explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1695: Code Quality 2

2016-06-17T19:21:24Z

Rawmustard: /* Explanation */ corrected Estlin

{{comic
| number = 1695
| date = June 17, 2016
| title = Code Quality 2
| image = code_quality_2.png
| titletext = It's like you tried to define a formal grammar based on fragments of a raw database dump from the QuickBooks file of a company that's about to collapse in an accounting scandal.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|first edits}}

The comic is a continuation of [[1513: Code Quality]], in which we see [[Ponytail]] being introduced to the {{w|source code}} [[Cueball]] has written, and where he is warning her that he is self-taught so his code probably won't be written the way she is used to.
She then continues to describe poetically the total mess of a code she encounters, using references to recipes created by corporate lawyers or the transcript of a couple arguing at IKEA.

The second panel makes a reference to "OCR" ({{w|Optical Character Recognition}}), a technique for recognizing text in a picture using software. In this case she is referring to a picture of a {{w|Scrabble}} game, which is a popular word-making game in which players have a pseudo-randomized set of letters and must arrange them on a grid to form interlocking words. OCR software is notoriously imperfect at the time of writing, and the criss-crossing semi-random words on a Scrabble board fed through an OCR program would likely produce dubious results, certainly not fit for current code standards. This is further compounded by Ponytail's suggestion that Cueball made rampant use of JavaScript reserved words in his declarations, which is [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Lexical_grammar#Keywords strictly forbidden] by the language. Scrabble's point system is based on the value of individual letters, combined with certain modifier squares on the game board which can boost points. "Triple points" is the highest class of modifier available in the game (though it can be for triple points on a specific letter, or the entire word) and is highly-sought-after by players.

The third panel continues Ponytail's rant, this time referencing naval weather forecasts, avian interference and indentation. A weather forecast is a complex, multidimensional array of data used in predicting or assessing the atmospheric conditions of a geographical area over a set time. One such example of a "naval weather forecast" [https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_DOD_area.cgi?area=efs_nvg_nlant&set=EFS may be this one], which would generally be unreadable to an untrained individual. Transcribing it would be a long and typing-intensive process which could result in an even more unreadable product, further complicated by a {{w|woodpecker}} (a bird noted for its rapid successive pecking motions) "hammering" (pecking) the Shift key on the keyboard, which would result in many letters being randomly capitalized. Indentation is the practice of shifting a section of text further from the starting margin, which in coding is typically used to organize functions and statements, but if done "randomly" would only serve to scramble the code hierarchy.

The fourth panel references famous poet {{w|E. E. Cummings}} and user name suggestions. Edward Estlin Cummings was a poet (pseudonym "e e cummings" or "E. E. Cummings") who used capitalization, punctuation, and line breaks in unconventional ways. Websites that offer membership often also require that users create a pseudonym (known as a "username") for use in tracking/authenticating their actions on the site, as well as identifying them to the site's community. Many of these sites also require usernames be unique. On popular sites, many common words, phrases and names have already been reserved by users, so when signing up for them many people run into situations where the name they want has already been taken. On many sites where this happens, the site may suggest alternate usernames, usually based on the one that was entered to begin with. For example, if the username "Hedgeclipper" is already reserved, the site may recommend "Hedgeclipper1234" or "H3dg3clipp3r" instead, depending on the algorithm behind the suggestions. In other cases, websites requiring users to enter personal information such as their name may suggest a username based on their name with a string of digits after it, such as "Joshua1128". An E. E. Cummings poem written entirely out of these semi-random suggestions would make the resulting poem even more "unusual" than his work is already considered.

The last panel's simile involves {{w|Markov chaining}}, {{w|Chatterbot|chat-bots}} (presumably), bus schedules and potential [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Air-India-plane-unfit-to-fly-may-be-scrapped-after-bus-crash/articleshow/50307194.cms gross vehicular negligence]. Applied Markov chaining is a process used in many computer algorithms that try to simulate real-world concepts such as speech simulation and decisions-making. Its inherent randomness also makes it a candidate for unpredictable things such as stock market analysis and speech recognition. Bus schedules are [http://elb-jpinstances-1463028547.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com/ccg3/XSLT_STT_REQUEST?mode=direct&line=ccg:01065:%20:H:y15&sessionID=0&requestID=0&itdLPxx_template=tableResults&type_stt=any&language=en&coordOutputFormat=WGS84%5Bdd.ddddd%5D&outputFormat=0&name_stt=10111816&contentFilter=allstops often complicated and full of notation], and are notorious for confusing people who are not used to reading them. Chat-bots using applied Markov chains to recognize and respond to speech/text rely on the input being clear and well-organized in plain language. "Feeding" bus schedules to such a bot would likely result in the returns being complete gibberish and unreadable. The issue is further complicated when Ponytail suggests that the schedules are from a city where "the [http://www.heapsoffun.com/pictures/20120106/funny_bus_crash_1002.jpg buses] [http://data.whicdn.com/images/45882595/original.jpg crash] [http://blog.taxiforsure.com/wp-content/uploads/indian-traffic-bus.jpg constantly]", which would be horrifying if it happened so [http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/002/842/unexplainable.jpg regularly] that the schedules actually took [http://baddogneedsrottenhome.com/images/emails/527927c6cbfff.jpg crashes] into account. Even more horrifying would be the further unpredictability of the output of the chat-bot from such unpredictable input.

Cueball finally comments that "...it runs fine for now" which indicates he knows the code has problems but it reluctant to fix them because it's more-or-less serving its function. Ponytail quips back that "So does a [http://scarboroughwhat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/bitch-im-a-burning-bus.jpg burning bus]", which is technically true, but the "for now" part implies that disaster and injury could result at any moment, as would likely happen on a burning bus.

==Transcript==
Side view of Ponytail sitting at a computer in all five panels.

First panel, tall vertical. 
Ponytail: Ugh, I hate reading your code. 
Offscreen: I know, I know.

Second panel is wider, shows her in an office chair. 
Ponytail: It's like you ran OCR on a photo of a Scrabble board from a game where Javascript reserved words counted for triple points. 

Third panel zooms in and shows just her head. 
Ponytail: It looks like someone transcribed a naval weather forecast while woodpeckers hammered their shift keys, then randomly indented it. 

Fourth panel, similar to second, though slightly narrower. 
Ponytail: It's like an e e cummings poem written using only the usernames a website suggests when the one you want is taken. 

Fifth panel zooms in, shows her head and the screen. 
Ponytail: This looks like the output of a Markov bot that's been fed bus timetables from a city where the buses crash constantly. 
Offscreen: Whatever, it runs fine for now. 
Ponytail: So does a burning bus.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1616: Lunch

2015-12-14T16:55:43Z

Rawmustard:

... I don't think pizza is that bad. Those are sort of things people could really eat ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

That's not that gross, IMO. Tomato sauce is pretty much thought of as thick tomato juice. White bread. Salt. Normal things. And this seems to be assuming I wouldn't want to eat a brick of cheese. I do this regularly-ish with brie. [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 13:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not American, so what does he mean by cheese and grease soaked vegetables? {{unsigned ip|162.158.153.101}}
:The cheese is a common ingredient in the pizza seen in the comic, which might be a plain cheese pizza. As for the veggies, this might be a reference to french fries, which is essentially potatoes cooked in a deep fryer which is filled with oil (though I can't be sure with the English definition correlation between grease and oil). {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.148}}
:On this side of the lake pizza's made with dough (white bread), tomato sauce, cheese, and apparently salt the way Randall makes it. Some people put veggies on their pizza, which later get greasy and oily thanks to the cheese; nothing to do with french fries, though I'm told fries on pizza is actually pretty good Though I suppose you'd call them chips over there. {{unsigned|Legofan613}}
::Salt is usually an ingredient in dough, although why it's listed separately is anyone's guess. [[User:Rawmustard|Rawmustard]] ([[User talk:Rawmustard|talk]]) 16:55, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1587: Food Rule

2015-10-07T12:36:46Z

Rawmustard:

But some fish don't have faces. Or have some really ambiguous faces. What constitutes as a "face" anyway, from an overall standpoint? A set of eyes eyes, a mouth, and a nose, with the nose generically at or below eye level, and the mouth below the nose? (also do I need to include my name after the tildes or does it add it automatically?) [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 04:30, 7 October 2015 (UTC) ISS
: You type the four tildes and nothing else. The server software modifies your post before logging it, replacing your four tildes by your username and date/time. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.94|173.245.49.94]] 10:15, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
::Reckon the nose rule cant be sustained, dolphins and whales have faces and their 'nose' is well above eye level.[[User:Plm-qaz snr|Plm-qaz snr]] ([[User talk:Plm-qaz snr|talk]]) 05:29, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
:::Randall does not care if anything he eats have a face. He just wish to know if it does or not before he eats it. The plants that he eats do not have faces for sure, but he eats those. The reason he does not eat Squids or Oysters has nothing to do with faces. It is the invertebrate = missing skeleton - that is the reason as explained in the title text. The caption below the comic is an extra rule that has nothing to do with the things mentioned above, which he does not have to google! Have corrected explanation accordingly. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:28, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
::::No way! The items in the list are classified according to whether their facefulness of facelessness is known without googling (things clearly with or without face are OK, things unclearly with or without face are not OK). The title text is the extra, unrelated rule, having nothing to do with the list. Explanation should be re-corrected again (not doing that myself as I guess some more arguing is due before doing). [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.94|173.245.49.94]] 11:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
::::OK, modified it so that they are alternative explanations now. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.94|173.245.49.94]] 11:56, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

the most famous and vocal proponent of the "no food with a face" rule is sir paul mccartney. to which one wag replied that anyone would follow that rule if they'd done as much LSD as he had. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.34|141.101.98.34]] 12:25, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

It should be noted that the three forbidden foods can be classified as {{w|shellfish}}, which is typically banned in Jewish dietary law (and also generally banned in certain schools of Islamic jurisprudence). [[User:Rawmustard|Rawmustard]] ([[User talk:Rawmustard|talk]]) 12:36, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1587: Food Rule

2015-10-07T12:36:20Z

Rawmustard: Making note of shellfish

But some fish don't have faces. Or have some really ambiguous faces. What constitutes as a "face" anyway, from an overall standpoint? A set of eyes eyes, a mouth, and a nose, with the nose generically at or below eye level, and the mouth below the nose? (also do I need to include my name after the tildes or does it add it automatically?) [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 04:30, 7 October 2015 (UTC) ISS
: You type the four tildes and nothing else. The server software modifies your post before logging it, replacing your four tildes by your username and date/time. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.94|173.245.49.94]] 10:15, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
::Reckon the nose rule cant be sustained, dolphins and whales have faces and their 'nose' is well above eye level.[[User:Plm-qaz snr|Plm-qaz snr]] ([[User talk:Plm-qaz snr|talk]]) 05:29, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
:::Randall does not care if anything he eats have a face. He just wish to know if it does or not before he eats it. The plants that he eats do not have faces for sure, but he eats those. The reason he does not eat Squids or Oysters has nothing to do with faces. It is the invertebrate = missing skeleton - that is the reason as explained in the title text. The caption below the comic is an extra rule that has nothing to do with the things mentioned above, which he does not have to google! Have corrected explanation accordingly. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:28, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
::::No way! The items in the list are classified according to whether their facefulness of facelessness is known without googling (things clearly with or without face are OK, things unclearly with or without face are not OK). The title text is the extra, unrelated rule, having nothing to do with the list. Explanation should be re-corrected again (not doing that myself as I guess some more arguing is due before doing). [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.94|173.245.49.94]] 11:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
::::OK, modified it so that they are alternative explanations now. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.94|173.245.49.94]] 11:56, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
the most famous and vocal proponent of the "no food with a face" rule is sir paul mccartney. to which one wag replied that anyone would follow that rule if they'd done as much LSD as he had. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.34|141.101.98.34]] 12:25, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
It should be noted that the three forbidden foods can be classified as {{w|shellfish}}, which is typically banned in Jewish dietary law (and also generally banned in certain schools of Islamic jurisprudence). [[User:Rawmustard|Rawmustard]] ([[User talk:Rawmustard|talk]]) 12:36, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

1587: Food Rule

2015-10-07T12:13:38Z

Rawmustard: /* Explanation */ Capitalized Google.

{{comic
| number = 1587
| date = October 7, 2015
| title = Food Rule
| image = food_rule.png
| titletext = I won't eat invertebrates, because I can fight a skeleton, but I have no idea what kind of spooky warrior a squid leaves behind.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|Vegetarianism|vegetarian}} is someone who chooses to eat only vegetables and no meat. While apples are always allowed and hamburgers are always forbidden, there are doubts about foods like honey, eggs, milk or fish. This gives different varieties of vegetarianism depending on exactly which foods are allowed. Vegetarians tend to summarize their eating habits in one sentence, like eating "nothing that once had a heartbeat", "nothing that can have children", "nothing with eyes" or "nothing with a face" (this last one being the subject of the comic).

[[Randall]] presents two rules about what can be eaten (one in the comic and one in the title text). He also presents a list of allowed and forbidden foods which matches both rules, so it's not clear if the list refers to one rule, the other or both at the same time.

According to the rule in the comic, Randall eats things with or without a face, but not things for which he needs to use Google to figure out whether they have a face or not. While it's clear that a cow has a face and an apple does not, some beings are harder to classify into one of these categories. For example, the {{w|Squid}} in the comic has eyes and mouth, but it would be hard to tell whether that counts as a face. This would be a problem for the vegetarian standard rule of "nothing without a face", however Randall avoids it by refusing to eat anything which poses any doubt about the class to which it belongs. This quite openly mocks the vegetarian rule of "nothing with a face".

The rule in the title text is about not eating invertebrates. The first four items on the list are meat from four different animals of the type {{w|Vertebrate|vertebrates}} and the last three items are from {{w|Plant|plants}}. These are all OK to eat. But the middle three items are three different animals of the type {{w|Invertebrate|invertebrates}}. Randall does not eat these! These animals do not have any skeleton. Randall is joking about how the animals he eats might come back to haunt him, and in the case of a cow or fish (or any other vertebrates - with skeletons), he imagines that they would come back as a living dead skeleton. Any undead creature that returns as a skeleton he believes he will be able to fight. But since he has no idea how an undead squid or oyster (or any other invertebrate) would look, he feels unprepared to fight such a spooky creature and thus declines from eating them. This may be the worst excuse ever for not wishing to eat a certain type of food. But it may be better than to just say that he thinks they are disgusting...

Randall has previously mentioned his dislike of certain foods (namely lobster) in [[1268: Alternate Universe]].

==Transcript==
:[There is a caption above a list of food with indication whether it is OK or not to eat. Below is another caption.]
:My food rule:
:{| class="wikitable" style="border: 0px;"
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Red meat
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Pork
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Poultry
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Fish
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Shrimp
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | X
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Oysters
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | X
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Squid
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | X
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Fruit
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Vegetables
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Grains
| style="border: 0px; color:green;" | ✓
|}
:I won't eat something
:if I have to Google
:to figure out whether
:or not it has a face.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]

Talk:1550: Episode VII

2015-07-13T13:38:52Z

Rawmustard: /* Wikipedia on etymology of eavesdropping */ Commenting that comic could be parody of TV series opening

Shouldn't the "Hooded Man" be called "Luke Skywalker" in the transcription, since the comic implies that he is?--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.243|188.114.103.243]] 13:28, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

For anybody interested, the ''dropping of eaves'' is not an actual activity:

==== [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eavesdropping#Etymology Wikipedia on etymology of eavesdropping] ====

'''Eavesdrop''': "The dripping of water from the eaves of a house; the ground on which such water falls". An eavesdropper was one who stood at the eavesdrop (where the water fell, i.e., near the house) so as to overhear what was said inside.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.206|108.162.229.206]] 09:10, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

----

'''Question''': Is there a joke in the J. J. Abrams credit?

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.206|108.162.229.206]] 09:10, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

::J. J. Abrams is actually the director / producer of the film in question, Episode VII: The Force Awakens [[User:Taibhse|Taibhse]] ([[User talk:Taibhse|talk]]) 11:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

::I want to think the format of the comic is a parody of the opening of ''Alias'' or pne of Abrams's other television series. (You would get the title card, a brief sequence to set up the particular episode, then the "Directed by" credit. I'm not absolutely sure since it's been some time since I saw one of those series.) [[User:Rawmustard|Rawmustard]] ([[User talk:Rawmustard|talk]]) 13:38, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Staying on the topic of J. J. Abrams... Why no lens flares? - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.178|108.162.222.178]] 12:11, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I assumed the hooded man was Luke Skywalker. Is there anyone else it reasonably could be? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1137: RTL

2012-11-22T16:42:39Z

Rawmustard: Added that a correction was made in the relevant thread.

There's a typo in the comic - hte should be eht for "the" spelled backwards -jars99

:Unless you consider "th" a single character, which by the way makes a lot of sense as it is derived from old-english "eth". {{unsigned|62.245.198.190}}
::Unless you further consider that "they" doesn't share that in the comic, making it internally inconsistent. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 11:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
:::It should be noted that at some point, "the" was corrected. [[User:Rawmustard|Rawmustard]] ([[User talk:Rawmustard|talk]]) 16:42, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Acutally, unicode 202e doesn't "flip proceeding text back-to-front", it overrides the direction, setting it to "right-to-left" for the following text. It's back-to-front for most of us like "left-to-right" is to other writing systems. I know it's nitpicking, but xkcd readers should appreciate the symmetry. [[User:BKA|BKA]] ([[User talk:BKA|talk]]) 07:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the reversed title. My window manager is not UTF-8 compatible, so when a window title is set to string containing UTF-8 characters, it doesn't change. This brings the question if it really is a browser problem or if the browsers behave as expected and the window manager is at fault. -- [[Special:Contributions/89.177.52.2|89.177.52.2]] 09:17, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

:It's not a ''problem'' per sec. Browsers that get the reversed title are processing the UTF symbol correctly, there's no bug there. And the window manager has no bearing on the title text except for maybe font. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 09:32, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

::Well its the window manager that renders the window title, but it is composed by the Browser. I think that the browser should insert an appropriate number of U+202c characters, in this case it should be "xkcd: [U+202e]LTR[U+202c] - Mozilla Firefox". That would render as xkcd: RTL - Mozilla Firefox". By the way, the tab caption in Firefox is "xkcd: LTR". In Chromium and Opera it is shown correctly as "xkcd: RTL". [[User:Joha.ma|Joha.ma]] ([[User talk:Joha.ma|talk]]) 09:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Another way to see this in effect is to try to type in this test page: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/202e/browsertest.htm - and this also works in etherpad, as suggested in the caption.--[[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 00:09, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Black Hat seems to have used U+202b, not e. The individual characters are left-to-right. Check the D, E, L, N, S, and ? [[Special:Contributions/24.193.153.138|24.193.153.138]] 02:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
:No, U+202e does not actually mirror the characters themselves, just the displayed order. U+202b only changes the order for characters that don't have embedded direction, such as the period, which can be used with multiple languages. [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 05:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
::Actually, it does mirror some characters, namely those that have the ''mirrored'' property. For example, the parentheses or mathematical relations like the less-than sign. [http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/BidiMirroring.txt Here] is a list of them. --[[User:Ulm|Ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 12:34, 22 November 2012 (UTC)