04:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> And in a pinch, d4s can be used as caltrops. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.210|172.71.147.210]] 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I am willing to bet good money that every D&amp;D comic that features the game's name inside the title will either [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|break the RSS Feed]] or [[User:TheusafBOT]]. '''[[User:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:9pt;color:#A9C6CA&quot;&gt;42.book.addict&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;sup&gt;[[User talk:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:6pt;color:#516874&quot;&gt;Talk to me!&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;/sup&gt;''' 10:17, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Ah, that's why we never got a good explanation about the one with the D&amp;D players dialling in over AT&amp;T to roleplay S&amp;M sessions while eating M&amp;Ms and drinking A&amp;W. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.4|172.70.90.4]] 13:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Is this the same issue that causes the page title to be rendered as &quot;D Roll&quot;? [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 08:50, 25 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Probably? '''[[User:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:9pt;color:#A9C6CA&quot;&gt;42.book.addict&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;sup&gt;[[User talk:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:6pt;color:#516874&quot;&gt;Talk to me!&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;/sup&gt;''' 21:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If the D20 is large enough (&gt;30 cm?) and its full volume is made of a heavy metal or alloy, like iron, steel or gold, one can just use it as a &quot;blunt weapon&quot; (that is, the weight is used against the enemy). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.208|172.70.39.208]] 17:01, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :30cm would be way ''too'' heavy to use as a blunt weapon. A 30cm d20 made of iron would weigh some 107 kilograms, and a golden one would be almost 270. Though I have thought for a while that a cube with a handle plugged into one corner would be a cool and effective shape for a mace head. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.135|172.68.23.135]] 01:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Second XKCD on D&amp;D in a few months... I think some cartoonish picked up a new hobby recently. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 18:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Should have used the d65536. [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]]) 19:55, 25 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Someone added the &quot;chide the player for being presumptious&quot; idea, which I corrected/added to a little (wondering if it should go into the Background section, to not clog up the basic Explanation). But just to note that 'local rules' that we always used to use were to allow 'presumptive' rolls to be made, to speed up gameplay. If the DM/GM/whoever needed more/different/other rolls to be made, they could ask for them (or, sometimes, just ask for them anyway, I think, to maintain the 'mysteries of the game' — &quot;You enter an apparently empty room, roll 6D6... nothing happens! And now a D4... still nothing happens!&quot;). Though with two caveats: No rolling ''then'' deciding the action to declare for it (e.g.: rolled high, tried stupidly damaging move; rolled lower, suggested an easier dodge) and even 'wasted' dice could then be used by the GM/DM (on a whim) if they rolled either extreme of critical. This led to the occasional 'speculative' rolling (without obvious purpose) that ''might'' lead to tripping over some discarded minor-artifact ''or'' a light-sleeping enemy, etc, just to mix things up a bit. Though it's all down to the one running the game, and you never really know if they're even 'accurately' interpreting the valid roles you do know about, if they're good enough story-tellers with a decent sense of how to make a mission not seem like it's quite so much on-the-rails as they planned it to be all along... I suspect that there are as many opinions about this as there are editors here, however. If not more, given that many of us have acted under multiple different playing situations, and perhaps even from both sides of the Dice Screen. (I'm not even sure I've ever played raw, vanilla D&amp;D, for example, and couldn't even tell you which Edition I've most played. Plus all the other things like Star Wars (only ever the original D6 version), Babylon 5 and others for which I'm not even sure of their canon-base.) So, yeah, interpret the comic in any one of several ways! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.238|172.70.85.238]] 16:23, 26 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I find the claim that a player would be allowed to specify a weapon and &quot;roll again&quot; strange. Firstly, in my experience most players only have one primary weapon at a time (to not unnecessarily carry around the weight and space of excess weapons), meaning generally there's no need to specify (only maybe if they're equipped with a secondary/parrying weapon, which people usually only use as a sneak/second attack). As such, no, I don't think this is Cueball's error, the joke is that this is Ponytail's mistake thinking he wants his '''character''' to throw dice, and/or this is a goofy game where the characters are actually carrying around dice. Secondarily, what kind of dick DM/GM would make them roll again? Unless it's a terrible roll and they're using the excuse to generously offer a re-do roll (and 18 is generally great in most contexts). The point is for this to be fun, such a terrible nit-pick would fight against such fun. I must not be alone since someone put '''&quot;actual citation needed&quot;''' on that, for which I think the only possible citation would be to find an online resource of a DungeonMaster manual '''''IF''''' it actually says this somewhere, but this seems like an unwritten thing up to the individual person. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3028:_D%26D_Roll&diff=381945 2025-07-26T04:34:02Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> Dice comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.181|172.69.22.181]] 04:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> And in a pinch, d4s can be used as caltrops. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.210|172.71.147.210]] 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I am willing to bet good money that every D&amp;D comic that features the game's name inside the title will either [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|break the RSS Feed]] or [[User:TheusafBOT]]. '''[[User:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:9pt;color:#A9C6CA&quot;&gt;42.book.addict&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;sup&gt;[[User talk:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:6pt;color:#516874&quot;&gt;Talk to me!&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;/sup&gt;''' 10:17, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Ah, that's why we never got a good explanation about the one with the D&amp;D players dialling in over AT&amp;T to roleplay S&amp;M sessions while eating M&amp;Ms and drinking A&amp;W. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.4|172.70.90.4]] 13:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Is this the same issue that causes the page title to be rendered as &quot;D Roll&quot;? [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 08:50, 25 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Probably? '''[[User:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:9pt;color:#A9C6CA&quot;&gt;42.book.addict&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;sup&gt;[[User talk:42.book.addict|&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Cormorant Garamond;font-size:6pt;color:#516874&quot;&gt;Talk to me!&lt;/span&gt;]]&lt;/sup&gt;''' 21:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If the D20 is large enough (&gt;30 cm?) and its full volume is made of a heavy metal or alloy, like iron, steel or gold, one can just use it as a &quot;blunt weapon&quot; (that is, the weight is used against the enemy). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.208|172.70.39.208]] 17:01, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :30cm would be way ''too'' heavy to use as a blunt weapon. A 30cm d20 made of iron would weigh some 107 kilograms, and a golden one would be almost 270. Though I have thought for a while that a cube with a handle plugged into one corner would be a cool and effective shape for a mace head. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.135|172.68.23.135]] 01:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Second XKCD on D&amp;D in a few months... I think some cartoonish picked up a new hobby recently. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 18:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Should have used the d65536. [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]]) 19:55, 25 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Someone added the &quot;chide the player for being presumptious&quot; idea, which I corrected/added to a little (wondering if it should go into the Background section, to not clog up the basic Explanation). But just to note that 'local rules' that we always used to use were to allow 'presumptive' rolls to be made, to speed up gameplay. If the DM/GM/whoever needed more/different/other rolls to be made, they could ask for them (or, sometimes, just ask for them anyway, I think, to maintain the 'mysteries of the game' — &quot;You enter an apparently empty room, roll 6D6... nothing happens! And now a D4... still nothing happens!&quot;). Though with two caveats: No rolling ''then'' deciding the action to declare for it (e.g.: rolled high, tried stupidly damaging move; rolled lower, suggested an easier dodge) and even 'wasted' dice could then be used by the GM/DM (on a whim) if they rolled either extreme of critical. This led to the occasional 'speculative' rolling (without obvious purpose) that ''might'' lead to tripping over some discarded minor-artifact ''or'' a light-sleeping enemy, etc, just to mix things up a bit. Though it's all down to the one running the game, and you never really know if they're even 'accurately' interpreting the valid roles you do know about, if they're good enough story-tellers with a decent sense of how to make a mission not seem like it's quite so much on-the-rails as they planned it to be all along... I suspect that there are as many opinions about this as there are editors here, however. If not more, given that many of us have acted under multiple different playing situations, and perhaps even from both sides of the Dice Screen. (I'm not even sure I've ever played raw, vanilla D&amp;D, for example, and couldn't even tell you which Edition I've most played. Plus all the other things like Star Wars (only ever the original D6 version), Babylon 5 and others for which I'm not even sure of their canon-base.) So, yeah, interpret the comic in any one of several ways! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.238|172.70.85.238]] 16:23, 26 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I find the claim that a player would be allowed to specify a weapon and &quot;roll again&quot; strange. Firstly, in my experience most players only have one primary weapon at a time (to not unnecessarily carry around the weight and space of excess weapons), meaning generally there's no need to specify (only maybe if they're equipped with a secondary/parrying weapon, which people usually only use as a sneak/second attack). As such, no, I don't think this is Cueball's error, the joke is that this is Ponytail's mistake thinking he wants his '''character''' to throw dice, and/or this is a goofy game where the characters are actually carrying around dice. Secondarily, what kind of dick DM/GM would make them roll again? Unless it's a terrible roll and they're using the excuse to generously offer a re-do roll (and 18 is generally great in most contexts). The point is for this to be fun, such a terrible nit-pick would fight against such fun. I must not be alone since someone put '''&quot;actual citation needed&quot;''' on that, for which I think the only possible citation would be to find an online resource of a GamesMaster manual '''''IF''''' it actually says this somewhere, but this seems like an unwritten thing up to the individual person. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&diff=380164 2025-06-22T00:23:48Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that &lt;code&gt;title&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;safe_title&lt;/code&gt; differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/title&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;amp;D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/div&gt;&lt;/code&gt;! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&amp;D but was supposed to enter D&amp;amp;amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded &amp; normalized D&amp;D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> ::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &amp;amp;) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}<br /> :By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&amp;D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Clever, but dice rolls in D&amp;D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Arrows are &quot;loosed&quot;, even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.<br /> <br /> The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.<br /> <br /> I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> My simple-minded approach:<br /> * Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;<br /> * Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)<br /> * I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There seems to be doubt that a &quot;N locks and M keys to unlock them&quot; system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1&lt;M&lt;N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, &quot;complicated lock mechanics&quot; and/or &quot;magic&quot; were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single &quot;chest&quot;. I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as &quot;we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)&lt;(owned keys)&lt;(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure&quot;, unless designed to not work like that.<br /> :::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as &quot;I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?&quot; puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. &quot;you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof&quot;), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.<br /> :::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests (&quot;A&quot;, needs #1+2, contains #3; &quot;B&quot; needs 1+3, contains 2; &quot;C&quot; need 2+3, contains 1).<br /> :::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order &quot;M-of-N&quot; combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created &quot;M&gt;N&quot; requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B). <br /> :::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.<br /> :::And, if you're open to add an intermediate &quot;locked box&quot;, you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of &quot;3 needed to open 23&quot;. Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.<br /> :::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it).&quot; - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&amp;D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a &quot;d100&quot; dice pair, with one reading 0-9 &amp; the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of &quot;Combinatorics&quot; or &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; (e.g. &quot;Optimisation&quot;) degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).<br /> :At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::So &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::I shall do my degree in &quot;Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)&quot;... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a &quot;good enough&quot; roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical &quot;higher is better&quot; rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be &quot;extremely cumbersome&quot;. For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With up to three D&amp;D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 &gt;= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With four D&amp;D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 &gt;= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 &gt;= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of &gt; 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.<br /> [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It's &gt;= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Scales for locking<br /> Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==<br /> <br /> You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)<br /> <br /> There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.<br /> <br /> You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}<br /> <br /> == Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==<br /> <br /> This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:<br /> :When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;, due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]<br /> <br /> :Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.<br /> <br /> Am i the only one who sees the issue? <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the &quot;Created by a BOT&quot; script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.<br /> ::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.<br /> ::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and &quot;&amp;D&quot; (and/or &quot;&amp;D;&quot;) and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD &lt;!ENTITY ...&gt; settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the &quot;&lt;ampersand&gt;&lt;NAME&gt;&lt;semicolon&gt;&quot; format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.<br /> ::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)<br /> ::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.<br /> ::With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones &quot;D Combinatorics&quot; if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.<br /> ::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> {{Outdent|:::}}<br /> (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)<br /> In Chrome at least, you can type &quot;thisisunsafe&quot; to bypass security prompts.<br /> <br /> With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.<br /> I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.<br /> <br /> Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. <br /> All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, &quot;Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?&quot;, not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still &quot;D&quot;, not &quot;D&amp;D&quot;, while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> &lt;span id=&quot;help&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;<br /> '''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''<br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> * The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title &quot;xkcd: D Roll&quot; instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Roll&quot;. This was never fixed.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D&amp;D; Roll&quot;. This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&amp;D Combinatorics]] was &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. This was fixed by us wiki editors: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&amp;oldid=357629<br /> <br /> * The initial title displayed on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was &quot;D Roll&quot;. This was fixed by us wiki editors: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&amp;oldid=360160<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> I don't know if there were other errors. Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&amp;D Roll]] was released?<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:<br /> <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)<br /> :It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as &quot;I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it&quot;. I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is &quot;[ampersand]amp;&quot; (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is &quot;[ampersand]nbsp;&quot; (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.<br /> <br /> :Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.<br /> <br /> :Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying &quot;this page&quot; means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so &quot;this page&quot; is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.<br /> <br /> :In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3003:_Sandwich_Helix&diff=379424 2025-06-14T04:38:23Z

<p>NiceGuy1: I changed this, I checked the wrong comic, 3002, which also has an apostrophe, Randall DID enter it this way.</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3003<br /> | date = October 25, 2024<br /> | title = Sandwich Helix<br /> | image = sandwich_helix_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 257x376px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The number one rule of string manipulation is that you’ve got to specify your encodings.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> <br /> <br /> This comic details an important issue in communication: even if the content of your message goes through, there might be important context that is necessary to correctly interpret it.<br /> <br /> Communication is a way to convey ideas, and Cueball is explaining a concept of communication he calls a &quot;Sandwich Helix&quot;. However, when pressed on what that is, he says nobody knows — indicating that, over the years, communication has failed to retain the meaning of this supposedly very important concept. The humor is that if this truly was the #1 rule of communication, communication should have been able to retain its meaning. On the basis that the number #1 rule about communication would probably be the ''most'' important rule, it might even be construed to be the rule about properly communicating all context (by some apparent analogy), which would be irony — but only if anyone still understood it.<br /> <br /> The comic also displays the difference between meaning and message. Cueball is parroting a message (possibly a cliche repeated by self-help authors and influencers), even though the meaning is lost.<br /> <br /> The fictitious &quot;Sandwich Helix&quot; plays on another concept in communication, the &quot;{{w|Compliment sandwich|Compliment Sandwich}}&quot; (a.k.a. &quot;Shit Sandwich&quot;), wherein a statement of criticism is sandwiched between two complimentary statements in order to make the negative statement easier to accept. The difference is that the Compliment Sandwich is a communication technique which is well known and whose meaning has not been lost (though it is currently disputed whether the technique is effective or whether it even might accomplish the inverse of its goals). A possible inspiration for the &quot;helix&quot; part is the {{w|Models of communication#Dance|Helical Model of Communication}}. The creator of the model, Frank Dance, emphasised the role of communication problems. He shows communication as a dynamic and non-linear process.<br /> <br /> The title text contains several odd-looking characters that seem random (but are actually meaningful, to those familiar with them) where an apostrophe should be, as an example of a string that did NOT have its encoding handled properly. It is an example of {{w|Mojibake}}. Some special characters and symbols require a special {{w|Character encoding|encoding}} (such as UTF-8, Windows-1252, Shift-JIS, etc) in order to be stored and displayed properly, and are encoded using the equivalent of multiple characters. If the code to display the text doesn't understand what encoding was used and assumes a different/lesser level of encoding, you can get &quot;garbage&quot; similar to what is in the title text. In this case, the original character was &lt;code&gt;’&lt;/code&gt;, a &quot;smart apostrophe&quot; which, when encoded in UTF-8 and decoded in Windows-1252, becomes &lt;code&gt;’&lt;/code&gt;. Similar garbage is seen in the title text of [[1683: Digital Data]]. The apostrophe angled to the right, as opposed to the straight apostrophe normally typed on standard keyboards, is ''often'' intended to pair with a leftwards-angled one as marks at either end of some quoted text, `smartly´ applied by some word processing software by way of an autocorrection of what was typed - though not always when actually wanted, or correctly applied even when it might be.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> <br /> :[Cueball, with his palm out, is standing in front of a class and facing Ponytail and Hairy, who are sitting at their classroom desks.]<br /> :Cueball: Always remember the #1 rule of communication:<br /> :Cueball: '''''Sandwich Helix.'''''<br /> :Ponytail: What does that mean?<br /> :Cueball: Unfortunately, the context has been lost.<br /> :Cueball: But we know the message, and that's the important part.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br /> [[Category:Language]]<br /> [[Category:Unicode]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3003:_Sandwich_Helix&diff=379423 2025-06-14T04:33:57Z

<p>NiceGuy1: Fixing the smart quote in the title text. Last time I thought Randall had put the messed up replacement characters, but he didn't, I think he put a straight quote!</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3003<br /> | date = October 25, 2024<br /> | title = Sandwich Helix<br /> | image = sandwich_helix_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 257x376px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The number one rule of string manipulation is that you've got to specify your encodings.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> <br /> <br /> This comic details an important issue in communication: even if the content of your message goes through, there might be important context that is necessary to correctly interpret it.<br /> <br /> Communication is a way to convey ideas, and Cueball is explaining a concept of communication he calls a &quot;Sandwich Helix&quot;. However, when pressed on what that is, he says nobody knows — indicating that, over the years, communication has failed to retain the meaning of this supposedly very important concept. The humor is that if this truly was the #1 rule of communication, communication should have been able to retain its meaning. On the basis that the number #1 rule about communication would probably be the ''most'' important rule, it might even be construed to be the rule about properly communicating all context (by some apparent analogy), which would be irony — but only if anyone still understood it.<br /> <br /> The comic also displays the difference between meaning and message. Cueball is parroting a message (possibly a cliche repeated by self-help authors and influencers), even though the meaning is lost.<br /> <br /> The fictitious &quot;Sandwich Helix&quot; plays on another concept in communication, the &quot;{{w|Compliment sandwich|Compliment Sandwich}}&quot; (a.k.a. &quot;Shit Sandwich&quot;), wherein a statement of criticism is sandwiched between two complimentary statements in order to make the negative statement easier to accept. The difference is that the Compliment Sandwich is a communication technique which is well known and whose meaning has not been lost (though it is currently disputed whether the technique is effective or whether it even might accomplish the inverse of its goals). A possible inspiration for the &quot;helix&quot; part is the {{w|Models of communication#Dance|Helical Model of Communication}}. The creator of the model, Frank Dance, emphasised the role of communication problems. He shows communication as a dynamic and non-linear process.<br /> <br /> The title text contains several odd-looking characters that seem random (but are actually meaningful, to those familiar with them) where an apostrophe should be, as an example of a string that did NOT have its encoding handled properly. It is an example of {{w|Mojibake}}. Some special characters and symbols require a special {{w|Character encoding|encoding}} (such as UTF-8, Windows-1252, Shift-JIS, etc) in order to be stored and displayed properly, and are encoded using the equivalent of multiple characters. If the code to display the text doesn't understand what encoding was used and assumes a different/lesser level of encoding, you can get &quot;garbage&quot; similar to what is in the title text. In this case, the original character was &lt;code&gt;’&lt;/code&gt;, a &quot;smart apostrophe&quot; which, when encoded in UTF-8 and decoded in Windows-1252, becomes &lt;code&gt;’&lt;/code&gt;. Similar garbage is seen in the title text of [[1683: Digital Data]]. The apostrophe angled to the right, as opposed to the straight apostrophe normally typed on standard keyboards, is ''often'' intended to pair with a leftwards-angled one as marks at either end of some quoted text, `smartly´ applied by some word processing software by way of an autocorrection of what was typed - though not always when actually wanted, or correctly applied even when it might be.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> <br /> :[Cueball, with his palm out, is standing in front of a class and facing Ponytail and Hairy, who are sitting at their classroom desks.]<br /> :Cueball: Always remember the #1 rule of communication:<br /> :Cueball: '''''Sandwich Helix.'''''<br /> :Ponytail: What does that mean?<br /> :Cueball: Unfortunately, the context has been lost.<br /> :Cueball: But we know the message, and that's the important part.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br /> [[Category:Language]]<br /> [[Category:Unicode]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&diff=372665 2025-04-12T06:07:32Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Am i the only one being extremely confused by the trivia section? */</p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is &quot;D Combinatorics&quot;. I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that &lt;code&gt;title&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;safe_title&lt;/code&gt; differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;title&gt;xkcd: D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/title&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;meta property=&quot;og:title&quot; content=&quot;D&amp;amp;amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;div id=&quot;ctitle&quot;&gt;D&amp;amp;D Combinatorics&amp;lt;/div&gt;&lt;/code&gt;! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&amp;D but was supposed to enter D&amp;amp;amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded &amp; normalized D&amp;D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> ::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &amp;amp;) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}<br /> :By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&amp;D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Clever, but dice rolls in D&amp;D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Arrows are &quot;loosed&quot;, even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}<br /> <br /> I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.<br /> <br /> The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.<br /> <br /> I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> My simple-minded approach:<br /> * Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;<br /> * Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)<br /> * I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There seems to be doubt that a &quot;N locks and M keys to unlock them&quot; system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1&lt;M&lt;N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, &quot;complicated lock mechanics&quot; and/or &quot;magic&quot; were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single &quot;chest&quot;. I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as &quot;we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)&lt;(owned keys)&lt;(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure&quot;, unless designed to not work like that.<br /> :::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as &quot;I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?&quot; puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. &quot;you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof&quot;), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.<br /> :::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests (&quot;A&quot;, needs #1+2, contains #3; &quot;B&quot; needs 1+3, contains 2; &quot;C&quot; need 2+3, contains 1).<br /> :::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order &quot;M-of-N&quot; combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created &quot;M&gt;N&quot; requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B). <br /> :::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.<br /> :::And, if you're open to add an intermediate &quot;locked box&quot;, you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of &quot;3 needed to open 23&quot;. Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.<br /> :::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it).&quot; - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&amp;D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a &quot;d100&quot; dice pair, with one reading 0-9 &amp; the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of &quot;Combinatorics&quot; or &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; (e.g. &quot;Optimisation&quot;) degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).<br /> :At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::So &quot;Combinatorics and &lt;Foo&gt;&quot; would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::I shall do my degree in &quot;Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)&quot;... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a &quot;good enough&quot; roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical &quot;higher is better&quot; rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be &quot;extremely cumbersome&quot;. For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With up to three D&amp;D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 &gt;= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With four D&amp;D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 &gt;= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 &gt;= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of &gt; 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.<br /> [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It's &gt;= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Scales for locking<br /> Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==<br /> <br /> You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)<br /> <br /> There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.<br /> <br /> The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.<br /> <br /> You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}<br /> <br /> == Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==<br /> <br /> This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:<br /> :When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;, due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]<br /> <br /> :Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.<br /> <br /> Am i the only one who sees the issue? <br /> *3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.<br /> **&quot;official title&quot;, so on xkcd.com<br /> **&quot;&quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot;, instead of &quot;xkcd: D&amp;D Combinatorics&quot;&quot; - only pages on xkcd.com start with &quot;xkcd: &quot;<br /> **&quot;error on Randall's end&quot;<br /> <br /> *2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.<br /> **&quot;title of this page&quot; - &quot;this&quot; means the one you're reading, the wiki<br /> **&quot;presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]&quot; - Our wiki's rss feed<br /> <br /> Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> ::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the &quot;Created by a BOT&quot; script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.<br /> ::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.<br /> ::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and &quot;&amp;D&quot; (and/or &quot;&amp;D;&quot;) and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD &lt;!ENTITY ...&gt; settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the &quot;&lt;ampersand&gt;&lt;NAME&gt;&lt;semicolon&gt;&quot; format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.<br /> ::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &amp;a&amp;zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)<br /> ::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.<br /> ::With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones &quot;D Combinatorics&quot; if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.<br /> ::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> <br /> (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)<br /> :::In Chrome at least, you can type &quot;thisisunsafe&quot; to bypass security prompts.<br /> <br /> With the &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing &quot;&lt;site name&gt;: &lt;page title&gt;&quot;, but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.<br /> I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always &quot;xkcd: D Combinatorics&quot; when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.<br /> <br /> Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. <br /> All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, &quot;Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?&quot;, not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)<br /> :I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still &quot;D&quot;, not &quot;D&amp;D&quot;, while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3003:_Sandwich_Helix&diff=369808 2025-03-22T06:42:58Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 3003<br /> | date = October 25, 2024<br /> | title = Sandwich Helix<br /> | image = sandwich_helix_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 257x376px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The number one rule of string manipulation is that you’ve got to specify your encodings.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> <br /> <br /> This comic details an important issue in communication: even if the content of your message goes through, there might be important context that is necessary to correctly interpret it.<br /> <br /> Communication is a way to convey ideas, and Cueball is explaining a concept of communication he calls a &quot;Sandwich Helix&quot;. However, when pressed on what that is, he says nobody knows — indicating that, over the years, communication has failed to retain the meaning of this supposedly very important concept. The humor is that if this truly was the #1 rule of communication, communication should have been able to retain its meaning. On the basis that the number #1 rule about communication would probably be the ''most'' important rule, it might even be construed to be the rule about properly communicating all context (by some apparent analogy), which would be irony — but only if anyone still understood it.<br /> <br /> The comic also displays the difference between meaning and message. Cueball is parroting a message (possibly a cliche repeated by self-help authors and influencers), even though the meaning is lost.<br /> <br /> The fictitious &quot;Sandwich Helix&quot; plays on another concept in communication, the &quot;{{w|Compliment sandwich|Compliment Sandwich}}&quot; (a.k.a. &quot;Shit Sandwich&quot;), wherein a statement of criticism is sandwiched between two complimentary statements in order to make the negative statement easier to accept. The difference is that the Compliment Sandwich is a communication technique which is well known and whose meaning has not been lost (though it is currently disputed whether the technique is effective or whether it even might accomplish the inverse of its goals). A possible inspiration for the &quot;helix&quot; part is the {{w|Models of communication#Dance|Helical Model of Communication}}. The creator of the model, Frank Dance, emphasised the role of communication problems. He shows communication as a dynamic and non-linear process.<br /> <br /> The title text contains several odd-looking characters that seem random (but are actually meaningful, to those familiar with them) where an apostrophe should be, as an example of a string that did NOT have its encoding handled properly. It is an example of {{w|Mojibake}}. Some special characters and symbols require a special {{w|Character encoding|encoding}} (such as UTF-8, Windows-1252, Shift-JIS, etc) in order to be stored and displayed properly, and are encoded using the equivalent of multiple characters. If the code to display the text doesn't understand what encoding was used and assumes a different/lesser level of encoding, you can get &quot;garbage&quot; similar to what is in the title text. In this case, the original character was &lt;code&gt;’&lt;/code&gt;, a &quot;smart apostrophe&quot;, (being an apostrophe angled to the right as opposed to the straight apostrophe available to type on standard keyboards), which when encoded in UTF-8 and decoded in Windows-1252 becomes &lt;code&gt;’&lt;/code&gt;. Similar garbage is seen in the title text of [[1683: Digital Data]].<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> <br /> :[Cueball, with his palm out, is standing in front of a class and facing Ponytail and Hairy, who are sitting at their classroom desks.]<br /> :Cueball: Always remember the #1 rule of communication:<br /> :Cueball: '''''Sandwich Helix.'''''<br /> :Ponytail: What does that mean?<br /> :Cueball: Unfortunately, the context has been lost.<br /> :Cueball: But we know the message, and that's the important part.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br /> [[Category:Language]]<br /> [[Category:Unicode]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2999:_Bad_Map_Projection:_The_United_Stralia&diff=369801 2025-03-22T05:28:39Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> He forgot the Idaho abbreviation. [[User:Danger Kitty|Danger Kitty]] ([[User talk:Danger Kitty|talk]])<br /> hello[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.64|172.68.54.64]] 19:49, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :: And Mississippi has stolen Michigan's abbreviation! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.240|172.70.206.240]] 23:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> 5 likes and I will make this a reality [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 20:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Probably this is because I'm more familiar with the map of Australia than of the US, but Melbourne seems to have moved quite a bit to the east and is now presumably in Gippsland? Oddly that's the most jarring change for me... [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 20:26, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :: Yep. {{w|Melbourne Florida}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.47.10|172.70.47.10]] 21:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::: Yes, I guess that explains the location -- though I'd not heard of the Melbourne in Florida previously. The other jarring thing is (on the east coast at least) the climates don't match up. Florida is closer to Queensland in terms of climate (and maybe culturally), Tasmania is colder and I guess probably closer to the north-eastern US states. Plus I can't really see Adelaide as being that much like New Orleans... {{unsigned|Zoid42|21:58, 17 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> An eight-legged gator with fangs the size of your arm, six eyes, and the ability to spin webs is truly a horrifying thought. [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :: At that point most of the NT would become to dangerous for people to live. [[User:SomeRandomNerd|SomeRandomNerd]] ([[User talk:SomeRandomNerd|talk]]) 23:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If find it weird how tasmania is florida, as while they are in the same place, they are the least alike 2 places you could think of. [[User:SomeRandomNerd|SomeRandomNerd]] ([[User talk:SomeRandomNerd|talk]]) 22:35, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :: Agreed. If cartoons and television have taught me anything, one is home to a bunch of snarling, slobbering, ravenous beasts, moving across the landscape as whirlwinds of wanton destruction. And the other is Tasmania. [[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.130|172.64.238.130]] 04:59, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Part of the joke is that the contiguous 48 States plus DC have nearly the same area as Australia, though the US has a larger total area. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.166|141.101.109.166]] 01:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> As an Australian citizen, this map hurts my soul. This is amazingly painful and I kinda love it. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 01:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :: I apparently now live in Adelaide/Louisiana (or New Orleans/South Australia). [[User:FourW|FourW]] ([[User talk:FourW|talk]]) 06:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)FourW<br /> <br /> Environmentalists will be upset with Randal for finally finishing the {{w|Cross Florida Barge Canal}}. And just in time for the centennial!--[[User:The Mess|The Mess]] ([[User talk:The Mess|talk]]) 07:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I was wondering if it was a sidelong comment upon the effects of {{w|Hurricane Milton}}... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.188|172.70.160.188]]<br /> <br /> :: No, no, no. It's the Gap Chasm.[https://xanth.fandom.com/wiki/Gap_Chasm] {{unsigned ip|172.71.183.173|17:26, 17 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> The distortion of Washington State, where I live, is painful, but funny. Can't wait for comic 3000! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.58|172.71.146.58]] 16:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I know, it's probably going to be sometime on monday- i saw a website who said they would rank all 3000 comics then! [[User:SomeRandomNerd|SomeRandomNerd]] ([[User talk:SomeRandomNerd|talk]]) 09:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Ohh, could you send me the link to that website? [[User:Willintendo|Willintendo]] ([[User talk:Willintendo|talk]]) 14:16, 22 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Being about to shift to the right at an election next weekend, it is very prescient (and scary) that SE Queensland, where I live, is in North Carolina. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.212|172.68.64.212]] 18:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> That's great! As a Sydney resident this cartoon gave me an earworm. I'll be singing it all day; &quot;South Carolina On My Mind&quot;. [[User:Ozhamada|Ozhamada]] ([[User talk:Ozhamada|talk]]) 22:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Stralia might not have anything directly equivalent to Hawaii and Alaska (significantly distant non-contiguous states), but it does have an island state (Tasmania) as well as several non-state island territories, and a mahoosive chunk of Antarctica that might have done in place of Alaska.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.35|172.70.90.35]] 09:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Well, Tasmsnia's already there, you'll note, which is there for that broken-Florida-like bit. Torres Straight islands and wider-afield territories/semi-adopted aren't really as handy replacements for the non-contiguous bits of the US, though. I can see why it was only taken as far as it was, for parody purposes. Diminishing returns on anything further. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.11|172.69.194.11]] 15:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::New Guinea looks like Alaska, while Australia also has some small islands that may resemble Hawaii. [[User:ConscriptGlossary|ConscriptGlossary]] ([[User talk:ConscriptGlossary|talk]]) 06:40, 21 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hmmm. Not convinced that the description's assertion that &quot;Florida would be cold&quot; if its weather were analogous to the south of Australia was written be someone who has been to Australia. Granted, the red centre will cook you alive, and the cold water comes out of the taps hot in NT...but still. SA is hardly &quot;cold&quot;. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 22:32, 19 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Someone has edited (changed from the original) the paragraph about Australia's north being closer to the equator than its south in a way which makes no sense. The climate of Australia is created by a number of factors, many of them which would still be true even if the land formations of the USA replaced the land formations which exist in reality in the USA. Anything closer to the equator is going to be hotter than those things closer to the antarctic. The ocean currents would also remain the same. It is true that the land formations of the USA do affect its climate and these would have some affect if those formations replaced Australia's but the path of the Sun over that part of the globe and the ocean currents would affect the climate in a way different from what is suggested by the edited content. --00:51, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.172|172.70.254.172]]<br /> <br /> Anyone else see a *very* similar map on social media recently? I think it might've been one of those &quot;bad maps&quot; X accounts that posted one that's almost identical but with different labeling a couple days ago, clearly the inspiration for Randall. Probably worth mentioning that in the explanation somewhere. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 22:03, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have been referencing this map for years, to try to explain how isolated Perth is. I say: imagine San Francisco is the only city on the west coast, and the edge of the state runs south from the Montana/Dakotas border. And the next nearest city is Houston. Although I guess I need to change that to SLO and New Orleans. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.0.190|172.68.0.190]] 01:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> : Or, to put it another way, Perth is closer to the capital cities of Indonesia and Timor Leste than it is to its own national capital, and only barely closer to Brisbane, Queensland than it is to Singapore (whole different continent). [[User:Paddles|Paddles]] ([[User talk:Paddles|talk]]) 04:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> As a Canberrian I am a little offeneded ACT didn't deserve it's own area on the map. It doesn't deserve a state, because it isn't one. We are important though! We have an airport! Oh and something something parliament. Urban ACT is weirdly small and I challenge anyone to live there and never cross into NSW by accident. Oh and no label for Tassie. {{unsigned ip|172.68.126.134|22:02, 19 October 2024}}<br /> :The same holds true for Maryland and Washington DC (Although DC's airports are in Virginia) [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 03:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Do the same mountain ranges, rivers, and bodies of water that define USA state boundaries exist in The United Stralia? If not, a hell of a lot of surveyors were blind, stinking drunk when they were working. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 03:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This is probably the third time that Randall has split Michigan. [[User:ConscriptGlossary|ConscriptGlossary]] ([[User talk:ConscriptGlossary|talk]]) 08:20, 22 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> May I get this printed on a poster, pretty please? [[User:Aaron Liu|Aaron Liu]] ([[User talk:Aaron Liu|talk]]) 20:20, 3 November 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ==Request: Map Merge/Morph==<br /> Could someone please post a simple map outline of the contiguous US and of Australia, and then try to merge / morph the two maps together? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.47.88|172.70.47.88]] 17:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :could you please elaborate on how you want to merge these two maps? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:22, 17 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> : Aren't you just asking us to do exactly what Randall did this week? But if you want to see the two outlines ''without'' morphing, then you might want to try [https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!OTc1MjU4Mw.MzU2MjU4Mg*MTY4MjQ1Mg(MjA5NTY4NjY~!AU*MA.MTgwMDAwMDA)Ng~!CONTIGUOUS_US*MTUzNTQwOTE.ODM0ODczOA(MTk0)Nw this superposition of Australia and US48 from thetruesize.com]. [[User:Paddles|Paddles]] ([[User talk:Paddles|talk]]) 04:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Me again. Randall has artistic license. I have seen maps here where his version is different from the way a cartographer would apply the same techniques. [[2999]]: Exterior Kansas is an example. Scroll down through the article to see what a true Azimuthal Projection with an Exterior Kansas would look like. I wonder how much 2999 resembles a 'true' [A|]US[A|] map merge. (Is &quot;[A|]US[A|]&quot; the best representation for this?) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.101|172.71.98.101]] 16:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::: Are you saying there's some algorithm which would produce a somehow canonical merge? That seems unlikely to me. Perhaps you can point to examples of the technique you want? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.63|172.71.142.63]] 15:01, 21 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == New Zealand/Hawaii ==<br /> <br /> I feel like not including this one is a real missed opportunity in the alt text. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.107|172.69.134.107]] 16:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Hawaii is four(ish) 'major' islands in a loose east-west group that have been part of the US since 1959 and has about 6.4k mi² of land area.<br /> :To contrast, New Zealand is two ''biiig'' islands, north-south orientated and practically touching in relative scale, that has been never been &quot;part of Australia&quot; (though part of the British Empire, along with Australia, until gradually shucked off in various changes to that across the 19th and 20th centuries) and covers over 100k mi².<br /> :Apart from anything else, it's probably a bit insulting to Kiwis to be assumed to be &quot;the Hawaii of Australia&quot;. And for PNG/Indonesian peoples possibly being considered &quot;the Alaskans&quot;, to follow up on that suggestion, that's problematic on various additional fronts. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.182|172.69.195.182]] 00:27, 22 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I found it idiotic to declare this the LAST map projection so far, seeing as AFAIK this comic is still going (though I got months behind in my XKCD reading), if and when Randall does another one someone would have to know/remember to come here and change that, so I removed that declaration. Calling something &quot;last&quot; only makes sense if it's impossible for there to be another, in this case if XKCD ended. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:28, 22 March 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2999:_Bad_Map_Projection:_The_United_Stralia&diff=369800 2025-03-22T05:22:39Z

<p>NiceGuy1: It's idiotic to declare &quot;last&quot; in any ongoing thing. Once Randall makes another one someone will have to know/remember to come back here and change it.</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2999<br /> | date = October 16, 2024<br /> | title = Bad Map Projection: The United Stralia<br /> | image = bad_map_projection_the_united_stralia_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 740x651px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = This projection distorts both area and direction, but preserves Melbourne.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> This is the eighth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #102: The United Stralia. It follows [[2951: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas]] (#45), released about three and a half months earlier. <br /> <br /> In this addition to the Bad Map Projections series, Randall has blended two different countries — the United States of America and Australia — into one.<br /> <br /> As with a number of Bad Map Projections, the primary joke is the naming of this ''as'' a &quot;map projection&quot;. Its depiction is particularly similar to [[2807: Bad Map Projection: ABS(Longitude)]], in which geography is overlaid upon other geography. It also follows the practice of [[2256: Bad Map Projection: South America]], in which a general continental shape is forced upon other areas, with the general geographical outline of the 48 contiguous US states being merged with the political boundaries of Australia (with exceptions, most obviously Australia's Bass Strait being retained in lieu of the US's central Florida). At a further level of merging, the US states are repacked as subdivisions within the various Australian ones; as with the likes of [[2394: Contiguous 41 States]], it also takes some liberties with the relative neighboring positioning of some of these, although not by totally removing any of the actual {{w|contiguous United States}}. Alaska and Hawaii aren't included, likely because the 48 contiguous US states better match the shape and size of Australia. Australia also has no territories that would make a good match in size or shape for Alaska and Hawaii.<br /> <br /> The geographically relative climate of the states of the USA is broadly opposite of Australia's. Australia's north is closest to the equator but the USA's north is farthest from the equator. Thus, if Australia's climate were literally applied to the US, Florida would be relatively cold while Maine would be hot. Likewise, applying USA's climate to Australia would make northern Australia unusually cold and southern Australia relatively hot.<br /> <br /> The map pokes fun at superficial and irrelevant similarities between features of the maps of the United States and Australia, such as the shape of the east coasts of {{w|New England}} and the {{w|Cape York Peninsula}}, and the distance to the southern tip of the island of {{w|Tasmania}} and the length of the {{w|Florida}} {{w|peninsula}}. The end result is to illustrate a fanciful place which does not actually exist and thus would have limited worth for navigating either Australia or the USA, although navigation between two listed locations/areas drawn from the same original continent would at least be broadly possible (with the possibility of a few 'surprises' en route). The blending features cities from both countries on the map, e.g., San Francisco and Los Angeles (USA) close to Perth (Australia).<br /> <br /> The {{w|states and territories of Australia}} are depicted with black lines/labels, while the {{w|states of the United States}} and such cities as are taken from either nation are marked with gray. The Australian states are labeled with their full names, but the American states are given only their postal abbreviations. (Mississippi is mislabeled as MI, in addition to Michigan's own correct usage, instead of the official MS.) Western Australia is usually abbreviated to WA, but the convention here leaves that unambiguously assigned to the US state of Washington. Idaho, for some reason, is not labeled at all, and neither is the Australian island state of Tasmania.<br /> <br /> The title text makes a joke that this map does not preserve {{w|Equal-area projection|area}} or {{w|Conformal map projection|direction}} (typically, a map projection {{w|Map projection#Metric properties of maps|sacrifices one to preserve the other}}, or both to correctly depict a particular distance metric), but does preserve the city of Melbourne as a feature located on the map, near the actual location of {{w|Melbourne, Florida}}. Note that this is not the correct location of {{w|Melbourne}}, Australia, as it is far too much east in the bad map projection, but there is nothing to stop the shared Melbourne being entirely 'correct' and every ''other'' feature being shifted as a 'compromise'. The concept of a point being 'preserved', rather than actual dimensionally-meaningful quantities, is meaningless and just adds to the badness of the projection. There are other city names shared between the US and Australia, but they're not located at any obviously similar geographic locations; e.g., the location of Brisbane in the comic is based on the instance in {{w|Brisbane|Queensland}}, not {{w|Brisbane, California|California}} (potentially named after the main example) or {{w|Brisbane, North Dakota|North Dakota}}.<br /> <br /> This is the second comic in October 2024 in which Tasmania appears, the first being [[2996: CIDABM]]. Both feature the major island groups in the Bass Strait, in this case perhaps intended as a sort of analogue to the {{w|Florida Keys}}, or else orphaned coastline features across the 'missing' segment of the US peninsula.<br /> <br /> ===Geographical relationships===<br /> From west to east, the Australian states and territories contain the following U.S. states; the positions of Australian cities on the map are also listed:<br /> <br /> {{w|Western Australia}} contains the following U.S. states:<br /> *Arizona<br /> *California<br /> ** {{w|Perth, Australia|Perth}} appears on the California coast, about halfway between {{w|Los Angeles}} and {{w|San Francisco}}.<br /> * Colorado<br /> * Idaho<br /> * Montana<br /> * Nevada<br /> * New Mexico<br /> * Oregon<br /> * Utah<br /> * Washington<br /> * Wyoming<br /> <br /> {{w|Northern Territory}} contains the following U.S. states:<br /> * Illinois<br /> * Iowa<br /> * Kansas<br /> * Michigan ({{w|Upper Peninsula}})<br /> * Minnesota<br /> ** {{w|Darwin (Australia)|Darwin}} is positioned in northwestern Minnesota.<br /> * Missouri<br /> * Nebraska<br /> * North Dakota<br /> * South Dakota<br /> * Wisconsin<br /> <br /> {{w|South Australia}} contains the following U.S. states:<br /> * Arkansas<br /> * Louisiana<br /> ** {{w|Adelaide, Australia|Adelaide}} is located in the {{w|Mississippi River delta}} region of Louisiana.<br /> * Oklahoma<br /> * Texas<br /> ** West Texas is now in the Eucla time zone (GMT+8h45), although it is on the wrong side of the bent WA/SA border<br /> <br /> {{w|Queensland}} contains the following U.S. states and territories:<br /> * Connecticut<br /> * Delaware<br /> * District of Columbia<br /> * Indiana<br /> * Kentucky<br /> * Maine<br /> * Maryland<br /> * Massachusetts<br /> * Michigan ({{w|Lower Peninsula}})<br /> * New Hampshire<br /> * New Jersey<br /> * New York<br /> * North Carolina<br /> ** {{w|Brisbane}} is located on the coast in southeast North Carolina.<br /> * Ohio<br /> * Pennsylvania<br /> * Rhode Island<br /> * Tennessee<br /> * Vermont<br /> * Virginia<br /> * West Virginia<br /> <br /> {{w|New South Wales}} contains the following U.S. states:<br /> <br /> * Alabama<br /> * Georgia<br /> ** {{w|Canberra}}, and presumably the rest of the {{w|Australian Capital Territory}}, is located in southeastern Georgia.<br /> * Mississippi<br /> * South Carolina<br /> ** {{w|Sydney, Australia|Sydney}} is located along the coast of South Carolina, near the location of {{w|Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston}}.<br /> <br /> {{w|Victoria, Australia|Victoria}} and {{w|Tasmania}} combine to make up the U.S. state of Florida, which is now divided into two non-contiguous parts. As a result Tasmania, which has a {{w|Omission of Tasmania from maps of Australia|history of being omitted from maps of Australia}}, is displayed but not named. {{w|Melbourne}} is located in the southeast corner of Victorian Florida. Although Tasmania's largest city {{w|Hobart}} is not labeled, it could share the same general location of Miami on the map. Alaska and Hawaii, the two non-{{w|Contiguous United States|contiguous states}} of the United States, do not appear in the projection. Other major geographic distortions include:<br /> * The U.S. now has two {{w|quadripoint}}s, with the intersection of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico joining the existing {{w|Four Corners}}.<br /> * Indiana has a border with Arkansas.<br /> * Alabama and Mississippi have lost Gulf Coast access, as Florida has a border with Louisiana.<br /> * Missouri has a north-south border with Oklahoma.<br /> * {{w|Miami, Florida|Miami}} is separated from the lower 48 states, as it is now located in the non-contiguous Tasmanian Florida.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> Above the map, in 3 paragraphs:<br /> :Bad map projection #102:<br /> :[In larger letters than the first or the third paragraph]: The United Stralia<br /> :A 50/50 US/Australia blend<br /> <br /> [A map whose left side looks like that of Australia and whose right side looks like that of the United States, with Tasmania swapped out for a supposed island that looks like South Florida. The modified subdivisions of Australia are bordered with black with their names also black, while those of the United States are bordered with the same grey the city names are written with, with the US state abbreviations being a brighter one]:<br /> <br /> ==Trivia==<br /> The use of &quot;Stralia&quot; in the title echoes a common Australian verbal abbreviation for the country, often styled something like ''&lt;!--note the difficulty of 'nicely' quoting a single single-quote!--&gt;'Stralia'', in casual speech or sometimes {{w|Elsa Stralia#Stage name|more formally}}. This is a convenient punny replacement of the word &quot;States&quot; in &quot;The United States&quot;, as it starts with the same two letters.<br /> <br /> On the day this comic was released, the xkcd homepage changed to show a [[:File:xkcd_homepage_strip_harris_for_president.png|strip]] showing [[Cueball]] installing a &quot;Harris For President&quot; sign in some grass, presumably on his lawn. This relates to the upcoming 2024 US presidential election.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Bad Map Projections]]<br /> [[Category:US maps]]<br /> [[Category:Portmanteau]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2996:_CIDABM&diff=364945 2025-02-09T06:47:19Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> Still makes more sense than BRICS. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.144.34|172.71.144.34]] 19:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I for one think Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego is a classic example of an island that does NOT dangle awkwardly at the bottom of a mainland. It's almost a case study in graceful, near-seamless islandic placement relative to the mainland, such that if you informed someone that it's technically an island they may do a double-take and have to squint at a map before they believe you. As further evidence for this perspective, I commend to the reader [[2256: Bad Map Projection: South America]] where IGdTdF is only represented as truly distinct from the mainland in 1 out of the 36 South Americas represented - and this is probably more for comedy value than anything else, since in this map, IGdTdF ITSELF has been replaced by another entire (and extremely small) South America! -MeZimm [[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.4|172.68.3.4]] 22:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Very tempted to make an official Explanation addition that if we named the group for the members (like BRICS has been, and which originally had me trying to identify the islads by shape and what initials they might have, before my eyes finally drifted down to their actual names), it would ''almost'' make a very unfortunate initialism indeed. And the one it does make is basically the same in phonetic terms... I won't actually do so. But I am left wondering if this was actually intended as an additional unspoken bit of Randall's humour, in fact. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.94|172.69.195.94]] 23:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I shall create my own island below the UK to join this Coalition. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 06:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> dunon why, but my first thought on the alt-text was that it was a joke about south america being an island below north america. ~~storm. {{unsigned ip|172.69.60.185|11:27, 10 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> Anyone else think Sri Lanka is a really weird shape for an island? It just doesn't make sense to me, geologically speaking [[User:Tommyds|Tommyds]] ([[User talk:Tommyds|talk]]) 13:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I feel like we should have a [blank] news category. That seems to come up a lot. {{unsigned|Ok123|17:55, 10 October 2024}}<br /> :agreed. I’ll bring it up in the community portal. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> The group flatly rejected the application for membership of North America South of Two Ocean Creek. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 02:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I wonder if it's worth mentioning the &quot;theory of continental drip&quot;, postulated in one of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks Iain Banks]'s novels. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.172|172.70.86.172]] 06:28, 11 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Tasmania Is an island dangling from a larger island. [[User:SomeRandomNerd|SomeRandomNerd]] ([[User talk:SomeRandomNerd|talk]]) 01:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The two small islands marked as dots between Tasmania and the mainland also happen to be part of the Tasmanian state.--[[User:Ozhamada|Ozhamada]] ([[User talk:Ozhamada|talk]]) 02:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm an aussie and that's learning for me! However they aren't marked on the map. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.14|172.68.210.14]] 08:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::It might depend upon what resultion image you're looking at. The two (actually three, two to the right) dots north of Tasmania's corners (King and Flinders/Cape Barren) are marked the grey of the mainland rather than the black of all other points Tasman.<br /> ::The south-eastern-edge islands may get a decent showing (in full black), given the resolution, though the anti-aliasing hints at features (e.g. Bruny/Maria) that may or may not be represented there for reasons of typical Randallian illustration. <br /> ::For obvious reasons of scale/coverage, though, Macquarie Island doesn't festure at all! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.128|172.70.85.128]] 15:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> No love for Cuba, Madagascar, or Sumatra? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.23.49|172.69.23.49]] 19:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Cuba and Sumatra are in more complex relationships than being ''an'' island &quot;dangling below&quot;. (Other islands/continents all around them, generally moreso than the cited examples which tend to be the predominant islands at their scale and in their context.) Madagascar hangs off the 'side' of Africa (maybe below Eurasia, if Africa wasn't counted). Obviously there's leeway of interpretation, but it's part of why Tierra Del Fuego is mentioned as an iffy candidate.<br /> :There are probably other edge-candidates (NZ South Island, c.f. North Island, etc? Though Stewart Island c.f. South Island might be more apt)... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.62|172.70.85.62]] 19:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Cuba is much longer than Florida, and I would not say it looks like it dangles below that part of the US. Also the distance is much greater compared to the size than the ones between the other islands. Maybe Tasmania is as far away but it is a very big landmass above so when drawn on the banner it looks similar. Cuba would not look anything like the others. Sumatra is larger than the part of the mainland it is near and it is not even under it. And as said Madagascar is not at all under Africa. So of course they would not be included. The reason Tierra del Fuego is not included is that when drawn like the others it would be difficult to see where it did not hang onto the mainland. Seems to me that the other not included islands given as examples in the current version of the explanation also fails to come close to the idea of the comic. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I can't help but notice that simply listing the members would be a shorter acronym, :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:46, 9 February 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2996:_CIDABM&diff=364944 2025-02-09T06:46:44Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> Still makes more sense than BRICS. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.144.34|172.71.144.34]] 19:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I for one think Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego is a classic example of an island that does NOT dangle awkwardly at the bottom of a mainland. It's almost a case study in graceful, near-seamless islandic placement relative to the mainland, such that if you informed someone that it's technically an island they may do a double-take and have to squint at a map before they believe you. As further evidence for this perspective, I commend to the reader [[2256: Bad Map Projection: South America]] where IGdTdF is only represented as truly distinct from the mainland in 1 out of the 36 South Americas represented - and this is probably more for comedy value than anything else, since in this map, IGdTdF ITSELF has been replaced by another entire (and extremely small) South America! -MeZimm [[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.4|172.68.3.4]] 22:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Very tempted to make an official Explanation addition that if we named the group for the members (like BRICS has been, and which originally had me trying to identify the islads by shape and what initials they might have, before my eyes finally drifted down to their actual names), it would ''almost'' make a very unfortunate initialism indeed. And the one it does make is basically the same in phonetic terms... I won't actually do so. But I am left wondering if this was actually intended as an additional unspoken bit of Randall's humour, in fact. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.94|172.69.195.94]] 23:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I shall create my own island below the UK to join this Coalition. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 06:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> dunon why, but my first thought on the alt-text was that it was a joke about south america being an island below north america. ~~storm. {{unsigned ip|172.69.60.185|11:27, 10 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> Anyone else think Sri Lanka is a really weird shape for an island? It just doesn't make sense to me, geologically speaking [[User:Tommyds|Tommyds]] ([[User talk:Tommyds|talk]]) 13:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I feel like we should have a [blank] news category. That seems to come up a lot. {{unsigned|Ok123|17:55, 10 October 2024}}<br /> :agreed. I’ll bring it up in the community portal. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> The group flatly rejected the application for membership of North America South of Two Ocean Creek. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 02:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I wonder if it's worth mentioning the &quot;theory of continental drip&quot;, postulated in one of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks Iain Banks]'s novels. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.172|172.70.86.172]] 06:28, 11 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Tasmania Is an island dangling from a larger island. [[User:SomeRandomNerd|SomeRandomNerd]] ([[User talk:SomeRandomNerd|talk]]) 01:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The two small islands marked as dots between Tasmania and the mainland also happen to be part of the Tasmanian state.--[[User:Ozhamada|Ozhamada]] ([[User talk:Ozhamada|talk]]) 02:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm an aussie and that's learning for me! However they aren't marked on the map. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.14|172.68.210.14]] 08:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::It might depend upon what resultion image you're looking at. The two (actually three, two to the right) dots north of Tasmania's corners (King and Flinders/Cape Barren) are marked the grey of the mainland rather than the black of all other points Tasman.<br /> ::The south-eastern-edge islands may get a decent showing (in full black), given the resolution, though the anti-aliasing hints at features (e.g. Bruny/Maria) that may or may not be represented there for reasons of typical Randallian illustration. <br /> ::For obvious reasons of scale/coverage, though, Macquarie Island doesn't festure at all! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.128|172.70.85.128]] 15:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> No love for Cuba, Madagascar, or Sumatra? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.23.49|172.69.23.49]] 19:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Cuba and Sumatra are in more complex relationships than being ''an'' island &quot;dangling below&quot;. (Other islands/continents all around them, generally moreso than the cited examples which tend to be the predominant islands at their scale and in their context.) Madagascar hangs off the 'side' of Africa (maybe below Eurasia, if Africa wasn't counted). Obviously there's leeway of interpretation, but it's part of why Tierra Del Fuego is mentioned as an iffy candidate.<br /> :There are probably other edge-candidates (NZ South Island, c.f. North Island, etc? Though Stewart Island c.f. South Island might be more apt)... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.62|172.70.85.62]] 19:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Cuba is much longer than Florida, and I would not say it looks like it dangles below that part of the US. Also the distance is much greater compared to the size than the ones between the other islands. Maybe Tasmania is as far away but it is a very big landmass above so when drawn on the banner it looks similar. Cuba would not look anything like the others. Sumatra is larger than the part of the mainland it is near and it is not even under it. And as said Madagascar is not at all under Africa. So of course they would not be included. The reason Tierra del Fuego is not included is that when drawn like the others it would be difficult to see where it did not hang onto the mainland. Seems to me that the other not included islands given as examples in the current version of the explanation also fails to come close to the idea of the comic. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I can't help but notice that simply listin* the members would be a shorter acronym, :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:46, 9 February 2025 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2993:_Ingredients&diff=352152 2024-10-06T04:46:31Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Added a quick draft of an explanation. Is it good? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.147.164|172.68.147.164]] 07:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> : sign your damn comment [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 07:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Be more f'ing polite![[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 08:59, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> How hard would this really be? I feel like we could do this by messing with different orbits and just crashing the moons into each other.[[User:Anonymouscript|Anonymouscript]] ([[User talk:Anonymouscript|talk]]) 20:42, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Hard if you don't want to change everything into molten lava temporarily. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.61|172.71.166.61]] 08:21, 4 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I think 'temporarily' doesn't sound too bad... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.72|172.70.91.72]] 10:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Isn't this the plot of the first Ratchet &amp; Clank game? {{unsigned ip|172.68.22.98|22:26, 3 October 2024}}<br /> :I was happy to see someone reference one of my favourite game series, a game of which I played in full, then I realize it's been about 20 years, I in no way remember the plot, LOL! I remember starting out at the beginning, and I remember exploiting a money glitch with a megaphone weapon to be able to afford the best weapon. :) (What's funny is that while most of my possessions are lost in storage over multiple chaotic moves, my PS2 games managed to survive and are nice and accessible). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:46, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Voice actor speculation<br /> Since we're rapidly approaching number 3000, let's designate voice actors to the xkcd cast.<br /> <br /> Beret Guy could be voiced by Michael Kovach, doing the same voice as he does for N from Murder Drones.<br /> <br /> Black Hat could be voiced by JamsDX, with the same voice he did for X in his cover of Obituary.<br /> <br /> And so on. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 07:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It would help if I knew who either of those were, or even the things that they are described as doing. And I suspect my own prospective choices would be similarly unknown to you. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.62|172.70.85.62]] 08:35, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::here's [https://youtu.be/IeUfDDz7vSg?feature=shared the n voice clips] and [https://youtu.be/YmzxwWNuYnk?feature=shared the obituary cover] i was referring to, hope this helps! [[User:CalibansCreations|'''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#ff0000;&quot;&gt;Caliban&lt;/span&gt;''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 13:03, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::You can do whatever you like but it is not a part of explain xkcd og xkcd... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:17, 3 October 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2992:_UK_Coal&diff=352151 2024-10-06T04:24:07Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> nuclear power is better in all aspects anyway [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.105|172.70.90.105]] 19:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : Not true - the rabbits can't get into the radiation suits.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.62|172.70.85.62]] 14:11, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Here before the explanation :) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.9|172.71.154.9]] 20:12, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ew. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I made an initial explanation, but it needs a lot of work still; hopefully someone with more experience editing on this wiki can improve it (this is my first explanation) [[User:MathEnthusiast|MathEnthusiast]] ([[User talk:MathEnthusiast|talk]]) 20:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;the sole rabbit-run coal plant was shut down in the 1990s.&quot;<br /> Just checking, but this isn't referencing some particularly egregious, badly managed coal power plant in the U.K., is it? [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I don’t think so; I believe it’s simply that Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant is the last UK coal plant to be shut down.<br /> ::The 1990 comment in particular. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.36.171|172.68.36.171]] 15:07, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Randall uses SI units in the formula, as every person with the tiniest bit of tech/science education would, but then gives the result in inches (3.15) instead of centimeters (8.0). Americans are weird. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.162|162.158.110.162]] 20:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :^^ This! {{unsigned ip|172.70.90.109}}<br /> :Because metric units make more sense for calculating, but common sense units are what people can actually visualize. [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 23:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Define &quot;common sense&quot;... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.206|172.70.162.206]] 06:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::About 0.3937 centimeters [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 04:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::&quot;Because metric units make more sense for calculating, but *[American-only] units are what *[his American primary target audience] can actually visualize&quot;, there, fixed that for you. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> One should not forget that the 3 inches are very unevenly distributed. Some areas on top of coal mines have sunken in much further creating new flooding risks that require continued future interventions. <br /> --[[Special:Contributions/172.64.236.34|172.64.236.34]] 21:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Indeed, I used to line in the north of England and road signs would say, &quot;Road liable to subsidence.&quot; I also wonder about the year 1853. Mining was going on long before that. The industrial revolution started in the mid-eighteenth century.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.22|141.101.98.22]] 07:46, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Presumably, that's just the earliest that UK DESNZ has data for.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.23.209|172.71.23.209]] 18:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I understand that Watership Down is sometimes categorized as &quot;children's literature&quot;, but it always catches me off guard. The Wikipedia page for it calls it an &quot;adventure novel&quot; and it's in the adult fiction section at my library. I'm just wondering if perhaps the explanation here should be a little less specific in its categorization of the book.[[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 21:35, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I don't think it's ever '''''categorized''''' as children's literature (I'm surprised at no mention of the more well-known and more likely reference of the movie), they're often '''''MISTAKEN''''' (or mis-categorized, if you will) as being for children, considering the fluffy bunnies and animated feature. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> From the perspective of someone who lived through the 1980s Miner's Strike (not directly affected, my father worked at a steel-works, not at a pit like my friends' fathers) and then the decline of the steel manufacturing industry (which ''did'' affect my father, obviously), I have rather naturally kept a general eye on the extraction and use of coal. There still are working coal-mines (though there isn't going to be that new one, in Cumbria), and there are still uses for UK coal (enough to import to add to tht which we dig out). It's really a bit early to say that the layer of total coal dug out ''won't'' deepen slightly (very, very slightly) in the future. And coal that is dug is only loosely associated with coal which is turned into electricity, so the last coal-generator stopping seems like an oddly off-topic detail for Randall to leap into the amortised accumulation of extracted volume. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.165|172.68.205.165]] 22:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Full conversion to US Customary Units (AKA US Bullshit Units):<br /> <br /> (25e9 Tonnes / (1.3 kg/L * 2.4e5 km^2)) * (1000 kg / 1 Tonne) * (1 km^2 / (1000 m)^2 ) * (1 m^3 / 1000 L) * (39.37 in / 1 m ) ~= 3&quot; <br /> <br /> --[[User:JayTeeEll|JayTeeEll]] ([[User talk:JayTeeEll|talk]]) 22:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :&quot;US Bullshit units&quot;, but I still see a lot of kilo this and that metric, :) &quot;Full&quot;? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> He has not added the amount of &quot;flotation&quot; that results from the removal of all that material from the islands. Have the islands risen more than 3 inches in the crust, due to the removal? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 23:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Scotland's still going up (after the last Ice-Age melt) and the south of Britain is still going down, IIRC. Which'll confuse matters. But I don't see how the component contributions to raising level (due to the digging out) could outpace the removal (due to that digging), by any significant amount. Rebound takes a while, and the effects should roughly equal out (so long as we haven't been digging too deep). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.151|172.68.205.151]] 23:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : He doesn't mention anything about the surface height at all, though. He says that an average 3&quot; has been dug up and burnt, but not that the country is 3&quot; lower as a result.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.204|172.70.86.204]] 13:45, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Between the diagram and the text (including title-text), it looks as if he is indeed lowering the surface' from what it might have been without the extraction. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.35|172.70.86.35]] 16:49, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have a nagging feeling that although rabbit-run coal plants aren't (known to be) a thing, there must be Victorian children's books (e.g. Beatrix Potter) in which bunnies use coal scuttles or coal fires. &quot;When Horace Hedgehog arrived, it was tea-time, so Mr Hoppy put some more coal on the fire...&quot; [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 00:36, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Funnily enough, ''Peter Rabbit'', by Beatrix Potter was published in 1901, the same year as Queen Victoria’s passing, which marked the end of the Victorian Era. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 15:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I felt confident that there was probably a place named Rabbit Run, with a coal-based facility nearby, but all I found was [https://rabbitrun.wales a rather pedestrian footrace]. <br /> :[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:21, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> UK DESNZ refers to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is a ministerial department of the UK government. So basically that text is citing the source for the data.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.185|172.70.162.185]] 03:33, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> To help balance this out, should someone import coal into the formerly coal producing areas to fill in the now empty veins, or would that be selling coal to Newcastle? [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 05:35, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> From the miner's strike onwards, a lot of coal was imported (particularly from (Poland) to run the coal-fired power stations since it was much cheaper, so wasn't dug out the ground in the UK. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.105|172.70.90.105]] 07:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The formula doesn't take into account that the UK has ...changed land area over that period. Land area of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland) was 315000 km² until 1922.<br /> This changes the reading in SI units from 8 cm to 7 cm, but the rounded value in inches is unchanged, 3 in. Which explains why you call those units of his glorious majesty Imperial, I guess. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.172.180|172.71.172.180]] 08:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I checked the source and it doesn't say wether production data for 1853-1922 is for the CURRENT territory of UK or includes production in the territory now belonging to Eire. Maybe we should inquire. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.89|162.158.111.89]] 11:03, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Coal production in the territory now known as the Republic of Ireland (not Éire, that is just the Irish language name for the island) was historically quite low compared to Britain, with [https://irelandenergy2050.ie/past/coal/#:~:text=In%20Ireland%20there%20were%20four,Coalfield%20reportedly%20started%20in%201638. somewhere around 50,000 tons per year] before independence, so it can largely be discounted [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.34|162.158.111.89]] 14:28, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> I don't like the punctuation spatter in &quot;The UK shut down their last coal power plant today, which means that over the course of the industrial revolution, they dug up and burned an average of 3 inches of their country.&quot; And the place I'd put a new comma might confuse others' sensibilities. Perhaps &quot;..., which means that (over the ... revolution) they dug ...&quot;. Or just get rid of the one after revolution and accept a rather long run-on clause. Not that it's changable here, being Transcript of what's there but it's strangely off in grammatical meter and span from how I would try to say/write the same words. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.101|172.70.85.101]] 10:06, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I feel like I missed the joke somewhere with this: &quot;The volume of earth described, 0.1 nm × 240,000 km2, is equal to 24 m3. This is a humorous play on depictions of anthropomorphic rabbits in children's literature.&quot; Are these two separate statements that happened to be placed in a misleading way, or is something funny about 24 cubic meters having to do with anthropomorphic rabbits? {{unsigned ip|162.158.111.237}}<br /> <br /> i hear that stoats are getting into nuclear now, tho. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.215|172.69.58.215]] 20:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Reminds me of [https://www.ferret-school.co.uk/working-ferrets/cable-laying ferrets], and the &quot;Nuclear Ferret&quot; section in particular. (Yes, &quot;microscopic steel particles called mesons&quot; makes me glad they seem far more expert in muscalid matters than with physics. And web-page design.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.206|172.70.162.206]] 06:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> finally made my own account, can someone help create my user and talk pages??? [[User:CalibansCreations|CalibansCreations]] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:22, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;(Inexplicably was in Community Portal/Miscelaneous) I'm getting a factor of 10 difference in the calculation<br /> <br /> in today's comic (#2992 (September 30, 2024)<br /> <br /> We see the depth of the UK coal industry. The calculation is presented as<br /> <br /> 25 Billion Tonnes<br /> ------------------------- ~= 3 inches.<br /> 1.3Kg/L x 240,000 Km^2<br /> <br /> I reduced the units and got:<br /> <br /> <br /> CoalProduction_Tonne = 25e9;<br /> <br /> CoalProduction_Kg = CoalProduction_Tonne * 1000; % 1000Kg/tonne<br /> <br /> VolumePerLiter_MCubed = .001; % cubic meters<br /> <br /> AreaOfUk_KmSquared = 24e3; % Km^2<br /> <br /> AreaOfUk_MSquared = AreaOfUk_KmSquared * 1e6; % 1e6m^2 in 1Km^2<br /> <br /> DepthOfCoal_M = CoalProduction_Kg/(1.3/VolumePerLiter_MCubed * AreaOfUk_MSquared);<br /> <br /> DepthOfCoal_mm = 1000 * DepthOfCoal_M<br /> <br /> DepthOfCoal_mm = 801.28,approx. 32 inches.<br /> <br /> Where is this wrong? {{unsigned ip|172.71.23.209|20:52, 1 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> :The original comic (#[[2992]]) sets the UK land area as 240,000 km^2, which is equal to 24 * 10^4 km^2 (or 2.4 * 10^5 km^2, or 240 * 10^3 km^2, or 2.4 * 10^5 * (10^3)^2 m^2 = 2.4 * 10^11 m^2), exactly one order of magnitude different from your numbers. I ran my own calculations (before really looking deeply at yours) and got 3.2 inches (rounded off to two sig figs). [[User:Coolclawcat|Coolclawcat]] ([[User talk:Coolclawcat|talk]]) 00:59, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::In other words:<br /> AreaOfUk_KmSquared = 240e3; % Km^2<br /> [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 02:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> That was it: DepthOfCoal_in = 3.1547 {{unsigned ip|172.71.31.55|13:07, 2 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> <br /> As a Brit, I just want to say: wooohoooo!! Finally! As an environmentalist, I'll also add: Sorry about all the anti-nuclear power stuff. Many of my predecessors got it very badly wrong. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.35|172.70.86.35]] 08:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm quite amused at the &quot;citation needed&quot; on &quot;There's no documented evidence of a rabbit-run plant&quot;. Yes, provide documentation on how there's no documentation. :) I like that one. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2992:_UK_Coal&diff=352150 2024-10-06T04:21:23Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> nuclear power is better in all aspects anyway [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.105|172.70.90.105]] 19:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : Not true - the rabbits can't get into the radiation suits.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.62|172.70.85.62]] 14:11, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Here before the explanation :) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.9|172.71.154.9]] 20:12, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Ew. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I made an initial explanation, but it needs a lot of work still; hopefully someone with more experience editing on this wiki can improve it (this is my first explanation) [[User:MathEnthusiast|MathEnthusiast]] ([[User talk:MathEnthusiast|talk]]) 20:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &quot;the sole rabbit-run coal plant was shut down in the 1990s.&quot;<br /> Just checking, but this isn't referencing some particularly egregious, badly managed coal power plant in the U.K., is it? [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I don’t think so; I believe it’s simply that Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant is the last UK coal plant to be shut down.<br /> ::The 1990 comment in particular. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.36.171|172.68.36.171]] 15:07, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Randall uses SI units in the formula, as every person with the tiniest bit of tech/science education would, but then gives the result in inches (3.15) instead of centimeters (8.0). Americans are weird. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.162|162.158.110.162]] 20:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :^^ This! {{unsigned ip|172.70.90.109}}<br /> :Because metric units make more sense for calculating, but common sense units are what people can actually visualize. [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 23:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Define &quot;common sense&quot;... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.206|172.70.162.206]] 06:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::About 0.3937 centimeters [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 04:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::&quot;Because metric units make more sense for calculating, but *[American-only] units are what *[his American primary target audience] can actually visualize&quot;, there, fixed that for you. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> One should not forget that the 3 inches are very unevenly distributed. Some areas on top of coal mines have sunken in much further creating new flooding risks that require continued future interventions. <br /> --[[Special:Contributions/172.64.236.34|172.64.236.34]] 21:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Indeed, I used to line in the north of England and road signs would say, &quot;Road liable to subsidence.&quot; I also wonder about the year 1853. Mining was going on long before that. The industrial revolution started in the mid-eighteenth century.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.22|141.101.98.22]] 07:46, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Presumably, that's just the earliest that UK DESNZ has data for.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.23.209|172.71.23.209]] 18:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I understand that Watership Down is sometimes categorized as &quot;children's literature&quot;, but it always catches me off guard. The Wikipedia page for it calls it an &quot;adventure novel&quot; and it's in the adult fiction section at my library. I'm just wondering if perhaps the explanation here should be a little less specific in its categorization of the book.[[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 21:35, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I don't think it's ever '''''categorized''''' as children's literature (I'm surprised at no mention of the more well-known and more likely reference of the movie), they're often '''''MISTAKEN''''' as being for children, considering the fluffy bunnies and animated feature. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> From the perspective of someone who lived through the 1980s Miner's Strike (not directly affected, my father worked at a steel-works, not at a pit like my friends' fathers) and then the decline of the steel manufacturing industry (which ''did'' affect my father, obviously), I have rather naturally kept a general eye on the extraction and use of coal. There still are working coal-mines (though there isn't going to be that new one, in Cumbria), and there are still uses for UK coal (enough to import to add to tht which we dig out). It's really a bit early to say that the layer of total coal dug out ''won't'' deepen slightly (very, very slightly) in the future. And coal that is dug is only loosely associated with coal which is turned into electricity, so the last coal-generator stopping seems like an oddly off-topic detail for Randall to leap into the amortised accumulation of extracted volume. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.165|172.68.205.165]] 22:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Full conversion to US Customary Units (AKA US Bullshit Units):<br /> <br /> (25e9 Tonnes / (1.3 kg/L * 2.4e5 km^2)) * (1000 kg / 1 Tonne) * (1 km^2 / (1000 m)^2 ) * (1 m^3 / 1000 L) * (39.37 in / 1 m ) ~= 3&quot; <br /> <br /> --[[User:JayTeeEll|JayTeeEll]] ([[User talk:JayTeeEll|talk]]) 22:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :&quot;US Bullshit units&quot;, but I still see a lot of kilo this and that metric, :) &quot;Full&quot;? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> He has not added the amount of &quot;flotation&quot; that results from the removal of all that material from the islands. Have the islands risen more than 3 inches in the crust, due to the removal? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 23:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Scotland's still going up (after the last Ice-Age melt) and the south of Britain is still going down, IIRC. Which'll confuse matters. But I don't see how the component contributions to raising level (due to the digging out) could outpace the removal (due to that digging), by any significant amount. Rebound takes a while, and the effects should roughly equal out (so long as we haven't been digging too deep). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.151|172.68.205.151]] 23:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : He doesn't mention anything about the surface height at all, though. He says that an average 3&quot; has been dug up and burnt, but not that the country is 3&quot; lower as a result.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.204|172.70.86.204]] 13:45, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Between the diagram and the text (including title-text), it looks as if he is indeed lowering the surface' from what it might have been without the extraction. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.35|172.70.86.35]] 16:49, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have a nagging feeling that although rabbit-run coal plants aren't (known to be) a thing, there must be Victorian children's books (e.g. Beatrix Potter) in which bunnies use coal scuttles or coal fires. &quot;When Horace Hedgehog arrived, it was tea-time, so Mr Hoppy put some more coal on the fire...&quot; [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 00:36, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Funnily enough, ''Peter Rabbit'', by Beatrix Potter was published in 1901, the same year as Queen Victoria’s passing, which marked the end of the Victorian Era. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 15:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I felt confident that there was probably a place named Rabbit Run, with a coal-based facility nearby, but all I found was [https://rabbitrun.wales a rather pedestrian footrace]. <br /> :[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:21, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> UK DESNZ refers to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is a ministerial department of the UK government. So basically that text is citing the source for the data.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.185|172.70.162.185]] 03:33, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> To help balance this out, should someone import coal into the formerly coal producing areas to fill in the now empty veins, or would that be selling coal to Newcastle? [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 05:35, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> From the miner's strike onwards, a lot of coal was imported (particularly from (Poland) to run the coal-fired power stations since it was much cheaper, so wasn't dug out the ground in the UK. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.105|172.70.90.105]] 07:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The formula doesn't take into account that the UK has ...changed land area over that period. Land area of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland) was 315000 km² until 1922.<br /> This changes the reading in SI units from 8 cm to 7 cm, but the rounded value in inches is unchanged, 3 in. Which explains why you call those units of his glorious majesty Imperial, I guess. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.172.180|172.71.172.180]] 08:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I checked the source and it doesn't say wether production data for 1853-1922 is for the CURRENT territory of UK or includes production in the territory now belonging to Eire. Maybe we should inquire. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.89|162.158.111.89]] 11:03, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Coal production in the territory now known as the Republic of Ireland (not Éire, that is just the Irish language name for the island) was historically quite low compared to Britain, with [https://irelandenergy2050.ie/past/coal/#:~:text=In%20Ireland%20there%20were%20four,Coalfield%20reportedly%20started%20in%201638. somewhere around 50,000 tons per year] before independence, so it can largely be discounted [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.34|162.158.111.89]] 14:28, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> I don't like the punctuation spatter in &quot;The UK shut down their last coal power plant today, which means that over the course of the industrial revolution, they dug up and burned an average of 3 inches of their country.&quot; And the place I'd put a new comma might confuse others' sensibilities. Perhaps &quot;..., which means that (over the ... revolution) they dug ...&quot;. Or just get rid of the one after revolution and accept a rather long run-on clause. Not that it's changable here, being Transcript of what's there but it's strangely off in grammatical meter and span from how I would try to say/write the same words. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.101|172.70.85.101]] 10:06, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I feel like I missed the joke somewhere with this: &quot;The volume of earth described, 0.1 nm × 240,000 km2, is equal to 24 m3. This is a humorous play on depictions of anthropomorphic rabbits in children's literature.&quot; Are these two separate statements that happened to be placed in a misleading way, or is something funny about 24 cubic meters having to do with anthropomorphic rabbits? {{unsigned ip|162.158.111.237}}<br /> <br /> i hear that stoats are getting into nuclear now, tho. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.215|172.69.58.215]] 20:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Reminds me of [https://www.ferret-school.co.uk/working-ferrets/cable-laying ferrets], and the &quot;Nuclear Ferret&quot; section in particular. (Yes, &quot;microscopic steel particles called mesons&quot; makes me glad they seem far more expert in muscalid matters than with physics. And web-page design.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.206|172.70.162.206]] 06:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> finally made my own account, can someone help create my user and talk pages??? [[User:CalibansCreations|CalibansCreations]] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:22, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;(Inexplicably was in Community Portal/Miscelaneous) I'm getting a factor of 10 difference in the calculation<br /> <br /> in today's comic (#2992 (September 30, 2024)<br /> <br /> We see the depth of the UK coal industry. The calculation is presented as<br /> <br /> 25 Billion Tonnes<br /> ------------------------- ~= 3 inches.<br /> 1.3Kg/L x 240,000 Km^2<br /> <br /> I reduced the units and got:<br /> <br /> <br /> CoalProduction_Tonne = 25e9;<br /> <br /> CoalProduction_Kg = CoalProduction_Tonne * 1000; % 1000Kg/tonne<br /> <br /> VolumePerLiter_MCubed = .001; % cubic meters<br /> <br /> AreaOfUk_KmSquared = 24e3; % Km^2<br /> <br /> AreaOfUk_MSquared = AreaOfUk_KmSquared * 1e6; % 1e6m^2 in 1Km^2<br /> <br /> DepthOfCoal_M = CoalProduction_Kg/(1.3/VolumePerLiter_MCubed * AreaOfUk_MSquared);<br /> <br /> DepthOfCoal_mm = 1000 * DepthOfCoal_M<br /> <br /> DepthOfCoal_mm = 801.28,approx. 32 inches.<br /> <br /> Where is this wrong? {{unsigned ip|172.71.23.209|20:52, 1 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> :The original comic (#[[2992]]) sets the UK land area as 240,000 km^2, which is equal to 24 * 10^4 km^2 (or 2.4 * 10^5 km^2, or 240 * 10^3 km^2, or 2.4 * 10^5 * (10^3)^2 m^2 = 2.4 * 10^11 m^2), exactly one order of magnitude different from your numbers. I ran my own calculations (before really looking deeply at yours) and got 3.2 inches (rounded off to two sig figs). [[User:Coolclawcat|Coolclawcat]] ([[User talk:Coolclawcat|talk]]) 00:59, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::In other words:<br /> AreaOfUk_KmSquared = 240e3; % Km^2<br /> [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 02:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> That was it: DepthOfCoal_in = 3.1547 {{unsigned ip|172.71.31.55|13:07, 2 October 2024}}<br /> <br /> <br /> As a Brit, I just want to say: wooohoooo!! Finally! As an environmentalist, I'll also add: Sorry about all the anti-nuclear power stuff. Many of my predecessors got it very badly wrong. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.35|172.70.86.35]] 08:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm quite amused at the &quot;citation needed&quot; on &quot;There's no documented evidence of a rabbit-run plant&quot;. Yes, provide documentation on how there's no documentation. :) I like that one. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2990:_Late_Cenozoic&diff=351522 2024-09-28T06:55:00Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> first explanation, probably bad [[User:Sci09273.15|Sci09273.15]] ([[User talk:Sci09273.15|talk]]) 19:41, 25 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :It's a fine starting point. Welcome! [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:51, 25 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It would have been so cute if Randall had given the lecturer alien some features of Miss Lenhart. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:53, 25 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Luckily for future paleontologists, our infrastructure and earthmoving projects are sturdy enough that they should still look kinda funny in a hundred million years. They might not assume that there was a technological civilization until they identified the Manhattan Iron Deposits as ancient vehicles or found similar proof, but they would know SOMETHING weird was going on. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 21:38, 25 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> : Researchers have successfully detected and reconstructed the foundations of mud huts, and track down the fossilized trash heaps of humans and [https://www.usgs.gov/centers/geosciences-and-environmental-change-science-center/science/usgs-north-american-packrat animals]. Hard for me to imagine a circumstance in which the fossil exhibits of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Museum_of_Natural_History AMNH] (to name one) were preserved largely intact, that did not also preserve the AMNH itself in a recognizable form. The aliens might then be left to meditate on how a civilization that could create an AMNH [https://www.dude-n-dude.com/2021/05/02/amoebas-lorica-sanded/ fell over]. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.196|172.71.150.196]] 15:31, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The gap in the fossil record between their extinction and sudden resurgence will be explained by a chance discovery of a prestine copy of the documentary Jurassic Park.<br /> [[Special:Contributions/172.69.208.183|172.69.208.183]] 23:50, 25 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hey, I made this same exact joke (offline) over 20 years ago! I believe that means [[827: My Business Idea|I am entitled to compensation]]. [[User:183231bcb|183231bcb]] ([[User talk:183231bcb|talk]]) 01:39, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> -Thinking emoji- pretty sure the typical museum dino skeleton is 100% fossil free. I might recall the dino (and similar rareness of fossils) skeletons on display as cast plaster (of paris?). SDT [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.17|172.70.38.17]] 03:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : As usual, the answer to the question &quot;how much of a displayed dinosaur skeleton is composed of authentic fossil bones&quot; is &quot;it depends&quot;. See [https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/which-dinosaur-bones-are-real this article] from Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History for intel. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.146|172.71.147.146]] 05:30, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I would be willing to suffer the fate of {{w|Tithonus}} for a chance to see those aliens try to figure out the Cenozoic biogeography of Hawai&amp;lsquo;i - where, for instance, the (presumably fossilized remains of the) backyard birds would include, &lt;em&gt;inter alia&lt;/em&gt;, the northern cardinal (North America), the Java finch (Indonesia), the saffron finch (Brazil), the English sparrow (western Europe), the zebra dove (Malaysia), the warbling white-eye (Japan), the common waxbill (South Africa), the common myna (India) ... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.151|172.68.23.151]] 05:58, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I love the fact that we have a perfectly reasonable five sentence, three paragraph explanation with 5x as much text here on the talk page, especially after the disaster with Monday's (the previous) comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.24|162.158.90.24]] 07:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Haven't counted the sentences, but it's now four paragraphs. That's with a single (rendering-ignored) line-feed having been made into two (forcing a paragraph-break), when maybe someone should have contracted it instead.<br /> :I just extracted a rather spaghetti-like inclusion of the nature(s?) of the future-beings from the flow, to streamline it. Readded that (further expounded, now with a bit of excusable elbow-room) as Trivia, to retain the speculative nature of that interesting but incidental bit of analysis. Hope this works for people. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.37|172.71.26.37]] 10:36, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Must have been nice while it lasted. &quot;Dinosaurs, particularly velociraptors, eating humans is a recurring fear of Randall's.&quot; Good grief. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.42|172.70.207.42]] 17:23, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Should we make a category for comics including these alien guys? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.155.35|172.71.155.35]] 16:59, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This has an amusing (to me) parallel with the Young Earth Creationist &quot;theory&quot; that a malevolent power arranged fossils in the geologic record in such a way as to lead scientists to conclude that life has been here for hundreds of millions of years, thereby leading them away from God. In this case, our paleontologists and museum curators are that malevolent power. (There's also a &quot;theory&quot; that the Great Flood resulted in sorting the fossil record in that way, not malevolently, but as a function of density and hydrodynamics....)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 18:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : Deus Creatus does lots of strange things. Kinda like the beings that created it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.5|108.162.246.5]] 19:19, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : My theory: ''If'' there's a Creator, then He values logic. He may have created Earth as per YEC's thoughts on 6,000 years or so ago (or last Tuesday, or even five minutes ago!) but He was also the one who planted all the fossils (and light 'arriving' from the early universe, and perhaps all the scientific literature and other details that predates you having been blinked into existence, all your faked memories fully formed).<br /> : This is His test. If you decide that the world was Created, based only upon one or other imperfect religious text (that He also created, with all their deliberate flaws and contradictions), then you have failed. If you instead examine the perfectly crafted scientific evidence (with its perfectly intentional limitations left open to further critical thinking) and decide that it is a much more useful worldview, and seek to find out more from the (faked, but perfectly so) world of wonder out there, then you are blessed.<br /> : Though actually believing in this God Of Logic is not what He wants. Feel free to theorise about him, but you can never find any proof of Him because He never left any. All those false trails to various other deities, to catch the insufficiently thoughtful out, but the 'true' mysteries of the universe are the only ones you should pay attention to. And, through His omnipotence, He has left ''so many'' logical 'facts' and measurements for you to find and appreciate.<br /> : ...this explains all observable data, but of course is unproven. Naturally, I don't say that it's true. I would instead preach that you ''look around and make your own mind up''. Which is something that more people could try doing. And there's no reason why GOL would not want you to do this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.206|172.70.86.206]] 20:30, 26 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The biggest problem with this edition is that it names genera but speaks of species.<br /> Re earlier comments, please spell &quot;pristine&quot; correctly. There has actually been found altered soft tissue, but not DNA as such.<br /> Indeed some museum displays are 100% casts, others vary in the amount of original material. My first thought re human DNA was just from visitors coughing, sneezing, and touching but resin prep seems plausible. {{unsigned|Anthonyeleven|21:19, 26 September 2024}}<br /> <br /> I'm no expert, but firstly, I would think the fossils keep aging even once unearthed, so that analysis would reveal their actual age, not placing them at modern day (despite what burial depth they were found) and would be more upright than the originals. Secondly, don't museums use things to hold the skeletons in place? Like metal frames? Wouldn't those be present and evident as well, revealing that these skeletons were being held together artificially? Thirdly, with Hallowe'en NEXT month I would think a comic about dinosaur skeletons would have been better NEXT week or later, :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:55, 28 September 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2983:_Monocaster&diff=350583 2024-09-15T06:42:58Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Unicycles aren't (or at least aren't usually) chain-driven. I might try to fix that if my phone stops being so slow that it feels like I'm using a 90s PC to do this. Maybe a restart will help. Rebooting in 10, 9, 8... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.76|172.70.91.76]] 07:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I just went in and Actual Citation Needed it (seeing lower comment, when editor reloaded this page for me, forcing me to rewrite, that may have changed now).<br /> :*It doesn't look like a chain-drive. Could be hub-geared, but not the same thing.<br /> :*Chain-drive to raise the rider (most of the mass) up higher will ''raise'' the CoG.<br /> :*'Underslung' chain-drive (see 1880s example, [[1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design|here]]?) has problems. Pedals hitting the ground would be one of them, unless your wheel was indeed significantly larger...<br /> :*...and if it is (perhaps for better off-roading?), this intrinsically pushes up the CoG. Perhaps you are trying to lower it slightly, again, then. But you can't bring the saddle (and crotch!) lower than the now higher top of the wheel. (&quot;Timeline of Bicycles&quot; version excepted, assumed assymetric? In [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-4b7d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 some manner]?)<br /> :Add to that a few niggles about the bicycle. Not sure if intended to be a Moulton-style one (wheels maybe the classic 17&quot;, frame totally wrong) or a roadbike-style-ish one (frame relatively Ok, as drawn by someone not fully adhering to the design, maybe confused by some MTB variations, but clearly not in the ~27&quot; wheel range, give or take). Of course, wheels are neither concentric nor circular, so depends a bit on which bits of the 'circles' are right for the intended arc and which bits ended up more casually doodled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.99|172.70.91.99]] 08:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :AFAIK, unicycles aren't GENERALLY chain-driven, but tall ones are (to put the peddles where the rider can reach them, but raise the rider up, often to a second story of a building). That said, I don't see a chain here, but I also don't see one in the description, so obviously sorted out by now. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hmm, Randall missed an opportunity to put a Penny-Farthing in there... though I'm not sure how that would have categorised given that it has two wheels of different sizes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 08:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :He has a &quot;Big Wheel Trike&quot; (child's low-rider style thing) in there. On the logarithmic scale, and imprecise reference point (bottom/middle(/CoG,where different)/top of wheel/vehicle/rider/whole?), both the big front wheel and the small trailing wheels colpd be in the right place-ish, although having it slightly inclined could put them in the (place Tandall considers to be) ''exactly'' right place. ((Note also where the 10(?)-wheeler truck-and-trailer is placed horizontally vs the possibly relevent &quot;number of wheels&quot;.))<br /> :You could do something similar with the Old Ordinary (i.e. &quot;Penny-Farthing&quot;), either make it roughly right or depict going up a ''marginally'' steeper hill. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.142|172.69.194.142]] 09:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'd say ignore the small wheel (would crowd with similar-sized wheels) and place according to the front wheel, might be easier to find room there. :) Agreed, missed opportunity, that front wheel '''''is''''' particularly large. Also, when talking about number of wheels and large wheels, how could he miss the {{w|BelAZ_75710}}? A lot of people have been introduced to the concept, 2 wheels per corner I think and I think the wheels are like 8 feet tall in diameter! (I guess like 2.5 meters or so, I'm just pretty sure it's well over my own height of 6'2&quot;, which I know is around 190cm or nearly 2m). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:42, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> Re: unicycles, the COG thing doesn't look right either, but I was distracted by a (thankfully) now-deleted troll comment before and actually fixing the description is beyond my skills, especially on so little sleep.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 08:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :i had good intentions, we need to call randall out --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.122|172.69.194.122]] 09:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::If you mean your calling out the ''other'' point, that has been deleted anyway: Randall doesn't read this site (that we know; and, if I had a site such as this made for my works, I'd think it wisest to stay clear), so he probably won't get your 'message'. This particular comic doesn't even have the slightest connection to that subject, so not even the page to say anything about it. And the point made (even if it was a valid one... it presupposes that there are no nuances and compromises, that one cannot have a complex set of opinions that neither wholly match nor wholly mismatch ''your'' opinions) was also absurd, when you consider how the ''other'' party involved has proven to be even more so. I won't dignify this issue further by putting names and places here, it really isn't the forum for it. But please realise (if you don't already) that your irrelevent point is out of place here. And most places on this site that you/others like you may have tried such messaging on before. Go to /pol/, or your favourite forum's dedicated boards/threads. Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Call him out for *what* exactly? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.135|172.68.70.135]] 12:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::As I dare to hint, just above, someone thinks Randall has a wrong personal opinion on some current issue. Which has nothing to do with this comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::You can check the history of this Talk section like I just did, some weirdo wrote a wild rant about Randall's politics (seems out of left field and based on nothing) which had nothing to do with the comic beyond ranting about Randall and Randall being the author. It was the original first comment. Most proper deletion, I say. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:31, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> As a unicyclist myself, I don't think the unicycle is easier to balance because of a lower center of mass and a chain drive. As a few others have mentioned, they don't normally have a chain drive, although there are a few specialist ones that do. Normally, the cranks are just attached to the hub so you can directly control the speed of the wheel at a 1 to 1 ratio, which makes it easier to balance on. The other thing that would make the unicycle easier than the monocaster is that you can control what direction the wheel is pointing by turning the seat with your thighs. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.128|172.68.186.128]] 09:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Love the log-log scale. Now let's see the zoomed-out version, with orders of magnitude more wheels and orders of magnitude larger diameters. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.230|172.71.166.230]] 13:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The scale if off either way. Or Randall wrote centimeters while he meant inches... At least for some cases. Examples: he placed the skatebord at 2cm while skateboord wheels are at ca 5cm - which are approx. 2 inches. Scooter wheels are approx 8.5 inches, not 8.5 cm... The car is mostly fine, albeit it would be a rather small car at ~50cm (a 19 inch (50cm) wheel designates the size of the rims, not the wheel) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 15:18, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::out of all people i would think Randall would be the last one to use a non-SI unit to measure distance. --[[User:Markifi|Markifi]] ([[User talk:Markifi|talk]]) 17:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::He usually prefers SI units, yes. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have NEVER heard anyone call inline skates &quot;three wheel skates&quot;. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.193|141.101.109.193]] 19:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As a quad skater through most of my youth, the depicted &quot;three-wheel skate&quot; was only called &quot;inline&quot; skates. Not sure where this 3-wheel designation came from! [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 21:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I too thought the term “three-wheel skate” seemed odd, and thought “inline skates” might be more appropriate. Then I remembered that in fact, most inline skates have four wheels… a memory that a quick Google image search seemed to support. So I guess a three-wheel skate is a special case of inline skate, rather than the default implementation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.137|172.70.160.137]] 06:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Both variants exist and the three-wheeled version has generally bigger wheels - so the relative depiction of both variants in the diagram is correct. But their position regarding to wheel size is not. See my comment above [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> title text sounds like beret guy ngl--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 23:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not a single mention of Pollux? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux Wikipedia] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.122|172.68.70.122]] 11:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Disconcerting that this explanation does not describe any of the vehicles, instead entirely making one-sided arguments regarding the title text. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I was considering a tabular list of all subjects, when I had time, at least to the Preview stage. Very brief: 'Vehicle' (wikilinked, as appropriate)/№ of wheels/typical size of wheel(s)/Typical use. No long paragraphs intended. Might need a range in the size column (possibly some in the # of wheels column). If someone gets there before me, though, I wouldn't mind. :p<br /> :...and I just discovered that the # 'key', in the numbers 'screen' of this touchscreen keyboard has ”№” as a long-press alternative! How long have I been using this and hadn't realised? (Four years. That's how long.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> [[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Missed opportunity to bring in the Letourneau l2350 loader, which I think has the largest production tires in the world at 4m, outshining those monster trucks (Bigfoot I think never had tires bigger than 3m).<br /> <br /> I notice also a hole regarding ~30cm, multi-wheel. I say that space is filled by those amusement-park little trains. Yesss, they're &quot;separate wagons,&quot; however, as it's several attached wagons operating together as a unit, for practical purposes, I say those trains constitute &quot;one single&quot; vehicle. Some have a very ingenious directional drive system, so wagons follow each other in the same path instead of a cathenary, for example in Disney; I was fascinated.[[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] ([[User talk:Yamaplos|talk]]) 17:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> No mention either of the Rip Stick, which successfully employs only two castored wheels for locomotion. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.189|172.68.23.189]] 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Is there any reason the title text uses &quot;tiny&quot; twice? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.3|172.71.150.3]] 22:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm guessing it's meant to be interpreted as the tiny &quot;single-tiny-caster&quot; [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.2|172.71.150.2]] 22:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == (Inception Sound Effect) ==<br /> <br /> Somewhere in the far corner of the chart:<br /> <br /> {{w|Bagger 288}}<br /> <br /> [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Somewhere in the upper right (but closer than that), the {{w|BelAZ_75710}}, what a missed opportunity! I think it has 8 wheels, 2 at each point a car has 1... I think each wheel is like 8 feet in diameter! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What a missed opportunity to include the 14 wheeled flowboard [[User:Scab|Scab]] ([[User talk:Scab|talk]]) 10:17, 13 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Since regular roller skates are pretty much gone now, seems wrong to miss standard rollerblades (4 wheels per skate, not the 3 Randall specified). Except it would go very close to the skates - I think the wheels aren't quite the same size - I guess that's why, but seems strange to choose the classic 2-by-2 skates over currently common rollerblades... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2983:_Monocaster&diff=350582 2024-09-15T06:35:01Z

<p>NiceGuy1: Too many colons/indentation</p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Unicycles aren't (or at least aren't usually) chain-driven. I might try to fix that if my phone stops being so slow that it feels like I'm using a 90s PC to do this. Maybe a restart will help. Rebooting in 10, 9, 8... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.76|172.70.91.76]] 07:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I just went in and Actual Citation Needed it (seeing lower comment, when editor reloaded this page for me, forcing me to rewrite, that may have changed now).<br /> :*It doesn't look like a chain-drive. Could be hub-geared, but not the same thing.<br /> :*Chain-drive to raise the rider (most of the mass) up higher will ''raise'' the CoG.<br /> :*'Underslung' chain-drive (see 1880s example, [[1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design|here]]?) has problems. Pedals hitting the ground would be one of them, unless your wheel was indeed significantly larger...<br /> :*...and if it is (perhaps for better off-roading?), this intrinsically pushes up the CoG. Perhaps you are trying to lower it slightly, again, then. But you can't bring the saddle (and crotch!) lower than the now higher top of the wheel. (&quot;Timeline of Bicycles&quot; version excepted, assumed assymetric? In [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-4b7d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 some manner]?)<br /> :Add to that a few niggles about the bicycle. Not sure if intended to be a Moulton-style one (wheels maybe the classic 17&quot;, frame totally wrong) or a roadbike-style-ish one (frame relatively Ok, as drawn by someone not fully adhering to the design, maybe confused by some MTB variations, but clearly not in the ~27&quot; wheel range, give or take). Of course, wheels are neither concentric nor circular, so depends a bit on which bits of the 'circles' are right for the intended arc and which bits ended up more casually doodled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.99|172.70.91.99]] 08:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :AFAIK, unicycles aren't GENERALLY chain-driven, but tall ones are (to put the peddles where the rider can reach them, but raise the rider up, often to a second story of a building). That said, I don't see a chain here, but I also don't see one in the description, so obviously sorted out by now. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hmm, Randall missed an opportunity to put a Penny-Farthing in there... though I'm not sure how that would have categorised given that it has two wheels of different sizes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 08:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :He has a &quot;Big Wheel Trike&quot; (child's low-rider style thing) in there. On the logarithmic scale, and imprecise reference point (bottom/middle(/CoG,where different)/top of wheel/vehicle/rider/whole?), both the big front wheel and the small trailing wheels colpd be in the right place-ish, although having it slightly inclined could put them in the (place Tandall considers to be) ''exactly'' right place. ((Note also where the 10(?)-wheeler truck-and-trailer is placed horizontally vs the possibly relevent &quot;number of wheels&quot;.))<br /> :You could do something similar with the Old Ordinary (i.e. &quot;Penny-Farthing&quot;), either make it roughly right or depict going up a ''marginally'' steeper hill. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.142|172.69.194.142]] 09:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> Re: unicycles, the COG thing doesn't look right either, but I was distracted by a (thankfully) now-deleted troll comment before and actually fixing the description is beyond my skills, especially on so little sleep.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 08:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :i had good intentions, we need to call randall out --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.122|172.69.194.122]] 09:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::If you mean your calling out the ''other'' point, that has been deleted anyway: Randall doesn't read this site (that we know; and, if I had a site such as this made for my works, I'd think it wisest to stay clear), so he probably won't get your 'message'. This particular comic doesn't even have the slightest connection to that subject, so not even the page to say anything about it. And the point made (even if it was a valid one... it presupposes that there are no nuances and compromises, that one cannot have a complex set of opinions that neither wholly match nor wholly mismatch ''your'' opinions) was also absurd, when you consider how the ''other'' party involved has proven to be even more so. I won't dignify this issue further by putting names and places here, it really isn't the forum for it. But please realise (if you don't already) that your irrelevent point is out of place here. And most places on this site that you/others like you may have tried such messaging on before. Go to /pol/, or your favourite forum's dedicated boards/threads. Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Call him out for *what* exactly? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.135|172.68.70.135]] 12:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::As I dare to hint, just above, someone thinks Randall has a wrong personal opinion on some current issue. Which has nothing to do with this comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::You can check the history of this Talk section like I just did, some weirdo wrote a wild rant about Randall's politics (seems out of left field and based on nothing) which had nothing to do with the comic beyond ranting about Randall and Randall being the author. It was the original first comment. Most proper deletion, I say. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:31, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> As a unicyclist myself, I don't think the unicycle is easier to balance because of a lower center of mass and a chain drive. As a few others have mentioned, they don't normally have a chain drive, although there are a few specialist ones that do. Normally, the cranks are just attached to the hub so you can directly control the speed of the wheel at a 1 to 1 ratio, which makes it easier to balance on. The other thing that would make the unicycle easier than the monocaster is that you can control what direction the wheel is pointing by turning the seat with your thighs. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.128|172.68.186.128]] 09:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Love the log-log scale. Now let's see the zoomed-out version, with orders of magnitude more wheels and orders of magnitude larger diameters. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.230|172.71.166.230]] 13:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The scale if off either way. Or Randall wrote centimeters while he meant inches... At least for some cases. Examples: he placed the skatebord at 2cm while skateboord wheels are at ca 5cm - which are approx. 2 inches. Scooter wheels are approx 8.5 inches, not 8.5 cm... The car is mostly fine, albeit it would be a rather small car at ~50cm (a 19 inch (50cm) wheel designates the size of the rims, not the wheel) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 15:18, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::out of all people i would think Randall would be the last one to use a non-SI unit to measure distance. --[[User:Markifi|Markifi]] ([[User talk:Markifi|talk]]) 17:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::He usually prefers SI units, yes. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have NEVER heard anyone call inline skates &quot;three wheel skates&quot;. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.193|141.101.109.193]] 19:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As a quad skater through most of my youth, the depicted &quot;three-wheel skate&quot; was only called &quot;inline&quot; skates. Not sure where this 3-wheel designation came from! [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 21:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I too thought the term “three-wheel skate” seemed odd, and thought “inline skates” might be more appropriate. Then I remembered that in fact, most inline skates have four wheels… a memory that a quick Google image search seemed to support. So I guess a three-wheel skate is a special case of inline skate, rather than the default implementation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.137|172.70.160.137]] 06:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Both variants exist and the three-wheeled version has generally bigger wheels - so the relative depiction of both variants in the diagram is correct. But their position regarding to wheel size is not. See my comment above [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> title text sounds like beret guy ngl--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 23:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not a single mention of Pollux? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux Wikipedia] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.122|172.68.70.122]] 11:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Disconcerting that this explanation does not describe any of the vehicles, instead entirely making one-sided arguments regarding the title text. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I was considering a tabular list of all subjects, when I had time, at least to the Preview stage. Very brief: 'Vehicle' (wikilinked, as appropriate)/№ of wheels/typical size of wheel(s)/Typical use. No long paragraphs intended. Might need a range in the size column (possibly some in the # of wheels column). If someone gets there before me, though, I wouldn't mind. :p<br /> :...and I just discovered that the # 'key', in the numbers 'screen' of this touchscreen keyboard has ”№” as a long-press alternative! How long have I been using this and hadn't realised? (Four years. That's how long.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> [[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Missed opportunity to bring in the Letourneau l2350 loader, which I think has the largest production tires in the world at 4m, outshining those monster trucks (Bigfoot I think never had tires bigger than 3m).<br /> <br /> I notice also a hole regarding ~30cm, multi-wheel. I say that space is filled by those amusement-park little trains. Yesss, they're &quot;separate wagons,&quot; however, as it's several attached wagons operating together as a unit, for practical purposes, I say those trains constitute &quot;one single&quot; vehicle. Some have a very ingenious directional drive system, so wagons follow each other in the same path instead of a cathenary, for example in Disney; I was fascinated.[[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] ([[User talk:Yamaplos|talk]]) 17:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> No mention either of the Rip Stick, which successfully employs only two castored wheels for locomotion. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.189|172.68.23.189]] 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Is there any reason the title text uses &quot;tiny&quot; twice? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.3|172.71.150.3]] 22:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm guessing it's meant to be interpreted as the tiny &quot;single-tiny-caster&quot; [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.2|172.71.150.2]] 22:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == (Inception Sound Effect) ==<br /> <br /> Somewhere in the far corner of the chart:<br /> <br /> {{w|Bagger 288}}<br /> <br /> [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Somewhere in the upper right (but closer than that), the {{w|BelAZ_75710}}, what a missed opportunity! I think it has 8 wheels, 2 at each point a car has 1... I think each wheel is like 8 feet in diameter! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What a missed opportunity to include the 14 wheeled flowboard [[User:Scab|Scab]] ([[User talk:Scab|talk]]) 10:17, 13 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Since regular roller skates are pretty much gone now, seems wrong to miss standard rollerblades (4 wheels per skate, not the 3 Randall specified). Except it would go very close to the skates - I think the wheels aren't quite the same size - I guess that's why, but seems strange to choose the classic 2-by-2 skates over currently common rollerblades... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2983:_Monocaster&diff=350581 2024-09-15T06:31:28Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Unicycles aren't (or at least aren't usually) chain-driven. I might try to fix that if my phone stops being so slow that it feels like I'm using a 90s PC to do this. Maybe a restart will help. Rebooting in 10, 9, 8... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.76|172.70.91.76]] 07:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I just went in and Actual Citation Needed it (seeing lower comment, when editor reloaded this page for me, forcing me to rewrite, that may have changed now).<br /> :*It doesn't look like a chain-drive. Could be hub-geared, but not the same thing.<br /> :*Chain-drive to raise the rider (most of the mass) up higher will ''raise'' the CoG.<br /> :*'Underslung' chain-drive (see 1880s example, [[1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design|here]]?) has problems. Pedals hitting the ground would be one of them, unless your wheel was indeed significantly larger...<br /> :*...and if it is (perhaps for better off-roading?), this intrinsically pushes up the CoG. Perhaps you are trying to lower it slightly, again, then. But you can't bring the saddle (and crotch!) lower than the now higher top of the wheel. (&quot;Timeline of Bicycles&quot; version excepted, assumed assymetric? In [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-4b7d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 some manner]?)<br /> :Add to that a few niggles about the bicycle. Not sure if intended to be a Moulton-style one (wheels maybe the classic 17&quot;, frame totally wrong) or a roadbike-style-ish one (frame relatively Ok, as drawn by someone not fully adhering to the design, maybe confused by some MTB variations, but clearly not in the ~27&quot; wheel range, give or take). Of course, wheels are neither concentric nor circular, so depends a bit on which bits of the 'circles' are right for the intended arc and which bits ended up more casually doodled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.99|172.70.91.99]] 08:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :AFAIK, unicycles aren't GENERALLY chain-driven, but tall ones are (to put the peddles where the rider can reach them, but raise the rider up, often to a second story of a building). That said, I don't see a chain here, but I also don't see one in the description, so obviously sorted out by now. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hmm, Randall missed an opportunity to put a Penny-Farthing in there... though I'm not sure how that would have categorised given that it has two wheels of different sizes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 08:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :He has a &quot;Big Wheel Trike&quot; (child's low-rider style thing) in there. On the logarithmic scale, and imprecise reference point (bottom/middle(/CoG,where different)/top of wheel/vehicle/rider/whole?), both the big front wheel and the small trailing wheels colpd be in the right place-ish, although having it slightly inclined could put them in the (place Tandall considers to be) ''exactly'' right place. ((Note also where the 10(?)-wheeler truck-and-trailer is placed horizontally vs the possibly relevent &quot;number of wheels&quot;.))<br /> :You could do something similar with the Old Ordinary (i.e. &quot;Penny-Farthing&quot;), either make it roughly right or depict going up a ''marginally'' steeper hill. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.142|172.69.194.142]] 09:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> Re: unicycles, the COG thing doesn't look right either, but I was distracted by a (thankfully) now-deleted troll comment before and actually fixing the description is beyond my skills, especially on so little sleep.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 08:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :i had good intentions, we need to call randall out --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.122|172.69.194.122]] 09:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::If you mean your calling out the ''other'' point, that has been deleted anyway: Randall doesn't read this site (that we know; and, if I had a site such as this made for my works, I'd think it wisest to stay clear), so he probably won't get your 'message'. This particular comic doesn't even have the slightest connection to that subject, so not even the page to say anything about it. And the point made (even if it was a valid one... it presupposes that there are no nuances and compromises, that one cannot have a complex set of opinions that neither wholly match nor wholly mismatch ''your'' opinions) was also absurd, when you consider how the ''other'' party involved has proven to be even more so. I won't dignify this issue further by putting names and places here, it really isn't the forum for it. But please realise (if you don't already) that your irrelevent point is out of place here. And most places on this site that you/others like you may have tried such messaging on before. Go to /pol/, or your favourite forum's dedicated boards/threads. Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Call him out for *what* exactly? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.135|172.68.70.135]] 12:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::As I dare to hint, just above, someone thinks Randall has a wrong personal opinion on some current issue. Which has nothing to do with this comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::You can check the history of this Talk section like I just did, some weirdo wrote a wild rant about Randall's politics (seems out of left field and based on nothing) which had nothing to do with the comic beyond ranting about Randall and Randall being the author. It was the original first comment. Most proper deletion, I say. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:31, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> As a unicyclist myself, I don't think the unicycle is easier to balance because of a lower center of mass and a chain drive. As a few others have mentioned, they don't normally have a chain drive, although there are a few specialist ones that do. Normally, the cranks are just attached to the hub so you can directly control the speed of the wheel at a 1 to 1 ratio, which makes it easier to balance on. The other thing that would make the unicycle easier than the monocaster is that you can control what direction the wheel is pointing by turning the seat with your thighs. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.128|172.68.186.128]] 09:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Love the log-log scale. Now let's see the zoomed-out version, with orders of magnitude more wheels and orders of magnitude larger diameters. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.230|172.71.166.230]] 13:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The scale if off either way. Or Randall wrote centimeters while he meant inches... At least for some cases. Examples: he placed the skatebord at 2cm while skateboord wheels are at ca 5cm - which are approx. 2 inches. Scooter wheels are approx 8.5 inches, not 8.5 cm... The car is mostly fine, albeit it would be a rather small car at ~50cm (a 19 inch (50cm) wheel designates the size of the rims, not the wheel) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 15:18, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::out of all people i would think Randall would be the last one to use a non-SI unit to measure distance. --[[User:Markifi|Markifi]] ([[User talk:Markifi|talk]]) 17:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::He usually prefers SI units, yes. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have NEVER heard anyone call inline skates &quot;three wheel skates&quot;. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.193|141.101.109.193]] 19:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As a quad skater through most of my youth, the depicted &quot;three-wheel skate&quot; was only called &quot;inline&quot; skates. Not sure where this 3-wheel designation came from! [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 21:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I too thought the term “three-wheel skate” seemed odd, and thought “inline skates” might be more appropriate. Then I remembered that in fact, most inline skates have four wheels… a memory that a quick Google image search seemed to support. So I guess a three-wheel skate is a special case of inline skate, rather than the default implementation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.137|172.70.160.137]] 06:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Both variants exist and the three-wheeled version has generally bigger wheels - so the relative depiction of both variants in the diagram is correct. But their position regarding to wheel size is not. See my comment above [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> title text sounds like beret guy ngl--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 23:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not a single mention of Pollux? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux Wikipedia] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.122|172.68.70.122]] 11:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Disconcerting that this explanation does not describe any of the vehicles, instead entirely making one-sided arguments regarding the title text. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I was considering a tabular list of all subjects, when I had time, at least to the Preview stage. Very brief: 'Vehicle' (wikilinked, as appropriate)/№ of wheels/typical size of wheel(s)/Typical use. No long paragraphs intended. Might need a range in the size column (possibly some in the # of wheels column). If someone gets there before me, though, I wouldn't mind. :p<br /> :...and I just discovered that the # 'key', in the numbers 'screen' of this touchscreen keyboard has ”№” as a long-press alternative! How long have I been using this and hadn't realised? (Four years. That's how long.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> [[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Missed opportunity to bring in the Letourneau l2350 loader, which I think has the largest production tires in the world at 4m, outshining those monster trucks (Bigfoot I think never had tires bigger than 3m).<br /> <br /> I notice also a hole regarding ~30cm, multi-wheel. I say that space is filled by those amusement-park little trains. Yesss, they're &quot;separate wagons,&quot; however, as it's several attached wagons operating together as a unit, for practical purposes, I say those trains constitute &quot;one single&quot; vehicle. Some have a very ingenious directional drive system, so wagons follow each other in the same path instead of a cathenary, for example in Disney; I was fascinated.[[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] ([[User talk:Yamaplos|talk]]) 17:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> No mention either of the Rip Stick, which successfully employs only two castored wheels for locomotion. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.189|172.68.23.189]] 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Is there any reason the title text uses &quot;tiny&quot; twice? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.3|172.71.150.3]] 22:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm guessing it's meant to be interpreted as the tiny &quot;single-tiny-caster&quot; [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.2|172.71.150.2]] 22:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == (Inception Sound Effect) ==<br /> <br /> Somewhere in the far corner of the chart:<br /> <br /> {{w|Bagger 288}}<br /> <br /> [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Somewhere in the upper right (but closer than that), the {{w|BelAZ_75710}}, what a missed opportunity! I think it has 8 wheels, 2 at each point a car has 1... I think each wheel is like 8 feet in diameter! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What a missed opportunity to include the 14 wheeled flowboard [[User:Scab|Scab]] ([[User talk:Scab|talk]]) 10:17, 13 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Since regular roller skates are pretty much gone now, seems wrong to miss standard rollerblades (4 wheels per skate, not the 3 Randall specified). Except it would go very close to the skates - I think the wheels aren't quite the same size - I guess that's why, but seems strange to choose the classic 2-by-2 skates over currently common rollerblades... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2983:_Monocaster&diff=350580 2024-09-15T06:13:38Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Unicycles aren't (or at least aren't usually) chain-driven. I might try to fix that if my phone stops being so slow that it feels like I'm using a 90s PC to do this. Maybe a restart will help. Rebooting in 10, 9, 8... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.76|172.70.91.76]] 07:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I just went in and Actual Citation Needed it (seeing lower comment, when editor reloaded this page for me, forcing me to rewrite, that may have changed now).<br /> :*It doesn't look like a chain-drive. Could be hub-geared, but not the same thing.<br /> :*Chain-drive to raise the rider (most of the mass) up higher will ''raise'' the CoG.<br /> :*'Underslung' chain-drive (see 1880s example, [[1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design|here]]?) has problems. Pedals hitting the ground would be one of them, unless your wheel was indeed significantly larger...<br /> :*...and if it is (perhaps for better off-roading?), this intrinsically pushes up the CoG. Perhaps you are trying to lower it slightly, again, then. But you can't bring the saddle (and crotch!) lower than the now higher top of the wheel. (&quot;Timeline of Bicycles&quot; version excepted, assumed assymetric? In [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-4b7d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 some manner]?)<br /> :Add to that a few niggles about the bicycle. Not sure if intended to be a Moulton-style one (wheels maybe the classic 17&quot;, frame totally wrong) or a roadbike-style-ish one (frame relatively Ok, as drawn by someone not fully adhering to the design, maybe confused by some MTB variations, but clearly not in the ~27&quot; wheel range, give or take). Of course, wheels are neither concentric nor circular, so depends a bit on which bits of the 'circles' are right for the intended arc and which bits ended up more casually doodled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.99|172.70.91.99]] 08:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :AFAIK, unicycles aren't GENERALLY chain-driven, but tall ones are (to put the peddles where the rider can reach them, but raise the rider up, often to a second story of a building). That said, I don't see a chain here, but I also don't see one in the description, so obviously sorted out by now. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Hmm, Randall missed an opportunity to put a Penny-Farthing in there... though I'm not sure how that would have categorised given that it has two wheels of different sizes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 08:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :He has a &quot;Big Wheel Trike&quot; (child's low-rider style thing) in there. On the logarithmic scale, and imprecise reference point (bottom/middle(/CoG,where different)/top of wheel/vehicle/rider/whole?), both the big front wheel and the small trailing wheels colpd be in the right place-ish, although having it slightly inclined could put them in the (place Tandall considers to be) ''exactly'' right place. ((Note also where the 10(?)-wheeler truck-and-trailer is placed horizontally vs the possibly relevent &quot;number of wheels&quot;.))<br /> :You could do something similar with the Old Ordinary (i.e. &quot;Penny-Farthing&quot;), either make it roughly right or depict going up a ''marginally'' steeper hill. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.142|172.69.194.142]] 09:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> Re: unicycles, the COG thing doesn't look right either, but I was distracted by a (thankfully) now-deleted troll comment before and actually fixing the description is beyond my skills, especially on so little sleep.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 08:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :i had good intentions, we need to call randall out --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.122|172.69.194.122]] 09:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::If you mean your calling out the ''other'' point, that has been deleted anyway: Randall doesn't read this site (that we know; and, if I had a site such as this made for my works, I'd think it wisest to stay clear), so he probably won't get your 'message'. This particular comic doesn't even have the slightest connection to that subject, so not even the page to say anything about it. And the point made (even if it was a valid one... it presupposes that there are no nuances and compromises, that one cannot have a complex set of opinions that neither wholly match nor wholly mismatch ''your'' opinions) was also absurd, when you consider how the ''other'' party involved has proven to be even more so. I won't dignify this issue further by putting names and places here, it really isn't the forum for it. But please realise (if you don't already) that your irrelevent point is out of place here. And most places on this site that you/others like you may have tried such messaging on before. Go to /pol/, or your favourite forum's dedicated boards/threads. Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Call him out for *what* exactly? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.135|172.68.70.135]] 12:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::As I dare to hint, just above, someone thinks Randall has a wrong personal opinion on some current issue. Which has nothing to do with this comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.19|172.70.85.19]] 12:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> As a unicyclist myself, I don't think the unicycle is easier to balance because of a lower center of mass and a chain drive. As a few others have mentioned, they don't normally have a chain drive, although there are a few specialist ones that do. Normally, the cranks are just attached to the hub so you can directly control the speed of the wheel at a 1 to 1 ratio, which makes it easier to balance on. The other thing that would make the unicycle easier than the monocaster is that you can control what direction the wheel is pointing by turning the seat with your thighs. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.128|172.68.186.128]] 09:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Love the log-log scale. Now let's see the zoomed-out version, with orders of magnitude more wheels and orders of magnitude larger diameters. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.230|172.71.166.230]] 13:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The scale if off either way. Or Randall wrote centimeters while he meant inches... At least for some cases. Examples: he placed the skatebord at 2cm while skateboord wheels are at ca 5cm - which are approx. 2 inches. Scooter wheels are approx 8.5 inches, not 8.5 cm... The car is mostly fine, albeit it would be a rather small car at ~50cm (a 19 inch (50cm) wheel designates the size of the rims, not the wheel) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 15:18, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::out of all people i would think Randall would be the last one to use a non-SI unit to measure distance. --[[User:Markifi|Markifi]] ([[User talk:Markifi|talk]]) 17:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::He usually prefers SI units, yes. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I have NEVER heard anyone call inline skates &quot;three wheel skates&quot;. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.193|141.101.109.193]] 19:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As a quad skater through most of my youth, the depicted &quot;three-wheel skate&quot; was only called &quot;inline&quot; skates. Not sure where this 3-wheel designation came from! [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 21:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I too thought the term “three-wheel skate” seemed odd, and thought “inline skates” might be more appropriate. Then I remembered that in fact, most inline skates have four wheels… a memory that a quick Google image search seemed to support. So I guess a three-wheel skate is a special case of inline skate, rather than the default implementation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.137|172.70.160.137]] 06:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Both variants exist and the three-wheeled version has generally bigger wheels - so the relative depiction of both variants in the diagram is correct. But their position regarding to wheel size is not. See my comment above [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> title text sounds like beret guy ngl--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 23:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not a single mention of Pollux? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux Wikipedia] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.122|172.68.70.122]] 11:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Disconcerting that this explanation does not describe any of the vehicles, instead entirely making one-sided arguments regarding the title text. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I was considering a tabular list of all subjects, when I had time, at least to the Preview stage. Very brief: 'Vehicle' (wikilinked, as appropriate)/№ of wheels/typical size of wheel(s)/Typical use. No long paragraphs intended. Might need a range in the size column (possibly some in the # of wheels column). If someone gets there before me, though, I wouldn't mind. :p<br /> :...and I just discovered that the # 'key', in the numbers 'screen' of this touchscreen keyboard has ”№” as a long-press alternative! How long have I been using this and hadn't realised? (Four years. That's how long.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> [[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Missed opportunity to bring in the Letourneau l2350 loader, which I think has the largest production tires in the world at 4m, outshining those monster trucks (Bigfoot I think never had tires bigger than 3m).<br /> <br /> I notice also a hole regarding ~30cm, multi-wheel. I say that space is filled by those amusement-park little trains. Yesss, they're &quot;separate wagons,&quot; however, as it's several attached wagons operating together as a unit, for practical purposes, I say those trains constitute &quot;one single&quot; vehicle. Some have a very ingenious directional drive system, so wagons follow each other in the same path instead of a cathenary, for example in Disney; I was fascinated.[[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] ([[User talk:Yamaplos|talk]]) 17:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> No mention either of the Rip Stick, which successfully employs only two castored wheels for locomotion. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.189|172.68.23.189]] 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Is there any reason the title text uses &quot;tiny&quot; twice? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.3|172.71.150.3]] 22:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm guessing it's meant to be interpreted as the tiny &quot;single-tiny-caster&quot; [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.2|172.71.150.2]] 22:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == (Inception Sound Effect) ==<br /> <br /> Somewhere in the far corner of the chart:<br /> <br /> {{w|Bagger 288}}<br /> <br /> [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Somewhere in the upper right (but closer than that), the {{w|BelAZ_75710}}, what a missed opportunity! I think it has 8 wheels, 2 at each point a car has 1... I think each wheel is like 8 feet in diameter! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What a missed opportunity to include the 14 wheeled flowboard [[User:Scab|Scab]] ([[User talk:Scab|talk]]) 10:17, 13 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Since regular roller skates are pretty much gone now, seems wrong to miss standard rollerblades (4 wheels per skate, not the 3 Randall specified). Except it would go very close to the skates - I think the wheels aren't quite the same size - I guess that's why, but seems strange to choose the classic 2-by-2 skates over currently common rollerblades... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2979:_Sky_Alarm&diff=350155 2024-09-08T05:48:54Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> ♫♪ Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... ♪♫ :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've tried to do just this by subscribing to a channel promisingly named &quot;AstroAlert&quot;, which then proceeded to spam me 500 times per day with messages about a random meteor on the opposite part of the world. Woe. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.200|162.158.110.200]] 05:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Hence the need for this alarm, to keep it LOCAL, :) That's the thing, any such thing needs a LOCATION, to limit results to what is locally relevant to each person. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This comic seems super simple, so I added as much explanation as I can think of... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Local58 moment 💔 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 11:27, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> With that device, no work is ever going to be done again... D: [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.24|108.162.221.24]] 11:36, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> There is a nice site called [https://apod.nasa.gov/ Astronomy Picture of the Day] that is like this. Alas, it is &quot;A cool space thing happened three days ago - sorry you missed it&quot;. --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 11:41, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Sounds like it needs a sky dome camera system (like they made for immersive filmimg) on the roof coupled with statistical analysis (mistakenly aka AI) to recognise and record 'interesting' things, coupled with localised alerts for known phenomena. A product for someone? [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 11:46, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Most cool astronomical events don't come up so suddenly that you need an alarm. We know about eclipses years in advance, meteor showers recur annually, comets have months of warning, and unusual auroras are usually known a few days early. Anything sudden will probably also be short-lived, so by the time you get outside it will be over. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you're anything like me, you're often eager to see (predicable space phenomenon) and then get reminded of it a day too late when the photos starts appearing on the internet. Though that could just as easily solved with a reminder on a standard calendar app, if only you had something reminding youto set up reminders. What would be nice would be an app where you put in your location and it gives you the next week's A) weather forecast, and B) list of interestingly visible space thingies. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.142|172.69.246.142]] 14:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Seems like there should be a name for these alerts, like &quot;Amber Alert&quot; for missing children. I nominate &quot;Neil Alert&quot; -- it should probably use Neil deGrasse Tyson's voice. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:28, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Since the characters in the comic are the same as in the previous ISS comic, I like to think that they're in the ISS and Megan is getting ready to do an EVA (ignore the fact that such a desk wouldn't make sense, or the walking, or that prepping for the EVA would probably take well over a full orbit) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.93|172.71.223.93]] 17:58, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Dang, we really cleaned up all the incomplete explanations, didn't we?<br /> Either that, or someone just went around and removed all the tags [[User:New editor|New editor]] ([[User talk:New editor|talk]]) 19:50, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'm not too sure on that actually, considering that there's been people using AI to write explanations. It's unfortunately a possibility that somebody used AI and then removed the tags. Hoping to be proven wrong though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.250|172.70.110.250]] 09:45, 2 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Even before the latest craze for AI, premature Incomplete-Tag removal has been a thing. (IMO, if it's less than a week old, then there ''might'' be someone yet to check in.)<br /> ::Not that the Incomplete status is actually what it used to be (the momentum of contributors hardly lets a new comic go up without a very rapid 'full' explanation edit, and there's basically no big 'backfilling' needed on historic articles for the most part). These days, the Incomplete tag is a friendly quirk, with the replacemet of the BOT bit with something homorously topical to the comic (with any luck!) being its main attraction, and (apart from possibly confusing newbugs to the site... though, honestly, any newbug to ''any'' site is always going to have to learn the local community culture, and it's the same with the Citation Needed tag) it no longer functions as an ''actual'' call to edit. Edits will happen immediately, and probably happen long afterwards, regardless. But it's become a form of treasured landmark for those who have seen more than a few articles being created and dealt with.<br /> ::Then there are times when clearly someone has 'wiped the tag' off of even the last article (published within the last day, even). With or without it, the articles will get edited, but that'd be definitely premature. Believing that everything that can be said about the comic ''has'' been said about the comic (or, indeed, that all the wrong things said about it have been corrected/deleted) is an optomistic viewpoint on one's own understanding. Give it that week or so, and at least a day or so since the last actual edit, before presuming that you know the tag isn't needed any more. (As I said, it's actually not needed at all for attracting people's attention, but it still has that connection. But what you're really depriving people of is the latest consensus funny 'BOT replacement statement', which is a major part of our own independent contribution to this documentation of the comic. It belongs to us, rather than basically just being a reiteration of Randall's own humour. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.3|172.70.58.3]] 11:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Does anyone know of anything like this? Something that will tell me about things like upcoming meteor showers, comets, auroras, etc. the day before, rather than hearing about it the day after from people who somehow knew about it? To this day I still have no idea how people find out about these things before they happen {{unsigned ip|162.158.154.134|13:35, 1 September 2024}}<br /> :Offline, the national (and local) Weather broadcasts might give info on &quot;what might be visible tonight&quot;. Or at least respond to the preceding News programme's &quot;and finally...&quot; if it features the note that supermoons will happen or aurora have a decent chance to and all that remains is the hope of clear sky. That's UK television, can't speak for wherever you are/what you might watch.<br /> :Online, it would depend upon what you can imagine wanting to know. Keep an eye on something obvious like space.com (which might have internal/external links to gateways that push notifications on various subjects) or go the full hog and search for &quot;aurora alert&quot;, &quot;meteor alert&quot;, &quot;rocket launch alert&quot; in every sort of phrnomenon that you think might (if timed/located well) interest you and be visible.<br /> :The comic device might be either configured to deal with everything the comic characters might be interested in, nails absolutely ''anything'' (without prejudice/selectability) or perhaps (over time) has an AI/heuristic element that 'learns' what random phenomena most interest you as it collates so many possible feed options (itself, or via its manufacturer's centrally maintained servers).<br /> :But it looks like a project ripe for a 'Maker' to try. Set up an Arduino/Raspberry Pi/whatever with a &quot;speaker/siren and lights&quot; housing and an internet connection with suitably configured feed-scraping commands run within it (or via a separate computer to which it connects) that makes a fuss whenever a suitable notification is passed. Add to that maybe some skyward-facing camera(s) with one degree or other of image-processing applied to their images to (for example) identify when a particularly nice sunset is happening with plenty of rose-tinted clouds. With enough foresight (and the right processing) it could pick up particularly aesthetic cloudscapes, the spontaneous murmurations of starlings, an amusing conjunction of contrails, the first snowflakes of winter or (back to space things) a surprise Earth-skimming bolide... whatever your imagination, technical tinkering and subsequent data-munging could get your &quot;Sky's-Pi Alarm&quot; (or whatever it is) to make its noises for.<br /> :I don't actually subscribe to anything (as proxy for my imagined self-contain/collating device), so I can't tell you any particularly good sources of info, but there'll be some out there. Like you can get earthquake alerts (or at least &quot;yeah, we also know about it, be careful&quot; semi-simultaneous detection), tornado alerts, flood aleets and other hobbyist/public-safety notification systems. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.207|172.70.162.207]] 14:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :There's a link to subscribe to Google and Apple calendars at this site: https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2024/astronomy-space-calendar. [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 12:17, 3 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::I wanted to mention that as well (but then had tech issues). Additionally, there is a rocket launch calendar [here https://bit.ly/SpaceLaunchCalendar] (tiny plus icon at the bottom right to subscribe). The same person also has a miscellaneous space-related events calendar (reentry, docking, spacewalks, …), but I have no idea anymore where I found it. The Google calendar ID is gp6s5vrim71h78d9fic2vd3gfg, if that helps anyone. The YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@DrBecky/videos &quot;Dr. Becky&quot;] has monthly space news, covering events of the past and coming month. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 21:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> At the moment, a device like this might actually be useful for all of us who irritate their friends and family by going out every evening at around 10 when it's dark but Corona Borealis is still a fair distance above the horizon, because of this [https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/t-coronae-borealis-nova nova-in-waiting]. There is a distinct chance it'll be cloudy on the nights it happens anyway, because ''that's reality: always pissing on the epic moment'' ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89186.Pushing_Ice?from_search=true&amp;from_srp=true&amp;qid=cSxwg6qHB1&amp;rank=6 this last part is a quote, here's the source]) As with many glorious celestial events, if you don't know what it signifies, it'll just be another of many inconspicious little dots of light, and if you don't know or care what the constellations normally look like, you won't even notice. It'll still be an awesome once-in-a-lifetime event to watch, but be aware at all times that for all practical purposes (and for so-called &quot;normal&quot; people) the awesomeness is all in your head.* [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 15:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> : see [[1644: Stargazing]], [[2017: Stargazing 2]] and [[2274: Stargazing 3]] for further reference. To be honest, I'm actually waiting on xkcd's take on the event as much as on T Coronae Borealis going boom already. [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 15:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> I previously changed the words from the alarm in the Transcript to italics, but I wasn't convinced that the noises from the alarm were also italicized. I see someone else changed them to italics as well, but I wonder if anyone else is of the same mind as myself. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 14:16, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The transcript shouldn't actually use (or rely upon) formatting, really, though saying something like &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;:[The device emits sounds and speech, in italics] ''The things the device says''&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; in both description ''and'' markup would satisfy both human and non-human readers better than one method alone. I've not been involved in that transcript, probably won't, but it's the kind of expansion that I'd expect (done with more thought than this quick note, maybe). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.207|172.70.162.207]] 14:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> '''NOAA weather radio:''' How has nobody mentioned the NWS NOAA weather radio system (162.400–162.550 MHz)? It has both continuous broadcasting of weather information as well as a special system of alert tones that many receivers can automatically recognize and then flag to the user in whatever way. It's kind of like this, except maybe that watches and warnings are about severe weather and not &quot;cool stuff happening.&quot; [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 15:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> spaceweather.com - provides aurora alerts to your phone, solar flare warnings for expected solar activity, near earth asteroid fly pasts, meteor showers, geomagnetic storm warnings, and generally announces upcoming celestial events such as conjunctions, comets, predicted nova (eg T CrB), and more. Also provided imagery of past events too short or local for most people to catch including noctilucent clouds, rocket fuel dumps, fireballs, and rare forms of lightning. Also ongoing weekly measures of radiation levels at altitude from balloon flights over the continental US. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.141|108.162.241.141]] 14:24, 2 September 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == T Coronae Borealis ==<br /> <br /> Paul mentioned T Coronae Borealis, but it's worth calling attention to it more specifically. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a (sort of) scheduled nova. It's unlikely you can actually witness the explosion in real time, but you can see the before (now) and after (any day now) without great effort:<br /> <br /> Go outside tonight and look at the &quot;before&quot; so you will know it has changed when you see the &quot;after&quot;. And the &quot;after&quot; may only last a day or two, hence, the appeal of the Sky Alarm. Or monitor other pages for updates, such as:<br /> <br /> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Coronae_Borealis<br /> <br /> In September 2024, in the USA, it's visible after sunset, nearly overhead, and then (like everything) it sets in the west a few hours later. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.20|172.71.154.20]] 00:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2979:_Sky_Alarm&diff=349676 2024-08-31T05:19:30Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> ♫♪ Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... ♪♫ :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've tried to do just this by subscribing to a channel promisingly named &quot;AstroAlert&quot;, which then proceeded to spam me 500 times per day with messages about a random meteor on the opposite part of the world. Woe. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.200|162.158.110.200]] 05:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Hence the need for this alarm, to keep it LOCAL, :) That's the thing, any such thing needs a LOCATION, to limit results to what is locally relevant to each person. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This comic seems super simple, so I added as muc( explanation as I can think of... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2979:_Sky_Alarm&diff=349675 2024-08-31T05:15:36Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2979<br /> | date = August 30, 2024<br /> | title = Sky Alarm<br /> | image = sky_alarm_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 332x302px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = During the day it also activates for neat clouds and pretty sunsets.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Created by a COOL SPACE THING - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> The alarm's words, and being labelled as &quot;Sky Alarm&quot;, shows that this alarm is triggered when something cool to see is happening in the sky, alerting people (Cueball and Megan in this case) that they might want to go outside or look out a window in order not to miss the cool thing. Randall remarks in the caption how he wants this, he wishes it existed. Cueball and Megan (and by extension Randall) feel that they regularly miss events they'd like to see, so such a device would help prevent this.<br /> <br /> The title text further specifies that he would want it even to activate for such simple everyday things as interesting clouds and nice sunsets. Basically, it would help people not miss interesting outdoor sights.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> :[A sky alarm device resting on a stool is activated and the light on top of it is glowing. Cueball, sitting on an office chair at his desk, looks away from his laptop and is facing the device. Megan is running away from the scene.]<br /> :Sky alarm: WEEEE OOOOO WEEEE OOOOO<br /> :Sky alarm: There's a cool space thing happening!<br /> :Sky alarm: WEEEE OOOOO WEEEE OOOOO<br /> :Sky alarm: Go outside and look up!<br /> <br /> :[Caption below the panel:]<br /> :I want this device.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br /> [[Category:Space]]<br /> [[Category:Weather]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2979:_Sky_Alarm&diff=349673 2024-08-31T05:14:38Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */ A quick simple explanation, obviously it will soon bloat to ridiculous proportions.</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2979<br /> | date = August 30, 2024<br /> | title = Sky Alarm<br /> | image = sky_alarm_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 332x302px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = During the day it also activates for neat clouds and pretty sunsets.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Created by a COOL SPACE THING - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> The alarm's words, and being labelled as &quot;Sky Alarm&quot;, shows that this alarm is triggered when something cool to see is happening in the sky, alerting people (Cueball and Megan in this case) that they might want to go outside or look out a window in order not to miss the cool thing. Randall remarks in the caption how he wants this. Cueball and Megan (and by extension Randall) feel that they regularly miss events they'd like to see, so such a device would help prevent this.<br /> <br /> The title text further specifies that he would want it even to activate for such simple everyday things as interesting clouds and nice sunsets. Basically, it would help people not miss interesting outdoor sights.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> :[A sky alarm device resting on a stool is activated and the light on top of it is glowing. Cueball, sitting on an office chair at his desk, looks away from his laptop and is facing the device. Megan is running away from the scene.]<br /> :Sky alarm: WEEEE OOOOO WEEEE OOOOO<br /> :Sky alarm: There's a cool space thing happening!<br /> :Sky alarm: WEEEE OOOOO WEEEE OOOOO<br /> :Sky alarm: Go outside and look up!<br /> <br /> :[Caption below the panel:]<br /> :I want this device.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br /> [[Category:Space]]<br /> [[Category:Weather]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2979:_Sky_Alarm&diff=349672 2024-08-31T05:04:23Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> ♫♪ Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... ♪♫ :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2979:_Sky_Alarm&diff=349671 2024-08-31T04:55:27Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> 🎵 Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... 🎵 :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2978:_Stranded&diff=349670 2024-08-31T04:46:18Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> This reminds me of the apocryphal UK newspaper headline (sometimes claimed to be The Times in 1957): &quot;Fog in (the English) Channel - Continent Cut Off&quot;<br /> See e.g. https://www.quora.com/Is-the-famous-headline-Fog-in-Channel-Continent-Cut-Off-an-urban-myth<br /> <br /> It gets worse, SpaceX's Falcon 9 is grounded too: [https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacexs-falcon-9-grounded-after-failing-landing-attempt-2024-08-28/ SpaceX's Falcon 9 grounded after failing landing attempt]:<br /> :{{quote|Falcon 9 is also due to launch two NASA astronauts in late September on a Crew Dragon spacecraft that will bring home next year the two astronauts who have been stuck on the International Space Station after riding Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft. NASA regulates Falcon 9 for its own missions. It was not immediately clear how the rocket's latest grounding will affect that NASA mission. The U.S. space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.}}<br /> Here's hoping those guys like the view. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.165|172.71.166.165]] 20:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I was going to add something about how the people on Earth not being alone may not be a benefit, considering all the political division and wars going on down here. But I think that's too much editorializing for an explanation. But we can say what we like in the comments. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I just noticed that howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com doesn't list Wilmore and Williams. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 22:13, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :But it lists people who got back in July 2022, so I'd say it's not kept up to date....<br /> :--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.116|188.114.102.116]] 22:19, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> wow this is JUST like the jevil &lt;!-- joke! thats a joke! completely not actually related to the comic! --&gt; [[Special:Contributions/172.69.64.184|172.69.64.184]] 23:16, 28 August 2024 (UTC)Bumpf<br /> <br /> The transcript currently includes the statement “There's an elliptical window through which they can see the planet below”. Analysing the image carefully, that’s clearly correct - but at first, second and third glance I can’t help but see it as a circular porthole on an isometric view of a non-existent bulkhead on the left… I guess I’m just conditioned to expect things at ~30 degree angles to be isometric, rather than “floating in space”… [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.83|172.69.194.83]] 07:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :In a few moments, I'm going to change it to &quot;large round&quot;. Roundedness does not admit to (nor deny) circularity, so covers any orientation of the bulkhead (also not sure what you mean by &quot;non-existent&quot;, as the whole greebled wall you see is the probably-at-an-angle outer bulkhead).<br /> :It is also ''very'' large, in keeping with xkcd's illustrative fiction (bigger, but more believably non-cornered than [[2906: Earth]], if that's supposed to be a window/porthole; a variety seen looked out of in [[865: Nanobots]]; I recall at least one other with a large window, but can't recall the circumstances at the moment). Noting that the ISS's {{w|Cupola (ISS module)|cupola}} is probably the most &quot;windowy window&quot; actually in use, due to practical concerns that I'm sure we'd all have about a huge (necessarily thick) spread of 'glass' that's needed in this sort of scene for aesthetic reasons.<br /> :Not as bad as &quot;Hollywood&quot;-type submersible picture-windows, of course. You have to resist no more than one atmosphere of pressure, outwards, in space. You have to resist multiple atmosphere's of pressure, ''inwards'', at depth. A hemispherical bubble-end (or a symmetric slice of one) could be adopted from deep-sea applications, but the window would have to bulge inwards for best strength and safety purposes against the outwards pressure, making a more awkward method of viewing at all angles (and possibly distorting astronomical photographs in ways that reduce their convenient usefulness). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.218|141.101.99.218]] 12:04, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::My point was that in the picture, I think there are 2 bulkheads - the main greebled wall facing us that contains the large oval window (the backdrop of a stage, if you like), and a small part of a second wall at an angle to the first visible at the right edge of the frame (stage left). We can assume that the narrow strip between the two is some kind of corner reinforcement, and there’s a rectangular greeble that changes shape as it goes around that corner, indicating this is probably not just some kind of vertical conduit. However, there is no 3rd bulkhead to stage right… the window is embedded in the main backdrop. My lazy viewing wants to interpret the large round window as being circular, in the stage right bulkhead - but there is no stage right bulkhead, we only have visibility of the backdrop and a fraction of stage left. Therefore, the original description of an oval window is spot-on… but deliberately or otherwise, the artist is messing with my head. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.18|172.70.85.18]] 07:01, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::It took a while to work out what you meant...<br /> :::*You: The left-sweep of bulkhead is perpendicular to the camera, the 'greeble line' is a convex corner (pointing towards us) leading to a wall that goes away from us, at an angle that might have agreed with the 'circle at an angle' viewing angle.<br /> :::*Me: Left-sweep is either fully or partly at that angle, agreeing with the window (and the edges of the window/wall-features, many of which have relief features that stand out in perspective to the left more than their rights)... it ''may'' subtly curve back to being camera-perpendicular as we reach the corner. The corner is concave, the 'stage right' wall past the greeble line heads back towards us, or at least less away. (Consistent with an internal bulkhead, separating another section of space-station, rather than an externally-flush one round a constructed corner. But could also be flush with a normal 'box corner' of the station.)<br /> :::Note the corner-greeble's short tranverse curves that hint more at a low camera angle and a 90-degree angle (slightly flush 45-degree 'flat'ish attachment) rather than high angle and a 270-degree one (would have to wrap around as a corner protector).<br /> :::But, as with all ambiguous perspectives, may depend on which way your eye 'snaps' to understanding it the first time. I had to 'unfocus/refocus’ to comprehend the opposite to my first impression (then I just needed to 'blink', mentally, to pop my internal visualisation across the divide). I probably picked up on the wall-features' innate angled perspective and that then let the rest fall into place. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.231|172.70.160.231]] 08:01, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Actually, I think the description (stage-left and stage-right) was assuming that if there was an (inward angled) wall on the right (stage-left) that there should be an inward-angled wall (stage-left) in front of the 'camera view' if stage-front were angled out, not more or less directly pointed towards the camera. Though this presupposes that the window-wall isn't so much longer than seen (it could have multiple circular portholes, like that, out of view; or just be assymetric) so we can still be 'within the stage' with SL backdrop behnd us.<br /> :::But I also noted the obvious angle of all the window-wall features that weren't so flush as to not significantly stand out. Which means I'm also happy with it being circular. Whether or not we're &quot;breaking the ''third'' wall&quot; (a not unknown scenic convention) in order to get this particular angled view. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.174|172.70.86.174]] 09:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This is basically the plot of Seveneves [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.196|162.158.33.196]] 08:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I can see why they wanna stay in space today, and probably forever tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.231|172.70.160.231]] 10:53, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm fairly concerned that nobody else is concerned that the astronauts will die from 8 MONTHS in space. Unless I'm wrong, prolonged space stays usually lead to atrophy of pretty much every human organ due to the nonexistence of gravity, right? But they'll be there for 8 months... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.84|172.69.71.84]] 18:54, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :they’ve had rigorous training, exercise for at least 2 hours a day on the ISS, and 8 months is nowhere close to the 437 day record for the longest stay in space [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Ah ok, but still. To paraphrase Hitchhiker's &quot;2 years is a long time to get stranded anywhere, especially somewhere as mind-bogglingly dull as the Earth&quot;. Change the variables and you get the point. At least they're probably fine [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.167|172.71.22.167]] 21:15, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This turnaround of perspectives also showed up in the title text of [[2287: Pathogen_Resistance]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.97|172.69.134.97]] 19:06, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> When I wrote the initial transcript, I just said a &quot;planet&quot; was visible through the window. I didn't want to say it was Earth because the landmasses shown don't look like any Earth continents. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :AFAIK mankind/NASA doesn't have a space station orbiting any other planet, and this comic isn't joining some science fiction universe. :) There's &quot;cautious&quot; then there's &quot;overly cautious&quot;, :) Randall being too lazy/not bothered to pick actual landmasses isn't grounds for uncertainty. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:45, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> '''''Strongly''''' reminded of Big Bang Theory, when Howard went to space, the trip home got similarly delayed and he started freaking out. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:45, 31 August 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2978:_Stranded&diff=349669 2024-08-31T04:45:38Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> This reminds me of the apocryphal UK newspaper headline (sometimes claimed to be The Times in 1957): &quot;Fog in (the English) Channel - Continent Cut Off&quot;<br /> See e.g. https://www.quora.com/Is-the-famous-headline-Fog-in-Channel-Continent-Cut-Off-an-urban-myth<br /> <br /> It gets worse, SpaceX's Falcon 9 is grounded too: [https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacexs-falcon-9-grounded-after-failing-landing-attempt-2024-08-28/ SpaceX's Falcon 9 grounded after failing landing attempt]:<br /> :{{quote|Falcon 9 is also due to launch two NASA astronauts in late September on a Crew Dragon spacecraft that will bring home next year the two astronauts who have been stuck on the International Space Station after riding Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft. NASA regulates Falcon 9 for its own missions. It was not immediately clear how the rocket's latest grounding will affect that NASA mission. The U.S. space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.}}<br /> Here's hoping those guys like the view. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.165|172.71.166.165]] 20:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I was going to add something about how the people on Earth not being alone may not be a benefit, considering all the political division and wars going on down here. But I think that's too much editorializing for an explanation. But we can say what we like in the comments. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I just noticed that howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com doesn't list Wilmore and Williams. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 22:13, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :But it lists people who got back in July 2022, so I'd say it's not kept up to date....<br /> :--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.116|188.114.102.116]] 22:19, 28 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> wow this is JUST like the jevil &lt;!-- joke! thats a joke! completely not actually related to the comic! --&gt; [[Special:Contributions/172.69.64.184|172.69.64.184]] 23:16, 28 August 2024 (UTC)Bumpf<br /> <br /> The transcript currently includes the statement “There's an elliptical window through which they can see the planet below”. Analysing the image carefully, that’s clearly correct - but at first, second and third glance I can’t help but see it as a circular porthole on an isometric view of a non-existent bulkhead on the left… I guess I’m just conditioned to expect things at ~30 degree angles to be isometric, rather than “floating in space”… [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.83|172.69.194.83]] 07:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :In a few moments, I'm going to change it to &quot;large round&quot;. Roundedness does not admit to (nor deny) circularity, so covers any orientation of the bulkhead (also not sure what you mean by &quot;non-existent&quot;, as the whole greebled wall you see is the probably-at-an-angle outer bulkhead).<br /> :It is also ''very'' large, in keeping with xkcd's illustrative fiction (bigger, but more believably non-cornered than [[2906: Earth]], if that's supposed to be a window/porthole; a variety seen looked out of in [[865: Nanobots]]; I recall at least one other with a large window, but can't recall the circumstances at the moment). Noting that the ISS's {{w|Cupola (ISS module)|cupola}} is probably the most &quot;windowy window&quot; actually in use, due to practical concerns that I'm sure we'd all have about a huge (necessarily thick) spread of 'glass' that's needed in this sort of scene for aesthetic reasons.<br /> :Not as bad as &quot;Hollywood&quot;-type submersible picture-windows, of course. You have to resist no more than one atmosphere of pressure, outwards, in space. You have to resist multiple atmosphere's of pressure, ''inwards'', at depth. A hemispherical bubble-end (or a symmetric slice of one) could be adopted from deep-sea applications, but the window would have to bulge inwards for best strength and safety purposes against the outwards pressure, making a more awkward method of viewing at all angles (and possibly distorting astronomical photographs in ways that reduce their convenient usefulness). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.218|141.101.99.218]] 12:04, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::My point was that in the picture, I think there are 2 bulkheads - the main greebled wall facing us that contains the large oval window (the backdrop of a stage, if you like), and a small part of a second wall at an angle to the first visible at the right edge of the frame (stage left). We can assume that the narrow strip between the two is some kind of corner reinforcement, and there’s a rectangular greeble that changes shape as it goes around that corner, indicating this is probably not just some kind of vertical conduit. However, there is no 3rd bulkhead to stage right… the window is embedded in the main backdrop. My lazy viewing wants to interpret the large round window as being circular, in the stage right bulkhead - but there is no stage right bulkhead, we only have visibility of the backdrop and a fraction of stage left. Therefore, the original description of an oval window is spot-on… but deliberately or otherwise, the artist is messing with my head. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.18|172.70.85.18]] 07:01, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::It took a while to work out what you meant...<br /> :::*You: The left-sweep of bulkhead is perpendicular to the camera, the 'greeble line' is a convex corner (pointing towards us) leading to a wall that goes away from us, at an angle that might have agreed with the 'circle at an angle' viewing angle.<br /> :::*Me: Left-sweep is either fully or partly at that angle, agreeing with the window (and the edges of the window/wall-features, many of which have relief features that stand out in perspective to the left more than their rights)... it ''may'' subtly curve back to being camera-perpendicular as we reach the corner. The corner is concave, the 'stage right' wall past the greeble line heads back towards us, or at least less away. (Consistent with an internal bulkhead, separating another section of space-station, rather than an externally-flush one round a constructed corner. But could also be flush with a normal 'box corner' of the station.)<br /> :::Note the corner-greeble's short tranverse curves that hint more at a low camera angle and a 90-degree angle (slightly flush 45-degree 'flat'ish attachment) rather than high angle and a 270-degree one (would have to wrap around as a corner protector).<br /> :::But, as with all ambiguous perspectives, may depend on which way your eye 'snaps' to understanding it the first time. I had to 'unfocus/refocus’ to comprehend the opposite to my first impression (then I just needed to 'blink', mentally, to pop my internal visualisation across the divide). I probably picked up on the wall-features' innate angled perspective and that then let the rest fall into place. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.231|172.70.160.231]] 08:01, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Actually, I think the description (stage-left and stage-right) was assuming that if there was an (inward angled) wall on the right (stage-left) that there should be an inward-angled wall (stage-left) in front of the 'camera view' if stage-front were angled out, not more or less directly pointed towards the camera. Though this presupposes that the window-wall isn't so much longer than seen (it could have multiple circular portholes, like that, out of view; or just be assymetric) so we can still be 'within the stage' with SL backdrop behnd us.<br /> :::But I also noted the obvious angle of all the window-wall features that weren't so flush as to not significantly stand out. Which means I'm also happy with it being circular. Whether or not we're &quot;breaking the ''third'' wall&quot; (a not unknown scenic convention) in order to get this particular angled view. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.174|172.70.86.174]] 09:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This is basically the plot of Seveneves [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.196|162.158.33.196]] 08:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I can see why they wanna stay in space today, and probably forever tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.231|172.70.160.231]] 10:53, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm fairly concerned that nobody else is concerned that the astronauts will die from 8 MONTHS in space. Unless I'm wrong, prolonged space stays usually lead to atrophy of pretty much every human organ due to the nonexistence of gravity, right? But they'll be there for 8 months... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.84|172.69.71.84]] 18:54, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :they’ve had rigorous training, exercise for at least 2 hours a day on the ISS, and 8 months is nowhere close to the 437 day record for the longest stay in space [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Ah ok, but still. To paraphrase Hitchhiker's &quot;2 years is a long time to get stranded anywhere, especially somewhere as mind-bogglingly dull as the Earth&quot;. Change the variables and you get the point. At least they're probably fine [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.167|172.71.22.167]] 21:15, 29 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> This turnaround of perspectives also showed up in the title text of [[2287: Pathogen_Resistance]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.97|172.69.134.97]] 19:06, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> When I wrote the initial transcript, I just said a &quot;planet&quot; was visible through the window. I didn't want to say it was Earth because the landmasses shown don't look like any Earth continents. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> :AFAIK mankind/NASA doesn't have a space station orbiting any other planet, and this comic isn't joining some science fiction universe. :) There's &quot;cautious&quot; then there's &quot;verily cautious&quot;, :) Randall being too lazy/not bothered to pick actual landmasses isn't grounds for uncertainty. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:45, 31 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> '''''Strongly''''' reminded of Big Bang Theory, when Howard went to space, the trip home got similarly delayed and he started freaking out. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:45, 31 August 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2963:_House_Inputs_and_Outputs&diff=348414 2024-08-10T05:06:38Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> what in the heckoslovakia is panel 16 [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.216|172.71.147.216]] 02:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I can only assume that it's from the perspective of someone inside the well looking upward toward the outside world. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 02:23, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: It's a reference to The Ring (リング) films and books. This distorted view from the inside of the well is an iconic part of the franchise's imagery, and, in minimal-spoilers form, its appearance suggests that someone has watched the cursed tape and should now expect a visitor to arrive from that well in seven days. (Definitely a red intersection) [[User:Scorpion451|Scorpion451]] ([[User talk:Scorpion451|talk]]) 02:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::: more at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_(franchise) aside holy gosh! I was expecting to link to IMDB for like two or three movies. /aside the trailer at https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0298130/ starts with an a 1950-1990 ish USA telephone ring. It's been a while since I saw it and the ring referring to a telephone not magic ring is starting to sound familiar. SDT <br /> :::: which is too much detail. &quot;Panel 16 refers to a horror film&quot; is not enough info SDT [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.102|172.70.134.102]] 04:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::: [[396|You watched the tape!?]] --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.27|162.158.94.27]] 07:07, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::: Having never seen&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt; The Ring, I now think I understand a lot more about the film. Here was I, always thinking it was an allegory upon the idea of a {{w|webring}}...<br /> ::: ''&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt; figure that if seeing &quot;the tape&quot; causes imminent death, then watching &quot;The Ring&quot; might at least cause an annoying rash/the sniffles in the near future... and I have indeed eventually felt an itch or had a runny nose even after seeing references ''to'' The Ring. Sometimes within a couple of months!''<br /> ::: I mean, is it not a bit of a Spoiler? (Clearly, I don't know how much it might be.) Hmmm... *itch itch* ''*aaachew!!*'' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.175|172.69.195.175]] 13:04, 25 July 2024 (UTC) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.100|172.70.134.100]] 03:58, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::::Even if it is a spoiler, which is debatable, the movie is from 2002 and the original story is from 1991. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.114|172.71.151.114]] 19:07, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I'm assuming that a table would probably be best for this comic, but tbh I don't know how to make one and it's kinda late for me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.137.212|162.158.137.212]] 02:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Update: thanks to whoever made the table [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.192|141.101.109.192]] 03:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::You're welcome :) I had to look at Wikipedia's tutorial to make it - [[User:Blue in real life|Blue in real life]] ([[User talk:Blue in real life|talk]]) 05:55, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::The table parser is incredibly byzantine; good job. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.215.11|172.70.215.11]] 07:34, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> As a note, water in power lines ''is'' actually a thing for high speed EV chargers - so much power is transferred even the cable need water cooling! [[User:Thief|Thief]] ([[User talk:Thief|talk]]) 12:38, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I'll be dammed, I'm the one who made that original statement, the more I know! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.23|172.68.210.23]] 23:15, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> <br /> 172.70.162.18 (well, more precisely, the person who made [[Special:Diff/347189|this edit]]): you managed to make me frantically make two page moves thinking that you had removed the link that I added. See, I created [[:Category:Confusion matrices]] and added links to that on all the articles with confusion matrices. However, I thought you had reverted my edit when you removed a link to [[:Category:Comics with confusion matrices]]. So I thought I had created the category under the wrong name compared with what I added and went to move the category, until I realized you had indeed removed a link to a category that isn't used. Two page moves later (because I made a typo in the first move), I realized that the category's name was correct and that someone had earlier linked to a nonexistent category that was not mine. '''OOPS.''' &lt;span class=&quot;nowrap&quot;&gt;—megan [[user talk:megan|talk]] [[special:contribs/megan|contribs]]&lt;/span&gt; 13:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Hi. I was just trying to submit the following, and got Edit Conflicted about it. Right, then. Obviously it's too late to make my reasoning known (I thought it was an IP who had created the &quot;Charts with Confusion Matrices&quot;, or whatever it was, who couldn't have even created the required page, but... well, talk about confusion!) but giving it here anyway... <br /> Removed the category of something to do with &quot;confusion charts&quot;, which might be something to do with the appearence as a cross-compare table (akin to a Punnet Square, not ''quite'' the same as a Karnaugh Map; probably has some name such as &quot;compatability matrix&quot;, but I can't remember or find what that might be). Anyway, apparently &quot;confusion chart/square/matrix/whatever&quot; isn't a term in use that I've been able to find out there in the real world (also, it is probably supposed to guide one ''away'' from potential confusion, not cause it), it specifically doesn't have a wikipedia entry (or even a wikiledia redirect to another one by another name) and we don't have that category even if we invented the term ourselves. There are other examples of this form already under [[:Category:Charts]], so it's &quot;a thing&quot; that we might want to service with a Category (ideally more &quot;Compatability Matrix&quot; than that other name), but best to create the category and add the comic(s) as members rather than speculatively add spurious non-existent categories then rely on someone else to fulfil them at a later date. Even better to have a quick check to see if everyone agrees to the category title (and need, ...which I would actually tentatively support, in this case, if asked) beforehand.<br /> :...just as a note, as I spent quite some time trying to find out if &quot;confusion charts&quot; were a thing (and coming up blank), so maybe this way I haven't wasted my time quite as much as just going away, or instead just offering a laconic apology for getting in the way. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.5|172.69.195.5]] 13:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Ok, me again. It looks like someone found {{w|Confusion matrix}} after all, as a wikipage. I'd actually looked for various &quot;confusion&quot; things but... Perhaps typoed the search when I tried vs. &quot;matrix&quot;..? Maybe. Seems the most logical mistake to have made. So ignore my above objections. Still, I don't like the name (&quot;deconfusion matrix&quot; would be awful, yet better), and I've never known it by that name. Just left making my opinion known, now, however wrong it turns out to have been. About that ''and'' the original wrong-way-round of implementing it (by parties unknown; not [[:User:Megan]], who it looks like just happened to clash with me in mutually well-meant but oppositely attempted resolutions to the original mess). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.121|172.70.163.121]] 14:28, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Could someone add the confusion matrix category as a subcategory of the graphs one? I would do it but I have no idea how. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.190|108.162.241.190]] 17:41, 30 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> it kind of looks like the driver in the car/front door panel is beret guy, assuming the car went front first into the door [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.9|172.70.178.9]] 16:20, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Reminds me a bit of Bumblebee, in the eponymous film, semitransforming to get through the internal door between the attached garage and the living area of the protagonist's (parents') house. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.18|172.70.162.18]] 20:21, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Is [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2963:_House_Inputs_and_Outputs&amp;diff=347265&amp;oldid=347264 &quot;Randall would get off easy if he were merely to be yelled at.&quot;] a threat? Is someone trying to anonymously threaten Randall? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.15|172.71.142.15]] 21:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Probably not, but it should be &quot;Most people would suffer consequences sterner than being yelled at when combining water and electricity without appropriate safeguards.&quot; However, in the past I have seen overpersonalization of the author to the extent of clearly indicating NPOV violations in these explanations. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.150|172.70.214.150]] 22:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Always makes me shake my head when things that seem perfectly clear to me cause confusion in others. That editor is saying that if Randall tried to transmit water via Ethernet cables he'd likely be in legal trouble. I could imagine jailed for damage to homes, charges for vandalism, etc. So, if Randall ONLY was yelled at he'd be lucky, that would be &quot;getting off easy&quot;. After all, to those of us who aren't lawyers or deeply versed in law, this concept is SO out there it's very difficult to think of all the potential legal repercussions to this. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:06, 10 August 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Personally, I thought garages were built for storing boxes of old crap in. For the most part (here in the UK, at least), they are wholly unsuitable for the keeping of cars, due to the steady growth of vehicles, and the relatively static nature of the size of garages.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.18|172.70.162.18]] 11:27, 26 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I still think there should be an &quot;ethernet&quot; row+column, even if one of the cells is just gonna be POE and another is gonna be that thing where you extend your home ethernet over the wall sockets in your house [[User:Vaedez|Vaedez]] ([[User talk:Vaedez|talk]]) 22:33, 28 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ;Request for a Wikipedian<br /> Could someone please add a [citation needed] tag to {{w|Lightning rod#History}} where it says Franklin was unaware of Prokop Diviš's work? Decades ago when I read a 1950s biography of Franklin, I am pretty sure there were some questions about whether Franklin would likely have been aware of it and similar work which had not been entirely resolved by historians. My ISPs are both IP-rangeblocked so I can't edit enwiki from home or my cell phone internet. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.190|172.69.34.190]] 17:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Franklin's &quot;Experiments and Observations on Electricity,&quot; published in 1751,[https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/111/3/826/14788] became widely known and was translated into multiple languages, with practical and accessible explanations of the use of the lightning rod before Diviš's independent work in 1754.[https://english.radio.cz/270-years-ago-czech-scientist-prokop-divis-built-worlds-first-grounded-lightning-8819683]<br /> :The sentence &quot;His experimental apparatus, known as the &quot;weather machine” predated Benjamim Franklin's more widely recognized experiments.&quot; is the one that needs the [citation needed] tag. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.9|172.70.207.9]] 18:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> :gotchu fam[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lightning_rod&amp;diff=prev&amp;oldid=1236906845]. Create an account at Starbucks or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.248|172.70.210.248]] 05:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == No Friday comic? ==<br /> <br /> My personal theory is that Randall now regrets backing Harris and will now support Jill Stein. What are your outlandish theories as to why there's no Friday comic? {{w|172.69.194.37|11:06, 27 July 2024}}<br /> :No, the comic was just late by 24 hours. {{unsigned ip|108.162.242.53|12:01, 27 July 2024}}<br /> <br /> == No TISP? ==<br /> <br /> Back in 2011 Google made an April Fools' joke about getting internet by flushing a wire through the toilet into the sewers.<br /> <br /> This, of all XKCD comics, had the perfect opportunity to lampoon it.<br /> <br /> [https://archive.google/tisp/]<br /> <br /> [[User:King5327|King5327]] ([[User talk:King5327|talk]]) 17:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345293 2024-06-29T04:34:54Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Ooooh, if this were only true... All the &quot;Nobody tells me what to do&quot; stubborn people would have died out years ago, and Covid would have been a LOT shorter! :) Added an initial explanation, all I found here was a basic transcript.<br /> <br /> The vent off of Alaska is poking out, is there a volcano around there? Feels a little north to be Mount Fuji, but I have a suspicion most if not all are supposed to be actually volcanos... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345292 2024-06-29T04:32:17Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2952<br /> | date = June 28, 2024<br /> | title = Routine Maintenance<br /> | image = routine_maintenance_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 299x413px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The worst was the time they accidentally held the can upside down and froze all the Earth's magma chambers solid.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Created by an ONCOMING LETHAL DUST CLOUD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> A recommended routine maintenance step for many electronics, such as desktop computer towers, is to remove the buildup of dust on a regular basis. This bit of routine maintenance can help prevent the electrical components from overheating, and lengthen the lifetime of these electronics. There exists cans of high-pressure air, as depicted, to blow dust out without a person blowing themselves, thus allowing them to keep their distance and not get a faceful of dust, or adding unintended moisture to the electronics.<br /> <br /> This is suggesting that this is a maintenance step performed on the Earth itself, blowing air into the Earth to force out the dust. However, filling the atmosphere with dust would be unhealthy and fatal to living beings, so as a safety measure everyone would have to take shelter. This is a reference to one theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, that a crashing meteor sent so much dust into the air that it killed off all dinosaurs in a much wider area as could have been directly affected by the initial impact.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> :[The nozzle of a &quot;Dust-Off&quot; gas duster can is pointing into a hole on the Earth's surface in the Pacific Ocean, and its trigger is pressed as an arrow indicates, resulting in dust clouds being released from five visible spots of the Earth.]<br /> <br /> :[Caption below the panel:]<br /> :I know routine maintenance is important, but I hate how we all have to take shelter for 48 hours every year while they flush out the Earth's magma system for cleaning.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Geology]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345291 2024-06-29T04:30:47Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2952<br /> | date = June 28, 2024<br /> | title = Routine Maintenance<br /> | image = routine_maintenance_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 299x413px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The worst was the time they accidentally held the can upside down and froze all the Earth's magma chambers solid.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Created by a ONCOMING LETHAL DUST CLOUD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> A recommended routine maintenance step for many electronics, such as desktop computer towers, is to remove the buildup of dust on a regular basis. This bit of routine maintenance can help prevent the electrical components from overheating, and lengthen the lifetime of these electronics. There exists cans of high-pressure air, as depicted, to blow dust out without a person blowing themselves, thus allowing them to keep their distance and not get a faceful of dust, or adding unintended moisture to the electronics.<br /> <br /> This is suggesting that this is a maintenance step performed on the Earth itself, blowing air into the Earth to force out the dust. However, filling the atmosphere with dust would be unhealthy and fatal to living beings, so as a safety measure everyone would have to take shelter. This is a reference to one theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, that a crashing meteor sent so much dust into the air that it killed off all dinosaurs in a much wider area as could have been directly affected by the initial impact.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> :[The nozzle of a &quot;Dust-Off&quot; gas duster can is pointing into a hole on the Earth's surface in the Pacific Ocean, and its trigger is pressed as an arrow indicates, resulting in dust clouds being released from five visible spots of the Earth.]<br /> <br /> :[Caption below the panel:]<br /> :I know routine maintenance is important, but I hate how we all have to take shelter for 48 hours every year while they flush out the Earth's magma system for cleaning.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Geology]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345290 2024-06-29T04:29:32Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Ooooh, if this were only true... All the &quot;Nobody tells me what to do&quot; stubborn people would have died out years ago, and Covid would have been a LOT shorter! :) Added an initial explanation, all I found here was a basic transcript. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345289 2024-06-29T04:29:10Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Ooooh, if this were only true... All the &quot;Nobody tells me what to do&quot; stubborn people would have died out years ago, and Covid would have been a LOT shorter! :) Added an initial explanation , all I found here was a basic transcript. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345288 2024-06-29T04:26:11Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Transcript */ It's not steam, it's dust, that's the point of the exercise!</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2952<br /> | date = June 28, 2024<br /> | title = Routine Maintenance<br /> | image = routine_maintenance_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 299x413px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The worst was the time they accidentally held the can upside down and froze all the Earth's magma chambers solid.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Created by a ONCOMING LETHAL DUST CLOUD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> A recommended routine maintenance step for many electronics, such as desktop computer towers, is to remove the buildup of dust on a regular basis. This bit of routine maintenance can help prevent the electrical components from overheating, lengthening the lifetime of these electronics. There exists cans of high-pressure air, as depicted, to blow dust out without a person blowing themselves, thus allowing them to keep their distance and not get a faceful of dust, or adding unintended moisture to the electronics.<br /> <br /> This is suggesting that this is a maintenance step performed on the Earth itself, blowing air into the Earth to force out the dust. However, filling the atmosphere with dust would be unhealthy and fatal to living beings, so as a safety measure everyone would have to take shelter. This is a reference to one theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, that a crashing meteor sent so much dust into the air that it killed off all dinosaurs in a much wider area as could have been directly affected by the initial impact.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> :[The nozzle of a &quot;Dust-Off&quot; gas duster can is pointing into a hole on the Earth's surface in the Pacific Ocean, and its trigger is pressed as an arrow indicates, resulting in dust clouds being released from five visible spots of the Earth.]<br /> <br /> :[Caption below the panel:]<br /> :I know routine maintenance is important, but I hate how we all have to take shelter for 48 hours every year while they flush out the Earth's magma system for cleaning.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Geology]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345287 2024-06-29T04:24:55Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Explanation */ Initial explanation, I think I covered all the necessities.</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 2952<br /> | date = June 28, 2024<br /> | title = Routine Maintenance<br /> | image = routine_maintenance_2x.png<br /> | imagesize = 299x413px<br /> | noexpand = true<br /> | titletext = The worst was the time they accidentally held the can upside down and froze all the Earth's magma chambers solid.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Created by a ONCOMING LETHAL DUST CLOUD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> A recommended routine maintenance step for many electronics, such as desktop computer towers, is to remove the buildup of dust on a regular basis. This bit of routine maintenance can help prevent the electrical components from overheating, lengthening the lifetime of these electronics. There exists cans of high-pressure air, as depicted, to blow dust out without a person blowing themselves, thus allowing them to keep their distance and not get a faceful of dust, or adding unintended moisture to the electronics.<br /> <br /> This is suggesting that this is a maintenance step performed on the Earth itself, blowing air into the Earth to force out the dust. However, filling the atmosphere with dust would be unhealthy and fatal to living beings, so as a safety measure everyone would have to take shelter. This is a reference to one theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, that a crashing meteor sent so much dust into the air that it killed off all dinosaurs in a much wider area as could have been directly affected by the initial impact.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br /> <br /> :[The nozzle of a &quot;Dust-Off&quot; gas duster can is pointing into a hole on the Earth's surface in the Pacific Ocean, and its trigger is pressed as an arrow indicates, resulting in steam being released from five visible spots of the Earth.]<br /> <br /> :[Caption below the panel:]<br /> :I know routine maintenance is important, but I hate how we all have to take shelter for 48 hours every year while they flush out the Earth's magma system for cleaning.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> <br /> [[Category:Geology]]</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2952:_Routine_Maintenance&diff=345286 2024-06-29T04:12:23Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Ooooh, if this were only true... All the &quot;Nobody tells me what to do&quot; stubborn people would have died out years ago, and Covid would have been a LOT shorter! :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2947:_Pascal%27s_Wager_Triangle&diff=344903 2024-06-23T04:07:15Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> Apparently, if two people are writing a first draft at the same time, the wiki appends one to the other. Welp. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 02:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :If you add another one it puts it beside the second, and you have Pascal's explanation.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.102|172.70.85.102]] 08:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Some religions (such as my own) prohibit polytheism, so that's an added wrench in the works. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.119|141.101.98.119]] 06:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I think MOST religions are quite strict about the idea that you are supposed to CHOOSE single religion, preferably the one in question, and not trying to cover all bases by believing in multiple ones. Which is the answer to Pascal's Wager: choosing wrong God is likely to result in worse punishment than choosing none, so better NOT believe. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Well, it might be considered a bad &quot;memetic trait&quot; to have &quot;as well as believing in our thing, you can believe in anything else&quot;. (Much as a number of holy books include the instruction that you should not change anything when copying the book, and this would clearly be a &quot;dominant meme&quot; as soon as someone spontaneously thinks to add it to a previously mutable version of the text.) Although there's syncratic religions which are effectively a case of &quot;{{w|Horizontal gene transfer|horizontal meme transfer}}&quot;, philoso-evolutionarily.<br /> :: But polythesitic pantheons aren't unusual within a (structurally singular) religion. The three branches of abriamic religion (&quot;There is no god but Jehovah&quot;, &quot;There is no god but God (sic)&quot;, there is no god but Allah&quot;, at least unless you start going into the prevalence of trinitarianism and &quot;praying to individual saints&quot;) and I ''think'' Sikhism is rather good at &quot;everything is but an aspect of the one...&quot; (even when it comes to considering other religions' own ideas, and thus nominally folding ). But multi-deity (and zero-deity) religions/beliefs/etc are quite widespread, so an exclusivity of &quot;my god&quot; might be considered rare. (Though, numbers-wise, Christianity (in all its flavours) and Islam (ditto) add up to just over half of the world's population, perhaps being generous with 'habitual followers' rather than just the most devout. So it would be fairly accurate to say that most ''people'' are living under a (theoretically) quite strict monotheistic situation. Not that they all agree with each other quite what 'the singly god' is (even within themselves, ask a Protestent what they think about what a Catholic thinks, as [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emo_Philips#Die,_heretic! the famous joke about this goes]; and that's definitely not solely a Christian trait), although that's not what we're counting. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.54|172.71.242.54]] 21:05, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : This reminds me of a novel (I think it was Arthur C. Clarke's ''3001: The Final Odyssey'') where in the distant future, all religions ended up merging into two - one where there is ''at most'' one god and one where there is ''at least'' one god. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 14:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : A surprisingly large number of religions actually don't care if you additionally are a member of another religion. Happens all the time in eastern Asia.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.212.173|162.158.212.173]] 21:05, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> What if there is a God, but they don't want you to believe in them?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.35|172.70.86.35]] 11:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Or a God, but they have impostor syndrome? [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Or a God, and he just wants to screw over us all (not in the Yivo sense, mind you)? (Under this condition, all three outcomes are possible: he wants us to believe, he wants to hide, he couldn't care less) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.174|198.41.242.174]] 08:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> How did the middle Cueball on line 3 not realize that both Gods he was being asked to believe in are the same God (since the ones on line 2 both got it from the same Cueball on line 1)? Is there also a game of Telephone going on? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Tbf there's no clarification by the Line 2 guys that they're talking about the same God. It makes sense that he'd assume they're different. If two different religious people told you at the same time &quot;My God is real&quot; and you'd never really been exposed to religion or atheism, you would assume they were talking about two. Forgive me if I made any unfair assumptions here. [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Look at the schism in Islam and the huge number of divisions in Christianity. That it may be the same god and same basic religion doesn't mean that it isn't presented entirely differently. For example (what I'm familiar with), Roman Catholic versus Church of England. Similar, but also completely different. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.118|141.101.69.118]] 19:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : Presumably each person interprets the diety slightly differently [[User:mouse|mouse]]<br /> <br /> &gt;&gt;then there is minimal cost to drawing one anyway&lt;&lt; I argue that drawing a complete pascal's triangle will take infinite time and infinite resources. Which is slightly above &quot;minimal cost&quot;<br /> [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.61|108.162.221.61]] 05:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The use of the words &quot;complete&quot; and &quot;infinite&quot; while referring to the same thing is funny to me. I don't know why, though. [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 13:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I very nearly inserted the following 'argument' paragraph in the Explanation, but decided that it perhaps was a bit of a 'belief' of my own.<br /> (A more realistic approach could be to just outwardly conform to the social expectations of the society to which you belong. With or without any actual core belief, which cannot be tested in any realistic manner during your lifetime, maintaining a performative cohesion with your neighbours and acquaintences would still benefit you in avoiding standing out from the commonly accepted ideology. This may still count as a 'belief' (desirable or undesirable) should this stance ever come to be judged by any deity, with your ultimate fate probably being mirrored by others that you know who are in your exact same ideological position and merely outwardly perpetuting the 'accepted' demonstrations of faith. Assuming that the society's religion is not a self-destructive one, you would have as good a lifetime as circumstances would generally allow, with the ''possibility'' of an afterlife that is at least not uniquely bad for you; unlike the smart-arse who presumes to know what the single best theological stance is and then has to rationalise their attempt to cynically play the odds upon Judgement Day, against a deity who fully understands their base motivations and may even take far less kindly towards a Wagerer than with someone who never ever tried to 'believe' but at least was generally and secularly philanthropic in a way that the deity might be pleased by.)<br /> I stand by the logic, as far as it can ever be taken (without knowing anything useful about the actual mind of God/gods it has to be tested against) but it got a bit long as a 'minor philosophical interlude'. And if the Ultimate Arbiter does ''not'' like Bill-And-Ted-ism (i.e. &quot;be excellent to each other&quot;) and getting along with your community, instead prefers more outstandingly misanthropic worldly behaviours (because the only 'heavenly' afterlife is more Valhalla than Asphodel Meadows; anyone who even mildly disappoints goes to the Hades/Tartarus equivalent) without actually clueing us in on this particular Ineffable Plan, then the fate of many (who ''don't'' make earthly lives more miserable for the rest of us) is pretty much doomed from the start and even the most perfect Pascalian Wagerer probably never managed to stand on the right side of the philosophical barrier either. This whole argument is not even a novel philosophy, of course, but it's mine. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.56|172.69.195.56]] 16:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Doesn't the exact wording of the alt text not technically call for a classic Pascal's Wager, but rather an inverted triangle where there is only one number at the bottom, two in the row above the bottom, et cetera? (Since there have to be two numbers above every number: the traditional exception for the top row and the numbers at the sides isn't present.) Given such a triangle, wouldn't the only possible solutions be all-0, all-positive-infinity, or all-negative-infinity, which certain readings of &quot;number&quot; might restrict to the all-0 solution? [[User:WingedCat|WingedCat]] ([[User talk:WingedCat|talk]]) 00:20, 22 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> '''''PROBLEM''''': Currently, the transcript includes a recreation of the triangle, nicknaming the Cueballs C1 through 15, laid out in a triangle. This seems too visual for the transcript. The thing is, it seems like a major goal of the transcript is for blind people, who have a reader program read them the transcript, and they follow XKCD solely in this way. Wouldn't a reader program render this as &quot;C1 C2 C3...&quot; etc? Giving no indication as to the layout? As the fix feels rather clunky and I'm not 100% sure this is an issue, I felt I should mention it first before enacting change. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:07, 23 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2942:_Fluid_Speech&diff=344373 2024-06-15T05:47:24Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be the case in all languages. For example, when native Polish speakers talk rapidly (even when speaking English), they enunciate every sound accurately in quick succession while flattening out the tone and rhythm of their speech. I wonder if this is because Polish is an inflected language where the grammar of the sentence is determined by endings of words rather than word order. Does anyone know if there have been any studies on this? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 23:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I'm not linguists but based on how many those are, definitely. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Russian also has vowel reduction like English and it's a Slavic language like Polish, so I don't think so. Although someone who knows more than me might be able to chip in on whether the effect is stronger in English. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Russian vowels are a tangle of reduction indeed. I think they’re much more complicated than English vowels, but I may be biased as a native speaker of Russian who started self-studying phonetics, phonology etc. to improve his English pronunciation and only relatively briefly looked up Russian phonology for fun. But at any rate, Russian vowel reduction happens in slow and fast, formal and colloquial speech alike, pretty much universally except when articulating a word exceedingly clearly when someone can’t hear you well; and Russian consonants are generally unaffected outside of several specific clusters and morphemes, even if you include those that are fully codified in modern language but retain etymological spelling (чувство, счастье, солнце). [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 16:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I know the comic specifies native speakers, but I just asked some of my East Asian friends and they very clearly enunciated the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;hot potato&quot;. [[User:Tcf|Tcf]] ([[User talk:Tcf|talk]]) 07:22, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've just added a very barebones version of an explanation based on what I could understand from the comic. I can tell that the four diagrams depict that of the human mouth but since I am not a linguist, I lack the knowledge of various terms and thus, can't fully explain the comic. I understand what the comic is trying to convey, I just can't explain it. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 00:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think #4 is a real IPA symbol, but as I am not a linguist, I have no idea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.36|162.158.91.36]] 01:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :/ə̃/ is a {{w|Nasal_vowel|nasalized}} {{w|schwa}} --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.92|172.71.160.92]] 08:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :A video for demonstrating the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2M9ILulTo [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.139|172.69.70.139]] 17:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The hovertext joke is that every English speaker fully pronounces the first &quot;t&quot; in &quot;Hot Potato&quot;. It's at the end of &quot;hot&quot;. Nobody says &quot;ha potato&quot;. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Unless you mean &quot;the glottal stop should be considered an allophone of &lt;t&gt; at the end of syllables&quot; then yes they do. It's /hoʔ/, not /hotʰ/. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :(Edit conflicted with 162, above, so this is my own reply...) I thought it was that it isn't &quot;ho T'p otato&quot;, with the &quot;teh-peh&quot; awkwardness. For me, the natural way to say it is to glottalstop the first T for more &quot;ho'potato&quot; (the other Ts, there I find awkward ''not'' to get the &quot;t&gt;s&lt;&quot; out of, the &quot;&gt;s&lt;&quot;-tail being what makes a full-T not a lazy one). But clearly a different accent involved, as &quot;ha&quot; doesn't work at all for me unless I try to use some sort of (probably awful) Goodfellas-type accent. And my native accent is notoriously good at glottlestopped Ts (that most people misinpersonate badly, by attaching them to the wrong adjacent syllable).<br /> :As for &quot;going to&quot;, experimentally holding my finger over the length of my tongue, it seems it barely has to move at all in &quot;going&quot; (the whole tongue wants to rise on the &quot;i&quot;, but I can suppress that and do the tone-change from further back, if not straight from the vocal chords). Though continuing through to the &quot;to&quot;, with my finger in there, it's no better than &quot;going ku&quot; as I prevent the tongue-tip doing the necessary small movement to fulfil any form of T. I can do better through basic gastromancy, but behind my unmoving jaw and lips (''without'' the finger almost down my throat, of course), I can feel the tongue tip doing it's small but vital &quot;crossing the T&quot; work. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 03:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :For me, it's more like &quot;hobuh-deh-duh&quot; - so none of the t's get pronounced properly. And I'd drop the n in 'going to' before I dropped the t.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC) <br /> :Wunber dayder, doober dayder, freeber dayder for. (But then, oddly, uh baguv tayterz.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.58|172.70.162.58]] 13:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Unless someone's willing to start an &quot;explain explain xkcd&quot;, I think this explanation still needs a lot of work to be intelligible to non-linguists (myself included). That aside, I do appreciate whoever took the time to type all that up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.210|162.158.166.210]] 03:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The current explain reads, to me at least, more like a 102 lecture than an explanation of the comic. I of course have no idea what is in a 101 first week lecture so shrug. (Aside, wth? This keyboard doesn't have a tilda. Copy and paste ftw) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.38|172.71.223.38]] 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Meta-response about the {{w|tilde}}: at the top of this editing window is a bar of formatting buttons (which I mostly just try to avoid accidentally clicking when I touchscreen-scroll). The second from the right gives &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;--~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, having a depiction of a signature. (The &quot;--&quot; is not necessary, nor does anything with actual formatting/markup, but comes from quite old text communications standards.) Personally, in this current situation of using an onscreen keyboard, my configurstion hides the tilde behind the &quot;?123&quot; then &quot;=\&lt;&quot; change-keyboard buttons.<br /> :::(Ironically, all three of &quot;=&quot;, &quot;\&quot; and &quot;&lt;&quot; are already available as long-presses of the primary keyboard layout. But the much more useful &quot;/&quot; is hidden behind the &quot;?123&quot; press, ''except'' when it explicitly detects that I'm in a browser address field. Some UI designers have strange ideas that definitely mis-mesh with my usage!)<br /> :::That's where I usually go, to sign-off. But on physical keyboards, depending upon internationalisation options, it might be either off the top-left (left of &quot;1&quot; key) 'triple-key, perhaps needing Shift or AltGr fingering (from experience of US (mis)configuring), or the key in the &quot;hook&quot; of the &lt;Enter&gt; key (all my physical UK keyboards, even the most squished-up laptop ones, have that as &lt;sub&gt;#&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;~&lt;/sup&gt;). If you're neither in US nor UK (and your device knows this), then where it gets shuffled out of the way of any ß, ē or ø type stuff, I wouldn't know for sure, but using the AltGr (right-Alt) ''might'' reveal characters you never ever knew you had... ;)<br /> :::Copypasting out of the &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;Please sign your posts with ~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; Infobox or any residual from the {{template|unsigned}} templates is, of course, also a valid option. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 10:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Re: Tilde, depends what keyboard you're using, :) On a FULL standard keyboard (so, not a laptop keyboard) the standard is top left, Shift-Backward Apostrophe (Shift-`), left of the 1, under the Esc (''standard'', but far from universal). On my iPad (so, probably all iOS devices) tap the &quot;.?123&quot; button to get to the first symbols keyboard, then &quot;#+=&quot; for the second symbols keyboard (ironically, all three of those are on the FIRST keyboard). It's the same button as C on the QWERTY alphabetical keyboard. On my ancient Android phone, it's ALSO the second symbol keyboard, pretty much dead center. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I think it's fine if you can read/interpret the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA}}. If you don't it's utterly incomprehensible. I think we need some examples here as to how the sounds written here are pronounced. Like &quot;sound &lt;x&gt; as in &lt;word&gt;&quot; [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Yeah, except [[2819]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &gt;Alien impersonating a human<br /> <br /> Sounds like a normal Runglish to me, just like the one you can hear in this clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNKUo5MrbM]<br /> <br /> I hate that he pointed this out, because I'm going to start pronouncing things the way they're supposed to sound and everyone will think I'm weirder. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : How are you pronouncing 'Psychoticpotato'?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.6|172.69.195.6]] 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Think of the words &quot;psychotic&quot; and &quot;potato&quot;. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a bit more detail to the first diagram, but I agree it's not really plain English right now. btw, maybe it's pedantic of me, but diphthongs such as /oʊ/ are one vowel, and the whole word /ɡoʊ.ɪŋ/ only has two vowels<br /> <br /> As for &quot;hot potato&quot;, the post-vocalic T *is* pronounced, it's pronounced as a glottal stop. T is simply pronounced differently in different positions, it's how the letter works. Randall's probably referring to the alveolar plosive /t/, which most people think of as &quot;the T sound&quot; and would make you sound like an alien. SMBC made the point better: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-05-08<br /> [[User:FrustratedPhonetics|FrustratedPhonetics]] ([[User talk:FrustratedPhonetics|talk]]) 13:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Unless, like me, you just elide straight into the following consonant. Hock ross buns, hock ross buns, wunner penee tooer penee, hock ross buns.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.166|172.69.43.166]] 14:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::This causes me physical discomfort. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I find I say 'hod p'tato' but the 'd' only the precursor to 'd' that's never 'plosived': my tongue forming a tube with the roof of my mouth, closed just behind my teeth, so I don't think that's glottal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not exactly original, &quot;hopotado&quot;: that's just how French works. Consonants at the end of a word are only pronounced if the following word starts on a vowel. In which case the two are drawn into one word. The cool thing about French is that knowing this little rule, you can read out a text alound and others understand even if you don't. :D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 21:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A very small proportion of people can read and understand the IPA, and the explanation depends on knowledge of it currently. So it's a terrible explanation which needs to be written without phonetician jargon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.81|162.158.42.81]] 05:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The UK &quot;bo'le&quot; - I find I still say the 't' but with the sides of my tongue instead of the tip. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If you don't fully touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth when you say &quot;hot&quot;, it sounds normal while also having the &quot;t&quot; sound. I learned this by saying the phrase multiple times in class and having people look at me strangely. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It's infuriating - as a linguist who specialised in English phonology and has since spent years writing voiceover scripts, so is acutely aware of pronunciation - trying to explain these phenomena to people who say &quot;No, but I ''do'' pronounce the [x] whenever I say [y]. Listen...&quot;&lt;br&gt;<br /> &quot;No,that's not an actual &quot;tuh&quot; sound though you're making there though, is it? It's more like...&quot;<br /> [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == &quot;Sandhi&quot; ==<br /> <br /> Now I want someone to name their kid Sandhi, pronounced [säní]. <br /> [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Poor kid. Every substitute teacher they had would pronounce it wrong. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Found while reading ''Buttercup Festival'' ==<br /> Grade A gray day!<br /> [[File:grade_a.jpg|frameless|caption]]<br /> -- [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 16:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> so he reveals he doesnt know what a fully pronounced t sounds like. Because I have never heard anybody not fully pronounce the t in hot, not even when saying hot potato. That is not an optimization, that is how t's sound.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.134|162.158.202.134]] 17:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As if you don't say it hoppa taydo when you're not focusing LOL --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.192|172.70.207.192]] 21:26, 14 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :You probably have ONLY heard the lazy pronunciation. :) There really IS a difference, you just haven't noticed because all of this feels SO subtle (I didn't notice any of this until reading this comic). I'm no linguist or know the jargon, so all I can do is try to explain my findings in layman-speak. It's natural and usual to slip through the &quot;T&quot; (I'm noticing even ''without'' &quot;potato&quot;) unless you want to emphasis it: &quot;It's a cold potato?&quot; &quot;It's a HOT potato!&quot;. When fully pronouncing the T, the T sound is more like &quot;Te&quot;. When I fully pronounce the T, I'm noticing my tongue snaps off the roof of my mouth, while when saying it normally, like in &quot;hot potato&quot;, my tongue barely touches the roof, it speeds through it in preparation for the P. Verbally like the difference between a full stop at a stop sign or a rolling stop. 04:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2942:_Fluid_Speech&diff=344371 2024-06-15T05:29:50Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be the case in all languages. For example, when native Polish speakers talk rapidly (even when speaking English), they enunciate every sound accurately in quick succession while flattening out the tone and rhythm of their speech. I wonder if this is because Polish is an inflected language where the grammar of the sentence is determined by endings of words rather than word order. Does anyone know if there have been any studies on this? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 23:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I'm not linguists but based on how many those are, definitely. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Russian also has vowel reduction like English and it's a Slavic language like Polish, so I don't think so. Although someone who knows more than me might be able to chip in on whether the effect is stronger in English. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Russian vowels are a tangle of reduction indeed. I think they’re much more complicated than English vowels, but I may be biased as a native speaker of Russian who started self-studying phonetics, phonology etc. to improve his English pronunciation and only relatively briefly looked up Russian phonology for fun. But at any rate, Russian vowel reduction happens in slow and fast, formal and colloquial speech alike, pretty much universally except when articulating a word exceedingly clearly when someone can’t hear you well; and Russian consonants are generally unaffected outside of several specific clusters and morphemes, even if you include those that are fully codified in modern language but retain etymological spelling (чувство, счастье, солнце). [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 16:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I know the comic specifies native speakers, but I just asked some of my East Asian friends and they very clearly enunciated the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;hot potato&quot;. [[User:Tcf|Tcf]] ([[User talk:Tcf|talk]]) 07:22, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've just added a very barebones version of an explanation based on what I could understand from the comic. I can tell that the four diagrams depict that of the human mouth but since I am not a linguist, I lack the knowledge of various terms and thus, can't fully explain the comic. I understand what the comic is trying to convey, I just can't explain it. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 00:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think #4 is a real IPA symbol, but as I am not a linguist, I have no idea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.36|162.158.91.36]] 01:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :/ə̃/ is a {{w|Nasal_vowel|nasalized}} {{w|schwa}} --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.92|172.71.160.92]] 08:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :A video for demonstrating the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2M9ILulTo [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.139|172.69.70.139]] 17:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The hovertext joke is that every English speaker fully pronounces the first &quot;t&quot; in &quot;Hot Potato&quot;. It's at the end of &quot;hot&quot;. Nobody says &quot;ha potato&quot;. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Unless you mean &quot;the glottal stop should be considered an allophone of &lt;t&gt; at the end of syllables&quot; then yes they do. It's /hoʔ/, not /hotʰ/. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :(Edit conflicted with 162, above, so this is my own reply...) I thought it was that it isn't &quot;ho T'p otato&quot;, with the &quot;teh-peh&quot; awkwardness. For me, the natural way to say it is to glottalstop the first T for more &quot;ho'potato&quot; (the other Ts, there I find awkward ''not'' to get the &quot;t&gt;s&lt;&quot; out of, the &quot;&gt;s&lt;&quot;-tail being what makes a full-T not a lazy one). But clearly a different accent involved, as &quot;ha&quot; doesn't work at all for me unless I try to use some sort of (probably awful) Goodfellas-type accent. And my native accent is notoriously good at glottlestopped Ts (that most people misinpersonate badly, by attaching them to the wrong adjacent syllable).<br /> :As for &quot;going to&quot;, experimentally holding my finger over the length of my tongue, it seems it barely has to move at all in &quot;going&quot; (the whole tongue wants to rise on the &quot;i&quot;, but I can suppress that and do the tone-change from further back, if not straight from the vocal chords). Though continuing through to the &quot;to&quot;, with my finger in there, it's no better than &quot;going ku&quot; as I prevent the tongue-tip doing the necessary small movement to fulfil any form of T. I can do better through basic gastromancy, but behind my unmoving jaw and lips (''without'' the finger almost down my throat, of course), I can feel the tongue tip doing it's small but vital &quot;crossing the T&quot; work. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 03:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :For me, it's more like &quot;hobuh-deh-duh&quot; - so none of the t's get pronounced properly. And I'd drop the n in 'going to' before I dropped the t.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC) <br /> :Wunber dayder, doober dayder, freeber dayder for. (But then, oddly, uh baguv tayterz.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.58|172.70.162.58]] 13:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Unless someone's willing to start an &quot;explain explain xkcd&quot;, I think this explanation still needs a lot of work to be intelligible to non-linguists (myself included). That aside, I do appreciate whoever took the time to type all that up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.210|162.158.166.210]] 03:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The current explain reads, to me at least, more like a 102 lecture than an explanation of the comic. I of course have no idea what is in a 101 first week lecture so shrug. (Aside, wth? This keyboard doesn't have a tilda. Copy and paste ftw) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.38|172.71.223.38]] 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Meta-response about the {{w|tilde}}: at the top of this editing window is a bar of formatting buttons (which I mostly just try to avoid accidentally clicking when I touchscreen-scroll). The second from the right gives &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;--~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, having a depiction of a signature. (The &quot;--&quot; is not necessary, nor does anything with actual formatting/markup, but comes from quite old text communications standards.) Personally, in this current situation of using an onscreen keyboard, my configurstion hides the tilde behind the &quot;?123&quot; then &quot;=\&lt;&quot; change-keyboard buttons.<br /> :::(Ironically, all three of &quot;=&quot;, &quot;\&quot; and &quot;&lt;&quot; are already available as long-presses of the primary keyboard layout. But the much more useful &quot;/&quot; is hidden behind the &quot;?123&quot; press, ''except'' when it explicitly detects that I'm in a browser address field. Some UI designers have strange ideas that definitely mis-mesh with my usage!)<br /> :::That's where I usually go, to sign-off. But on physical keyboards, depending upon internationalisation options, it might be either off the top-left (left of &quot;1&quot; key) 'triple-key, perhaps needing Shift or AltGr fingering (from experience of US (mis)configuring), or the key in the &quot;hook&quot; of the &lt;Enter&gt; key (all my physical UK keyboards, even the most squished-up laptop ones, have that as &lt;sub&gt;#&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;~&lt;/sup&gt;). If you're neither in US nor UK (and your device knows this), then where it gets shuffled out of the way of any ß, ē or ø type stuff, I wouldn't know for sure, but using the AltGr (right-Alt) ''might'' reveal characters you never ever knew you had... ;)<br /> :::Copypasting out of the &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;Please sign your posts with ~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; Infobox or any residual from the {{template|unsigned}} templates is, of course, also a valid option. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 10:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Re: Tilde, depends what keyboard you're using, :) On a FULL standard keyboard (so, not a laptop keyboard) the standard is top left, Shift-Backward Apostrophe (Shift-`), left of the 1, under the Esc. On my iPad (so, probably all iOS devices) tap the &quot;.?123&quot; button to get to the first symbols keyboard, then &quot;#+=&quot; for the second symbols keyboard (ironically, all three of those are on the FIRST keyboard). It's the same button as C on the QWERTY alphabetical keyboard. On my ancient Android phone, it's ALSO the second symbol keyboard, pretty much dead center. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I think it's fine if you can read/interpret the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA}}. If you don't it's utterly incomprehensible. I think we need some examples here as to how the sounds written here are pronounced. Like &quot;sound &lt;x&gt; as in &lt;word&gt;&quot; [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Yeah, except [[2819]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &gt;Alien impersonating a human<br /> <br /> Sounds like a normal Runglish to me, just like the one you can hear in this clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNKUo5MrbM]<br /> <br /> I hate that he pointed this out, because I'm going to start pronouncing things the way they're supposed to sound and everyone will think I'm weirder. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : How are you pronouncing 'Psychoticpotato'?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.6|172.69.195.6]] 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Think of the words &quot;psychotic&quot; and &quot;potato&quot;. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a bit more detail to the first diagram, but I agree it's not really plain English right now. btw, maybe it's pedantic of me, but diphthongs such as /oʊ/ are one vowel, and the whole word /ɡoʊ.ɪŋ/ only has two vowels<br /> <br /> As for &quot;hot potato&quot;, the post-vocalic T *is* pronounced, it's pronounced as a glottal stop. T is simply pronounced differently in different positions, it's how the letter works. Randall's probably referring to the alveolar plosive /t/, which most people think of as &quot;the T sound&quot; and would make you sound like an alien. SMBC made the point better: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-05-08<br /> [[User:FrustratedPhonetics|FrustratedPhonetics]] ([[User talk:FrustratedPhonetics|talk]]) 13:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Unless, like me, you just elide straight into the following consonant. Hock ross buns, hock ross buns, wunner penee tooer penee, hock ross buns.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.166|172.69.43.166]] 14:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::This causes me physical discomfort. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I find I say 'hod p'tato' but the 'd' only the precursor to 'd' that's never 'plosived': my tongue forming a tube with the roof of my mouth, closed just behind my teeth, so I don't think that's glottal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not exactly original, &quot;hopotado&quot;: that's just how French works. Consonants at the end of a word are only pronounced if the following word starts on a vowel. In which case the two are drawn into one word. The cool thing about French is that knowing this little rule, you can read out a text alound and others understand even if you don't. :D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 21:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A very small proportion of people can read and understand the IPA, and the explanation depends on knowledge of it currently. So it's a terrible explanation which needs to be written without phonetician jargon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.81|162.158.42.81]] 05:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The UK &quot;bo'le&quot; - I find I still say the 't' but with the sides of my tongue instead of the tip. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If you don't fully touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth when you say &quot;hot&quot;, it sounds normal while also having the &quot;t&quot; sound. I learned this by saying the phrase multiple times in class and having people look at me strangely. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It's infuriating - as a linguist who specialised in English phonology and has since spent years writing voiceover scripts, so is acutely aware of pronunciation - trying to explain these phenomena to people who say &quot;No, but I ''do'' pronounce the [x] whenever I say [y]. Listen...&quot;&lt;br&gt;<br /> &quot;No,that's not an actual &quot;tuh&quot; sound though you're making there though, is it? It's more like...&quot;<br /> [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == &quot;Sandhi&quot; ==<br /> <br /> Now I want someone to name their kid Sandhi, pronounced [säní]. <br /> [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Poor kid. Every substitute teacher they had would pronounce it wrong. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Found while reading ''Buttercup Festival'' ==<br /> Grade A gray day!<br /> [[File:grade_a.jpg|frameless|caption]]<br /> -- [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 16:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> so he reveals he doesnt know what a fully pronounced t sounds like. Because I have never heard anybody not fully pronounce the t in hot, not even when saying hot potato. That is not an optimization, that is how t's sound.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.134|162.158.202.134]] 17:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As if you don't say it hoppa taydo when you're not focusing LOL --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.192|172.70.207.192]] 21:26, 14 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :You probably have ONLY heard the lazy pronunciation. :) There really IS a difference, you just haven't noticed because all of this feels SO subtle (I didn't notice any of this until reading this comic). I'm no linguist or know the jargon, so all I can do is try to explain my findings in layman-speak. It's natural and usual to slip through the &quot;T&quot; (I'm noticing even ''without'' &quot;potato&quot;) unless you want to emphasis it: &quot;It's a cold potato?&quot; &quot;It's a HOT potato!&quot;. When fully pronouncing the T, the T sound is more like &quot;Te&quot;. When I fully pronounce the T, I'm noticing my tongue snaps off the roof of my mouth, while when saying it normally, like in &quot;hot potato&quot;, my tongue barely touches the roof, it speeds through it in preparation for the P. Verbally like the difference between a full stop at a stop sign or a rolling stop. 04:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2942:_Fluid_Speech&diff=344370 2024-06-15T05:29:08Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be the case in all languages. For example, when native Polish speakers talk rapidly (even when speaking English), they enunciate every sound accurately in quick succession while flattening out the tone and rhythm of their speech. I wonder if this is because Polish is an inflected language where the grammar of the sentence is determined by endings of words rather than word order. Does anyone know if there have been any studies on this? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 23:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I'm not linguists but based on how many those are, definitely. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Russian also has vowel reduction like English and it's a Slavic language like Polish, so I don't think so. Although someone who knows more than me might be able to chip in on whether the effect is stronger in English. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Russian vowels are a tangle of reduction indeed. I think they’re much more complicated than English vowels, but I may be biased as a native speaker of Russian who started self-studying phonetics, phonology etc. to improve his English pronunciation and only relatively briefly looked up Russian phonology for fun. But at any rate, Russian vowel reduction happens in slow and fast, formal and colloquial speech alike, pretty much universally except when articulating a word exceedingly clearly when someone can’t hear you well; and Russian consonants are generally unaffected outside of several specific clusters and morphemes, even if you include those that are fully codified in modern language but retain etymological spelling (чувство, счастье, солнце). [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 16:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I know the comic specifies native speakers, but I just asked some of my East Asian friends and they very clearly enunciated the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;hot potato&quot;. [[User:Tcf|Tcf]] ([[User talk:Tcf|talk]]) 07:22, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've just added a very barebones version of an explanation based on what I could understand from the comic. I can tell that the four diagrams depict that of the human mouth but since I am not a linguist, I lack the knowledge of various terms and thus, can't fully explain the comic. I understand what the comic is trying to convey, I just can't explain it. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 00:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think #4 is a real IPA symbol, but as I am not a linguist, I have no idea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.36|162.158.91.36]] 01:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :/ə̃/ is a {{w|Nasal_vowel|nasalized}} {{w|schwa}} --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.92|172.71.160.92]] 08:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :A video for demonstrating the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2M9ILulTo [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.139|172.69.70.139]] 17:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The hovertext joke is that every English speaker fully pronounces the first &quot;t&quot; in &quot;Hot Potato&quot;. It's at the end of &quot;hot&quot;. Nobody says &quot;ha potato&quot;. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Unless you mean &quot;the glottal stop should be considered an allophone of &lt;t&gt; at the end of syllables&quot; then yes they do. It's /hoʔ/, not /hotʰ/. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :(Edit conflicted with 162, above, so this is my own reply...) I thought it was that it isn't &quot;ho T'p otato&quot;, with the &quot;teh-peh&quot; awkwardness. For me, the natural way to say it is to glottalstop the first T for more &quot;ho'potato&quot; (the other Ts, there I find awkward ''not'' to get the &quot;t&gt;s&lt;&quot; out of, the &quot;&gt;s&lt;&quot;-tail being what makes a full-T not a lazy one). But clearly a different accent involved, as &quot;ha&quot; doesn't work at all for me unless I try to use some sort of (probably awful) Goodfellas-type accent. And my native accent is notoriously good at glottlestopped Ts (that most people misinpersonate badly, by attaching them to the wrong adjacent syllable).<br /> :As for &quot;going to&quot;, experimentally holding my finger over the length of my tongue, it seems it barely has to move at all in &quot;going&quot; (the whole tongue wants to rise on the &quot;i&quot;, but I can suppress that and do the tone-change from further back, if not straight from the vocal chords). Though continuing through to the &quot;to&quot;, with my finger in there, it's no better than &quot;going ku&quot; as I prevent the tongue-tip doing the necessary small movement to fulfil any form of T. I can do better through basic gastromancy, but behind my unmoving jaw and lips (''without'' the finger almost down my throat, of course), I can feel the tongue tip doing it's small but vital &quot;crossing the T&quot; work. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 03:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :For me, it's more like &quot;hobuh-deh-duh&quot; - so none of the t's get pronounced properly. And I'd drop the n in 'going to' before I dropped the t.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC) <br /> :Wunber dayder, doober dayder, freeber dayder for. (But then, oddly, uh baguv tayterz.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.58|172.70.162.58]] 13:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Unless someone's willing to start an &quot;explain explain xkcd&quot;, I think this explanation still needs a lot of work to be intelligible to non-linguists (myself included). That aside, I do appreciate whoever took the time to type all that up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.210|162.158.166.210]] 03:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The current explain reads, to me at least, more like a 102 lecture than an explanation of the comic. I of course have no idea what is in a 101 first week lecture so shrug. (Aside, wth? This keyboard doesn't have a tilda. Copy and paste ftw) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.38|172.71.223.38]] 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Meta-response about the {{w|tilde}}: at the top of this editing window is a bar of formatting buttons (which I mostly just try to avoid accidentally clicking when I touchscreen-scroll). The second from the right gives &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;--~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, having a depiction of a signature. (The &quot;--&quot; is not necessary, nor does anything with actual formatting/markup, but comes from quite old text communications standards.) Personally, in this current situation of using an onscreen keyboard, my configurstion hides the tilde behind the &quot;?123&quot; then &quot;=\&lt;&quot; change-keyboard buttons.<br /> :::(Ironically, all three of &quot;=&quot;, &quot;\&quot; and &quot;&lt;&quot; are already available as long-presses of the primary keyboard layout. But the much more useful &quot;/&quot; is hidden behind the &quot;?123&quot; press, ''except'' when it explicitly detects that I'm in a browser address field. Some UI designers have strange ideas that definitely mis-mesh with my usage!)<br /> :::That's where I usually go, to sign-off. But on physical keyboards, depending upon internationalisation options, it might be either off the top-left (left of &quot;1&quot; key) 'triple-key, perhaps needing Shift or AltGr fingering (from experience of US (mis)configuring), or the key in the &quot;hook&quot; of the &lt;Enter&gt; key (all my physical UK keyboards, even the most squished-up laptop ones, have that as &lt;sub&gt;#&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;~&lt;/sup&gt;). If you're neither in US nor UK (and your device knows this), then where it gets shuffled out of the way of any ß, ē or ø type stuff, I wouldn't know for sure, but using the AltGr (right-Alt) ''might'' reveal characters you never ever knew you had... ;)<br /> :::Copypasting out of the &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;Please sign your posts with ~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; Infobox or any residual from the {{template|unsigned}} templates is, of course, also a valid option. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 10:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Re: Tilde, depends what keyboard you're using, :) On a FULL standard keyboard (so, not a laptop keyboard) the standard is top left, Shift-Backward Apostrophe (Shift-`), left of the 1, under the Esc. On my iPad (so, probably all iOS devices) tap the &quot;.?123&quot; button to get to the first symbols keyboard, then &quot;#+=&quot; for the second symbols keyboard (ironically, all three of those are on the FIRST keyboard). It's the same button as C on the QWERTY alphabetical keyboard. On my ancient Android phone, it's ALSO the second symbol keyboard, pretty much dead center. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I think it's fine if you can read/interpret the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA}}. If you don't it's utterly incomprehensible. I think we need some examples here as to how the sounds written here are pronounced. Like &quot;sound &lt;x&gt; as in &lt;word&gt;&quot; [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Yeah, except [[2819]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &gt;Alien impersonating a human<br /> <br /> Sounds like a normal Runglish to me, just like the one you can hear in this clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNKUo5MrbM]<br /> <br /> I hate that he pointed this out, because I'm going to start pronouncing things the way they're supposed to sound and everyone will think I'm weirder. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : How are you pronouncing 'Psychoticpotato'?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.6|172.69.195.6]] 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Think of the words &quot;psychotic&quot; and &quot;potato&quot;. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a bit more detail to the first diagram, but I agree it's not really plain English right now. btw, maybe it's pedantic of me, but diphthongs such as /oʊ/ are one vowel, and the whole word /ɡoʊ.ɪŋ/ only has two vowels<br /> <br /> As for &quot;hot potato&quot;, the post-vocalic T *is* pronounced, it's pronounced as a glottal stop. T is simply pronounced differently in different positions, it's how the letter works. Randall's probably referring to the alveolar plosive /t/, which most people think of as &quot;the T sound&quot; and would make you sound like an alien. SMBC made the point better: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-05-08<br /> [[User:FrustratedPhonetics|FrustratedPhonetics]] ([[User talk:FrustratedPhonetics|talk]]) 13:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Unless, like me, you just elide straight into the following consonant. Hock ross buns, hock ross buns, wunner penee tooer penee, hock ross buns.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.166|172.69.43.166]] 14:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::This causes me physical discomfort. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I find I say 'hod p'tato' but the 'd' only the precursor to 'd' that's never 'plosived': my tongue forming a tube with the roof of my mouth, closed just behind my teeth, so I don't think that's glottal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not exactly original, &quot;hopotado&quot;: that's just how French works. Consonants at the end of a word are only pronounced if the following word starts on a vowel. In which case the two are drawn into one word. The cool thing about French is that knowing this little rule, you can read out a text alound and others understand even if you don't. :D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 21:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A very small proportion of people can read and understand the IPA, and the explanation depends on knowledge of it currently. So it's a terrible explanation which needs to be written without phonetician jargon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.81|162.158.42.81]] 05:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The UK &quot;bo'le&quot; - I find I still say the 't' but with the sides of my tongue instead of the tip. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If you don't fully touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth when you say &quot;hot&quot;, it sounds normal while also having the &quot;t&quot; sound. I learned this by saying the phrase multiple times in class and having people look at me strangely. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It's infuriating - as a linguist who specialised in English phonology and has since spent years writing voiceover scripts, so is acutely aware of pronunciation - trying to explain these phenomena to people who say &quot;No, but I ''do'' pronounce the [x] whenever I say [y]. Listen...&quot;&lt;br&gt;<br /> &quot;No,that's not an actual &quot;tuh&quot; sound though you're making there though, is it? It's more like...&quot;<br /> [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == &quot;Sandhi&quot; ==<br /> <br /> Now I want someone to name their kid Sandhi, pronounced [säní]. <br /> [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Poor kid. Every substitute teacher they had would pronounce it wrong. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Found while reading ''Buttercup Festival'' ==<br /> Grade A gray day!<br /> [[File:grade_a.jpg|frameless|caption]]<br /> -- [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 16:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> so he reveals he doesnt know what a fully pronounced t sounds like. Because I have never heard anybody not fully pronounce the t in hot, not even when saying hot potato. That is not an optimization, that is how t's sound.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.134|162.158.202.134]] 17:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As if you don't say it hoppa taydo when you're not focusing LOL --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.192|172.70.207.192]] 21:26, 14 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :You probably have ONLY heard the lazy pronunciation. :) There really IS a difference, you just haven't noticed because all of this feels SO subtle (I didn't notice any of this until reading this comic). I'm no linguist or know the jargon, so all I can do is try to explain my findings in layman-speak. It's natural and usual to slip through the &quot;T&quot; (I'm noticing even ''without'' &quot;potato&quot;) unless you want to emphasis it: &quot;It's a cold potato?&quot; &quot;It's a HOT potato!&quot;. When fully pronouncing the T, the T sound is more like &quot;Te&quot;. When I fully pronounce the T, I'm noticing my tongue snaps off the roof of my mouth, while when saying it normally, like in &quot;hot potato&quot;, my tongue barely touches the roof, it speeds through it in preparation for the P. Verbally like the difference between a full stop at a stop sign or a rolling stop. 04:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2942:_Fluid_Speech&diff=344369 2024-06-15T05:27:12Z

<p>NiceGuy1: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be the case in all languages. For example, when native Polish speakers talk rapidly (even when speaking English), they enunciate every sound accurately in quick succession while flattening out the tone and rhythm of their speech. I wonder if this is because Polish is an inflected language where the grammar of the sentence is determined by endings of words rather than word order. Does anyone know if there have been any studies on this? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 23:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I'm not linguists but based on how many those are, definitely. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Russian also has vowel reduction like English and it's a Slavic language like Polish, so I don't think so. Although someone who knows more than me might be able to chip in on whether the effect is stronger in English. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Russian vowels are a tangle of reduction indeed. I think they’re much more complicated than English vowels, but I may be biased as a native speaker of Russian who started self-studying phonetics, phonology etc. to improve his English pronunciation and only relatively briefly looked up Russian phonology for fun. But at any rate, Russian vowel reduction happens in slow and fast, formal and colloquial speech alike, pretty much universally except when articulating a word exceedingly clearly when someone can’t hear you well; and Russian consonants are generally unaffected outside of several specific clusters and morphemes, even if you include those that are fully codified in modern language but retain etymological spelling (чувство, счастье, солнце). [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 16:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I know the comic specifies native speakers, but I just asked some of my East Asian friends and they very clearly enunciated the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;hot potato&quot;. [[User:Tcf|Tcf]] ([[User talk:Tcf|talk]]) 07:22, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've just added a very barebones version of an explanation based on what I could understand from the comic. I can tell that the four diagrams depict that of the human mouth but since I am not a linguist, I lack the knowledge of various terms and thus, can't fully explain the comic. I understand what the comic is trying to convey, I just can't explain it. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 00:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think #4 is a real IPA symbol, but as I am not a linguist, I have no idea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.36|162.158.91.36]] 01:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :/ə̃/ is a {{w|Nasal_vowel|nasalized}} {{w|schwa}} --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.92|172.71.160.92]] 08:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :A video for demonstrating the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2M9ILulTo [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.139|172.69.70.139]] 17:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The hovertext joke is that every English speaker fully pronounces the first &quot;t&quot; in &quot;Hot Potato&quot;. It's at the end of &quot;hot&quot;. Nobody says &quot;ha potato&quot;. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Unless you mean &quot;the glottal stop should be considered an allophone of &lt;t&gt; at the end of syllables&quot; then yes they do. It's /hoʔ/, not /hotʰ/. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :(Edit conflicted with 162, above, so this is my own reply...) I thought it was that it isn't &quot;ho T'p otato&quot;, with the &quot;teh-peh&quot; awkwardness. For me, the natural way to say it is to glottalstop the first T for more &quot;ho'potato&quot; (the other Ts, there I find awkward ''not'' to get the &quot;t&gt;s&lt;&quot; out of, the &quot;&gt;s&lt;&quot;-tail being what makes a full-T not a lazy one). But clearly a different accent involved, as &quot;ha&quot; doesn't work at all for me unless I try to use some sort of (probably awful) Goodfellas-type accent. And my native accent is notoriously good at glottlestopped Ts (that most people misinpersonate badly, by attaching them to the wrong adjacent syllable).<br /> :As for &quot;going to&quot;, experimentally holding my finger over the length of my tongue, it seems it barely has to move at all in &quot;going&quot; (the whole tongue wants to rise on the &quot;i&quot;, but I can suppress that and do the tone-change from further back, if not straight from the vocal chords). Though continuing through to the &quot;to&quot;, with my finger in there, it's no better than &quot;going ku&quot; as I prevent the tongue-tip doing the necessary small movement to fulfil any form of T. I can do better through basic gastromancy, but behind my unmoving jaw and lips (''without'' the finger almost down my throat, of course), I can feel the tongue tip doing it's small but vital &quot;crossing the T&quot; work. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 03:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :For me, it's more like &quot;hobuh-deh-duh&quot; - so none of the t's get pronounced properly. And I'd drop the n in 'going to' before I dropped the t.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC) <br /> :Wunber dayder, doober dayder, freeber dayder for. (But then, oddly, uh baguv tayterz.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.58|172.70.162.58]] 13:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Unless someone's willing to start an &quot;explain explain xkcd&quot;, I think this explanation still needs a lot of work to be intelligible to non-linguists (myself included). That aside, I do appreciate whoever took the time to type all that up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.210|162.158.166.210]] 03:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The current explain reads, to me at least, more like a 102 lecture than an explanation of the comic. I of course have no idea what is in a 101 first week lecture so shrug. (Aside, wth? This keyboard doesn't have a tilda. Copy and paste ftw) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.38|172.71.223.38]] 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Meta-response about the {{w|tilde}}: at the top of this editing window is a bar of formatting buttons (which I mostly just try to avoid accidentally clicking when I touchscreen-scroll). The second from the right gives &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;--~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, having a depiction of a signature. (The &quot;--&quot; is not necessary, nor does anything with actual formatting/markup, but comes from quite old text communications standards.) Personally, in this current situation of using an onscreen keyboard, my configurstion hides the tilde behind the &quot;?123&quot; then &quot;=\&lt;&quot; change-keyboard buttons.<br /> :::(Ironically, all three of &quot;=&quot;, &quot;\&quot; and &quot;&lt;&quot; are already available as long-presses of the primary keyboard layout. But the much more useful &quot;/&quot; is hidden behind the &quot;?123&quot; press, ''except'' when it explicitly detects that I'm in a browser address field. Some UI designers have strange ideas that definitely mis-mesh with my usage!)<br /> :::That's where I usually go, to sign-off. But on physical keyboards, depending upon internationalisation options, it might be either off the top-left (left of &quot;1&quot; key) 'triple-key, perhaps needing Shift or AltGr fingering (from experience of US (mis)configuring), or the key in the &quot;hook&quot; of the &lt;Enter&gt; key (all my physical UK keyboards, even the most squished-up laptop ones, have that as &lt;sub&gt;#&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;~&lt;/sup&gt;). If you're neither in US nor UK (and your device knows this), then where it gets shuffled out of the way of any ß, ē or ø type stuff, I wouldn't know for sure, but using the AltGr (right-Alt) ''might'' reveal characters you never ever knew you had... ;)<br /> :::Copypasting out of the &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;Please sign your posts with ~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; Infobox or any residual from the {{template|unsigned}} templates is, of course, also a valid option. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 10:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I think it's fine if you can read/interpret the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA}}. If you don't it's utterly incomprehensible. I think we need some examples here as to how the sounds written here are pronounced. Like &quot;sound &lt;x&gt; as in &lt;word&gt;&quot; [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Yeah, except [[2819]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Re: Tilde, depends what keyboard you're using, :) On a FULL standard keyboard (so, not a laptop keyboard) the standard is top left, Shift-Backward Apostrophe (Shift-`), left of the 1, under the Esc. On my iPad (so, probably all iOS devices) tap the &quot;.?123&quot; button to get to the first symbols keyboard, then &quot;#+=&quot; for the second symbols keyboard (ironically, all three of those are on the FIRST keyboard). It's the same button as C on the QWERTY alphabetical keyboard. On my ancient Android phone, it's ALSO the second symbol keyboard, pretty much dead center. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &gt;Alien impersonating a human<br /> <br /> Sounds like a normal Runglish to me, just like the one you can hear in this clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNKUo5MrbM]<br /> <br /> I hate that he pointed this out, because I'm going to start pronouncing things the way they're supposed to sound and everyone will think I'm weirder. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : How are you pronouncing 'Psychoticpotato'?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.6|172.69.195.6]] 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Think of the words &quot;psychotic&quot; and &quot;potato&quot;. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a bit more detail to the first diagram, but I agree it's not really plain English right now. btw, maybe it's pedantic of me, but diphthongs such as /oʊ/ are one vowel, and the whole word /ɡoʊ.ɪŋ/ only has two vowels<br /> <br /> As for &quot;hot potato&quot;, the post-vocalic T *is* pronounced, it's pronounced as a glottal stop. T is simply pronounced differently in different positions, it's how the letter works. Randall's probably referring to the alveolar plosive /t/, which most people think of as &quot;the T sound&quot; and would make you sound like an alien. SMBC made the point better: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-05-08<br /> [[User:FrustratedPhonetics|FrustratedPhonetics]] ([[User talk:FrustratedPhonetics|talk]]) 13:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Unless, like me, you just elide straight into the following consonant. Hock ross buns, hock ross buns, wunner penee tooer penee, hock ross buns.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.166|172.69.43.166]] 14:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::This causes me physical discomfort. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I find I say 'hod p'tato' but the 'd' only the precursor to 'd' that's never 'plosived': my tongue forming a tube with the roof of my mouth, closed just behind my teeth, so I don't think that's glottal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not exactly original, &quot;hopotado&quot;: that's just how French works. Consonants at the end of a word are only pronounced if the following word starts on a vowel. In which case the two are drawn into one word. The cool thing about French is that knowing this little rule, you can read out a text alound and others understand even if you don't. :D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 21:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A very small proportion of people can read and understand the IPA, and the explanation depends on knowledge of it currently. So it's a terrible explanation which needs to be written without phonetician jargon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.81|162.158.42.81]] 05:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The UK &quot;bo'le&quot; - I find I still say the 't' but with the sides of my tongue instead of the tip. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If you don't fully touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth when you say &quot;hot&quot;, it sounds normal while also having the &quot;t&quot; sound. I learned this by saying the phrase multiple times in class and having people look at me strangely. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It's infuriating - as a linguist who specialised in English phonology and has since spent years writing voiceover scripts, so is acutely aware of pronunciation - trying to explain these phenomena to people who say &quot;No, but I ''do'' pronounce the [x] whenever I say [y]. Listen...&quot;&lt;br&gt;<br /> &quot;No,that's not an actual &quot;tuh&quot; sound though you're making there though, is it? It's more like...&quot;<br /> [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == &quot;Sandhi&quot; ==<br /> <br /> Now I want someone to name their kid Sandhi, pronounced [säní]. <br /> [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Poor kid. Every substitute teacher they had would pronounce it wrong. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Found while reading ''Buttercup Festival'' ==<br /> Grade A gray day!<br /> [[File:grade_a.jpg|frameless|caption]]<br /> -- [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 16:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> so he reveals he doesnt know what a fully pronounced t sounds like. Because I have never heard anybody not fully pronounce the t in hot, not even when saying hot potato. That is not an optimization, that is how t's sound.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.134|162.158.202.134]] 17:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As if you don't say it hoppa taydo when you're not focusing LOL --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.192|172.70.207.192]] 21:26, 14 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :You probably have ONLY heard the lazy pronunciation. :) There really IS a difference, you just haven't noticed because all of this feels SO subtle (I didn't notice any of this until reading this comic). I'm no linguist or know the jargon, so all I can do is try to explain my findings in layman-speak. It's natural and usual to slip through the &quot;T&quot; (I'm noticing even ''without'' &quot;potato&quot;) unless you want to emphasis it: &quot;It's a cold potato?&quot; &quot;It's a HOT potato!&quot;. When fully pronouncing the T, the T sound is more like &quot;Te&quot;. When I fully pronounce the T, I'm noticing my tongue snaps off the roof of my mouth, while when saying it normally, like in &quot;hot potato&quot;, my tongue barely touches the roof, it speeds through it in preparation for the P. Verbally like the difference between a full stop at a stop sign or a rolling stop. 04:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2942:_Fluid_Speech&diff=344366 2024-06-15T04:56:49Z

<p>NiceGuy1: /* Found while reading Buttercup Festival */</p> <hr /> <div>&lt;!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--&gt;<br /> <br /> I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be the case in all languages. For example, when native Polish speakers talk rapidly (even when speaking English), they enunciate every sound accurately in quick succession while flattening out the tone and rhythm of their speech. I wonder if this is because Polish is an inflected language where the grammar of the sentence is determined by endings of words rather than word order. Does anyone know if there have been any studies on this? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 23:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I'm not linguists but based on how many those are, definitely. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Russian also has vowel reduction like English and it's a Slavic language like Polish, so I don't think so. Although someone who knows more than me might be able to chip in on whether the effect is stronger in English. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ::Russian vowels are a tangle of reduction indeed. I think they’re much more complicated than English vowels, but I may be biased as a native speaker of Russian who started self-studying phonetics, phonology etc. to improve his English pronunciation and only relatively briefly looked up Russian phonology for fun. But at any rate, Russian vowel reduction happens in slow and fast, formal and colloquial speech alike, pretty much universally except when articulating a word exceedingly clearly when someone can’t hear you well; and Russian consonants are generally unaffected outside of several specific clusters and morphemes, even if you include those that are fully codified in modern language but retain etymological spelling (чувство, счастье, солнце). [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 16:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I know the comic specifies native speakers, but I just asked some of my East Asian friends and they very clearly enunciated the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;hot potato&quot;. [[User:Tcf|Tcf]] ([[User talk:Tcf|talk]]) 07:22, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I've just added a very barebones version of an explanation based on what I could understand from the comic. I can tell that the four diagrams depict that of the human mouth but since I am not a linguist, I lack the knowledge of various terms and thus, can't fully explain the comic. I understand what the comic is trying to convey, I just can't explain it. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 00:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I don't think #4 is a real IPA symbol, but as I am not a linguist, I have no idea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.36|162.158.91.36]] 01:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :/ə̃/ is a {{w|Nasal_vowel|nasalized}} {{w|schwa}} --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.92|172.71.160.92]] 08:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :A video for demonstrating the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2M9ILulTo [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.139|172.69.70.139]] 17:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The hovertext joke is that every English speaker fully pronounces the first &quot;t&quot; in &quot;Hot Potato&quot;. It's at the end of &quot;hot&quot;. Nobody says &quot;ha potato&quot;. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :Unless you mean &quot;the glottal stop should be considered an allophone of &lt;t&gt; at the end of syllables&quot; then yes they do. It's /hoʔ/, not /hotʰ/. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :(Edit conflicted with 162, above, so this is my own reply...) I thought it was that it isn't &quot;ho T'p otato&quot;, with the &quot;teh-peh&quot; awkwardness. For me, the natural way to say it is to glottalstop the first T for more &quot;ho'potato&quot; (the other Ts, there I find awkward ''not'' to get the &quot;t&gt;s&lt;&quot; out of, the &quot;&gt;s&lt;&quot;-tail being what makes a full-T not a lazy one). But clearly a different accent involved, as &quot;ha&quot; doesn't work at all for me unless I try to use some sort of (probably awful) Goodfellas-type accent. And my native accent is notoriously good at glottlestopped Ts (that most people misinpersonate badly, by attaching them to the wrong adjacent syllable).<br /> :As for &quot;going to&quot;, experimentally holding my finger over the length of my tongue, it seems it barely has to move at all in &quot;going&quot; (the whole tongue wants to rise on the &quot;i&quot;, but I can suppress that and do the tone-change from further back, if not straight from the vocal chords). Though continuing through to the &quot;to&quot;, with my finger in there, it's no better than &quot;going ku&quot; as I prevent the tongue-tip doing the necessary small movement to fulfil any form of T. I can do better through basic gastromancy, but behind my unmoving jaw and lips (''without'' the finger almost down my throat, of course), I can feel the tongue tip doing it's small but vital &quot;crossing the T&quot; work. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 03:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :For me, it's more like &quot;hobuh-deh-duh&quot; - so none of the t's get pronounced properly. And I'd drop the n in 'going to' before I dropped the t.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC) <br /> :Wunber dayder, doober dayder, freeber dayder for. (But then, oddly, uh baguv tayterz.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.58|172.70.162.58]] 13:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Unless someone's willing to start an &quot;explain explain xkcd&quot;, I think this explanation still needs a lot of work to be intelligible to non-linguists (myself included). That aside, I do appreciate whoever took the time to type all that up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.210|162.158.166.210]] 03:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :The current explain reads, to me at least, more like a 102 lecture than an explanation of the comic. I of course have no idea what is in a 101 first week lecture so shrug. (Aside, wth? This keyboard doesn't have a tilda. Copy and paste ftw) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.38|172.71.223.38]] 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :::Meta-response about the {{w|tilde}}: at the top of this editing window is a bar of formatting buttons (which I mostly just try to avoid accidentally clicking when I touchscreen-scroll). The second from the right gives &lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;--~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;, having a depiction of a signature. (The &quot;--&quot; is not necessary, nor does anything with actual formatting/markup, but comes from quite old text communications standards.) Personally, in this current situation of using an onscreen keyboard, my configurstion hides the tilde behind the &quot;?123&quot; then &quot;=\&lt;&quot; change-keyboard buttons.<br /> :::(Ironically, all three of &quot;=&quot;, &quot;\&quot; and &quot;&lt;&quot; are already available as long-presses of the primary keyboard layout. But the much more useful &quot;/&quot; is hidden behind the &quot;?123&quot; press, ''except'' when it explicitly detects that I'm in a browser address field. Some UI designers have strange ideas that definitely mis-mesh with my usage!)<br /> :::That's where I usually go, to sign-off. But on physical keyboards, depending upon internationalisation options, it might be either off the top-left (left of &quot;1&quot; key) 'triple-key, perhaps needing Shift or AltGr fingering (from experience of US (mis)configuring), or the key in the &quot;hook&quot; of the &lt;Enter&gt; key (all my physical UK keyboards, even the most squished-up laptop ones, have that as &lt;sub&gt;#&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;~&lt;/sup&gt;). If you're neither in US nor UK (and your device knows this), then where it gets shuffled out of the way of any ß, ē or ø type stuff, I wouldn't know for sure, but using the AltGr (right-Alt) ''might'' reveal characters you never ever knew you had... ;)<br /> :::Copypasting out of the &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;Please sign your posts with ~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; Infobox or any residual from the {{template|unsigned}} templates is, of course, also a valid option. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 10:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : I think it's fine if you can read/interpret the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA}}. If you don't it's utterly incomprehensible. I think we need some examples here as to how the sounds written here are pronounced. Like &quot;sound &lt;x&gt; as in &lt;word&gt;&quot; [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :: Yeah, except [[2819]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> &gt;Alien impersonating a human<br /> <br /> Sounds like a normal Runglish to me, just like the one you can hear in this clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNKUo5MrbM]<br /> <br /> I hate that he pointed this out, because I'm going to start pronouncing things the way they're supposed to sound and everyone will think I'm weirder. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> : How are you pronouncing 'Psychoticpotato'?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.6|172.69.195.6]] 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::Think of the words &quot;psychotic&quot; and &quot;potato&quot;. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> I added a bit more detail to the first diagram, but I agree it's not really plain English right now. btw, maybe it's pedantic of me, but diphthongs such as /oʊ/ are one vowel, and the whole word /ɡoʊ.ɪŋ/ only has two vowels<br /> <br /> As for &quot;hot potato&quot;, the post-vocalic T *is* pronounced, it's pronounced as a glottal stop. T is simply pronounced differently in different positions, it's how the letter works. Randall's probably referring to the alveolar plosive /t/, which most people think of as &quot;the T sound&quot; and would make you sound like an alien. SMBC made the point better: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-05-08<br /> [[User:FrustratedPhonetics|FrustratedPhonetics]] ([[User talk:FrustratedPhonetics|talk]]) 13:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Unless, like me, you just elide straight into the following consonant. Hock ross buns, hock ross buns, wunner penee tooer penee, hock ross buns.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.166|172.69.43.166]] 14:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> ::This causes me physical discomfort. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :I find I say 'hod p'tato' but the 'd' only the precursor to 'd' that's never 'plosived': my tongue forming a tube with the roof of my mouth, closed just behind my teeth, so I don't think that's glottal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> Not exactly original, &quot;hopotado&quot;: that's just how French works. Consonants at the end of a word are only pronounced if the following word starts on a vowel. In which case the two are drawn into one word. The cool thing about French is that knowing this little rule, you can read out a text alound and others understand even if you don't. :D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 21:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> A very small proportion of people can read and understand the IPA, and the explanation depends on knowledge of it currently. So it's a terrible explanation which needs to be written without phonetician jargon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.81|162.158.42.81]] 05:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> The UK &quot;bo'le&quot; - I find I still say the 't' but with the sides of my tongue instead of the tip. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.168|172.70.85.168]] 10:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> If you don't fully touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth when you say &quot;hot&quot;, it sounds normal while also having the &quot;t&quot; sound. I learned this by saying the phrase multiple times in class and having people look at me strangely. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> It's infuriating - as a linguist who specialised in English phonology and has since spent years writing voiceover scripts, so is acutely aware of pronunciation - trying to explain these phenomena to people who say &quot;No, but I ''do'' pronounce the [x] whenever I say [y]. Listen...&quot;&lt;br&gt;<br /> &quot;No,that's not an actual &quot;tuh&quot; sound though you're making there though, is it? It's more like...&quot;<br /> [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == &quot;Sandhi&quot; ==<br /> <br /> Now I want someone to name their kid Sandhi, pronounced [säní]. <br /> [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :Poor kid. Every substitute teacher they had would pronounce it wrong. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> == Found while reading ''Buttercup Festival'' ==<br /> Grade A gray day!<br /> [[File:grade_a.jpg|frameless|caption]]<br /> -- [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 16:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> <br /> so he reveals he doesnt know what a fully pronounced t sounds like. Because I have never heard anybody not fully pronounce the t in hot, not even when saying hot potato. That is not an optimization, that is how t's sound.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.134|162.158.202.134]] 17:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :As if you don't say it hoppa taydo when you're not focusing LOL --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.192|172.70.207.192]] 21:26, 14 June 2024 (UTC)<br /> :You probably have ONLY heard the lazy pronunciation. :) There really IS a difference, you just haven't noticed because all of this feels SO subtle (I didn't notice any of this until reading this comic). I'm no linguist or know the jargon, so all I can do is try to explain my findings in layman-speak. It's natural and usual to slip through the &quot;T&quot; (I'm noticing even ''without'' &quot;potato&quot;) unless you want to emphasis it: &quot;It's a cold potato?&quot; &quot;It's a HOT potato!&quot;. When fully pronouncing the T, the T sound is more like &quot;Te&quot;. When I fully pronounce the T, I'm noticing my tongue snaps off the roof of my mouth, while when saying it normally, like in &quot;hot potato&quot;, my tongue barely touches the roof, it speeds through it in preparation for the P. Verbally like the difference between a full stop at a stop sign or a rolling stop. 04:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)</div>

NiceGuy1