explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2104: Biff Tannen

2019-02-08T14:14:41Z

Resuna: /* Regarding politics */

I thought Biff jumped from 2015 to 1955, not 1985...? Young Biff had the Almanac in his pocket at the High School dance and the tower he built was already in place in 1985.
:This is an old unsigned comment. I would like to add for posterity that this has been fixed already. This guy tried to fix this information while the article was young and edits were happening super fast, so his edit got reversed as someone tried to add his edit over someone else's. It has since been fixed for good.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.156|162.158.122.156]] 04:50, 30 January 2019 (UTC)


Collusion with a time traveler would bring a few things into focus. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.25|173.245.54.25]] 15:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
:You inspire ''one'' house painter to change careers & suddenly everyone blames you for everything.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:23, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.198|172.68.65.198]] 15:39, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Do we keep the “cheat at sports betting” wording? I don’t know if this is cheating. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.136|108.162.210.136]] 17:22, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
:Cheating is generally heald to be using something unavailable to anyone else in the normal course of play to gain an advantage. I'd say using the almanac towards those ends definitely applies. [[User:Mjm87|Mjm87]] ([[User talk:Mjm87|talk]]) 19:07, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

If anyone questions the fact that newspapers in real life did attempt to assert that the rise of Trump was inevitable, various newspaper articles may easily be found as proof with a Google Search for [Donald Trump inevitable], preferably restricted to results before 2017, so as to remove results about things he did later. I don't know how best to incorporate such results as a source in the article, as the number of citations could easily be made too big, and also I don't know if anyone cares. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.136|108.162.210.136]] 17:30, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I am from Europe, and I do not understand the issue. If event X happens while you predicted Y, isn't researching and hypothising a good way to find out why, possibly learning new things in the process? Saying you don't want to debate the issue is like hating politics. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.131|141.101.104.131]] 18:27, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

: Many people who understand politics hate it. On behalf of my fellow continenteans, I apologize for 141.101.104.131, who apparently believes that politics overlaps with political science. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.40|162.158.114.40]] 18:51, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

:Note that ''Hillbilly Elegy'' could not have been intended to explain the Trump election, having been written before it. However, it was interpreted this way. I have attempted to make this clear in the explanation.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.179|108.162.212.179]] 18:53, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, Biff is based off of Donald Trump, so the Donald Trump analogy may be more likely than not. I can't quite recall where I read this, but there are quite a few similarities between the two. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.138|162.158.186.138]] 19:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
:Added [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.156|162.158.122.156]] 19:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Why does this article go out of its way to avoid mentioning Hillary Clinton by name?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.19|162.158.107.19]] 20:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)KingLeary
: Beats me. Fixed it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.95|108.162.246.95]] 04:47, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

XKCD on XKCD: "The word 'thinkpiece' sounds like a word made up by someone who didn't know about the word 'brain'." [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.233|172.69.33.233]] 01:00, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

The explanation should include info on what a "counterfactual" is. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.95|108.162.246.95]] 04:49, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
:Done [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.131|108.162.212.131]] 12:33, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

So I guess we're just construing this as a polarized editorial now. Appropriate context or no.

Seems fun.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.167|108.162.221.167]] 01:50, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Isn't the title text making a reference to Orwell?

''Back to the Future'' is such a nice movie trilogy. If anyone is discouraged by the discussions over possible relations to Donald Trump, don't be. Those relations are pretty dim and do not worsen enjoyment of the movies, neither for Democrats nor for Republicans. I recommend that everyone here who hasn't watched these movies watch all three. They are a lot of fun. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.156|162.158.122.156]] 04:58, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

== Regarding politics ==

Wow, all this Trump stuff feels like a real stretch... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.95|172.68.132.95]] 21:00, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
:Nah21:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
:It's pretty obvious to me, personally, that this is an analogy to the idea that if Trump rose to power via means nobody was aware of at the time, the book would seem a little humorous. I guess that seems like a huge stretch to some and obvious to others. The references to the roughly-two views on this in the article feel painful to read, controversial, and like the issues aren't really honestly and fairly laid out. I wish there were some way to really give respect to both views. Even if many disagree with Randall, I think for many it is clear this is the subject of the comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.198|172.68.65.198]]

Note there is a (joke?) conspiracy theory that Trump is a time traveler, using technology provided by his uncle John Trump...
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.22|162.158.255.22]] 23:06, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
:That would explain why he was able to do so well in the electoral college despite losing the popular vote. He knew which states would be close, so he could focus his efforts on narrowly winning those instead of narrowing losing them, and not worry about states like CA that would have such wide margins of victory that campaigning wouldn't affect who won them.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.23|172.69.33.23]] 07:06, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
:I think if Trump were a time traveller, he should be much richer, because he would have bet on sports, or invested in big companies while they were small. Instead, he invested in real estate, which was not a good option if he knew about the housing crisis beforehand. The only way I can think of to attribute his life choices to time travel meddling is: if the general public knew that time travel exists, this is the best way not to draw suspicion. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.131|108.162.212.131]] 13:06, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
:Or to provide reasonable doubt for a super-secret Temporal Court that recognizes the right to presumed innocence. I think I would enjoy reading that story.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.167|108.162.221.167]] 21:58, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Note that Biff Tannen was explicitly modeled on Donald Trump [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biff_Tannen#Character_creation (reference)]. -- [[User:Resuna|Resuna]] ([[User talk:Resuna|talk]]) 14:14, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

== List layout ==

In the two instances where the article considered alternative reasons for a feature of the comic, I have turned these reasons into a list, as this makes it easier to understand and cuts down on the repetitive "Alternatively" and such. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.156|162.158.122.156]] 04:15, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

== 1985A ==

I have changed instances of "the universe where BiffCo exists" to "the 1985A ''Back to the Future'' timeline", or simply "1985A" for short. This is for three reasons:

*To keep the article cleaner.
*To keep future misreaders of the article from either:
**cutting down on the words because they seem unnecessary
**adding a comma between "universe" and "where", which would ruin the construct.
*To be consistent with the terminology used by Doc Brown himself.

I have established this wording at the beginning of the article.

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.156|162.158.122.156]] 04:19, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

== Subheads ==

I have added subheadings. If you don't like subheadings then remove them. This wiki has no style guide. I think they help distinguish the structure of the document. The guy who removed the part about counterfactuals can now more easily skip that part, and we can now more easily talk about specific parts of the article here in the talk page.

Also I know that this is the third topic I have added in a row and that the button says "use sparingly", but these are major changes to the article, and therefore I expect someone to come by and complain and make a huge thread out of it.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.156|162.158.122.156]] 05:28, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2077: Heist

2018-11-28T20:36:38Z

Resuna:

You know, this isn't just a movie trope, this is an actual technique that is used ALL the time: https://youtu.be/rnmcRTnTNC8?t=2000 Is this worth mentioning in the explanation? [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 16:42, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

:Probably because it works, and it probably works because real service people are really this bad authenticated. It's even worse in emergency: there is rarely time for proper authentication during emergency ... which is why the criminals would create or fake an emergency to get in. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:22, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

:Last place I worked letting a guy in without a current visitor's pass *and* an escort was a termination offense, and they ran drills regularly, and everyone knew someone who knew someone who'd gotten canned for it, or said they knew someone anyway. -- [[User:Resuna|Resuna]] ([[User talk:Resuna|talk]]) 20:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

The movie Dope does a reverse cryptocurrency heist. That counts, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dope_%282015_film%29

There are no movies about cryptocurrency heists yet (to the best of my knowledge), but this is probably how one would look like.

Tweaked the grammar in the early, short explanation. Didn't fundamentally change the text, but I'm not sure that worrying about being "a minor character" is quite correct as the text of the comic quantifies that as being _in a heist_. Cueball's worries may not just be about his life being nothing more than a minor character in a movie, but possibly also of potential legal / professional liability as an accessory or accomplice. By knowing or supposing that the one asking for access is a criminal and/or should not have access -- and granting it anyway -- that may be enough to charge him with facilitation of the crime [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)#Criminal_facilitation as it is (in some jurisdictions) a crime to "provide" a person with "means or opportunity" to commit a crime, "believing it probable that he is rendering aid to a person who intends to commit a crime."]

But he has a white hat! We don't have to worry if they wear a white hat, right? On the other hand, he's "from the building"? What the heck does that mean? Cueball best knock the white hat off to eliminate any cognitive dissonance and then call his supervisor. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.112|172.68.90.112]] 19:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC) SiliconWolf

: I interpreted “from the building” as meaning that (he claims) he’s with the people who own the building, while the people who Cueball’s affiliated with (presumably some corporation) just rent it from them. The building owners stand to lose a lot more than the renters if the building burns down, so they presumably want to deal with smoke detectors themselves.
:: From [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6264636/ |"The Building"] might _also_ refer to the TV series about people trapped in skyscaper which is actually an alternate reality. .. But I seriously doubt it. ..or do I? [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 21:40, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

: I thought "from the building" was a clue, like a badly worded phishing msg. I also thought the mouse-over was the typical clueless/naive, not sarcastic [[User:Afbach|Afbach]] ([[User talk:Afbach|talk]])

Is it just me or is that cap really nicely drawn? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.40|162.158.114.40]] 14:46, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

:I was thinking the exact same thing! Randall has really been upping his game over the years! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.244|108.162.245.244]] 15:17, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:2050: 6/6 Time

2018-09-27T13:08:46Z

Resuna:

This is actually how time worked in ancient Greece, minus the 6 o'clock part. Sunrise was at 12, sunset at 12 and the length of each hour varied depending on the part of the year [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.163|172.68.189.163]] 16:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Not just Greece but most of medeaval Europe. The concept of a fixed length hour only arises with clockwork. that Noon, the ninth hour, now occurs at the sixth hour - that we call 12 - is mainly due to post black death labour shortages. {{unsigned|Arachrah}}

: Also ancient Rome. I ''think'' Romans borrowed this system from Greeks and it later spread along with the Roman Empire's influence. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.10.22|172.68.10.22]] 16:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

:: To be fair, the Romans "borrowed" (stole) a lot of other things from the Greeks, not the least of which was their pantheon. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 18:21, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

::: Or rather, both descended from a common pantheon. (A few gods were re-borrowed wholesale, like Apollo, and I think a few were misidentified, but for the most part this is how it worked.) - [[User:CRGreathouse|CRGreathouse]] ([[User talk:CRGreathouse|talk]]) 16:57, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

: Before clockwork (as mentioned above) was created, variable hours/minutes/seconds were necessary (at least during daylight hours) as the sundial obviously <sup>({{w|citation needed}})</sup> is just based off of the sun's angle in the sky.[[User:Rajakiit|Raj-a-Kiit]] ([[User talk:Rajakiit|talk]]) 17:42, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

:Wait ... labor shortage? How would moving noon help with labor shortage? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:41, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Some facts: {{w|September equinox}} was at 01:54 UTC on September 23 when in the entire US it still was September 22 as can be seen here: [http://aa.usno.navy.mil/seasons?year=2018&tz=-5&dst=1 U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department (Apsides and Seasons 2018)]. This comic was released two days later. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Could the timing of this comic be related to the [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45366390 EU voting to end DST within its borders?] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.100|108.162.241.100]] 16:51, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
:This isn't about daylight saving time, which just moves clocks forwards and backwards by one hour in most cases. Cueball refers to an equinox when day and night are both 12 hours. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:05, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
:: This comic is about "unfixably messy and complicated" time standards (of which DST is one) at least as much as equinoxes (which aren't quite what you say they are; I won't get a 12-hour interval between sunrise and sunset at my latitude for another few days yet). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.220|108.162.241.220]] 19:51, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

The hours/minutes/seconds get really short/long in the polar regions. {{unsigned ip|162.158.74.243}}

The caption can also be referring to the alteration of time zones for political reasons, such as China having only one now rather than the five it used to use, or the Republic of Kiribati pushing the International Date Line east of its entire territory.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.140|172.69.22.140]] 17:50, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Here is a YouTube video explaining the Japanese system (and how they created mechanical clocks to support it) - [https://youtu.be/3iclecbIgN0?t=135 Begin Japanology - Clocks and Watches]. -- [[User:Dhericean|Dhericean]] ([[User talk:Dhericean|talk]]) 18:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Swatch time: Still more sensible than any other division of the day I've ever heard.

Seriously though, isn't it about time we all switched to metric? 10 segments in a day, not 24. 100 units in a segment. Straightforward, easy to figure pay rates, & pretty simple to convert to & from.

Increments of 24 & 60 have no relevance to anything these days. The only reason to continue using a 24hr day is because "that's how it's been done for ages" & that's no excuse for anything.

[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
:I wouldn't mind redefining the division of a day. My problem would be with redefining the second, which would necessarily be a consequence of switching to metric time, and thus also the three base and nineteen derived SI units that depend on the current definition of s.
:If you can switch us to metric time without redefining the length of a second, nor having an excessive number of leap seconds, I'm all for that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.118|108.162.241.118]] 21:19, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
::Sure, quit worrying about what "day" it is. This probably won't be practical until most of the population is living off-world, but there's a bunch of SF novels where time is simply measured in "seconds", people say "back in a kilosec" and stuff like that. -- [[User:Resuna|Resuna]] ([[User talk:Resuna|talk]]) 13:08, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
:The length of a day isn't even constant. If you had even divisions, the length of those divisions would be changing constantly. "'It's been done that way for ages' is no excuse" is irrelevant reasoning. A consistent system of time is needed (because good luck updating every computer constantly), and any one consistent method is as good as another because they can all be converted to each other (much like feet and meters can be). The one that's been in use the longest tends to have the most support. It's similar to how people don't have much of a reason to change keyboard layouts even though QWERTY or AZERTY or whatever regional preference may not actually be the most efficient. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.210.34|172.69.210.34]] 23:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

:{{w|Decimal time|You are not first with this idea}}. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:51, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY Youtube video] that talks about just how bad time systems can get. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.210.34|172.69.210.34]] 23:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Jewish practice today still uses the system of relative hours (see Wikipedia quotes, below). The earliest and latest times where various prayers must be said, and a variety of other time-based obligations are based on specific numbers of relative hours since dawn. Most of the time, this isn't a problem, but Jews living in extreme latitudes can find this very difficult. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 15:59, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Weird numbers and the metric system? Before you try to get rid of 24 and 60 from time, why not get rid of the weird number that runs all through the metric system: 10. It really doesn't have any relevance except to a fluke of biology. And don't forget, they started with one ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator, through Paris. --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 20:17, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Some ICs use 65536 "seconds" per day internally, for example, 6AM is 0x4000 and 6PM is 0xC000.

'''From Wikipedia'''

In Judaism, an hour is defined as 1/12 of the time from sunrise to sunset, so, during the winter, an hour can be much less than 60 minutes, and during the summer, it can be much more than 60 minutes. This proportional hour is known as a sha'ah z'manit (lit. "temporal hour" [[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporal_hour]]). A Jewish hour is divided into 1080 halakim (singular: helek) or parts. A part is 3⅓ seconds or 1/18 minute. The ultimate ancestor of the helek was a small Babylonian time period called a barleycorn, itself equal to 1/72 of a Babylonian time degree (1° of celestial rotation).[6] These measures are not generally used for everyday purposes. {{unsigned|Kg}}

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar#Day_and_hours Wikipedia: Hebrew Calendar: Days and hours]

: Also:
: In old times, the hour was detected by observation of the position of the sun, or when the first three stars appeared in the night sky. During the first six hours of the day, the sun is seen in the eastern sky. At the sixth hour, the sun is always at its zenith in the sky, meaning, it is either directly overhead, or parallel (depending on the hemisphere). Those persons living in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun at noon time will appear overhead slightly towards the south, whereas for those living in the Southern Hemisphere, the sun at noon time will appear overhead slightly towards the north. From the 6th and a half hour to the 12th hour, the sun inclines towards the west, until it sets. The conclusion of a day at the end of twilight may slightly vary in minutes from place to place, depending on the elevation and the terrain. Typically, nightfall ushers in more quickly in the low-lying valleys, than it does on a high mountaintop.
: The conventional Jewish way of calibrating the time of day is to reckon the "first hour" of the day with the rise of dawn (Hebrew: עמוד השחר‬), that is to say, approximately 72 minutes before sunrise, and the end of the day commencing shortly after sunset when the first three medium-size stars have appeared in the night sky. From the moment of sunset when the sun is no longer visible until the appearance of the first three medium-size stars is a unit of time called evening twilight (Hebrew: בין השמשות‬). In the Talmud, twilight is estimated at being the time that it takes a person to walk three quarters of a biblical mile (i.e. 1,500 cubits, insofar that a biblical mile is equal to 2,000 cubits). According to Maran's Shulhan Arukh, a man traverses a biblical mile in 18 minutes, meaning, one is able to walk three quarters of a mile in 13½ minutes. According to Maimonides, a man walks a biblical mile in 24 minutes, meaning, three quarters of a mile is done in 18 minutes. In Jewish law, the short period of dusk or twilight (from the moment the sun has disappeared over the horizon until the appearance of the first three stars) is a space of time whose designation is doubtful, partly considered day and partly considered night. When the first medium-size star appears in the night sky, it is still considered day; when the second star appears, it is an ambiguous case. When the third star appears, it is the beginning of the first hour of the night. Between the break of dawn and the first three medium-size stars that appear in the night sky there are always 12 hours.
: In the Modern Age of astral science and of precise astronomical calculations, it is now possible to determine the length of the ever-changing hour by simple mathematics. To determine the length of each relative hour, one needs but simply know two variables: (a) the precise time of sunrise, and (b) the precise time of sunset. Since the actual day begins approximately 72 minutes before sunrise, and ends 13½ minutes after the sun has already set and can no longer be seen over the horizon (according to Maran), or 18 minutes (according to Maimonides), by collecting the total number of minutes in any given day and dividing the total number of minutes by 12, the dividend that one is left with is the number of minutes to each hour. In summer months, when the days are long, the length of each hour during daytime can be as much as 77 minutes or more, whereas the length of each hour during nighttime can be less than 42 minutes.
: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_hour_(Jewish_law) Wikipedia: Relative hour (Jewish law)]
:{{unsigned|Shamino}}

'''Compound time'''

It struck me that 6/6 would be a musical time signature with six beats each of wich were a sixth note - so someing like dotted quaver. {{unsigned|Arachrah}}

'''Similarity in Temperature'''

The arbitrary selection of sunrise and sunset seems to take stab at how celsius is defined - at freezing and boiling points of water (at least before 1954), which can also shift with elevation. But of course fahrenheit is even worse. [[User:Colonelheero|Colonelheero]] ([[User talk:Colonelheero|talk]]) 19:12, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

'''Corrections required'''

The second paragraph is just wrong in stating that sunrise and sunset are determined by longitude. The time of sunrise and sunset vary both by longitude and latitude. Picture the nearly sinewave shape of the terminator line on a Mercator map. Only when the sun crosses the ecliptic does the terminator become a "square wave" and the sunrise and sunset are the same regardless of latitude.

Also the statement that at 12am the sun isn't always at the zenith is a strong understatement; 12am is midnight and the sun would be closer to the nadir point than to the zenith point. The correction would be to refer to 12pm. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.179|172.69.70.179]] 01:48, 26 September 2018 (UTC)