explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2996: CIDABM

2024-10-10T17:11:16Z

Rinaku: Land of Fire

{{comic
| number = 2996
| date = October 9, 2024
| title = CIDABM
| image = cidabm_2x.png
| imagesize = 423x480px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = There's a heated debate over whether the big island of Tierra del Fuego should qualify for membership.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A BOT DANGLING AWKWARDLY FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE WIKI - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic parodies intergovernmental cooperations, such as the {{w|G7}} "group of seven" (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) or the {{w|BRICS}} group (originally '''B'''razil, '''R'''ussia, '''I'''ndia and '''C'''hina, with '''S'''outh Africa soon after rounding off the initialism before further nations attained membership). Such treaties, and other more casual associations between nations, can be based upon some close association in geographical, political, cultural and/or economic terms (or even, in some cases, by little more than sharing a common opposition to a ''different'' {{w|Trade bloc|bloc}} of nations).

The "CIDABM" group, named for the very specific membership criteria, has been formed on a rather more abstract basis than most geographically-focused groupings (e.g. {{w|NATO}} or the {{w|Pacific Islands Forum}}) and (currently) consists of four otherwise disparate islands:
*{{w|Sicily}} is an autonomous region of {{w|Italy}}, which is on the southern edge of the {{w|Eurasia}}n mainland.
*{{w|Sri Lanka}} is a nation in its own right, south of {{w|India}}, which is also on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.
*{{w|Hainan}} is a province of {{w|China}}, which is also on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.
*{{w|Tasmania}} is a state of the nation of {{w|Australia}}, south of the main {{w|Australia (continent)|continental}} mainland.

These four islands 'dangle below' their mainlands only because of the convention of having north at the top of maps. If the mapmaking convention had instead been to have south at the top, the islands might have been described as floating above their continents. Conversely, Madagascar, Newfoundland or Adelaide Island might have been applicable members of similar 'dangling' alliances where the basic premise might come from one or other different map orientations.

The big island of Tierra del Fuego ({{w|Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego}}), mentioned in the title text, is off the southern tip of the {{w|Chile}}an mainland (as well as a small bit of {{w|Argentina}}). But, unlike the others in the comic, it doesn't prominently 'dangle' south of a mainland: It has narrow channels separating its northern and northwestern sides from the mainland, and other parts of the {{w|Tierra del Fuego}} archipelago surround its southwestern side and make it appear well-connected to the mainland. In addition, it isn't a single political entity: the island is split between Chile to the west and Argentina to the east. Finally, ''Tierra del Fuego'' is Spanish for ''Land of Fire'', which may contribute to heating any debate over it.

While the banner on stage depicts each of the islands with approximately the same size, Tasmania (68,400 km²) and Sri Lanka (65,600 km²) are much larger than Hainan (35,200 km²) and Sicily (25,800 km²). Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego is in the middle sizewise (48,000 km²). Other islands that didn't make the cut for the comic are Corsica (8,700 km², south of France's mainland), Cyprus (9,300 km², south of Turkey) or Kyushu (36,800 km²) and Shikoku (18,800 km²) that are very close and south of the Japanese mainland of Honshu - like Tierra del Fuego, the status of all these islands as "awkward dangling" could be disputed, when regarding the four 'founding members' of the new coalition. Gotland (3,200 km²) and Long Island (3,600 km²) are even smaller, and like Taiwan (36,200 km²) they are arguably dangling more to the east than the south of their respective mainlands. The Isle of Wight (merely 380 km²) probably qualifies for "awkward", but not for "big"; the same likely goes for Stewart Island/Rakiura (1,746 km²), which dangles south of the South Island of New Zealand. Cuba (105,800 km²) which "dangles" south of Florida seems also not quite fitting the theme. Sumatra (482,300 km²), dangling south of the Malay peninsula, might actually be too large to qualify for the club.

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

:[A banner hangs at the top of the frame, labelled C.I.D.A.B.M., with several map segments on it. Four portions of land are shown in grey with a smaller island south of each in black.]
:[Hairbun, Cueball, Megan, and Hairy stand on a podium. The first two are shaking hands and Hairy is waving.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Geopolitical news: Sicily, Sri Lanka, Hainan, and Tasmania have joined together to form the Coalition of Islands that Dangle Awkwardly From the Bottom of a Mainland.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Geography]]

2786: UFO Evidence

2023-06-08T06:24:03Z

Rinaku: /* Explanation */ most scientists → many

{{comic
| number = 2786
| date = June 7, 2023
| title = UFO Evidence
| image = ufo_evidence_2x.png
| imagesize = 340x422px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [Decades in the future] "Well, the good news is that we've received definitive communication from aliens. The bad news is that they're asking about Cats (2019)."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ANATOMICALLY INCORRECT CAT WITH A NEED THAT WILL NOT BE SATISFIED. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[White Hat]] (presumably a [[wikipedia:Ufology|ufologist]]) accuses [[Cueball]] of being unwilling to listen to his claims for extraterrestrial life. UFO stands for "unidentified flying object" but is used in common parlance to mean a spaceship carrying beings from another planet. The term "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" (''UAP'') has been more recently adopted in official investigations (that might wish not to be instantly associated with "little green men" and their "flying saucers") and was in the news during the weeks before this comic due to the coverage of official releases (and senate hearings) regarding the official monitoring of observation reports. In these, various supposed sightings were given mundane explanations, while a few others were not but were generally considered insufficient proof of extraterrestrial visitations. A devout UFO-believer is likely to be somewhat disappointed by this, having more personal willingness to believe that the more ambiguous sightings are truly flying saucers. And possibly even that some or all of the 'explained' ones are being officially misinterpreted or misrepresented in a denialist manner for the government's/authorities' own purposes.

Cueball counters this common pushback by admitting that he once spent an entire day trying to confirm the existence of a version of [[wikipedia:Cats_(2019_film)|the 2019 film adaptation of ''Cats'']] which allegedly gave the eponymous anthropomorphic felines anatomically-correct rear ends.

The ''Cats'' movie was widely panned, in part because of the unappealing design of its CGI cat characters. On March 18, 2020, Twitter user @jackwaz claimed a friend of a friend had been hired as a VFX artist to "[https://www.avclub.com/world-unites-over-need-for-cats-producers-to-releaseth-1842396923 remove CGI buttholes]" from the digital cats, meaning that there was a version of the movie where the characters all had anatomically correct buttholes. There was a wide clamor on the internet for the release of "the butthole cut," which was never confirmed to exist.

Cueball was apparently willing to lend enough credence to such an absurd and entirely inconsequential claim to spend time researching it. The idea that he would research those claims while refusing to even entertain evidence for something as important and scientifically interesting as extraterrestrial life is implausible. The only reason why most scientists would reject such claims is a total lack of even faintly compelling evidence. As [[Cueball]] points out, if someone ever managed to present evidence of alien life that was even slightly plausible, many scientists would enthusiastically spend a great deal of time and effort trying to verify it.

The comic probably pertains to U.S. Air Force veteran and former {{w|National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency}} member [https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/lawmakers-react-to-whistleblowers-ufo-claims/ David Grusch], who is seeking whistleblower status for his claims that the U.S. government is hiding crashed alien spacecraft and corpses.[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36216745] It continues a common XKCD theme of mocking dubious claims, including [[Alien Observers|UFOs]], [[Health Drink|pseudoscience]], [[The Economic Argument|paranormal phenomena]], and [[Conspiracy Theories]], which are presented without plausible or verifiable evidence. [[Randall]]'s general attitude toward these claims is that, if any of these things were true, we would expect evidence for them by now. Complaints that there is evidence, and scientists won't look at it are utterly implausible, because such evidence would be of enormous interest to scientists, if it had even a hint of being plausible.

The title text may refer to [https://phys.org/news/2015-01-aliens-tv.html the idea that aliens could be watching our old TV]. Because radio and television signals travel at light speed, aliens light years away could theoretically receive earth entertainment years after it was originally broadcast. The idea that they are learning about us from ''Cats'', which is thought of as {{w|List of films considered the worst#Cats (2019)|one of our worst films of all time}}, is not the view of humanity most people would want to present.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat, with his finger raised, is talking to Cueball.]
:White Hat: You scientists aren't willing to take my UFO evidence seriously!
:Cueball: I once spent a whole day trying to confirm the existence of a director's cut of ''Cats'' (2019) where the cats had anatomically correct CGI butts.
:Cueball: It's honestly embarrassing how fast I'd do a 180 if your evidence seemed promising.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Aliens]]

2639: Periodic Table Changes

2022-06-30T16:10:01Z

Rinaku: typo

{{comic
| number = 2639
| date = June 29, 2022
| title = Periodic Table Changes
| image = periodic_table_changes.png
| titletext = It's nice how the end of the periodic table is flush with the edge these days, so I think we should agree no one should find any new elements after #118 unless they discover a whole row at once.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPITE ELEMENT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|periodic table}} is a table used to arrange {{w|chemical elements}} according to their chemical and physical properties. This comic proposes "changes" to the periodic table that would be more pleasant aesthetically or make the periodic table look more regular. Some of these are (somewhat) practical changes to element abbreviations that could improve clarity in English, though changing documents to use different abbreviations would probably be more trouble than it's worth. However, other changes move elements around without taking into account that elements would stop being arranged by their properties. The periodic table would stop being useful after such changes unless said changes were meant to physically change the material properties of the elements, which would be impossible{{citation needed}}, although the comic plans to solve the problem with "free training" to their atomic behavior. The attitude is similar to impossible economic plans attempted with unpleasant results, possibly a current event.

Other modifications make up new elements or remove existing ones from the table, which would not be a reasonable decision given that the periodic table is supposed to include all existing elements, whether they make the table neater or they don't.

;Move helium over here. It fits nicely!
Helium is moved from the upper right corner to the second column next to hydrogen. However, the reason it is placed at the far-right Group 18 and not Group 2 is because it is a {{w|noble gas}}, rather than a reactive {{w|alkaline earth metal}}. You could say helium is in group 2 because it has two electrons in its outer shell, but normal periodic tables place it in group 18, the noble gases, with which it has far more in common. Hydrogen has similar problems being in group 1, as it's a non-metal and the elements below it are metals which don't have much in common with it chemically. There are periodic tables that show hydrogen floating above the periodic table for that reason.

Group 18 was not known at the time of the original table, which used I-VII (1-7) for the otherwise full-height columns, which turns out to reflect the number of free ('valance') electrons in their outer 'orbit', in one useful understanding of the atomic model. When added, the new final column was called either VIII (having a full outer shell) or Group 0 (having none free) and placed to the right of VII. It was thought that these Noble gases were thought to be unable to react with other elements, but xenon compounds were discovered in 1962, and many others have been discovered since then, that are formed by a process not as trivial as being spare-valances of one element 'keying' into valance-gaps of another.

From the fourth row downwards the inserted block of Transition Metals represent a larger electron shell with more positions for free electrons and those elements to the right would have more electrons than those above them, by this measure, but their physical properties are still best dictated and aligned by the complement to the valance (i.e. the gap-size). The current numbering system shows the outer-shell electrons accurately in the rows where the ten new columns are, but the upper rows of columns 13-18 have ten more (or sixteen more, for Helium) than is the case. Similarly, once lanthinides and actinides are considered, the group number and outer-shell count becomes disconnected again in the opposite way. But it still seems useful enough to curtently label in this manner under current {{w|IUPAC}} guidance.

;Elements in this corner are cool. Add more!
TBD (to be determined). Elements in that corner, such as carbon, oxygen, phosphorous, and nitrogen, participate in covalent bonding and are the primary elements involved in biochemical reactions, which may be why they are considered cooler than other elements.

;Sp (Spite element)
Wedged between fluorine and neon. This could be a reference to spite houses, houses jammed into a narrow space to block other construction, or spite fences, which are fences built to annoy neighbors; and to the phrase 'element of spite'.

;Merge these boring metals with titanium to make *tixanium*
Tixanium (Tx) replaces five metals, including titanium (Ti). This may be a reference to the term "UX" (user experience) being used instead of "UI" (user interface) as more of an umbrella term.

While titanium certainly has an impressive name, and is used in the aerospace industry and other high-performance applications, the others are hardly boring; manganese, for example, was part of the cover story for the top-secret {{w|Project Azorian}}.

;Update Latin/Neo-Latin symbols to match names. This isn't ancient Rome.
* Sodium: Na (Natrium) => So
* Potassium: K (Kalium) => Pm
* Iron: Fe (Ferrum) => I
* Silver: Ag (Argentum) => Sv
* Gold: Au (Aurum) => Gd
* Tin: Sn (Stannum) => Tn
* Lead: Pb (Plumbum) => Ld
Since I is already used for Iodine, it gets a new abbreviation Io, and Gadolinium is re-abbreviated to Gm to free up Gd.

Note that most of these changes will actually make the table less readable if one considers languages other than English. For example, in european languages, 'I' for iron will work for Irish and Dutch, while 'Fe' currently matches in French, Italian, Portuguese, and most of the languages in Spain.

This group of changes doesn't include antimony (Sb -- stibium), but that’s because it gets replaced by “carbon III” (see below).

;Replace the blander post-transition metals with new kinds of carbon
* Indium (In) -> C II.
* Antimony (Sb) -> C III.
* Tellurium (Te) -> C IV.
* Thallium (Tl) -> C V.
* Bismuth (Bi) -> C VI.

Carbon can make four covalent bonds, which means it can form a huge range of chemicals, above all ones vital to life. The post-transition metals don't have this level of interest. If there were more chemicals like carbon, it could allow more exciting chemistry and perhaps new kinds of life.

;That W annoys me
* Tungsten: W (Wolfram) -> Tg.

Another element whose symbol doesn't match its English name. "Wolfram" is the name for tungsten in some languages and is derived from the mineral wolframite, which comes from the name "wolf rahm" in German (wolf soot).

Oddly, despite changing Latin and German abbreviations to English, Randall does not change the symbol for mercury (Hg from the Greek "hydrargyrum").

;3.4% of all elements are named after Ytterby, Sweden (pop. 3,000). Let's keep Yttrium, but rename the other 3 after bigger cities (Tokyium, Delhium, and Jakartium?) to be more fair.
Four elements -- yttrium (Y), ytterbium (Yb), terbium (Tb) and erbium (Er) -- are named after {{w|Ytterby}}, a Swedish village where they were discovered. Scandium (Sc), thulium (Tm), holmium (Ho) and gadolinium (Gd) were isolated from minerals found in the same quarry. Randall suggests naming 3 of them after some other major world cities, despite those cities having no connection to those elements.
* Terbium (Tb) -> Tokyium (Ty) - Tokyo
* Erbium (Er) -> Delhium (Dh) - Delhi
* Ytterbium (Yb) -> Jakartium (Jk) - Jakarta

Interestingly, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov Isaac Asimov] made essentially the same remark in his science essay ''The Multiplying Elements'', saying that it was a waste of element names that could have been used to honor great contributors to chemistry. One obvious candidate would be [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moseley Henry Moseley] (mentioned in another of Asimov's essays, ''The Nobel Prize That Wasn't'') who used early X-ray spectroscopy to resolve the confusion over rare earth elements, finally put the Periodic Table on a firm ground and conceived the idea of "Atomic Number".

;Inserting the lanthanides and actinides properly makes the table too wide. Triage is needed. Each element will be offered free training to help adjust to its new column.
Though the lanthanides and actinides typically are placed under the bottom of the table, they actually belong in the 6th and 7th rows of the table between the 2nd and 3rd columns, as they are numbered elements 57-70 and 89-102. This section of the table is typically excised to give the overall shape more appealing dimensions: as Randall says, properly placing these elements makes the table "too wide". He recommends that a subset of these elements be placed at the bottom of the table (making them elements 93-110) and they will receive "training" to adjust to their new columns.

The title text suggests discovering elements only in entire rows at once. Elements with more protons than 118 could be discovered in future by collisions in particle accelerators, but aren't likely to be discovered in an entire row at a time.

Changing the periodic table was also the topic of [[2214: Chemistry Nobel]], and the red-ink style of "aesthetic" revision over a complex and established diagram is highly reminiscent of [[1902: State Borders]].

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

:Changes I would make to the periodic table
:[A modified periodic table is shown, with changes in red.]

:[Helium is moved from the upper right corner to the second column next to hydrogen.]
:Move helium over here. It fits nicely!
:[Two elements labeled TBD are added to the left of boron and aluminium.]
:Elements in this corner are cool. Add more!
:[A narrow triangular shape is wedged between fluorine and neon.]
:Sp (Spite element)
:[Tx replaces five elements: scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium and manganese.]
:Merge these boring metals with titanium to make *tixanium*
:[The symbols of sodium, potassium, iron, silver, gold, tin and lead are changed to use letters from their English names.]
:Update Latin/Neo-Latin symbols to match names. This isn't ancient Rome.
:[The symbols of indium, antimony, tellurium, thallium and bismuth are changed to symbols containing the letter C followed by Roman numerals II to VI, respectively.]
:Replace the blander post-transition metals with new kinds of carbon
:[The symbol of tungsten is changed from W to Tg.]
:That W annoys me
:[Neodymium is highlighted.]
:Neodymium can stay—magnets are cool
:[A subset of lathanides and actinides are to be placed under the bottom of the main table into a single row.]
:Move
:Inserting the lanthanides and actinides properly makes the table too wide. Triage is needed. Each element will be offered free training to help adjust to its new column.
:[The symbols of terbium, erbium and ytterbium are changed to Ty, Dh and Jk, respectively.]
:3.4% of all elements are named after Ytterby, Sweden (pop. 3,000). Let's keep yttrium, but rename the other 3 after bigger cities (tokyium, delhium, and jakartium?) to be more fair.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2312: mbmbam

2020-05-28T17:31:01Z

Rinaku: /* Explanation */ typo

{{comic
| number = 2312
| date = May 27, 2020
| title = mbmbam
| image = mbmbam.png
| titletext = Hello and welcome to Millibar Millibarn Attometer, an advice show for the Planck era.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 10^-47 BROTHERS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In part, this comic is an homage to the referenced podcast, ''{{w|My Brother, My Brother, and Me}}'', which often features rapid garden-path conversations and puns and double entendres that are at once groan-worthy and delightfully witty. "MBMBAM" is an acryonym of "'''M'''y '''B'''rother, '''M'''y '''B'''rother, '''A'''nd '''M'''e".

The millibar is a metric unit of pressure (force per unit area), equal to a thousandth of a {{w|Bar (unit)|bar}}, or 100 {{w|Pascal_(unit)|Pa}}. It is slightly less than one-thousandth of sea-level atmospheric pressure on Earth.

The millibarn is a metric unit of area, equal to a thousandth of a {{w|Barn (unit)|barn}} (a humorously-named unit approximately equal to the cross-sectional area of a uranium nucleus), or 10^-31 m^2. Both units would theoretically have the symbol '''mb'''. Hence '''mbmb''' (the pressure unit multiplied by the area unit) would be a unit of force. This can be seen by applying dimensional analysis; pressure x area = (force/area) x area = force. Nobody in the comic strip discusses the magnitude of this force, but it would be 100 Pa x 10^-31 m^2 = 10^-29 newtons, or about the weight of an electron under Earth's gravity.

'''am''' would be the symbol of an {{w|Atto-|atto}}meter, or 10^-18 meters. Multiply that to create the unit '''mbmbam''', which would be a unit of energy. Specifically, it would be a unit of work: the energy expended to move an object. More dimensional analysis: force x distance = (work/distance) x distance = work. The actual value of 1 mbmbam is correctly calculated in the comic: 100 Pa x 10^-31 m^2 x 10^-18 m = 10^-47 joules. White Hat dubs this unit "one podcast".

The final panel is an extended series of puns: 'rise' referring to physically moving upward as well as biologically growing (expanding and becoming lighter and softer) as yeasts do; 'foam' referring to both {{w|quantum foam}} (the fluctuation of spacetime on very small scales due to quantum mechanics) as well as the foam generated by yeast fermenting; 'unleavened dimensions' punning on the eleven dimensions of spacetime in {{w|string theory}} (actually, ten—{{w|M theory}} says eleven), while continuing to play on the theme of yeast--in this case, the universe is presumably flat because some of its dimensions lack the Planck yeast that would make them rise.

The example used in the comic of lifting a yeast cell 1 Planck length is one of many possible examples of 1 mbmbam of work. (The {{w|Planck length}}, approximately 1.6×10^−35 m, is how far light travels in one unit of {{w|Planck time}}.) Another interpretation of 1 mbmbam would be the work necessary to pull two socially distancing (6 ft) COVID-19 {{w|Virus|virions}} apart by the thickness of a single strand of hair against the gravity they exert on each other.

The Planck Era (or {{w|Planck_units#Cosmology|Planck Epoch}}) referenced in the title text is the unimaginably short period covering the first 10^-43 s after the Big Bang, when energies were so high that the four fundamental forces were combined into one and ordinary subatomic particles didn't yet exist. It is unlikely there were advice shows during this era{{Citation needed}}, so this would likely be a modern nostalgia show for physicists. The title text is also a play on My Brother, My Brother and Me's tagline: ''An advice show for the modern era.''

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

:[Cueball, Megan, and White Hat are standing next to each other, talking. Megan has her hands raised to the side, in a shrugging gesture.]
:Megan: Odd how in physics "'''mb'''" is both millibars (pressure) and millibar'''n'''s (area).
:Megan: '''mbmb''' could mean millibar-millibarn, which is a unit of force, strangely.
:White Hat: Units are weird.

:[Same scene - Megan is now checking her phone. White Hat is raising his right index finger.]
:Cueball: So what's '''mbmbam''', the My-Brother-My-Brother-And-Me unit?
:Megan: Millibar-millibarn-attometer, I guess? That'd be a unit of energy. 10-47 Joules.
:White Hat: "One podcast"

:[Same scene in a frameless panel. Megan holds her phone to her side. White Hat has his arms raised to the side, excited.]
:Cueball: 10-47 sounds small.
:Megan: Yeah, it's roughly the energy you'd need to lift one yeast cell by one Planck length in Earth's gravity.
:White Hat: Planck yeast!

:[Same scene in a regular panel. Megan has put away her phone, and has her right index finger raised. White Hat has his hands balled into fists, frustrated.]
:Cueball: Doesn't Planck yeast rise on its own?
:Megan: Yeah, that's what makes quantum foam. But data suggests our universe is flat.
:Megan: String theory says it's because spacetime has unleavened dimensions.
:White Hat: ''...I hate you.''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring White Hat]]

1972: Autogyros

2018-03-29T09:44:53Z

Rinaku: /* Never stalls */ wp link: stall

{{comic
| number = 1972
| date = March 26, 2018
| title = Autogyros
| image = autogyros.png
| titletext = I understand modern autogyros are much more stable, so I've probably angered the autogyro people by impugning their safety. Once they finish building the autogyros they've been working on in their garages for 10 years, they'll come after me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Have created sections for explaining each of the statements, but they need to be expanded. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Randall]] has been looking at the facts about [[wikipedia:autogyro|autogyro]]s, hence the title of the comic. He has drawn [[Megan]] flying in such a vehicle with several statements of the facts he has unveiled.

Randall states that an autogyro is nothing like a [[wikipedia:helicopter|helicopter]] (which it looks like), nothing like a [[wikipedia:airplane|plane]] (but flies like one) and works like a [[wikipedia:paraplane|powered parachute or paraplane]] (which it might kind of look like except without a parachute). He continues to make a total of 12 [[#Statements|statements]] which will be explained individually below.

The final statement at the bottom right is the punch line of how strange these flying machines are, because they are safe, as long as you do not do what a pilot instinctively would do in a plane in case of a stall, because if you do so the autogyros will crash immediately... See the [[#Extremely safe|explanation below]]. That sentence is almost rendered unnecessary by the one above it that states that autogyros [[#Never stalls|never stalls]]!

Randall's conclusion is clear: Autogyros are '''''weird'''''.

In the title text Randall continues on the last statement by saying that today autogyros are much more stable. Which must refer to that this was not always the case. And this new stability probably means that a [[#Never stalls|stall situation]] is much less likely and the last statement is then not so relevant anymore.

Randall then goes on to suggest that ''the autogyro people'' will be angered by this comic, which [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/impugn#English impugns] (i.e. attacks) the safety of their beloved machines. But he keeps on mocking them. In fact, he states that they will come after him, once they have finished building the autogyros they have been working on in their garage for the last 10 years. By this, he implies that the people who work on them do this as a home garage project so they will never get them finished and able to fly. Thus, they will probably never come after him.

==Statements==
*Below each of the statements in the comic are explained
**The optimal reading order is to read them in the four columns they are arranged in:
**The left with four, the two single in the middle and the six on the right.

===Nothing like a helicopter===
''Looks like a helicopter, but is nothing like a helicopter''

It is like a helicopter in the sense that a horizontally spinning fan provides the lift. It is unlike a helicoper because A) the fan is not powered, B) the fan does not provide forward propulsion, C) it is incapable of hovering, or moving in any other direction than forward.

===Nothing like a plane===
''Flies like a plane but is nothing like a plane''

Its flight pattern resembles a plane in that it can only move forward, turns by banking, and needs to maintain forward velocity in order to climb. However, unlike a plane it can only maintain control when the rotor is loaded in the normal direction. Airplanes are "ok" when upside down, or when there's no load on the lifting surfaces. Autogyros lose control, much like a parachute under those circumstances.

===Powered parachute===
''Sort of like a powered parachute''

A [[wikipedia:paraplane|powered parachute]], also referred to as a PPC or paraplane, is a similar design except instead of a freely-rotating blade they are attached to a large parachute that acts like an airplane wing. As long as there is thrust the parachute will fill with air and maintain its wing-like characteristics, with the advantage of acting like a real parachute in the event of a loss of thrust (i.e. engine dies) wherein they come floating down at a speed significantly slower and more survivable than freefall. A single-seater can often be flown without a license and can be as inexpensive as $5,000 USD in parts.

===Rare in the US===
''Rare in the US, usually homemade. Common in Europe. ''

===Big blade on top===
''Big blade on top is not powered and spins freely'': The blades rotate due to the wind. Some autogyros use power to rotate the blade to speed before take off but the power is removed for flight.

===Flown without a license===
''Can often be flown without a license''
Autogyros are frequently built as ultralights, and that group of aircraft are a special case where licenses are not needed. (Ultralights, in the US, are aircraft that weigh less than 254lbs, carry less than 5 gallons of fuel, stall at less than 24kts, have a maximum speed less than 55kts, and carry only the pilot.)

===Cheap===
Helicopters are notorious for being extremely expensive to operate. At a typical general aviation service in the US, a two-seat aircraft may rent for under $100/hr, while a helicopter runs over $200/hr. Similarly, a small used helicopter may cost almost $200,000 while a small new autogyro may cost under $25,000. Since many people home-build their autogyros, it would often be even cheaper.

===Needs a runway to take off===
''Needs a runway to take off, but not a long one''

===Can land vertically===
An autogyro can land vertically: for that matter, so can any airplane. What matters isn't ground speed but airspeed, and as long as there's as much headwind as the landing airspeed of the aircraft, it will land vertically. Now, with fixed wing airplanes the landing speed is at least 40-50 mph, and you don't often find headwinds like that. The much lower landing airspeed of an autogyro makes vertical landings feasible.

===Cannot hover===
True hovering would require the rotor to be powered. However, an autogyro must be moving forward relative to airspeed in order for the rotor to generate lift.

===Never stalls===
Most conditions that would cause a [[wikipedia:Stall (fluid mechanics)|stall]] in a fixed wing airplane such as low speeds, high-G maneuvers, and gusty winds don't apply to autogyros.
The rotor in an autogyro is in equilibrium, the inner, slower part is stalled, the middle part makes it spin and the outer, faster part slows down the rotor and provides lift. As the angle of attack increases, a fixed wing aircraft would stall, however, on an autogyro, it will just make the lift-generating area smaller, causing the rotor to automatically spin faster and the equilibrium is restored.

This is not entirely correct however. If you reduce the forward speed of an autogyro, the rotor slows down, reducing lift so the autogyro will descend. Under most circumstances, this would lead to a controlled landing. However, if it happens at high altitude, you can run out of lift completely while still high above the ground causing a stall. This is more likely to happen if there is a strong tailwind.

===Extremely safe===
''Extremely safe, unless you do the one thing you instinctively do to escape a stall in a normal airplane, in which case it will crash immediately''

Autogyros are considered safe due to their slow landing speed, which is important in emergency landings, their forgiving behavior in windy conditions and the fact they are almost impossible to stall. This is thanks to the freely spinning rotor. Unfortunately, as soon as the rotor stops spinning, the whole aircraft falls like a brick and the rotor may be impossible to restart in flight. This is a situation that should be avoided at all costs.

Normally it is not a problem since the weight of the aircraft keeps the rotor spinning. However, if the weight becomes too low or even negative, the angle of attack will become negative, and the rotor will slow down and eventually stop. It can happen when the pilot "pushes on the stick" and dives.

Unfortunately, "pushing on the stick" is also how you escape a stall in a fixed wing (normal) airplane as it is a way to regain airspeed. This is actually a counter-intuitive maneuver but because a stall is an emergency, pilots are trained to do it instinctively. It can trick a pilot trained in fixed wing aircraft into doing the one thing that shouldn't be done on a gyro.

==Transcript==

:[A picture of Megan wearing aviator goggles, sitting in an autogyro and holding the control stick. The autogyro is surrounded by sentence fragments, explaining characteristics of it. The one above the blade that concerns the blade has an arrow pointing from the text to the blade. The sentences in columns from the left (i.e. first four sentences to the left, then two above the autogyro's body, and finally six sentences to the right):]
:Looks like a helicopter, but is nothing like a helicopter
:Flies like a plane but is nothing like a plane
:Sort of like a powered parachute
:Rare in the US, usually homemade. Common in Europe.
:Big blade on top is not powered and spins freely
:Can often be flown without a license
:Cheap
:Needs a runway to take off, but not a long one
:Can land vertically
:Cannot hover
:Never stalls
:Extremely safe, unless you do the '''''one''''' thing you instinctively do to escape a stall in a normal airplane, in which case it will crash immediately.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Autogyros are '''''weird'''''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1957: 2018 CVE List

2018-02-20T19:42:47Z

Rinaku: /* Table of possible CVE */ link

{{comic
| number = 1957
| date = February 19, 2018
| title = 2018 CVE List
| image = 2018_cve_list.png
| titletext = CVE-2018-?????: It turns out Bruce Schneier is just two mischevious kids in a trenchcoat.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by HACKING THIS WIKI VIA THE EDIT BOX - The explanation looks like a list. Explain the comic and put the security vulnerabilities in a table. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures|CVE}} (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) is a standardized format for assigning an identity to a cybersecurity vulnerability (similar to the way that astronomical bodies are assigned unique identifiers by committees). Giving vulnerabilities a unique identifier makes them easier to talk about and helps in keeping track of the progress made toward resolving them. The typical format of a CVE identifier is '''CVE-[YEAR]-[NUMBER]'''. For example, the CVE identifier for 2017's widespread {{w|Meltdown (security vulnerability|Meltdown vulnerability}} is [https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-5754 CVE-2017-5754]. CVEs also contain a short description of the issue.

In this comic (released in February 2018), Randall presents a number of spurious predicted CVEs for later in 2018. Each CVE identifier is given as "CVE-2018-?????", reflecting the fact that they have not yet happened so we don't know exactly what their CVE identifier will be.

==Table of possible CVE==
{|class="wikitable"
! style="width: 30%;" | Security Vulnerability
! style="width: 70%;" | Notes
|-
|Apple products crash when displaying certain Telugu or Bengali letter combinations.
|This refers to a real vulnerability in iOS and MacOS publicized a few days before the comic released <ref>https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/15/iphone-text-bomb-ios-mac-crash-apple/</ref>, as well as past similar iOS vulnerabilities<ref>https://thenextweb.com/apps/2017/01/18/iphone-ipad-apple-text-ios-bug/</ref><ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/01/18/apple-text-bomb-can-crash-iphones-single-message/</ref>.
|-
|An attacker can use a timing attack to extploit [''sic''] a race condition in garbage collection to extract a limited number of bits from the Wikipedia article on Claude Shannon.
|Timing Attack to exploit a race condition in garbage collection refers to Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws that can be exploited in cloud server like the ones in Wikipedia. {{w|Claude Shannon}} was an early and highly influential information scientist whose work underlies compression, encryption, security, and the theory behind how information is encoded into binary digits - hence the pertinence of extracting just some of the bits from his Wikipedia entry.
|-
|At the cafe on Third Street, the Post-it note with the WiFi password is visible from the sidewalk.
|Generally speaking, writing passwords in a visible place is a major security flaw. For instance, following the [[wikipedia:2018 Hawaii false missile alert|2018 Hawaii false missile alert]] the agency received criticism for a press photo showing a password written on a sticky note attached to a monitor.<ref>http://uk.businessinsider.com/hawaii-emergency-agency-password-discovered-in-photo-sparks-security-criticism-2018-1?r=US&IR=T</ref> That said, if a WiFi network is meant to be used publicly in the first place, making the password public is a courtesy, not a security flaw. Cafés in particular will usually offer free WiFi service to patrons, as a business strategy to encourage said patrons to remain in the building and buy more coffee. Such WiFi networks also have limited range, and at worst can only be accessed a stone's throw away from the place of business, making it difficult for people to leech off the WiFi without patronizing the establishment and avoid being caught.
|-
|A remote attacker can inject arbitrary text into public-facing pages via the comments box.
|Describes a common feature on news sites or social media sites like Facebook. The possibility for users to "inject" text into the page is by design. This is a humorous reference to the relatively common security vulnerability "[[Wikipedia:Cross-site_scripting|persistent cross-site scripting]]", where input provided by the user is displayed to other users in a dangerous fashion that allows attackers to inject arbitrary HTML or Javascript code into e.g. a comment section. It might also be a humorous reference to the events before, during and after the 2016 US Presidential elections where Internet Research Agency employees based remotely in St. Petersburg, Russia, but disguised as US citizens, "injected" arbitrary text in the form of political propaganda into comments on multiple web sites, according to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on February 16, 2018.
|-
|MySQL server 5.5.45 secretly runs two parallel databases for people who say "S-Q-L" and "sequel."
|Some people pronounce "{{w|SQL}}" like "sequel", after SQL's predecessor "SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language)". The standard for SQL suggests that it should be pronounced as separate letters; however, the author of SQL pronounces it "sequel", so the debate is persisting (with even more justification than arguments about how to pronounce "GIF"). MySQL is an open-source relational database management system, the latest GA version (at the time of writing) is MySQL 5.7.
|-
|A flaw in some x86 CPUs could allow a root user to de-escalate to normal account privileges.
|{{w|Privilege escalation}} refers to any illegitimate means of giving a system user greater privilege than they are supposed to have, and most hackers will seek to achieve this if they can. The most highly-sought privilege is that of the root user, which allows complete access to an entire system.

This CVE, however, presents the reverse situation; that a flaw can allow a root user to ''de-escalate'', the exact opposite of what a hacker would want to achieve.{{Citation needed}} (In any case, the root user can always de-escalate manually if they so choose, as they have complete control).
|-
|Apple products catch fire when displaying emoji with diacritics.
|Diacritics are the accents found on letters in some languages (eg. č, ģ ķ, ļ, ņ, š, ž). These would not be found on emojis. It is also a reference to a common problem of modern gadgets catching fire (usually related to flaws in Lithium-Ion batteries).
|-
|An oversight in the rules allows a dog to join a basketball team.
|This likely refers to the movie {{w|Air Bud}}. It is a movie about a dog playing basketball. This has been a common theme in xkcd comics, see [[115: Meerkat]], [[1439: Rack Unit]], [[1819: Sweet 16]], [[1552: Rulebook]]
|-
|Haskell isn't side-effect-free after all; the effects are all just concentrated in this one. computer [''sic''] in Missouri that no one's checked on in a while.
|{{w|Haskell (programming language)|Haskell}} is a functional programming language, functional programming is characterized by using functions that don't have side effects in other parts of the program, as in [[1312: Haskell]]. The joke here is discovering that indeed it does have side-effects, but for some unknown (and highly absurd) reason they only manifest on a specific computer in a nondescript location, but no one has noticed.
|-
|Nobody really knows how hypervisors work.
|[[wikipedia:Hypervisor|"Hypervisors"]] are a tool for computer virtualization. Virtualization is an extremely complex topic, as it requires a computer to completely emulate a different computer with its own unique hardware and software. Many IT professionals and businesses rely heavily on various forms of virtualization, but the individual employees would be hard-pressed to explain how it works. Meltdown and Spectre are related to this.
|-
|Critical: Under Linux 3.14.8 on System/390 in a UTC+14 time zone, a local user could potentially use a buffer overflow to change another user's default system clock from 12-hour to 24-hour.
|This joke is about arcane systems that are running Linux in exceedingly unique situations, such that reproducing the error would be incredibly difficult or inconvenient, and would only affect a very tiny user base (if any at all). Other xkcd comics make references to such obscure computer-time issues relating to time zones and time conversions, and how many programmers find these issues frustrating or even traumatizing. UTC+14 is a time zone used only on some islands in the Pacific Ocean, i.e., [[Wikipedia:Line_Islands|the Line Islands]], and is also the earliest time zone on earth. The joke continues by stating that even if all of these absurd conditions were met, the resulting vulnerability would still be relatively benign: simply changing a user's preferred clock display format.
|-
|x86 has way too many instructions.
|The x86 architecture is considered "CISC" (a "{{w|Complex instruction set computer}}"), having many instructions originally provided to make programming by a human simpler; other examples include the 68000 series used in the first {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}} {{w|Macintosh}}. In the 1980s, this design philosophy was countered by the "RISC" ("{{w|Reduced instruction set computer}}") design movement exemplified by {{w|SPARC}}, {{w|MIPS}}, {{w|PowerPC}} (previously used by Apple) and the ARM chips common in mobile phones - based on the observation that computer programs were increasingly generated by compilers (which only used a few instructions) rather than directly by people, and that the chip area dedicated to extra instructions could be better dedicated to, for example, cache. At the time, there was an internet war about the merits of each approach (with the Mac and PC being on different sides, at one time; owners of other competing systems such as the Archimedes and Amiga had similar arguments on usenet in the early 1990s); this "issue" may be posted by someone who still recalls these debates. Technically, the extra instructions do slightly complicate the task of validating correct chip behaviour and complicate the tool chains that manage software, which could be seen as a minor security risk; however, the 64-bit architecture introduced by {{w|AMD}} and since adopted by {{w|Intel}} does rationalise things somewhat, and all recent x86 chips break down instructions into RISC-like micro-operations, so the complication from a hardware perspective is localised. Recent security issues such as the speculative cache load issue in Meltdown and Spectre depend more on details of implementation rather than instruction set, and have been exhibited both by x86 (CISC) and ARM (RISC) processors.
|-
|NumPy 1.8.0 can factor primes in ''O''(log ''n'') time and must be quietly deprecated before anyone notices.
|NumPy is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python. ''O''(log ''n'') is [[wikipedia:Big_O_notation#Infinite_asymptotics|Big O notation]] meaning that the time it takes for a computer algorithm to run is in the order of log ''n'', for an input of size ''n''. ''O''(log ''n'') is very fast and is more usual for a search algorithm. Prime factorization currently is ''O''(''2''''n''n). If something can find the prime factors of a number this quickly, especially a [[wikipedia:semiprime|semiprime]] with two large factors, there are attacks to break many crypto functions used in internet security. However, prime numbers have only a single factor, and "factoring primes" quickly is a simpler problem, that of [[wikipedia:Primality test|proving that a number is in fact a prime]].
|-
|Apple products grant remote access if you send them words that break the "I before E" rule.
|Another joke on the first CVE and [[wikipedia:I before E except after C|a common English writing rule of thumb]], which fails almost as often as it succeeds. Possibly a jab at Apple's image, portraying their software as unable to handle improper grammar or spelling.
|-
|Skylake x86 chips can be pried from their sockets using certain flathead screwdrivers.
|Skylake x86 chips are a line of microprocessors made by Intel. Some processors are soldered directly to a system board or daughter board, while others are attached to boards that plug into the system board by means of a socket (pins or connectors that make physical contact with receptacles or connectors on a system board). Some sockets, especially older ones, require force to insert or remove and often require the use of a flat blade screwdriver or a specialized tool to remove, but most modern ones use ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) techniques, often involving a lever or similar to tighten or loosen the friction/tightness of the contacts. No screwdriver is needed in this case. Yes, you can forcefully remove any processor from its socket with a screwdriver.{{Citation needed}} There are many reports from people not using common sense.
|-
|Apparently Linus Torvalds can be bribed pretty easily.
|{{w|Linus Torvalds}} is the benevolent dictator of the Linux kernel codebase. Normally it is hard to pass a change because he has the last word about what merge to the code base because that code is replicated in all Linux installations. Linus made the news in January 2018 when, having looked at one of Intel's proposed fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, he declared "the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE"<ref>https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/22/linus-torvalds-declares-intel-fix-for-meltdown-spectre-complete-and-utter-garbage/</ref>. Presumably in the future they will successfully bribe him to be less blunt and/or less critical of vulnerability fixes that are complete and/or utter garbage. If this were the case, this would be a severe critical vulnerability to all Linux servers and machines.
|-
|An attacker can execute malicious code on their own machine and no one can stop them.
|The point of an attack is to make someone else's machine perform actions against the owner's will. Anyone can make their own machine execute any code{{Citation needed}}, but this would usually not be described as an attack except in the case of a locked-down appliance, such as a video game console or pay TV decoder.
|-
|Apple products execute any code printed over a photo of a dog with a saddle and a baby riding it.
|This could refer to a CVE vulnerability of JPG files where javascript embedded within the image file is executed by some application, only this time the code is visible on the image instead of invisibly encoded within the image file, however such code is only executed if the image contains a photo of a baby in a saddle riding a dog. It's unclear whether the photo would be a digital photo, a printed photo (i.e. as taken using the digital camera), or maybe both. This "bug" would not only require the device to figure out specifically what the photo contains image-wise, something that's REALLY HARD for computers to do reliably, it would also require OCR (Optical Character Recognition) type code to convert the text superimposed on the photo into executable code. In other words, it's hard to believe in 2018 that such a bug could exist. Maybe in the future when such things are more routine...? As an example, OCR used to be hard to do reliably and now it's a lot more routine and built into a lot of devices.
|-
|Under rare circumstances, a flaw in some versions of Windows could allow Flash to be installed.
|Flash has been an integral browser plugin for decades but has fallen out of favor in the 2010s, and eventually discontinued because of its notoriously abysmal security record. All security experts advise against install. The joke here relates to the perceived difficulty with keeping Flash up to date or even installed properly to begin with. A common user experience which is the subject of numerous jokes and memes is the constant nagging notification to install or update Flash in order for web pages to display properly. While anecdotal, many IT professionals will bemoan the trouble that Flash has given them in the workplace due to these notifications and problems related to them.
|-
|Turns out the cloud is just other people's computers.
|This refers to a computer meme where replace "cloud" with "other people's computers" must be used in all marketing presentation to CEOs and not computer literate persons to evaluate the security impact of using "Cloud services". Part of the humor here is that "the cloud", in actuality, is simply a term for hosted services, i.e., computers being run by other people (typically businesses that specialize in this type of "Platform As A Service" or "PAAS" service model). Calling "the cloud" as "other people's computers" is, at its core, entirely accurate, though it takes away the business jargon and simplifies the situation in such a way that it might cast doubt on the security, reliability, and general effectiveness of using "cloud" solutions.
|-
|A flaw in Mitre's CVE database allows arbitrary code insertion.[[779|[~~CLICK HERE FOR CHEAP VIAGRA~~]]]
|Mitre's CVE database is the database where all CVE are stored. This log message forms the punchline of the comic, as it implies that all of the exaggerated error messages above were inserted by hackers exploiting the vulnerability. To pour salt in the wound, they then included in a typical spam link purporting to offer cheap viagra.
|-
|It turns out Bruce Schneier is just two mischevious [''sic''] kids in a trenchcoat. (Title text)
|{{w|Bruce Schneier}} is security researcher and blogger. The "two kids in a trenchcoat" is a reference to the {{tvtropes|TotemPoleTrench|Totem Pole Trench}} trope.
|}

== References ==
<references/>

==Transcript==
:[A heading is centered above a list of 21 vulnerabilities]
:<big>Leaked list of major 2018 security vulnerabilities </big>

:CVE-2018-????? Apple products crash when displaying certain Telugu or Bengali letter combinations.
:CVE-2018-????? An attacker can use a timing attack to extploit a race condition in garbage collection to extract a limited number of bits from the Wikipedia article on Claude Shannon.
:CVE-2018-????? At the cafe on Third Street, the Post-it note with the WiFi password is visible from the sidewalk.
:CVE-2018-????? A remote attacker can inject arbitrary text into public-facing pages via the comments box.
:CVE-2018-????? MySQL server 5.5.45 secretly runs two parallel databases for people who say "S-Q-L" and "sequel."
:CVE-2018-????? A flaw in some x86 CPUs could allow a root user to de-escalate to normal account privileges.
:CVE-2018-????? Apple products catch fire when displaying emoji with diacritics.
:CVE-2018-????? An oversight in the rules allows a dog to join a basketball team.
:CVE-2018-????? Haskell isn't side-effect-free after all; the effects are all just concentrated in this one. computer in Missouri that no one's checked on in a while.
:CVE-2018-????? Nobody really knows how hypervisors work.
:CVE-2018-????? Critical: Under Linux 3.14.8 on System/390 in a UTC+14 time zone, a local user could potentially use a buffer overflow to change another user's default system clock from 12-hour to 24-hour.
:CVE-2018-????? x86 has way too many instructions.
:CVE-2018-????? NumPy 1.8.0 can factor primes in ''O''(log ''n'') time and must be quietly deprecated before anyone notices.
:CVE-2018-????? Apple products grant remote access if you send them words that break the "I before E" rule.
:CVE-2018-????? Skylake x86 chips can be pried from their sockets using certain flathead screwdrivers.
:CVE-2018-????? Apparently Linus Torvalds can be bribed pretty easily.
:CVE-2018-????? An attacker can execute malicious code on their own machine and no one can stop them.
:CVE-2018-????? Apple products execute any code printed over a photo of a dog with a saddle and a baby riding it.
:CVE-2018-????? Under rare circumstances, a flaw in some versions of Windows could allow Flash to be installed.
:CVE-2018-????? Turns out the cloud is just other people's computers.
:CVE-2018-????? A flaw in Mitre's CVE database allows arbitrary code insertion.[~~Click here for cheap viagra~~]

==Trivia=

Randall has previously referenced diacritics in [[1647: Diacritics]].

Bruce Schneier was previously mentioned in the title texts of [[748: Worst-Case Scenario]] and [[1039: RuBisCO]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]

1636: XKCD Stack

2016-01-29T20:52:40Z

Rinaku: /* Explanation of steps */

{{comic
| number = 1636
| date = January 29, 2016
| title = XKCD Stack
| image = xkcd_stack.png
| titletext = This site requires Sun Java 6.0.0.1 (32-bit) or higher. You have Macromedia Java 7.3.8.1¾ (48-bit). Click here [link to java.com main page] to download an installer which will run fine but not really change anything.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more detail. The table is great but should be corrected to not refer to a persons view or feelings. ''I think'' phrases are used more than once at the moment.}}

In software engineering, a tech stack is the set of technology platforms and tools that a company or app uses. A common tech stack is LAMP, composed of a Linux operating system, an Apache web server, a MySQL database, and the PHP programming language. In this comic, the XKCD stack is introduced. The technologies comprising it are either non-existent, unreliable, or outdated.

===Explanation of steps===
{| class="wikitable"
| | Layer
| | Explanation
|-
| |
EBNF/CSS
| |
BNF or {{w|Backus–Naur Form}} is a syntax used for describing {{w|context-free grammars}}.
{{w|Extended Backus–Naur Form|EBNF}} is "Extended BNF", it is the same thing as BNF with a few more syntactic constructs intended to ease its use in the most common cases. [[1343: Manuals]] mentionned EBNF.

CSS or {{w|Cascading Style Sheets}} are a language used to describe what a web page should look like. Web pages are usually written in {{w|HTML}}, which describes the ''structure'' of the page (i.e. divides the document into paragraphs, lists, etc.) complemented with CSS which describes the ''look and feel'' of the page (colors, fonts, margins, etc.). EBNF/CSS would suggest CSS with strange syntax.
|-
| |
Broken Java Applet
| |
In recent years it has become more difficult to run {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} {{w|Applet|applets}} in several browsers. {{w|Google Chrome|Chrome}} 45 stopped supporting {{w|NPAPI}}, {{w|Mozilla Firefox|Firefox}} will drop support by 2016 and {{w|Microsoft Edge|Edge}} do not support NPAPI plugins at all. Furthermore, two days before this comic was published {{w|Oracle Corporation|Oracle}} (the developer of Java) announced plans to officially end support of Java applets in an upcoming version.
|-
| |
Archive.org Mirror
| |
{{w|Internet Archive|Archive.org}} is a website which archives websites, and created the {{w|Wayback Machine}}. An Archive.org mirror would be a duplicate of a website on Archive.org's servers. As Archive.org attempts to mirror the whole Internet, Archive.org's mirror would be rather big. Moreover, the backup of Archive.org should not back up Archive.org itself or, otherwise, create an infinite backup loop.

|-
| |
Hypercard.js
| |
{{w|HyperCard}} can be considered as a kind of predecessor for the world wide web developed at {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}}. The file extension .js indicates that is was rewritten in {{w|JavaScript}}. A similar reference to JavaScript is found in [[1508: Operating Systems]]. The .js extension also refers to node.js, where most library names end in .js
|-
| |
QBasic on Rails
| |
A mix between {{w|QBasic}} and {{w|Ruby on Rails}}. QBasic was programming language on first PCs, known for spaghetti code. {{w|Ruby (programming language)|Ruby}} is a rather modern language, often used with Ruby on Rails web application framework. QBasic on Rails would likely mean rewrite of Ruby on Rails from Ruby to QBasic. QBasic no longer runs on modern computers, however a free {{w|open source}} rewrite of QBasic, called [http://www.qb64.net/ QB64], is available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android. There also exists a webserver on BASIC called [http://www.runbasic.com/ RunBasic].

|-
| |
[Blocked by AdBlocker]
| |
{{w|Ad blocking}} software are extensions to browsers that try to remove ads from web pages, so the user is not distracted by them. [[624: Branding]] shows what "browsing without adblock" looks like. The joke is that AdBlocker is preventing us from seeing what makes up this portion of the stack.
|-
| |
MongoDB/Excel
| |
{{w|MongoDB}} is a modern {{w|NoSQL}} {{w|Database|database}} system, {{w|Microsoft Excel}} is a {{w|Spreadsheet|spreadsheet}} program from Microsoft, which is sometimes misused as a database system.

|-
| |
Some piece that works so nobody asks any questions
| |
Writing any non-trivial piece of software always require a phase of {{w|debugging}}, which consists in finding and fixing {{w|Software bug|bugs}}. With complex software, this is a long and tiring process, so when the product is finally finished no one dares to modify it any further for fear that it will fail in unexpected ways. After some time passes, it is even worse because nobody really remembers how the software was ''supposed'' to work, so the product becomes some kind of godlike treasure which must be treated with the utmost respect and reverence because, you know, if it stops working we're all doomed.
|-
| |
Triply-Nested Docker
| |
{{w|Docker (software)|Docker}} allows complete operating system to run under different operating system (OS) (with some performance penalty). Triply-nested docker would mean OS A running under OS B running under OS C running under OS D (running under OS E?). That would likely be a performance and management nightmare
|-
| |
Paravirtual Boy®
| |
This is a reference to the {{w|Virtual Boy}}, a failed portable console created by {{w|Nintendo}}. {{w|Paravirtualization}} is a common buzzword in the virtualization community these days. "Virtual X" means simulated X. "Paravirtual X" means X is simulated, but is aware of simulation and cooperating, for faster performance. I hope the triply-nested Docker above runs paravirtualized.
|-
| |
A dev typing real fast
| |
A dev is a {{w|Software developer|software developer}}. This is possibly a reference to [[341: 1337: Part 1]], where [[Mrs. Roberts]] edits the {{w|Transmission Control Protocol|TCP}} stream live while wearing oven mitts and baking cookies. Such a feat would require real fast typing. It looks like xkcd webserver is not a computer after all -- we have a person manually replying to HTTP protocol queries. I guess she's busy.

|-
| |
Older version of our software
| |
People are often reluctant to switch to newer versions of software because, even though newer versions are supposed to have more features and fewer bugs, they end up confusing users. Users of older versions are used to doing everything with less features and circumventing old bugs. They don't know how to use the new features, which of course come with new bugs they haven't learned how to circumvent yet. It is also often the case that newer versions remove weird unused old features, breaking the workflow of users who actually did use such features and are left without a suitable replacement.
|-
| |
Mystery Networking Horror
| |
Randall suggests here that the whole networking stuff behind the XKCD service is both mysterious (no one actually knows the details) and horrific (technically questionable architecture and implementation, or somehow tentacled and eldritch in nature).
|-
| |
Microsoft Bob Server®
| |
{{w|Microsoft Bob}} was a short-lived, failed attempt by Microsoft, around 1995, to provide a user-friendly interface for the {{w|Microsoft Windows|Windows}} 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems. It consisted of a virtual "house" and "rooms", and the idea was that you could click on a pen and open the word processor. It was heavily criticized and was soon discontinued. Randall seems to be making the suggestion the Bob has continued to be developed and now there's a Bob Server, similarly to Windows server.
|-
| |
A giant {{w|Central processing unit|CPU}} someone built in Minecraft
| |
{{w|Minecraft}} is a popular sandbox game where you place blocks to build things. Since the introduction of Redstone objects (materials used to create basic electric circuits within the game) people have made many machines within Minecraft, including calculators and clocks. The most complex of these machines simulate simple computers, capable of storing several lines of code and performing basic mathematical operations such as division, which requires thousands of blocks and extremely complex designs.
|}

The title text contains several jokes about the Java programming language:

* First, it refers to Java both as {{w|Sun Microsystems|Sun}} Java and {{w|Macromedia}} Java. This is a pun on the fact that older documents refer to "Sun Java" where newer documents refer to "{{w|Oracle Corporation|Oracle}} Java", as if there were two different languages. The fact is that Java was designed originally by Sun and then bought by Oracle, so it "changed name" even though the language is the same. Macromedia was the company that developed Flash before it was bought by Adobe. Both Flash and Java were popular in the early WWW to have interactive web pages, but both are being deprecated in favor of JavaScript.

* Second, the version numbers: older software products used to have two version numbers: major and minor (e.g. in {{w|MS-DOS}} 6.22 the major number is 6 and the minor is 22). Newer products tend to have hundreds of minor revisions, all of them numbered, so a typical user may well find themself updating version 6.0.0.1 to 7.3.8.1 without knowing at all the differences between both versions or which other versions are in between. The ¾ in the Macromedia Java version is a joke on complex version numbers, which (so far) have never included fractions. It also can be reference to [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Platform_Nine_and_Three-Quarters platform 9 ¾].

* Third, the 32-bit or 48-bit version: The {{w|Intel 80386}} processor used an architecture known as {{w|IA-32}}, which implies the data bus is 32-bit wide and thus able to handle up to 4{{w|Gibibyte|GiB}} of {{w|Random-access memory|RAM}} memory. This was plenty for the early 1990s, when a typical home PC would have about 8MiB (this is 512 times less than 4GiB). However, about 10 years after that, a typical home PC could well use more than 4GiB of RAM, so several 64-bit architectures were created. These architectures are not compatible, so programs (including the Java Runtime Environment, or JRE) often have 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Furthermore, the JRE is heavily used by many web browsers, and for this to work the JRE and browser need to be the same "number of bits". This means that most people have installed both versions of the JRE to be able to use it with both 32-bit and 64-bit browsers. There's no 48-bit architecture (though some 64-bit processors including the {{w|x86-64|most common ones}} don't actually USE all 64 bits everywhere, ignoring some bits so actual virtual or physical memory is smaller (in case of most common one, 48bits virtual and 40bits physical), they simulate a full 64-bit environment to allow adding more bits later, so there are no specific 48-bit applications).

* Fourth, an application trying to let the user install a new version of the JRE should direct the user to the download page in the [http://java.com/ java.com site], not to the main page which deals with lots of issues with java and is not particularly helpful when trying to update the JRE.

* Fifth, and continuing with the joke of users updating 6.0.0.1 to 7.3.8.1¾ and not knowing why they should, the new version is said to "run fine but not really change anything". This is the usual behavior for Java updates: they run fine (possibly in opposition to [[1197: All Adobe Updates]], where updating must be done several times and the user is never sure they have installed all the newest updates), but after finished updating the user can't see any difference with the previous behavior, and/or may still be told that an update is required. Considering that 7.3.8.1¾ is bigger number than 6.0.0.1, it can also refer to the fact that the test for upgrading is incorrect and 7.3.8.1¾ is actually newer version.

==Transcript==

:Introducing

:The XKCD Stack
:{| class="wikitable"
| |
EBNF/CSS
|-
| |
Broken Java Applet
|-
| |
Archive.org Mirror
|-
| |
Hypercard.js
|-
| |
QBasic on Rails
|-
| |
[Blocked by AdBlocker]
|-
| |
MongoDB/Excel
|-
| |
Some piece that works so nobody asks any questions
|-
| |
Triply-Nested Docker
|-
| |
Paravirtual Boy®
|-
| |
A dev typing real fast
|-
| |
Older version of our software
|-
| |
Mystery Networking Horror
|-
| |
Microsoft Bob Server®
|-
| |
A giant CPU someone built in Minecraft
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Video games]]

1636: XKCD Stack

2016-01-29T20:50:34Z

Rinaku: /* Explanation of steps */

{{comic
| number = 1636
| date = January 29, 2016
| title = XKCD Stack
| image = xkcd_stack.png
| titletext = This site requires Sun Java 6.0.0.1 (32-bit) or higher. You have Macromedia Java 7.3.8.1¾ (48-bit). Click here [link to java.com main page] to download an installer which will run fine but not really change anything.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more detail. The table is great but should be corrected to not refer to a persons view or feelings. ''I think'' phrases are used more than once at the moment.}}

In software engineering, a tech stack is the set of technology platforms and tools that a company or app uses. A common tech stack is LAMP, composed of a Linux operating system, an Apache web server, a MySQL database, and the PHP programming language. In this comic, the XKCD stack is introduced. The technologies comprising it are either non-existent, unreliable, or outdated.

===Explanation of steps===
{| class="wikitable"
| | Layer
| | Explanation
|-
| |
EBNF/CSS
| |
BNF or {{w|Backus–Naur Form}} is a syntax used for describing {{w|context-free grammars}}.
{{w|Extended Backus–Naur Form|EBNF}} is "Extended BNF", it is the same thing as BNF with a few more syntactic constructs intended to ease its use in the most common cases. [[1343: Manuals]] mentionned EBNF.

CSS or {{w|Cascading Style Sheets}} are a language used to describe what a web page should look like. Web pages are usually written in {{w|HTML}}, which describes the ''structure'' of the page (i.e. divides the document into paragraphs, lists, etc.) complemented with CSS which describes the ''look and feel'' of the page (colors, fonts, margins, etc.). EBNF/CSS would suggest CSS with strange syntax.
|-
| |
Broken Java Applet
| |
In recent years it has become more difficult to run {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} {{w|Applet|applets}} in several browsers. {{w|Google Chrome|Chrome}} 45 stopped supporting {{w|NPAPI}}, {{w|Mozilla Firefox|Firefox}} will drop support by 2016 and {{w|Microsoft Edge|Edge}} do not support NPAPI plugins at all. Furthermore, two days before this comic was published {{w|Oracle Corporation|Oracle}} (the developer of Java) announced plans to officially end support of Java applets in an upcoming version.
|-
| |
Archive.org Mirror
| |
{{w|Internet Archive|Archive.org}} is a website which archives websites, and created the {{w|Wayback Machine}}. An Archive.org mirror would be a duplicate of a website on Archive.org's servers. As Archive.org attempts to mirror the whole Internet, Archive.org's mirror would be rather big. Moreover, the backup of Archive.org should not back up Archive.org itself or, otherwise, create an infinite backup loop.

|-
| |
Hypercard.js
| |
{{w|HyperCard}} can be considered as a kind of predecessor for the world wide web developed at {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}}. The file extension .js indicates that is was rewritten in {{w|JavaScript}}. A similar reference to JavaScript is found in [[1508: Operating Systems]]. The .js extension also refers to node.js, where most library names end in .js
|-
| |
QBasic on Rails
| |
A mix between {{w|QBasic}} and {{w|Ruby on Rails}}. QBasic was programming language on first PCs, known for spaghetti code. {{w|Ruby (programming language)|Ruby}} is a rather modern language, often used with Ruby on Rails web application framework. QBasic on Rails would likely mean rewrite of Ruby on Rails from Ruby to QBasic. QBasic no longer runs on modern computers, however a free {{w|open source}} rewrite of QBasic, called [http://www.qb64.net/ QB64], is available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android. There also exists a webserver on BASIC called [http://www.runbasic.com/ RunBasic].

|-
| |
[Blocked by AdBlocker]
| |
{{w|Ad blocking}} software are extensions to browsers that try to remove ads from web pages, so the user is not distracted by them. [[624: Branding]] shows what "browsing without adblock" looks like. The joke is that AdBlocker is preventing us from seeing what makes up this portion of the stack.
|-
| |
MongoDB/Excel
| |
{{w|MongoDB}} is a modern {{w|NoSQL}} {{w|Database|database}} system, {{w|Microsoft Excel}} is a {{w|Spreadsheet|spreadsheet}} program from Microsoft, which is sometimes misused as a database system.

|-
| |
Some piece that works so nobody asks any questions
| |
Writing any non-trivial piece of software always require a phase of {{w|debugging}}, which consists in finding and fixing {{w|Software bug|bugs}}. With complex software, this is a long and tiring process, so when the product is finally finished no one dares to modify it any further for fear that it will fail in unexpected ways. After some time passes, it is even worse because nobody really remembers how the software was ''supposed'' to work, so the product becomes some kind of godlike treasure which must be treated with the utmost respect and reverence because, you know, if it stops working we're all doomed.
|-
| |
Triply-Nested Docker
| |
{{w|Docker (software)|Docker}} allows complete operating system to run under different operating system (with some performance penalty). Triply-nested docker would mean operating system A running under operating system B running under operating system C running under operating system D. That would likely be a performance and management nightmare
|-
| |
Paravirtual Boy®
| |
This is a reference to the {{w|Virtual Boy}}, a failed portable console created by {{w|Nintendo}}. {{w|Paravirtualization}} is a common buzzword in the virtualization community these days. "Virtual X" means simulated X. "Paravirtual X" means X is simulated, but is aware of simulation and cooperating, for faster performance. I hope the triply-nested Docker above runs paravirtualized.
|-
| |
A dev typing real fast
| |
A dev is a {{w|Software developer|software developer}}. This is possibly a reference to [[341: 1337: Part 1]], where [[Mrs. Roberts]] edits the {{w|Transmission Control Protocol|TCP}} stream live while wearing oven mitts and baking cookies. Such a feat would require real fast typing. It looks like xkcd webserver is not a computer after all -- we have a person manually replying to HTTP protocol queries. I guess she's busy.

|-
| |
Older version of our software
| |
People are often reluctant to switch to newer versions of software because, even though newer versions are supposed to have more features and fewer bugs, they end up confusing users. Users of older versions are used to doing everything with less features and circumventing old bugs. They don't know how to use the new features, which of course come with new bugs they haven't learned how to circumvent yet. It is also often the case that newer versions remove weird unused old features, breaking the workflow of users who actually did use such features and are left without a suitable replacement.
|-
| |
Mystery Networking Horror
| |
Randall suggests here that the whole networking stuff behind the XKCD service is both mysterious (no one actually knows the details) and horrific (technically questionable architecture and implementation, or somehow tentacled and eldritch in nature).
|-
| |
Microsoft Bob Server®
| |
{{w|Microsoft Bob}} was a short-lived, failed attempt by Microsoft, around 1995, to provide a user-friendly interface for the {{w|Microsoft Windows|Windows}} 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems. It consisted of a virtual "house" and "rooms", and the idea was that you could click on a pen and open the word processor. It was heavily criticized and was soon discontinued. Randall seems to be making the suggestion the Bob has continued to be developed and now there's a Bob Server, similarly to Windows server.
|-
| |
A giant {{w|Central processing unit|CPU}} someone built in Minecraft
| |
{{w|Minecraft}} is a popular sandbox game where you place blocks to build things. Since the introduction of Redstone objects (materials used to create basic electric circuits within the game) people have made many machines within Minecraft, including calculators and clocks. The most complex of these machines simulate simple computers, capable of storing several lines of code and performing basic mathematical operations such as division, which requires thousands of blocks and extremely complex designs.
|}

The title text contains several jokes about the Java programming language:

* First, it refers to Java both as {{w|Sun Microsystems|Sun}} Java and {{w|Macromedia}} Java. This is a pun on the fact that older documents refer to "Sun Java" where newer documents refer to "{{w|Oracle Corporation|Oracle}} Java", as if there were two different languages. The fact is that Java was designed originally by Sun and then bought by Oracle, so it "changed name" even though the language is the same. Macromedia was the company that developed Flash before it was bought by Adobe. Both Flash and Java were popular in the early WWW to have interactive web pages, but both are being deprecated in favor of JavaScript.

* Second, the version numbers: older software products used to have two version numbers: major and minor (e.g. in {{w|MS-DOS}} 6.22 the major number is 6 and the minor is 22). Newer products tend to have hundreds of minor revisions, all of them numbered, so a typical user may well find themself updating version 6.0.0.1 to 7.3.8.1 without knowing at all the differences between both versions or which other versions are in between. The ¾ in the Macromedia Java version is a joke on complex version numbers, which (so far) have never included fractions. It also can be reference to [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Platform_Nine_and_Three-Quarters platform 9 ¾].

* Third, the 32-bit or 48-bit version: The {{w|Intel 80386}} processor used an architecture known as {{w|IA-32}}, which implies the data bus is 32-bit wide and thus able to handle up to 4{{w|Gibibyte|GiB}} of {{w|Random-access memory|RAM}} memory. This was plenty for the early 1990s, when a typical home PC would have about 8MiB (this is 512 times less than 4GiB). However, about 10 years after that, a typical home PC could well use more than 4GiB of RAM, so several 64-bit architectures were created. These architectures are not compatible, so programs (including the Java Runtime Environment, or JRE) often have 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Furthermore, the JRE is heavily used by many web browsers, and for this to work the JRE and browser need to be the same "number of bits". This means that most people have installed both versions of the JRE to be able to use it with both 32-bit and 64-bit browsers. There's no 48-bit architecture (though some 64-bit processors including the {{w|x86-64|most common ones}} don't actually USE all 64 bits everywhere, ignoring some bits so actual virtual or physical memory is smaller (in case of most common one, 48bits virtual and 40bits physical), they simulate a full 64-bit environment to allow adding more bits later, so there are no specific 48-bit applications).

* Fourth, an application trying to let the user install a new version of the JRE should direct the user to the download page in the [http://java.com/ java.com site], not to the main page which deals with lots of issues with java and is not particularly helpful when trying to update the JRE.

* Fifth, and continuing with the joke of users updating 6.0.0.1 to 7.3.8.1¾ and not knowing why they should, the new version is said to "run fine but not really change anything". This is the usual behavior for Java updates: they run fine (possibly in opposition to [[1197: All Adobe Updates]], where updating must be done several times and the user is never sure they have installed all the newest updates), but after finished updating the user can't see any difference with the previous behavior, and/or may still be told that an update is required. Considering that 7.3.8.1¾ is bigger number than 6.0.0.1, it can also refer to the fact that the test for upgrading is incorrect and 7.3.8.1¾ is actually newer version.

==Transcript==

:Introducing

:The XKCD Stack
:{| class="wikitable"
| |
EBNF/CSS
|-
| |
Broken Java Applet
|-
| |
Archive.org Mirror
|-
| |
Hypercard.js
|-
| |
QBasic on Rails
|-
| |
[Blocked by AdBlocker]
|-
| |
MongoDB/Excel
|-
| |
Some piece that works so nobody asks any questions
|-
| |
Triply-Nested Docker
|-
| |
Paravirtual Boy®
|-
| |
A dev typing real fast
|-
| |
Older version of our software
|-
| |
Mystery Networking Horror
|-
| |
Microsoft Bob Server®
|-
| |
A giant CPU someone built in Minecraft
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Video games]]

1636: XKCD Stack

2016-01-29T20:47:50Z

Rinaku: /* Explanation of steps */

{{comic
| number = 1636
| date = January 29, 2016
| title = XKCD Stack
| image = xkcd_stack.png
| titletext = This site requires Sun Java 6.0.0.1 (32-bit) or higher. You have Macromedia Java 7.3.8.1¾ (48-bit). Click here [link to java.com main page] to download an installer which will run fine but not really change anything.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more detail. The table is great but should be corrected to not refer to a persons view or feelings. ''I think'' phrases are used more than once at the moment.}}

In software engineering, a tech stack is the set of technology platforms and tools that a company or app uses. A common tech stack is LAMP, composed of a Linux operating system, an Apache web server, a MySQL database, and the PHP programming language. In this comic, the XKCD stack is introduced. The technologies comprising it are either non-existent, unreliable, or outdated.

===Explanation of steps===
{| class="wikitable"
| | Layer
| | Explanation
|-
| |
EBNF/CSS
| |
BNF or {{w|Backus–Naur Form}} is a syntax used for describing {{w|context-free grammars}}.
{{w|Extended Backus–Naur Form|EBNF}} is "Extended BNF", it is the same thing as BNF with a few more syntactic constructs intended to ease its use in the most common cases.
CSS or {{w|Cascading Style Sheets}} are a language used to describe what a web page should look like. Web pages are usually written in {{w|HTML}}, which describes the ''structure'' of the page (i.e. divides the document into paragraphs, lists, etc.) complemented with CSS which describes the ''look and feel'' of the page (colors, fonts, margins, etc.). EBNF/CSS would suggest CSS with strange syntax.
|-
| |
Broken Java Applet
| |
In recent years it has become more difficult to run {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} {{w|Applet|applets}} in several browsers. {{w|Google Chrome|Chrome}} 45 stopped supporting {{w|NPAPI}}, {{w|Mozilla Firefox|Firefox}} will drop support by 2016 and {{w|Microsoft Edge|Edge}} do not support NPAPI plugins at all. Furthermore, two days before this comic was published {{w|Oracle Corporation|Oracle}} (the developer of Java) announced plans to officially end support of Java applets in an upcoming version.
|-
| |
Archive.org Mirror
| |
{{w|Internet Archive|Archive.org}} is a website which archives websites, and created the {{w|Wayback Machine}}. An Archive.org mirror would be a duplicate of a website on Archive.org's servers. As Archive.org attempts to mirror the whole Internet, Archive.org's mirror would be rather big. Moreover, the backup of Archive.org should not back up Archive.org itself or, otherwise, create an infinite backup loop.

|-
| |
Hypercard.js
| |
{{w|HyperCard}} can be considered as a kind of predecessor for the world wide web developed at {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}}. The file extension .js indicates that is was rewritten in {{w|JavaScript}}. A similar reference to JavaScript is found in [[1508: Operating Systems]]. The .js extension also refers to node.js, where most library names end in .js
|-
| |
QBasic on Rails
| |
A mix between {{w|QBasic}} and {{w|Ruby on Rails}}. QBasic was programming language on first PCs, known for spaghetti code. {{w|Ruby (programming language)|Ruby}} is a rather modern language, often used with Ruby on Rails web application framework. QBasic on Rails would likely mean rewrite of Ruby on Rails from Ruby to QBasic. QBasic no longer runs on modern computers, however a free {{w|open source}} rewrite of QBasic, called [http://www.qb64.net/ QB64], is available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android. There also exists a webserver on BASIC called [http://www.runbasic.com/ RunBasic].

|-
| |
[Blocked by AdBlocker]
| |
{{w|Ad blocking}} software are extensions to browsers that try to remove ads from web pages, so the user is not distracted by them. [[624: Branding]] shows what "browsing without adblock" looks like. The joke is that AdBlocker is preventing us from seeing what makes up this portion of the stack.
|-
| |
MongoDB/Excel
| |
{{w|MongoDB}} is a modern {{w|NoSQL}} {{w|Database|database}} system, {{w|Microsoft Excel}} is a {{w|Spreadsheet|spreadsheet}} program from Microsoft, which is sometimes misused as a database system.

|-
| |
Some piece that works so nobody asks any questions
| |
Writing any non-trivial piece of software always require a phase of {{w|debugging}}, which consists in finding and fixing {{w|Software bug|bugs}}. With complex software, this is a long and tiring process, so when the product is finally finished no one dares to modify it any further for fear that it will fail in unexpected ways. After some time passes, it is even worse because nobody really remembers how the software was ''supposed'' to work, so the product becomes some kind of godlike treasure which must be treated with the utmost respect and reverence because, you know, if it stops working we're all doomed.
|-
| |
Triply-Nested Docker
| |
{{w|Docker (software)|Docker}} allows complete operating system to run under different operating system (with some performance penalty). Triply-nested docker would mean operating system A running under operating system B running under operating system C running under operating system D. That would likely be a performance and management nightmare
|-
| |
Paravirtual Boy®
| |
This is a reference to the {{w|Virtual Boy}}, a failed portable console created by {{w|Nintendo}}. {{w|Paravirtualization}} is a common buzzword in the virtualization community these days. "Virtual X" means simulated X. "Paravirtual X" means X is simulated, but is aware of simulation and cooperating, for faster performance. I hope the triply-nested Docker above runs paravirtualized.
|-
| |
A dev typing real fast
| |
A dev is a {{w|Software developer|software developer}}. This is possibly a reference to [[341: 1337: Part 1]], where [[Mrs. Roberts]] edits the {{w|Transmission Control Protocol|TCP}} stream live while wearing oven mitts and baking cookies. Such a feat would require real fast typing. It looks like xkcd webserver is not a computer after all -- we have a person manually replying to HTTP protocol queries. I guess she's busy.

|-
| |
Older version of our software
| |
People are often reluctant to switch to newer versions of software because, even though newer versions are supposed to have more features and fewer bugs, they end up confusing users. Users of older versions are used to doing everything with less features and circumventing old bugs. They don't know how to use the new features, which of course come with new bugs they haven't learned how to circumvent yet. It is also often the case that newer versions remove weird unused old features, breaking the workflow of users who actually did use such features and are left without a suitable replacement.
|-
| |
Mystery Networking Horror
| |
Randall suggests here that the whole networking stuff behind the XKCD service is both mysterious (no one actually knows the details) and horrific (technically questionable architecture and implementation, or somehow tentacled and eldritch in nature).
|-
| |
Microsoft Bob Server®
| |
{{w|Microsoft Bob}} was a short-lived, failed attempt by Microsoft, around 1995, to provide a user-friendly interface for the {{w|Microsoft Windows|Windows}} 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems. It consisted of a virtual "house" and "rooms", and the idea was that you could click on a pen and open the word processor. It was heavily criticized and was soon discontinued. Randall seems to be making the suggestion the Bob has continued to be developed and now there's a Bob Server, similarly to Windows server.
|-
| |
A giant {{w|Central processing unit|CPU}} someone built in Minecraft
| |
{{w|Minecraft}} is a popular sandbox game where you place blocks to build things. Since the introduction of Redstone objects (materials used to create basic electric circuits within the game) people have made many machines within Minecraft, including calculators and clocks. The most complex of these machines simulate simple computers, capable of storing several lines of code and performing basic mathematical operations such as division, which requires thousands of blocks and extremely complex designs.
|}

The title text contains several jokes about the Java programming language:

* First, it refers to Java both as {{w|Sun Microsystems|Sun}} Java and {{w|Macromedia}} Java. This is a pun on the fact that older documents refer to "Sun Java" where newer documents refer to "{{w|Oracle Corporation|Oracle}} Java", as if there were two different languages. The fact is that Java was designed originally by Sun and then bought by Oracle, so it "changed name" even though the language is the same. Macromedia was the company that developed Flash before it was bought by Adobe. Both Flash and Java were popular in the early WWW to have interactive web pages, but both are being deprecated in favor of JavaScript.

* Second, the version numbers: older software products used to have two version numbers: major and minor (e.g. in {{w|MS-DOS}} 6.22 the major number is 6 and the minor is 22). Newer products tend to have hundreds of minor revisions, all of them numbered, so a typical user may well find themself updating version 6.0.0.1 to 7.3.8.1 without knowing at all the differences between both versions or which other versions are in between. The ¾ in the Macromedia Java version is a joke on complex version numbers, which (so far) have never included fractions. It also can be reference to [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Platform_Nine_and_Three-Quarters platform 9 ¾].

* Third, the 32-bit or 48-bit version: The {{w|Intel 80386}} processor used an architecture known as {{w|IA-32}}, which implies the data bus is 32-bit wide and thus able to handle up to 4{{w|Gibibyte|GiB}} of {{w|Random-access memory|RAM}} memory. This was plenty for the early 1990s, when a typical home PC would have about 8MiB (this is 512 times less than 4GiB). However, about 10 years after that, a typical home PC could well use more than 4GiB of RAM, so several 64-bit architectures were created. These architectures are not compatible, so programs (including the Java Runtime Environment, or JRE) often have 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Furthermore, the JRE is heavily used by many web browsers, and for this to work the JRE and browser need to be the same "number of bits". This means that most people have installed both versions of the JRE to be able to use it with both 32-bit and 64-bit browsers. There's no 48-bit architecture (though some 64-bit processors including the {{w|x86-64|most common ones}} don't actually USE all 64 bits everywhere, ignoring some bits so actual virtual or physical memory is smaller (in case of most common one, 48bits virtual and 40bits physical), they simulate a full 64-bit environment to allow adding more bits later, so there are no specific 48-bit applications).

* Fourth, an application trying to let the user install a new version of the JRE should direct the user to the download page in the [http://java.com/ java.com site], not to the main page which deals with lots of issues with java and is not particularly helpful when trying to update the JRE.

* Fifth, and continuing with the joke of users updating 6.0.0.1 to 7.3.8.1¾ and not knowing why they should, the new version is said to "run fine but not really change anything". This is the usual behavior for Java updates: they run fine (possibly in opposition to [[1197: All Adobe Updates]], where updating must be done several times and the user is never sure they have installed all the newest updates), but after finished updating the user can't see any difference with the previous behavior, and/or may still be told that an update is required. Considering that 7.3.8.1¾ is bigger number than 6.0.0.1, it can also refer to the fact that the test for upgrading is incorrect and 7.3.8.1¾ is actually newer version.

==Transcript==

:Introducing

:The XKCD Stack
:{| class="wikitable"
| |
EBNF/CSS
|-
| |
Broken Java Applet
|-
| |
Archive.org Mirror
|-
| |
Hypercard.js
|-
| |
QBasic on Rails
|-
| |
[Blocked by AdBlocker]
|-
| |
MongoDB/Excel
|-
| |
Some piece that works so nobody asks any questions
|-
| |
Triply-Nested Docker
|-
| |
Paravirtual Boy®
|-
| |
A dev typing real fast
|-
| |
Older version of our software
|-
| |
Mystery Networking Horror
|-
| |
Microsoft Bob Server®
|-
| |
A giant CPU someone built in Minecraft
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Video games]]