explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3225: Satellite Pollution

2026-03-27T21:34:03Z

RDiMartino:

I'm surprised this isn't [[Black Hat]]'s operation [[User:RDiMartino|RDiMartino]] ([[User talk:RDiMartino|talk]]) 21:34, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3225: Satellite Pollution

2026-03-27T21:33:41Z

RDiMartino:

I'm surprised this isn't [[Black Hat]]'s operation

Talk:2657: Complex Vowels

2022-08-12T15:31:54Z

RDiMartino: Attempt a creating the glyph with zalgo non-sense

Spoken symbol bears resemblance to 🜏, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%9F%9C%8F
:Not really, it's closer to 'əG.' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 01:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::Looks like ꬱ to me. Plus some diacritics sprinkled over it, of course. It does look ''similar'' to 🜏 when you include the zalgo. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.99|172.71.98.99]] 06:53, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

sscchhwwaa is easy, say it like the x in "fire" and the silent p in "bath"[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 21:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
:What? There is no 'x' in "fire." [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 01:17, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Ideas: bellows-, reed-, and lucite-based voiced phone production tracts typical in science museums; {{w|diphone}}s as an alternative to phomemes (a diphone is the second half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next -- NOT two adjacent phomemes as the Wikipedia article claims. Two adjacent phomemes are a biphone, not a diphone); the relationship of the position of the tongue in two dimensional place × closedeness space to the fundamental and second {{w|formant}} frequencies of speech audio; {{w|diphthong}}s; {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|cepstral}} representation such as {{w|MFCC|mel-frequency ceptstral coefficients}}; and {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 22:41, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
: Roger. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.149|172.69.33.149]] 03:25, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

The vowelspace is depicted in two dimensions for convenience, but it has at least three dimensions. Look at the IPA vowel diagram (already added to this page). The third dimension is roundedness.
:Yes, of the lips; apart from the two dimensions (out: place, and up: closedeness) of the tongue. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.95|172.70.206.95]] 22:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
::Does roundedness also involve the tongue and cheeks to any extent? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.199|172.69.33.199]] 23:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
:I wonder if Randall is doing this similarly to the way physicists present space-time diagrams with only 2 dimensions of space. We can visualize 3 dimensions using projections on 2-dimensional images, but it's hard to visualize 4 dimensions. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::If you can't visualize 4-D, play tennis. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 03:15, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

This linguist character has appeared 3 times now. Will there be a new character page dedicated to Gretchen or "The Linguist"? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.225|172.69.33.225]] 00:21, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:I second this motion. I think it would make more sense to have a generic character called "the Linguist" since, as the explanation for 2381 points out, not every linguist in xkcd is necessarily Gretchen. Plus, it seems like with this comic he's varied the artistic style, with the hair looking slightly less frizzy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.248.143|172.69.248.143]] 22:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Can someone please create and paste in a zalgostring for the fancy 'əG' ligature shown twice in the comic? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 01:10, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:Is this another example of Randall trolling Explainxkcd as in [[2619: Crêpe]]? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.37|172.69.33.37]] 01:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

: This is the best I could do ə ̯̣̌̄̊̇c̵. I added the zalgo marks to a narrow no-break space in between the schwa and a "c" with a line over it (there's no reverse schwa apparently). Obviously it's not a perfect match, but I think that's sort of the point of this comic. [[User:RDiMartino|RDiMartino]] ([[User talk:RDiMartino|talk]]) 15:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Someone please remind me how to Zalgo a top horizontal bar over √-1. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 02:34, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
: Slow way = Windows Character Map --> Group by: unicode subrange... Group By: Combining Diacritical Marks. 6th character from the top left (U+0305:Overline) yields √-̅1̅.
:Fast way = HTML character entities, ''{character it combines with}&#{character number code};'' (773:Overline) yields √-̅1̅
:Ignore other codes as they are either non-combining or have height relative to combining character (ie Macron) -- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.201|172.69.70.201]] 04:35, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::Are you sure? Those aren't wide enough to connect along the top for me. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.10|172.69.34.10]] 07:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::[same person as previous above] looks great now, let me check innthe browser that it had issues in.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.45|172.70.214.45]] 02:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
:::[different person...] It's never looked Ok for me, on multiple browsers and platforms it always rendered as two separate overstrikes, and even the first does not connect to the √ bit. As an extended root-overstrike is more useful for visually bracketting ambiguities, like the central bit in "(-b±√(b²-4ac))/(2a)" I consider it superfluous for what would be "√(-1)" but cannot be "√(-).1". Nice try, though.
:::Related, I've exchanged "<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>" for ½. On this device it looks similar (slanted numerator/denominator bar and still an offset, unlike the drawn comic which is vertically aligned), but it might look better or even direct over-under with the correct font rendered into. And, like the former, probably ''read'' better as screen-readers process the Transcript for the visually impaired.
:::If it weren't for that latter point, I'd take the idea used in [[2614]] for the in-Explanation <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table> (<code><nowiki><table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table></nowiki></code>) and put it as: <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td><u>1</u></td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table> [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.221|172.70.85.221]] 10:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think what Randall is trying to do is provide a “roundness” dimension, but that’s how the explanation reads to me right now (“such” a dimension, e.g.) [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 05:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
: Agreed - rearranged it a bit to deal with the real-life dimensions first, then be more explicit that the proposal is to add to the existing dimensions in a way analogous to how imaginary numbers expand the domain of real numbers. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 08:19, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Being an Englishman of a certain age, I had a panic flash back to the ITA. [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 12:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:What was wrong with the Independant Television Authority?
:(Seriously, though, the Initial Teaching Alphabet was very bad... It insisted that "book" had a different vowel in it to "up", contrary to everyone's experience, including the teacher who tried to use it. - Ironically, though, when a few years later we were in 'big school' and being taught our first French lesson we got confused by being told at the very start that the words "''un''" and "''une''" (written on the board) were the equivalent to the English word "uh" (spoken)... Uh? What's "uh"?... "You know, as in 'uh book', 'uh table', 'uh chair'...") [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 14:37, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::I'm curious how you pronounce them if they *aren't* different vowels: is it uhp and b'uhk (^p and b^k in IPA), the Near-close near-back rounded vowel (not sure how to describe it or get the upside down omega to render, or something entirely different? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 21:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:::Quite possibly, but I'm never entirely confident that I have the right impression of what a given IPA means, from my particular regional accent as a baseline. Definitely the same (excepting the phonemic ending each of "-uck/-upp" and the presence or not of another initial element).
:::A good comparative linguist could probably name the various zones (encompassed by various isogloss lines) where this is true. And, by actually hearing me, perhaps narrow down the one from which I actually hail, quite accurately. At least one set of my grandparents always said "book" (or "look") more like the longer "ew" than "uh", and they were pretty much always local to another town just 10-15 miles away from the one of my own birth/upbringing (don't remember much of the other grandparents, but they were also from a village more in the other area than my own, but making an almost equilateral triangle on the map). Traces of this kind of 'elsewhere' accent from my parents probably did make me stand out a little bit from my "nth generation local" peers. But still up≈book applies.
:::If I had a cat, by now it would be staring up at me, wondering why I've been saying "up book book up look whup uck luck suck tuck muck Krup ... (etc)" to myself, trying to detect any changes and all similarities. While imaging myself in various social situations that demand broader or more RPified pronunciations... ;) ((Plus trying to calculate my exact tongue-placement/etc.)) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.242|141.101.99.242]] 23:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:Blast from the past! I remember ITA from when I was in elementary school on Long Island in the 60's. In my later years I frequently confused this with IPA. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what the text "There is one unique such function and the new mathematics is consistent." - in current version, with similarly bad historic variations - is supposed to mean. The point of sqrt(-1) is that it never had a valid result on the Real number-line, and only by imagining a non-real dimension can you start to work with such a number (alone or in combination with real values) with a consistency that allows even nth-roots and exponentiation. The "unique (...) function" bit sounds strange. And note that -1 does ''not'' have a single unique root (which I can't help feeling is what is trying to be said, still)... its two roots are i and -i, for much the same reason that sqrt(1)=±1. But maybe the statement I'm wondering about is written under some branch of functional number-theory that I'm not familiar with, so could the relevent editor(s) please do it in a way that won't so confuse/trouble me or mislead others? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 22:03, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:Done. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 23:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Since when does a completely generic orthogonal projection from 2- to 3-D invoke the Gell-Mann quark model? Unicode needs a glyph to tell physicists to settle down. Removed: "The multi-plane scheme of the comic seems inspired by the representation of the Gell-Mann quark model used in particle physics (you can see one on page 4 of the [https://pdg.lbl.gov/2022/reviews/rpp2022-rev-quark-model.pdf Particle Data Group quark model review])." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.88|172.70.211.88]] 02:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Reminds me of ''[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54431070-battle-of-the-linguist-mages Battle of the Linguist Mages]'' - Punctuation marks are alien invaders from another dimension, and magic consists of pronouncing "power morphemes" (assuming learning them doesn't drive you mad, first). --[[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 02:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

The symbol reminds me of the {{w|Mandelbrot Set}} but turned on its side. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.93.43|172.70.93.43]] 07:17, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure about ''the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.")'' - those are pronounced completely differently (unless perhaps you are from the south of England and pronounce 'letter' as 'lettah'). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 07:32, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
: I would pronounce them 'commuh' and 'lettuh', with a very short 'uh', which would fit with it being the most common vowel sound, given people say 'uh?' quite a lot. Although that's about as unpolysyllabic as you could get. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 09:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
:: Again, probably multiple isoglosses apply. I'm an "uh"-common person from the North and recognise "ah"-common accents as (certain bits of) the South, but it's possible that "lettah"<->"lettuh" and "commah"<->"commuh" transition at different boundaries across/around/through the Midlands, thus confusing many people. I think RP goes more "commah" and "lettuh(r)". Checking Wiktionary, though, IPA is given as /ˈkɒm.ə/ (UK, otherwise unspecified) and /ˈlɛtə(ɹ)/ (RP), but there's not much info on direct comparisons between, say, East London/East Midlands/East Yorkshire/East Anglia/East Kilbride/Dwyran... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 11:36, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

1953: The History of Unicode

2022-05-09T15:39:04Z

RDiMartino: /* Explanation */ Add lobster emoji

{{comic
| number = 1953
| date = February 9, 2018
| title = The History of Unicode
| image = the_history_of_unicode.png
| titletext = 2048: "Great news for Maine—we're once again an independent state!!! Thanks, @unicode, for ruling in our favor and sending troops to end New Hampshire's annexation. 🙏🚁🎖️"
}}

==Explanation==
An {{w|character encoding|encoding of a character set}} is a mapping from characters to numbers. For example, the letter "A" might be represented by the value 65. A problem was that each script had its own character set. Different characters could be represented by the same value. Some languages, such as Japanese, had several inconsistent character encodings, so before people could send text, they would have to have agreed which character set to use. {{w|Unicode}} was planned as a way of solving this by providing for a single character encoding for all the various characters used in the world's languages.

Unicode is run by {{w|Unicode Consortium|a consortium}} of major technology companies and stakeholders. The founders of Unicode include {{w|Joe Becker (Unicode)|Joe Becker}}, who worked for Xerox in the 1980s. He has a beard and may be the character featured in the first and third panels.

New characters have continued to be added to Unicode, and recently many "{{w|emoji}}" (picture characters) have been added. Emoji were originally added to be compatible with text message encodings in Japan, but after devices in other countries started supporting them as part of Unicode, they caught on worldwide. Now emoji characters are added for their own sake, not just for compatibility.

The [https://emojipedia.org/lobster/ lobster emoji], 🦞, was approved as part of Unicode 11, for release in 2018. This comic was published in 10 February 2018‎.

This comic shows the creator of Unicode talking about how it would change the way we thought about managing text, which could help with incompatible binary text encoding. This seems to have derailed over the next 30 years, as shown in [https://twitter.com/SenAngusKing/status/961331752718557184 a real tweet] from the junior Senator from {{w|Maine}}, {{w|Angus King}}. In the {{w|Twitter|tweet}}, Sen. King writes that he is excited that the system is getting a new lobster emoji, showing that now the Unicode system is used for more frivolous reasons. He even signs using two emoji to form his name. There is a cattle breed called {{w|Angus cattle}}, so the cow emoji, 🐮, stands for "Angus", and the crown emoji, 👑, of course represents "King". Thus Angus King becomes 🐮👑. This is thus not part of the xkcd joke; it just uses the real tweet for comic effect. The tweet was released February 7th, only two days before this comic; the second comment on the tweet posted this comic and asked which came first, but of course the tweet did. A user comments that Senator King should see it as a badge of honor (🎖) to have his tweet included in an xkcd strip...

The title text imagines that Unicode will gain other unexpected roles in the next 30 years. In particular it acts as an armed force, capable of intervening in military disputes, such as an annexation of Maine by its neighbor, New Hampshire. The title text ends with three Unicode emoji: "🙏" code point 1F64F "PERSON WITH FOLDED HANDS", "🚁" code point 1F681 "HELICOPTER", and "🎖" code point 1F396 "MILITARY MEDAL", suggesting that they are thanking them for their effort in the war, sending helicopters and soldiers to aid them against New Hampshire. The phrase "we're once again an independent state" may also be a political pun, as 2048 should be an election year, and King is an Independent senator.

==Transcript==
:[1988:]
:[A bearded man holds a document labeled "Unicode". Most likely he represents Joe Becker.]
:Bearded man: My "Unicode" standard should help reduce problems caused by incompatible binary text encodings.

:[2018:]
:[A tweet from Twitter is shown. To the left of Senator Angus King's name is his avatar (a face with a mustache) and to the right is the blue checkmark used by Twitter to signify a verified user.]
:Senator Angus King‏
:<span style="color:gray">@SenAngusKing</span>
:Great news for Maine - we're getting a lobster emoji!!! Thanks to <span style="color:#0066FF">@unicode</span> for recognizing the impact of this critical crustacean, in Maine and across the country.
:Yours truly,
:Senator 🐮👑
:<span style="color:gray">2/7/18 3:12 PM</span>

:[Cueball and the bearded man (the latter now grey-haired) are looking at a wall with the Unicode standard, labeled "1988", and Senator King's tweet, labeled "2018", posted on it.]
:Cueball: What... what happened in those thirty years?
:Bearded man: ''Things got a little weird, okay?''

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Unicode]]

==Trivia==
*Initial version of the comic had "1998" in panel 3 instead of "1988" as shown in panel 1. This was fixed later.

*Ironically, [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1953:_The_History_of_Unicode&oldid=152168 the first version of this article] (automatically generated by a bot) had problems with emoji encoding.

*At one time the scenario in the title text wouldn't have been ''quite'' as far-fetched as it sounds. Maine and New Hampshire were for many years involved in border disputes, primarily over {{w|New Hampshire v. Maine|fishing rights}} and whether {{w|Seavey%27s Island|Seavey Island}}, located in the middle of the river that forms the border of the two states, was part of Maine or New Hampshire. The latter issue {{w|Piscataqua River border dispute|was not settled until 2002}}. Neither dispute ever quite rose to the level of a full-on shooting war but [http://nhpr.org/post/legacy-nh-maine-lobster-war-and-why-it-may-wage#stream/0 they got surprisingly close].

{{comic discussion}}

421: Making Hash Browns

2022-04-13T15:18:27Z

RDiMartino: Corrected date

{{comic
| number = 421
| date = May 9, 2008
| title = Making Hash Browns
| image = making_hash_browns.png
| titletext = There are at least fourteen ways this could go badly (seventeen if that fork is a dangerous crossbreed.)
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is attempting to make {{w|hash browns}}. A hash brown is a way of serving a potato where the potato has been diced or shredded in some way, then pan-fried. Cueball's method for making hash browns, though, is rather unique. He is throwing potatoes into the air and striking them with a flaming tennis racket at his friend, who is holding a tray with a dangerously tilting half-filled glass balanced on top. He (the friend) is also holding a fork in the other hand.

The idea is that the tennis racket would simultaneously dice the potato, fry it, and then launch the completed product towards his friend's plate. In reality, this probably wouldn't do much. To properly {{w|Pan frying|pan-fry}} food, it must be cooked in a pan with some oil to lubricate the food, with enough time for the heat to transfer through the oil and spread properly through the food. Hitting a potato with a flaming tennis racket would not cook it, as it would strike it too quickly, and it probably wouldn't dice it either unless the wire of the racket is incredibly sharp. Cueball would probably just end up batting a not even hot, uncooked, unprepared potato at his friend, while simultaneously burning his own hand. In the case that the wires did actually cut through the potato, then the potato would not be moved forward, but actually end up behind the racket.

The title text comments on how many ways this experiment could go badly (14), and jokes that there are even more potential problems (17) if the fork Cueball's friend is holding is a cross-breed. (See [[419: Forks and Spoons]], which was published only four days earlier. By reading this comic, it should be clear what could go wrong if they were included in the equation - 3 more ways would be a low estimate....)

It's unclear what Randall may or may not have had on his mind with regards to specific ways the situation in the comic could go wrong. But here are several potential ways the activity could go wrong without including {{w|Sporks}}:
#Cueball could burn himself with the flaming tennis racket.
#The can of gasoline could leak, and then Cueball could drop the racket, causing a fire to spread.
#Cueball may fail to hit the potato, and it would get dirty from the ground.
#Cueball may fail to hit the potato and instead whack himself with the aforementioned flaming tennis racket.
#Cueball may fail to hit the potato and hurt himself as it lands on his face.
#Cueball may hit the potato and knock the plate out of his friend's hand, smashing it.
#Cueball may hit the potato and knock the glass out of his friend's hand, smashing that instead.
#Cueball might hit his friend's arms with a potato (flaming hot or not), causing the friend to drop the plate, thereby spilling glass, porcelain, a potato, and orange juice everywhere.
#Cueball might instead hit the potato at his friend's head.
#Cueball could accidentally launch the tennis racket itself (if he has exceptionally poor grip) at his friend.
#Cueball could drop the tennis racket onto the can of gasoline, causing it to explode.
#Cueball's friend may lose his balance with the plate, dropping it and/or the glass onto the ground.
#Cueball may try to get a better grip on the tennis racket by moving his hand up, and thereby burn his hand.
#Even if none of the above happened, Cueball would fail to actually ''cook'' the potato.
#Likewise, Cueball would probably not succeed in dicing the potato.
#And he could miss hitting his friend's plate.
#A {{w|velociraptor}} could appear out of nowhere and eat the potato, then proceed to devour Cueball and his friend. (A kind of possibility that likely plagues Randall's mind daily.)

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands holding a flaming tennis racket. He is throwing a potato in the air as if to serve like a tennis ball. Behind him is a red gas can and a sack of potatoes. Across from him is another person holding a fork in one hand and balancing a serving tray with a glass holding an orange liquid in it.]

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