explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

638: The Search

2025-11-01T02:59:04Z

OblateSpheroid: Updated to reflect the fact that the mission is no longer ongoing, having ended 7 years ago

{{comic
| number = 638
| date = September 18, 2009
| title = The Search
| image = the search.png
| titletext = I am so excited about the Kepler mission. This is the second most important thing our species has ever done, right behind developing the concept of delivery pizza.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a commentary on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The ants' dialogue describes the narrow scope of their search (a few tiles, and only looking for pheromone trails), and thus they conclude that there is no other intelligent life. The irony is that humanity does of course exist,{{Citation needed}} but were simply not present in the kitchen at the time of search, nor do we communicate with ant pheromones.{{Citation needed}}
Similarly, our ability to search outer space for other life is limited to our ability to detect specific modes of communication (i.e. radio waves) and to the very limited area of space imposed by technological limitations on transportation, range, and sensitivity of our equipment.

The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|Extrasolar planets}}. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.

The second part is a bait-and-switch joke; by calling the search for extrasolar planets "the second most important thing our species has ever done", it creates the expectation that the "first most important thing" will be a monumental breakthrough, such as for example the concept of language. Instead, the title text ends up just revealing that [[Randall]] likes having pizza delivered.

==Transcript==
:[Two ants are facing each other with their antennas almost touching. They are on a tiled floor with the two nearest rows of tiles fully shown, and those further back covered partly be the speech text of the ant to the right.]
:Ant: We've searched dozens of these floor tiles for several common types of pheromone trails.
:Ant: If there were intelligent life up there, we would have seen its messages by now.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The world's first ant colony to achieve sentience calls off the search for us.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Ants]]
[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:SETI]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]

2664: Cloud Swirls

2022-08-28T19:40:16Z

OblateSpheroid: Took a shot at adding an explanation for the title text

{{comic
| number = 2664
| date = August 26, 2022
| title = Cloud Swirls
| image = cloud_swirls.png
| titletext = 'Why did you get into fluid dynamics?' 'Well, SOME planet has to have the coolest clouds, odds are it's not ours, and rockets are slow.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a UNIVERSE WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO EXCEPT MAKE CLOUDS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
There are planets.{{Citation needed}} A lot of them, even. Like our planet, many of them have clouds, and some that we know of even have {{w|Saturn's hexagon|gigantic clouds}} identifiable as a key landmark (or perhaps airmark).

In 3D video games, it is most common for models to be rendered at a lower quality when the camera is far away from them to save on extra rendering work being done for something the player can't actually get a close look at. Here, Cueball and Megan theorize that such a principle is being done for complicated cloud formations that occur naturally on other planets way far away with no observers on them. On planets with no observers to look at the clouds closely, the Universe can afford to not render/calculate the atmosphere with high quality, but it has to do more intensive calculations on Earth because otherwise, people on Earth (specifically meteorologists and physicists) would notice that the atmosphere is not obeying the Navier-Stokes equations but instead demonstrates behavior that reflects low-quality physics calculations by a computer that is skimping on fluid dynamics calculations. This would make sense if the Universe is actually simulated by a computer, and the beings that are running the physics simulator/have coded our universe wanted to speed things up. However, there would be several problems with this:
* Much more computing power could be saved by skimping on the chemistry of the quattuordecillions of atoms in the oceans than the clouds in the sky (especially considering that it would not be necessary to simulate every individual atom and molecule in the sky (for the purpose of making realistic clouds with fluid dynamics); the computer program could instead divide all of the gas particles (e.g., dinitrogen, dioxygen, water vapor, argon, and carbon dioxide) into small chunks, simulate how each chunk would move, and update the chunk boundaries every so often), but skimping on oceanic chemistry would make biogenesis much less feasible. However, Earth has life.{{Citation needed}}

* It would be difficult to judge when "no one is looking closely". There are many organisms that have some degree of at least rudimentary sight but would have no idea (and in fact no way to conceptualize) whether the computer simulating the Universe is skimping on the cloud-rendering calculations or not. It would be difficult to make some foolproof intelligent-sight-detecting code that would render the clouds with much greater precision once a planet had life that would notice if the clouds were following lazy fluid dynamics.
** For one thing, this would not only depend on a species's intelligence but also on its knowledge of physics; e.g., humans did not develop the Navier-Stokes equations right after evolving large enough brains to conceive and understand them. Even coding a computer program to detect sight-having life would be difficult, at least for a computer program only looking at the positions and velocities of atoms, electrons, and photons; for example, a blue photon hitting a retinal molecule in a cone cell, causing it to change shape, which triggers a signal transduction cascade that sends a nervous signal to the optical cortex somewhat resembles an ultraviolet photon hitting a DNA strand, leading to the creation of a thymine dimer whose detection by DNA-repairing enzymes triggers a signal transduction cascade that increases the production of melanin, but only one counts as sight.
** Furthermore, assuming that the computer simulates each part of the Universe in a manner that is is about synchronized according to most celestial bodies, when the computer simulating the Universe simulates a planet, it does not know whether a civilization on a planet a dozen or two light-years away that has advanced enough to have telescopes capable of detailed views of the clouds of planets light-years away will point any telescopes at that planet dozens of light-years later. Even if the advanced civilization on another planet does not have such powerful telescopes yet, even a low-resolution (in terms of that planet's entire solar system being one pixel) spectrometer would be enough to reveal that something is up with the fluid dynamics simulations on that planet. Observers light-years away could deduce how much condensed water vapor there is in the atmosphere by calculating the atmosphere's absorbance in a wavelength where condensed water has a low but detectable absorptivity and everything else in that planet's atmosphere either has a negligible absorptivity or can be compensated for, and then one can deduce how compact the clouds are from that and the absorbance of a wavelength where condensed water has a high absorptivity and everything else in that planet's atmosphere either has a negligible absorptivity or can be compensated for. (Actually, in order to calculate the amount and compactlygroupedness of condensed water in the atmosphere from the raw numbers/direct measurements, the scientists would have to know not only the absoprtivity of condensed water suspended in air as clouds but also characteristics of the planet such as its radius and the thickness of its atmosphere. There are also other complicated factors, such as that some of the aerosolized water in clouds is in the form of solid ice, not liquid water. However, the scientists would still notice if the raw numbers from the more rudimentary observational equipment suddenly changed the second they switched on a more powerful telescope, so the following point still stands.)
** If the computer simulating the Universe did not switch to the more precise simulation of the planet's atmosphere in time for the scientists to only see spectrographs of the planet's atmosphere rendered with precise calculations, then if the scientists later developed a more powerful telescope, like the one described earlier, and then pointed it at the planet, either they would see poorly-rendered clouds and know that the Universe is simulated by a computer that skimps on the fluid dynamics calculations for the atmospheres of certain planets, or the measurements from transit spectrography would suddenly change, so the scientists would know that something weird was going on—although probably not exactly what. This is important because it is more feasible for a society to develop low-resolution transit spectrography quickly enough to catch the computer simulating the Universe off-guard than it would be for a society to develop the technology required for a telescope advanced enough to look at the clouds of a planet in another solar system with high enough resolution to determine whether the atmosphere is simulated by a computer that is skimping on the fluid dynamics calculations quickly enough to catch the computer simulating the Universe off-guard. However, either could conceivably catch the computer simulating the Universe off-guard because it would be difficult for a computer to deduce whether a planet has life and how technologically advanced the life of any planet that has life is when the only raw data for the computer to work with are the positions and velocities of atoms, electrons, and photons.

* If atmospheric physics suddenly changed upon the evolution of a species capable of distinguishing whether the atmosphere is simulated by a computer program that is skimping on the fluid dynamics calculations, that would likely cause sudden changes in the climate, and the resulting heat waves, droughts, freezes, famines, floods, storms, and/or other (formerly) extreme weather would likely drive that species extinct (considering that it had just evolved, so it would have a small population and therefore be especially susceptible to natural disasters) because it would not have evolved to survive in such conditions. Such disasters and climate changes) would not have to directly kill all members of the species in order to drive it extinct; they could instead diminish the size of the gene pool by killing most of the members or divide the once-larger population into smaller, genetically isolated populations (e.g., by causing the creation of uncrossably swollen rivers dividing what used to be a single genetically-interconnected range into several smaller populations), either of which would cause an unsustainable level of inbreeding that would eventually lead to extinction. However, our species was not driven extinct shortly after it first developed.{{Citation needed}}

(However, the last two can be averted by just running the improvised calculations over the last hour or so, which makes seem as if it was obeying the Navier-Stokes equations and at the same time not changing the overall climate too much)

Of course, most people do not think that the Universe is a simulation, but society does not know that it isn't a simulation with absolute certainty.

Megan proposes an additional theory that the universe is just about making cool swirly clouds, and that the presence of life to observe these clouds is a bothersome coincidence. This goes against the previous theory, which implies that the Universe must not care about making cool swirly clouds since it wants to skimp on the fluid dynamics calculations.

The title text includes a dialogue between two people (possibly Megan and Cueball), with one person asking another why they got into fluid dynamics. The response is, more or less, that the second person wants to see “the coolest clouds”. If one devised a system to determine what would qualify as the coolest clouds (an entirely subjective thing), then one could rank planets on how cool their clouds were. Since only one planet would have the best clouds and there is a great number of planets, it is statistically unlikely that Earth - or any of the other planets in our system - will be the winner. Thus, in order to see the coolest clouds, one must either travel to another system or learn fluid dynamics to simulate them. Compared to the vast distances a ship must travel to reach even the nearest star, even rockets seem slow, and it would take a long time to get even a fraction of the way there. Because of this, the latter is chosen.

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

:[Cueball and Megan looking out at a landscape of clouds]
:Cueball: It's weird to think there are countless planets with air and stuff but no life.
:Cueball: Billions of years of clouds making cool shapes with no one to look at them.

:[Just Cueball and Megan standing next to each other]
:Megan: Yeah, it seems like a waste. The universe getting the complex fluid dynamics right for every momentary swirl of cloud.
:Megan: Just a ''huge'' amount of work.

:[Cueball and Megan walk away to the right]
:Cueball: Maybe atmospheres have smooth laminar flow until someone looks closely.
:Megan: Or maybe the universe just ''likes'' making swirly clouds, and is annoyed that we're watching.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

Talk:2501: Average Familiarity

2021-08-12T20:02:52Z

OblateSpheroid:

I've never even ''heard'' of olivine. I think most people have heard of quartz (it's the crystal in most electronic watches, and it's pretty), and I suspect feldspar is somewhere in between. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 05:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
:If you find a hard white rock, it's probably quartz; very common where I live. Decorative white pebbles? Quartz. Clear, pretty crystals might be the same compound, but they had to be pure to start with and they had to cool really slowly. (Unsigned by 162.158.167.245)
:Well, it helps if you play [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Stone#DF_Geology_and_Geology_in_Real_Life Dwarf Fortress]. Olivine is one of the green stones (that only really has use as building material/decoration, but makes an impressive megaconstruction mayerial if you find enough of it to make that worthwhile), unlike quartz which features as raw 'gem clusters' more typically cut for decoration of mugs, crossbow bolts, etc. Of course, IRL, quartzes are ''so'' ever-present that they are very easy to forget ''except'' as fancy crystals (either for timekeeping in watches or timewasting in crystal healing) and as such you can actually find them almost anywhere (if you're not stuck on a desert island). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.20|162.158.111.20]] 12:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I resemble this comic ... I specialize in probability. Does everyone know that probability=1 means 'certain'? ... I'm not certain ... (Unsigned by 162.158.167.245)
:: People who went through at least the first half of the math undergraduate program will most likely understand. In the general population, I guess, saying '100 % probability' would work much better than 'probability 1', but still people can get quite upset when something with 99 % probability of success fails, not understanding that 99 % (or even 85 %) does not mean guaranteed success (see for example 14:46 of this video about randomness in video-game design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwI5b-wRLic). [[User:CryptoNut1269|CryptoNut1269]] ([[User talk:CryptoNut1269|talk]]) 11:08, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

As a chemist, I heard of all of them but, fun fact, there is a mnemonic in the german language known by at least all of the elderly generation: "Feldspat, Quarz und Glimmer - die drei vergess´ ich nimmer!" thats "feldspar quartz and mica - i will never forget the three". These three are the main compunds of granite and obviously this was stuff they had to learn at school. If, in a group of silverheads, start the phrase "Feldspat Quarz und Glimmer ..." and there will always be someone to finish the sentence. --[[User:Pauliprinzip|Pauliprinzip]] ([[User talk:Pauliprinzip|talk]]) 05:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

:''and may not even know the definition of "feldspar" beyond "a rock".'' Ironically, I think the person writing this may have overstated the "average Joe"'s familiarity with the word "feldspar", since I couldn't have defined it if you'd asked me. --[[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 08:11, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I got the idea that ''both'' Cueball and Ponytail were geochemists, rather than Cueball being just an average adult. [[User:OblateSpheroid|OblateSpheroid]] ([[User talk:OblateSpheroid|talk]]) 20:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

== Replaced "average Joe" with "average person" ==

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terms_related_to_an_average_person this term is specific to the US, and introduces specificity unrelated to the comic.

759: 3x9

2021-04-13T05:22:16Z

OblateSpheroid: Spelling error and removed redundant information

{{comic
| number = 759
| date = June 28, 2010
| title = 3x9
| image = 3x9.png
| titletext = Handy exam trick: when you know the answer but not the correct derivation, derive blindly forward from the givens and backward from the answer, and join the chains once the equations start looking similar. Sometimes the graders don't notice the seam.
}}

==Explanation==
In college courses with a very large number of students (picture the huge, tiered, amphitheater-style lecture halls shown in any movie or TV show about college), teaching assistants are often employed to help the professors grade student work. In math and science courses, students are expected to solve the problems and show their work as supporting evidence. Due to the high volume of work to grade, whether it's being done by the professor or a TA, the grader will get lazy and look for correct answers and the existence of work without checking that the work is accurate.

The math shown in this comic switches from √ being square root notation to it being division notation midway. That is an illegal operation.{{Citation needed}} But the correct answer is reached anyway, because 27 is the correct answer to 3 × 9, 3√81, ''and'' 81 ÷ 3.

More generally, this pattern holds true for any number and its square; namely, 𝑥𝑦 = 𝑦² ÷ 𝑥 whenever 𝑦 = 𝑥².

The title text describes another technique usable when you remember the answer but not the calculations. It requires modifying the equation and the answer at the same time, hoping that at one point they'll look similar. Some students picture every step in the calculations, others skip some, as they seem obvious to them. Merging the equations once they look similar may trick the examiner into thinking that the step between them is obvious to the student, even if they ARE checking the calculations. The side effect (not mentioned) is that while doing this, you may actually realize what the calculations should be.

Alternatively, the title text could be a description of the calculations shown in the comic.

==Transcript==
:[A problem is given on an arithmetic test: "4) 3x9=?". In handwriting, the student's work follows. The student has accurately reformatted the question as 3 times the square root of 81, which visually resembles the long division problem of 3 divided into 81, and then solved the latter to get 27 — the correct answer to both.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]

1998: GDPR

2021-04-01T05:46:00Z

OblateSpheroid: Added an alternative to "We use cookies to enchance your performance."

{{comic
| number = 1998
| date = May 25, 2018
| title = GDPR
| image = gdpr.png
| titletext = By clicking anywhere, scrolling, or closing this notification, you agree to be legally bound by the witch Sycorax within a cloven pine.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic was released on the date on which the {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)}} law went into effect. Most people will have already seen a large number of updated privacy policies in the week or two leading up to this law going active. And while [[xkcd]] would likely be outside of the jurisdiction that the law can enforce, it technically does fall within the scope of the law (as certainly EU citizens visit xkcd). This ''extra-territorial applicability'' is one of the major keys in this regulation and can be seen in more detail at the ''[https://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html EU GDPR Information Portal]''.

There are several references made to this law, but also several jokes are included about the way people treat privacy policies specifically, and user agreements in general.

The comic is a joke privacy policy, with terms that no one would agree to under normal circumstances. In most cases, website users will use websites without reading the policies, potentially "agreeing" to something unexpected.

{|class="wikitable"
!What Randall says !! Explanation
|-
!colspan="2"|Privacy policy
|-
|We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents.
|"purely out of the goodness of our hearts" is a phrase never expected to be found ever anywhere in any privacy policy. "and has nothing to do with ..." is a blatantly transparent lie - if this were a real privacy policy. Randall likely makes fun of companies announcing changes to their privacy policy without mentioning the GDPR being the reason, which tries to create the impression that the companies just wanted to improve it without being forced to do so.
|-
|Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
|It's not unheard of for people watching {{w|B movie|B-movies}} to try and skip ahead to sex scenes. This is also likely a reference to how most users don't read a website's privacy policy and skip to the bottom looking to the button to close it out.
|-
|This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind.
|This starts out as a plausibly valid statement including "the service" and "the website". But then balloons outward to include the entire Internet and Facebook. As this presumably is a privacy policy only for xkcd, this policy should not attempt to claim that it also represents and governs Facebook or the entire Internet. The extension to Facebook may be a reference to reports that [https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for-many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html "for many people ... Facebook is the Internet."]
|-
|The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.
|The language that the privacy policy will not "deny or disparage" any preexisting rights mirrors that of the {{w|Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, substituting "this policy" for "the Constitution" and "users" for "people." The agreement claims that it does not "deny or disparage" any of the user's other rights, but then immediately denies the user the right not to quarter troops in their home, which is a constitutional right described by the {{w|Third Amendment to the United States Constitution}}. Refusing to quarter troops in one's home was previously referenced in [[496: Secretary: Part 3]]. Note that the Third Amendment only applies to Americans. However, less specific written laws guaranteeing the privacy of one's home also exist in nearly all European countries.
|-
!colspan="2"|Your personal information
|-
|Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
|"Please don't send us your personal information" is also a phrase never expected to be found ever in a privacy policy, though [https://www.improbableisland.com/privacy.php some come close]. A privacy policy, by default, is a contract users agree to BECAUSE personal information is being stored. This is likely a reference to the previous comic [[1997: Business Update]] or perhaps [[1506: xkcloud]].
|-
|If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.
|[[1089: Internal Monologue|Long, awkward conversations]] and [[302: Names|forgetting people's names]] are both themes featured in previous XKCD comics.
|-
!colspan="2"|Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons
|-
|This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page.
|"This website places pixels" is something websites are designed to do and has nothing to do with privacy policies. Websites are more often employing "{{w|Web_beacon|tracking pixels}}" from companies such as Facebook and Twitter, which is an image file that is hosted on an external server that allows cross-platform and cross-session tracking for targeted advertisements. This is a controversial topic, as many people are against this kind of usage tracking.
|-
|We use cookies to enhance your performance.
|Privacy policies normally deal with electronic cookies that track user activity and store personal information. This apparently says that Randall is giving out actual cookies that can be eaten. Depending on what "enhance your performance" means, these cookies may contain steroids, nootropics, or other compounds that alter the users' physiology. Depending on the particular compounds, their purpose, and the jurisdiction, this may be illegal. Another more innocuous possibility is that Randall is simply giving users a tasty treat as a reward, which may make users more motivated in their tasks, and therefore have their performance enhanced.
|-
|Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end.
|"may use local storage" is threatening to turn the user's device into cloud storage should Randall run out of space on his drive.
|-
|We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.
|Beacons in privacy policies usually refer to {{w|web beacons}}. This privacy policy refers to the [[wikia:w:c:lotr:Warning beacons of Gondor|Warning beacons of Gondor]], a system to call for aid used by {{w|Gondor}} in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}''. They were used before the [[wikia:w:c:lotr:Siege of Gondor|Battle of the Pelennor Fields]] to request the aid of the Rohirrim, the inhabitants of {{w|Rohan (Middle-earth)|Rohan}}. The use of the Beacons has previously been mentioned in [[921: Delivery Notification]].
|-
!colspan="2"|3rd party extension
|-
|This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.
|{{w|3rd Party}} was a three-member dance-pop group that released one album in 1997, "Alive". In software, "third-party extensions" are small programs that plug into a larger program to modify its behavior, and are created neither by the maker of the larger program nor the user.
|-
!colspan="2"|Permission
|-
|For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.
|This part can be construed in several frightening ways. 1. We will ask you after you die if you are willing to donate your organs. 2. We were not asking permission before, but now we have to ask. 3. We will ask you, but your answer doesn't actually matter. 4. We've switched from an organ donation program (legal) to an organ harvesting program (wildly illegal). 5. Anyone ''not'' in the EU will have (or, possibly, ''continue'' to have) their organs harvested without permission. Besides these frightening scenarios, there is also the question of how a website (and not a doctor) is going to perform the harvesting.
|-
!colspan="2"|Scope and limitations
|-
|This policy supersedes any applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply.
|This is an apparently valid statement. Its inclusiveness is quite extreme, but appears to be a technically valid statement. However, many laws and constitutional rights cannot be superseded by an ordinary privacy policy.
|-
|If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
|This part claims to have higher jurisdiction than any court and can somehow maintain legality even if a court disagrees. A typical policy would read that an unenforceable provision would not invalidate the rest of the policy.
|-
|This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed.
|"not liable" and "shall not be construed" are blanket statements that are supposed to have limiters. For example, a restaurant could have a policy stating "not liable for burns received from our hot coffee." A statement made to a court could say "The defendant's statement of giving the prostitute money shall not be construed as an admission of committing a crime." This makes little sense when claiming the website “is not liable” for anything, and “shall not be construed” to have any meaning whatsoever.
|-
|These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
|The {{w|Food and Drug Administration}} has nothing to do with privacy policies, but anything that promotes itself as being intended to prevent, cure or treat disease requires FDA approval. To circumvent the need for FDA approval (which requires very expensive statistically significant double blind clinical trials), the labels on unapproved herbal remedies state they are “not intended to prevent, cure or treat any disease.” In some cases, this statement appears to be false, although not as patently absurd as the claim that xkcd will treat, cure and prevent any disease, which, if taken literally and not as a joke, would require the site to be FDA approved.
|-
|If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.
|Randall implies that the data protection regulation would have a major impact on European citizens while the U.S. isn't involved. Both aren't true, because many of the regulation already existed before in other national or European wide laws which the GDPR just states more precisely and all U.S. websites with an audience in Europe had to adopt their policies because they fall within the scope of the law. Nonetheless, most European citizens stayed cool as well. Cool may mean trendy, as in the website does not seem backwards and old-fashioned, okay/safe, as in the website is trying to ensure Europeans that it will not harvest their organs, or, knowing xkcd, physically cool, as in the website's headquarters sets the thermostat low.
|}

The title text is a reference to Shakespeare's "{{w|The Tempest}}", in which the witch {{w|Sycorax}} imprisoned the sprite Ariel in a cloven pine prior to Ariel's rescue by Prospero. As this clause cannot be escaped by anything short of restarting your computer, it may also reflect on how hard it often proves to be to opt out of privacy policy agreements and other forms to be filled on website, for all that they may appear optional. The fact that it appears as a title-text akin to a footnote, which a careless reader of the Privacy Policy may not notice at first glance, may also continue the joke of small but unexpected clauses hidden amidst a long-winded block of legalese, agreed to by users who haven't read them.

==Transcript==
:[The picture shows a long text:]
:'''Privacy policy'''
:We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents. Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
:This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind. The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.

:'''Your personal information'''
:Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
:If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.

:'''Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons'''
:This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page. We use cookies to enhance your performance. Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end. We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.

:'''3rd party extension'''
:This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.

:'''Permission'''
:For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.

:'''Scope and limitations'''
:This policy supersedes any applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply. If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
:This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
:If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: LOTR]]

2419: Hug Count

2021-02-02T04:54:55Z

OblateSpheroid: Added title text and a bit of explanation on the graph

{{comic
| number = 2419
| date = February 1, 2021
| title = Hug Count
| image = hug_count.png
| titletext = I've never been that big of a hug person, but it turns out I'm not quite this small of a hug person either.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HUGGABLE ROBOT. It would probably be good to add a bit more explanation on the pandemic. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic strip is simply a graph showing the number of Individuals Hugged vs the Year, spanning from 1996 to 2021, and goes up to 35 individuals. While it varies a decent amount for the first 24 years, it drops sharply in 2020, and goes even lower in 2021. However, it should be noted that 2021 (at the time of the comic) had just begun, which is why the final bar is grey - the year isn't over yet and as such it is incomplete.

This is due to the fact that in 2020, when the pandemic happened, everyone had to social distance and avoid contact with strangers. This was a widely used method of slowing the spread of COVID-19. People are asked to not closely associate with those outside a very limited 'bubble' or even isolating individuals in their own household. As such, people have had less physical contact with each other since the beginning of this pandemic, including hugs.

The title text states that, while [[Randall]] isn't very big on hugs, he too desires hugs. It plays on the common phrase "I'm not to big of an (x) person", which is used to indicate that someone isn't extremely fond of said activity. One could then assume that being a "small person" regarding some activity would mean that said person is not fond of the activity at all.

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

[Title of Chart:]
Estimated Number of Distinct People Hugged per Year

[Y Axis:]
0 to 30

[X Axis:]
Years from 1996 until 2021

{|
! Year !! People
|-
! 1996 || 31
|-
! 1997 || 28
|-
! 1998 || 23
|-
! 1999 || 25
|-
! 2000 || 21
|-
! 2001 || 18
|-
! 2002 || 28
|-
! 2003 || 24
|-
! 2004 || 17
|-
! 2005 || 19
|-
! 2006 || 14
|-
! 2007 || 35
|-
! 2008 || 17
|-
! 2009 || 16
|-
! 2010 || 27
|-
! 2011 || 29
|-
! 2012 || 18
|-
! 2013 || 15
|-
! 2014 || 16
|-
! 2015 || 22
|-
! 2016 || 15
|-
! 2017 || 21
|-
! 2018 || 19
|-
! 2019 || 25
|-
! 2020 || 5
|-
! 2021 || 2
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]

1134: Logic Boat

2021-01-05T03:55:26Z

OblateSpheroid: Added an alternate explanation for the comic.

{{comic
| number = 1134
| date = November 14, 2012
| title = Logic Boat
| image = logic boat.png
| titletext = Or a cabbage, for that matter. Goats make sense. Goats are fine.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic is a play on the classic {{w|wolf, goat and cabbage puzzle}} belonging to the {{w|river crossing puzzle}}s, and first known from {{w|Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes}}, with the same setting as here. The three possessions change between various retellings but it typically involves a {{w|Carnivore|carnivorous animal}} (wolf, lion etc.), a {{w|herbivore}} (goat, sheep, chicken, goose etc.), and some plant based food (cabbage, grain, beans etc.). The objective {{tvtropes|FoxChickenGrainPuzzle|is to ferry all three possessions to the other side of a river safely in a small boat}}, with the limitation of only being able to transport one possession per crossing. The crossing order must take into account that the carnivore would eat the herbivore if left alone together, and the herbivore would eat the food.

The traditional solution would be:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Origin
! Destination
|-
| Cueball, Wolf, Goat, Cabbage
|
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 1: Take goat across
|-
| Wolf, Cabbage
| Cueball, Goat
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 2: Return alone
|-
| Cueball, Wolf, Cabbage
| Goat
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 3: Take cabbage across
|-
| Wolf
| Cueball, Goat, Cabbage
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 4: Return with goat
|-
| Cueball, Wolf, Goat
| Cabbage
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 5: Take wolf across
|-
| Goat
| Cueball, Wolf, Cabbage
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 6: Return alone
|-
| Cueball, Goat
| Wolf, Cabbage
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background: #ffdead;" | Trip 7: Take goat across
|-
|
| Cueball, Wolf, Goat, Cabbage
|}

(Note that, since the conditions for this problem are symmetric, an alternate solution would be to transport the wolf on Trip 3 and the cabbage on Trip 5.)

By leaving the wolf behind, four steps are saved — the comic's "step 4" is just a comment — and the troublesome wolf, a wild and dangerous animal not usually kept by humans, is eliminated from the picture.

This could be seen a jab on the common assumption that logic puzzles only have one correct solution. Thus one often keeps the other person thinking and guessing until they arrive at the pre-defined solution, no matter how many other creative good solutions they come up with. Also note that the "problem" given doesn't even state an objective, just three prerequisites.

Alternatively, this could be a jab at the fact that the conditions of some puzzles are very strange. Both the fourth step and title text are evidence of this - questioning why you would have a wolf or a cabbage respectively. Yet, even though it is unlikely that you would ever find yourself in the situation and odd rules as stated by the puzzle in real life{{Citation needed}}, the puzzle demands that you solve it and reach the criteria it asks.

The title text says that cabbages are also unnecessary, but goats are fine. The reasons for these opinions are less obvious than the one about the wolf, but still understandable. Many people, presumably including the narrator, do not like the taste of cabbage. Many are also fond of goats, finding them cute. The same opinion about goats is in [[1282: Monty Hall]].

==Transcript==
:[A person shows up at a boat docked at the edge of a river. The person has brought along a head of cabbage, a goat, and a wolf.]
:Problem: The boat only holds two, but you can't leave the goat with the cabbage or the wolf with the goat.

:[The wolf looks curiously at the cabbage that's been left behind while the person goes off with the goat.]
:Solution: 1. Take the goat across.

:[The goat remains tied up on the far side. The wolf watches the person come back.]
:2. Return alone.

:[The wolf sits and waits as the person goes off.]
:3. Take the cabbage across.

:4. Leave the wolf. Why did you have a wolf?
:[The wolf goes off.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]

2185: Cumulonimbus

2019-08-05T18:51:32Z

OblateSpheroid:

{{comic
| number = 2185
| date = August 5, 2019
| title = Cumulonimbus
| image = cumulonimbus.png
| titletext = The rarest of all clouds is the altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent cloud, caused by an interaction between warm moist air, cool dry air, cold slippery air, cursed air, and a cloud of nanobots.
}}

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

This comic follows the naming of clouds. As with other lists (like in [[2022: Sports Champions]]), it starts off as normal but then gets more unusual until it is unrealistic.

;Cumulus
: The first panel shows a {{w|cumulus}} These are your typical clouds, and are relatively small.
;Cumulonimbus
: The second panel shows a {{w|cumulonimbus}}. This cloud can be described as anvil shaped, and are also rain clouds
;Cumulonimbulonimbus
: The third panel shows an even bigger cloud and names it cumulonimbulonimbus. The humor here comes from building up an even bigger name for the cloud as its size increases.
;Cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus
: The forth panel shows an absurdly large cloud and gives it the name cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus
;Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent
: The title text continues this list by naming a new cloud that is also supposedly the rarest. It requires cursed air and nanobots to make, which is impossible since neither of those exist.{{Citation needed}}

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

{{comic discussion}}

1281: Minifigs

2019-08-03T02:51:16Z

OblateSpheroid: details

{{comic
| number = 1281
| date = October 23, 2013
| title = Minifigs
| image = minifigs.png
| titletext = The LEGO Group is already the world's largest tire manufacturer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Lego minifigure}}s (often abbreviated as ''minifigs'') are tiny plastic people designed by the Danish toy manufacturer {{w|Lego Group|Lego}} as part of their construction toy sets. Since 1978, over four billion minifigures have been sold. The figures resemble simplified humans, often with a yellow skin colour and featuring interchangeable body parts, such as legs, torsos, heads, hair, and hats.

The graph depicted in the comic extrapolates the total number of minifigures and compares it to the growth of the {{w|world population}}, which reached 7 billion in March 2012. By the extrapolations of the comic, Lego minifigures will outnumber the human population by 2019. The extrapolation of statistical data has appeared in various xkcd comics, e.g. in [[605: Extrapolating]], [[1007: Sustainable]], and [[1204: Detail]]. However, unlike the other extrapolated scenarios, the prognosis of this comic seems quite likely.

Since Lego is designed to resemble nature and civilization on a miniaturized scale, some sets also contain Lego cars as vehicles for the minifigures. With over 381 million {{w|Lego tire}}s produced for these miniature cars, Lego is already the world's largest manufacturer of tires. This fact is addressed in the title text.{{Citation needed}}

Lego (as of mid-October 2013) calculates they have made 7 billion+ figures. Earlier in 2013, they believed they would surpass the human count in 2014, but revised their numbers on the day this comic was released to what this chart says.

==Transcript==
:[Graph: x-axis 1980, 1990, 2010, 2020; y-axis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 billions.]
:[Plot-line 1: Number of people in the world.]
:[Plot-line 2: Number of Lego People in the world.]
:[Label above the x-axis at 2013 reads "Today".]
:[Shortly before 2020, both plot lines cross.]

:By 2019, humans will be outnumbered.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]

2183: Icon Swap

2019-07-31T16:57:21Z

OblateSpheroid: Started explanation

{{comic
| number = 2183
| date = July 31, 2019
| title = Icon Swap
| image = icon_swap.png
| titletext = Someone's probably working on an eBook app where, if you stop reading right before some plot twist happens, the app will wait a while and then send you a breaking news alert about what's happening, prompting you to open it and read the next few pages to learn more.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an UNDISCOVERED PLOT TWIST. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Randall]] talks about his habit of compulsively checking his social media/news apps. This topic is similar to one he went over in [[477: Typewriter]], where he is compulsively trying to check news websites despite using a typewriter. In this case, when he swaps a social media/news app with his {{w|E-book}}, he ends up reading more books (as shown by the graph) because he is used to having his media app in its place, and is opening it up through {{w|muscle memory}}.

The caption goes into a bit more detail and also explains that after reading a few books, Randall gets used to the change and stops opening his reader as often.

The title text takes this scenario a bit further by saying that someone is making an eBook app that would send notifications about what is happening in the book, prompting the reader to read more pages. This parallels how a news app works, which would send an alert when a new event occurs.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A timeline (? scatter plot? of books finished over time. Spikes occur at certain points, with arrows marked "Icon Swap" pointing to the point before them]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I'm not saying I have a problem compulsively checking news and social media on my phone, but when I replace the social media app icon with my eBook reader, I read a half-dozen books before I get used to the change.

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

2182: When I'm Back at a Keyboard

2019-07-29T18:16:11Z

OblateSpheroid:

{{comic
| number = 2182
| date = July 29, 2019
| title = When I'm Back at a Keyboard
| image = when_im_back_at_a_keyboard.png
| titletext = [after typing 1,500 words on feathered dinosaurs, paleontology, sexism, lava, and dinosaurs as animals rather than movie monsters] Sorry to cut it short, I'm on my phone. When I'm back at a keyboard, I can give you another 5,000 words.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by someone who is away from their keyboard. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Cueball]] is texting someone on his phone. However, since it is easier to type with a {{w|Computer Keyboard| keyboard}} than a smartphone, Cueball cuts off the conversation and says he will get back to whoever he was talking to when he can type on an actual keyboard.

The joke is that despite claiming to be more proficient with a physical keyboard, rather than a digital one, Randall supposedly [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BerserkButton goes into long rants whenever anybody brings up Jurassic Park]. The title text goes over topics he brings up in his arguments.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Cueball walking and texting on a cellphone.]
:Cueball (texting): Sure, I can reply once I'm back at a keyword and can type more easily.

:Caption: I say this a lot for someone who routinely types thousands of words in text message conversations when someone brings up ''Jurassic Park''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Jurassic Park]]