explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

User talk:Musi

2022-05-04T04:32:43Z

Soulus: Created page with "Hi, I liked reading through your edit history, but you realise you were sort of talking to yourself, right? XD To answer some of your questions/points: * I think "de-cra..."

Hi, I liked reading through your edit history, but you realise you were sort of talking to yourself, right? XD 
To answer some of your questions/points:
* I think "de-crapping" looks better
* The filled each page with 50,000 "crap"s at first, but I think they changed to 5,000 at 00:53
* I was also very "worried I might accidentally undo the most recent edit on a non-crapped page"
* The admin who blocked the person was [[User:Davidy22]], who hasn't been very active in years. He's currently cleaning up the invisible "crap" div tags that some people used as a stopgap
* You would think you'd get auto-banned for doing too many edits, but actually I got autoconfirmed. Maybe that is part of the problem here...
* And no, I don't think you were violating any "sort of etiquette", most of the rollback was done my people like you and me, even if an admin was able to do it a bit faster.
Also, thanks for helping :) [[User:Soulus|Soulus]] ([[User talk:Soulus|talk]]) 04:32, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

1811: Best-Tasting Colors

2022-05-04T03:29:00Z

Soulus: Not sure why, but this comic isn't included in the "All comics" Category. Doing an edit should refresh it?

{{comic
| number = 1811
| date = March 15, 2017
| title = Best-Tasting Colors
| image = best_tasting_colors.png
| titletext = I recognize that chocolate is its own thing on which reasonable people may differ. Everything else here is objective fact.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Randall]] rates colors based on tastiness of various flavors, which makes it very similar to [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]]. The colors are sorted in descending order (from most tasty to least tasty) by the midpoint of their overall taste range.

Within each color, several individual items are placed at points marked by dots along a tastiness scale, with nine ticks ranging from bad (1) to good (9). For example, within the pink color band at the very top, watermelon is only rated 6/9 — much less tasty than cotton candy, which is almost at 9/9, making it the very best tasting flavor in the chart. Interestingly, watermelon is mentioned twice, as it is also listed under green. Usually people do not eat the green part of a watermelon, so it is strange that Randall has rated both types at almost the same level of tastiness. It could be that he sees the green watermelon as green, but also sees the pink fruit inside, so it is actually the pink fruit that is rated for both colors, or the chart is a rating of candy (such as jellybean or popsicle) flavors, as it is not uncommon for both green and pink to represent watermelon in those situations.

For pink, blue and white there are one, two and three regions, respectively labeled with "???". It is not clear what the purpose of these is. Perhaps they indicate regions in which Randall is unable to think of any examples, and is inviting the reader to speculate. For instance, are there any pink-colored foods more tasty than watermelon (6/9) but less tasty than cotton candy (8.5/9)? It could also be that he thinks there must be other interesting foods with this color, which could seem to be the case for white and blue, where there are a group of question marks above the most tasty labeled flavor blue raspberries and vanilla for white. The latter is yet a joke, as vanilla is black, but is often used in white food such as vanilla ice, which he may have been thinking off, or just again messes with his readers.

The question marks thus imply an arbitrary tastiness assigned to a color that is not derived from an actual data point, however. For instance, the only blue datapoint is "blue raspberry", assigned a ranking of 5.5. But the range assigned to blue as a whole is 4 to 8. The regions on either side of the blue raspberry dot are labeled with ???.

There are a few exceptions with chocolate the most obvious as Randall makes a wide range for chocolate for brown, ranging from 2.5-9.5 out of 9. And the arrows here ends in single question marks indicating that the range could be even longer. In the title text he acknowledges the fact chocolate is its own thing and that regarding its taste reasonable people may differ in opinion.

The region for chocolate could not go further down because below the section for chocolate for brown food, there is another range with some other brown food items that Randall really does not like, caramel and especially coffee at 1.5/9. It may seem that Randall has never grown up to drink the drinks that society often dictates that you should drink. Not drinking Coffee (or hating it when you do) can be a problem with all the coffee breaks and meetings held over coffee etc. And as Randall has shown in [[1534: Beer]] he also doesn't like beer...

Although it is not so clear as with chocolate pistachio is also split up with three lines indicating a range on the green from about 5 to 7 without any assigned point to their taste. And finally popcorn at 1.5/9 simply falls below the otherwise already low and slim rating range for yellow foods (2.5-3.5) with only lemon at 3/9 included. Many people love popcorn, but not especially for the corns actual taste, which is non existing if not for the adding of salt or sugar or other additives.

The worst taste by far to Randall, though, is licorice, and black food has a very small range from almost below 1 to less than 1.5. In USA it seems few people like licorice (although as most of the other mentioned food items, it may come in a wide variety of flavors and strengths). But in for instance northern Europe (Scandinavia) many people love it. See more explanations for all the mentioned flavors in the [[#Table|table]] below. It also seems that [[388:_Fuck_Grapefruit#Change_of_taste|Randall's taste has changed]] over the nine years since the grapefruit comic.

In the title text, Randall asserts that his rankings of colors and flavors are indisputable (with the exception of chocolate). This together with rather obscure flavors included ("blue raspberry", "creamsicle") rather than more obvious choices, such as banana for yellow and carrot for orange could be a jab at the reception of his first food ranking comic, [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]] which ranked fruits based on their tastiness and ease of consumption. Randall claims that it is the [[388:_Fuck_Grapefruit#Controversy|most controversial piece]] he has ever published. So all this is maybe just a way to generate even more controversy about this comic, and based on the [[#Discussion|discussion]] below he may have succeeded.

In [[882: Significant]] researchers were studying the effect of eating 20 differently colored types of jelly beans (and all colors here are included except white).

===Table===

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col"| Color
! scope="col"| Item
! scope="col"| Explanation
! scope="col"| Rating (Approx.)
|-
|Pink
|{{w|Cotton Candy}}
|Randall seems to like cotton candy. This treat is sold in many places, most notably carnivals.
|95%
|-
|Pink
|{{w|Watermelon}}
|Watermelon is a fruit that is used as a processed candy flavoring, especially in hard candies, and is usually very sweet and pink in color. The actual fruit is made of 95 percent water.
|63%
|-
|Red
|{{w|Strawberry}}
|Strawberries are a seeded fruit which are usually sweet and red. They are of relatively small size.
|93%
|-
|Red
|{{w|Cherry}}
|Cherries are red fruits that are normally very tart in taste.
|86%
|-
|Red
|{{w|Raspberry}}
|Raspberries are reddish-pink fruits (though Randall lists them under red) that are in the more tart category of fruits.
|55%
|-
|Blue
|{{w|Blue raspberry flavor |Blue Raspberry}}
|Blue-colored raspberries are not found in nature. While some {{w|Bramble fruit|bramble fruit}} species and cultivars are sometimes referred to as "blue raspberry" - notably {{w|Rubus leucodermis}} - the actual color of such fruit varies between purple and black as it matures, closer to that of {{w|Blackberry|blackberries}} than for example {{w|Blueberry|blueberries}}.
While not a real fruit color, "blue raspberry" is nevertheless a {{w|Blue raspberry flavor|common artificial flavor}}, ostensibly based on Rubus leucodermis. Products featuring this flavor are often artificially colored bright blue (nowhere near the hue of Rubus leucodermis fruit), contributing to the perceived association between the color and the flavor among general population.
|57%
|-
|Green
|{{w|Apple|Green Apple}}
|Green apples are usually more sweet than red apples, which are not listed, and are Randall's favorite apple. He mentioned a dislike for red apples in his what if? Blog
|84%
|-
|Green
|{{w|Watermelon}} (Rind?)
|While the red part of a watermelon and the pink watermelon flavoring used in candy are widely eaten and sweet, the green rind is hard and not normally eaten.
|60%
|-
|Green
|{{w|Mentha|Mint}}
|Mint is a herb that can be considered as spicy by some people, which makes it unappealing to them.
|38%
|-
|Green
|{{w|Lime (fruit)|Lime}}
|Limes are a green, sour fruit sharing many traits with lemons. These are rarely eaten as fruit, but can be served with water or beer.
|31%
|-
|Green
|{{w|Pistachio}}
|Pistachios are green nuts. Randall seems unsure of where to place these on the chart.
|47% to 70%
|-
|White
|{{w|Vanilla}}
|Randall is likely playing with expectations here. Vanilla and vanilla bean are both dark brown, not white. But vanilla ice cream is white thanks to the cream, milk, and sugar used in its creation. The brown is nearly invisible in the ice cream, either as vanilla extract mixed in or as minute flakes of vanilla bean in exceptional vanilla ice creams.
|65%
|-
|White
|{{w|White Chocolate}}
|White chocolate is disliked by many people who assert that it is "not real chocolate" because it contains no cocoa solids and is mainly cocoa butter and sugar.
|19%
|-
|Brown
|{{w|Chocolate}}
|Chocolate is given a very wide range. While widely recognized as a classic candy, containing the chemical {{w|phenylethylamine}} which literally makes the human brain happier, there are also very staunch and not rare people who clearly and adamantly don't like it. There are also many varieties of chocolate with varying degrees of sweetness -- and, not coincidentally, colors to help differentiate them. Randall deems the whole situation too complex to assign to only one data point.
|38% to 86%. (range of text area)
|-
|Brown
|{{w|Caramel}}
|Caramel is a liquid-like substance usually drizzled on desserts. "Caramel" can also refer to the coloring. Randall seems to enjoy caramel less than many people.
|19%
|-
|Brown
|{{w|Coffee}}
|While widely enjoyed by many people, coffee is a bitter beverage (or bean). Many people add sugar and/or cream to their coffee (or cover the beans in chocolate) to make it palatable. Clearly Randall does not like black coffee (coffee with no sweeteners or additives)
|5%
|-
|Orange
|{{w|Popsicle_(brand)#Related_snacks|Creamsicle}}
|Orange creamsicle is an ice pop sold by {{w|Popsicle_(brand)|Popsicle}}. It is known as a favorite among the Popsicle lineup.
|47%
|-
|Orange
|{{w|Orange (fruit)|Orange}}
|Oranges are round fruits similar in size to an apple. Randall appears to dislike oranges, maybe because of their slightly sour flavoring or the difficulty of opening one up.
Interestingly, in this comic Randall rates oranges as tasting worse than lemons, while in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], it was lemons he charted as tasting significantly worse.
|25%
|-
|Yellow
|{{w|Popcorn}}?!
|Popcorn is a very popular food item, but not for its flavor. By itself it has nearly no flavor, and the usual toppings of salt and butter are some of the most basic cravings the human tongue asks for.
|5%
|-
|Yellow
|{{w|Lemon}}
|Lemons by themselves have a very strong sour flavor. Many people, apparently including Randall, do not like this taste raw or on its own, though some do. To make lemons appealing to those who don't like very sour things, they are instead added as ingredients in a much larger dish, often with sugar added to balance the sourness.
|27%
|-
|Purple
|{{w|Grape}}
|Randall apparently does not like {{w|Concord grape}}s, a small, oval-like purple fruit. He did not list green grapes, though. But given his previous comic [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]] it seems likely that he like the green grapes very much as they were listed as some of the most tasty fruits
|15%
|-
|Black
|{{w|Licorice}}
|Licorice has a strong bitter and spicy flavour. It is made from the root of the plant Glycyrrhiza glabra. Most Americans tend to find it a very unpleasant flavor. It would appear that Randall resides within that majority.
|0.1%
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the chart:]
:<big>Best-Tasting Colors</big>

:[Below the caption there is a scale with two large ticks (with labels written above) at either end and seven smaller ticks in between for nine ticks in total. The labels:]
:Bad
:Good

:[Below the scale to the left is a numbered list of ten colors. Black double arrows goes under the scale. On the arrows there are labeled points, but there is also questions marks and other exceptions where text is not pointing to a point. Labels appear both above and below the arrows, but here the text is listed as it appears on the scale from left (bad) to right (good):]
:1. Pink - Watermelon, ???, Cotton candy
:2. Red - Raspberry, Cherry, Strawberry
:3. Blue - ???, Blue raspberry, ???
:4. Green - Lime, Mint, Pistachio??, Watermelon, Green apple
:5. White - ???, White chocolate, ???, Vanilla, ???
:6. Brown - Coffee, Caramel ? [However you feel about chocolate] ?
:7. Orange - Orange, Creamsicle
:8. Yellow - Popcorn?!, Lemon
:9. Purple - Grape
:10. Black - Licorice

*'''Click''' to expand for a more detailed description:
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed leftAlign" style="width:100%">
 
:[There is no more text from the comic below here:]

:[Below the scale to the left is a numbered list of ten colors, the name of the color written in said color (white written on a gray background). From the color goes a thin gray line out under the scale. At different points and lengths along the scale there appear black double arrows pointing to two lines. The gray line never extends beyond the black arrows to the right. On the line of these arrows there are one to four points, that have all been labeled with gray text (both above and below the arrow to which the labels belong).]
:[Five places on three arrows there are groups of three questions marks which relates to a region on the arrow rather than a point, either with three lines pointing to the arrow (once for pink and trice for white) or just standing close beneath the arrow (twice for blue). There are only three other exceptions.]
:[First there is pistachio which has no point but has three lines going from the text to the arrow for green.]
:[Second there is chocolate, which has its own double arrow where the ends do not end in lines but in questions marks. The arrow is broken by a square bracket with normal black text written on two lines within it. This arrow thus does not connect with the other "normal" arrow for brown to the left of the chocolate arrow.]
:[Third there is a point that is outside the black arrow for yellow on the gray line for popcorn. That is the only place where the gray line exceeds any black markings as it is only broken by the dot and then continues further to the arrow.]
</div>
 

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Food]]

1538: Lyrics

2022-05-04T03:27:08Z

Soulus: Not sure why this comic isn't included in the "All comics" Cat. Maybe an edit will refresh it?

{{comic
| number = 1538
| date = June 15, 2015
| title = Lyrics
| image = lyrics.png
| titletext = To me, trying to understand song lyrics feels like when I see text in a dream but it𝔰 hอᵣd t₀ ᵣeₐd aกd 𝒾 canٖt fཱྀcu༧༦࿐༄
}}

==Explanation==
For some modern songs, the vocalist chooses to perform the track in a way that emphasizes emotion, accent or style over clear pronunciation of the lyrics. Some forms of music, for example the Jazz style Scat, use purely nonsensical lyrics while some styles of dance music use a single line of lyrics repeated throughout the track.

There are also certain types of people that may describe themselves as "lyric deaf", which is sort of the lyrical equivalent to being {{w|Tone deafness|tone deaf}}, although it doesn't have an underlying medical understanding. Some people that describe themselves as tone deaf are even quite musically capable.

The comic is illustrating (in text form) how listening to such a song feels before you have learned what the actual lyrics are. The lyrics are represented in an indecipherable way, with a few mildly recognizable words. This represents the auditory experience of being able to hear and understand some words (perhaps incorrectly), but not all of them.

Another example of this experience can be seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxELSzay2lc this British TV commercial] from the 1980s, showing someone who has misheard {{w|Desmond Dekker}} song {{w|Israelites (song) |Israelites}} so for instance the line ''Poor me Israelites'' becomes ''Oh-oh my ears are alight''. See more details in the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.

This experience is similar to that shown by the character {{w|Havelock Vetinari}} the Patrician of {{w|Ankh-Morpork}}, in {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} book {{w|Soul Music (novel)|Soul Music}} (see [http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/vetinari/vl-soulmusic.html part of book here]). Rather than listening to music, he preferred to read the printed sheet music:
:''In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got played. It ruined music, in his opinion, to torment it by involving it on dried skins, bits of dead cat and lumps of metal hammered into wires and tubes. It ought to stay written down, on the page, in rows of little dots and crotchets, all neatly caught between lines. Only there was it pure. It was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in. Much better to sit quietly in a room and read the sheets, with nothing between yourself and the mind of the composer but a scribble of ink. Having it played by sweaty fat men and people with hair in their ears and spit dribbling out of the end of their oboe... well, the idea made him shudder.''

For a related experience see {{w|Mondegreen}}.

The title text elaborates on the fact that [[Randall]] has the same experience when trying to understand [http://lyricsmusic.name/ song lyrics] as when he sees text in his dreams. The last part of the title text is written in strange scripts to illustrate how he feels when seeing text in his dreams. Translated it says: ''it's hard to read and I can't focus.''

Note that it looks like the song lyrics were written by drawing in a tool, like MS Paint, and then cutting out pieces and shifting them slightly.

=== Possible lyrics and songs ===
The closest guess on the lyrics is this:
:''I can't even tell her''
:''Anything she wanna''
:''Had outstanding skill''
::''Beautiful''
:''Forgetting love.''
(Note that the first line also might be ''I can't even '''help''' her''.)

It is very likely that [[Randall]] completely made up these lyrics himself and if any song coincidentally share some part of them it only happens because Randall has chosen some very cliché lyrics, that would thus be likely to occur in some pop songs.

Nevertheless, here below are some possible song references, in which the exact line from above occurs:
*If the first line is ''I can't even '''tell''' her'', it could come from
:{{w|Joe Budden}}'s song ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJPZtoH_wok More of Me]''
:From the [http://genius.com/Joe-budden-more-of-me-lyrics lyrics]:
:''World keeps spinning, learned sinners keep sinning''
:''And '''I can't even tell her''' some fights ain't fight worthy''
:''Cause my pops got 20 years clean, but her pops got 20 years dirty''
*If the first line is ''I can't even '''help''' her'', it could come from:
:{{w|Bill Anderson (singer)|Bill Anderson's}} song ''[https://myspace.com/whisperinbill/music/song/baby-s-blue-again-104023287-116024575 Baby's Blue Again]''
:From the [http://www.metrolyrics.com/babys-blue-again-lyrics-bill-anderson.html lyrics]:
:''Oh Lord, and '''I can't even help her'''''
:''All I can do is just wait''
:''Until the clouds are all blown away''
*The second line ''Anything she wanna'' could be from:
:[https://twitter.com/1johnnycinco Johnny Cinco's] song ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri4LjCESbOA She Wanna]''
:From the [http://www.lyricfever.com/lyrics/1069636/Johnny-Cinco/She-Wanna lyrics]:
:''Buy here '''anything she wanna'''''
:''Fly in '''anything she wanna'''''
:''Try on '''anything she wanna'''''
*The third line ''Had to be outstanding or kill'' (which is basically just a simple guess at what could be said in the line) does not make much sense and there are no songs that include such a line.
*The fourth line ''Forgetting love'' could come from:
:[https://www.facebook.com/chino.brown.7 Chino Brown's] song ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SOW2o-g8yg Love Again]''
:From the [http://genius.com/Chino-brown-love-again-lyrics lyrics]:
:''I was at a point in my life''
:''Of just '''forgetting love'''''
:''Until the day you touched me''

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits in a chair holding something. A speaker on a counter behind him is transmitting music. Four lines of wavy undecipherable lyrics emanate from the speaker. The lyrics are surrounded by musical notes. Below is the best attempt to write this down in text, also using capitals when they are clearly there in the comic.]
:I CANT₣∇EN +ELҼ ⊤HER
:A|N⊃Г⊕N6 ƒHE W(AN NAp.
:HADβE Aūτ|ƒA!NNNG∩fҠILL...
:FOR♡ITiNn⊣GLOOOO!VEEE ?.-

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be able to understand song lyrics without looking them up.

==Trivia==
*The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxELSzay2lc commercial] mentioned in the explanation above spoofs Desmond Decker's song ''Israelites''.
*The two verses used in the commercial are the 2nd and 3rd of the song as can be seen in the [http://www.metrolyrics.com/israelites-lyrics-desmond-dekker.html lyrics].
*Below can be read the two verses, with the first line (and then every second line) being what is sung (from the lyrics) and the following lines what the guy in the street shows on his cards (as he heard it):
*Verse 2:
:*Get up in the morning
::Get up in the morning
:*slaving for bread, sir
::sleeping for for bread, sir
:*So that every mouth
::Sold out to every monk
:*can be fed
::and beef-head
:*Poor
::oh-oh
:*me Israelites
::me ears are alight
*Verse 3:
:*My wife an' my kids
::Why find my kids?
:*them a pack up an' a leave me
::They buck up and a-leave me
:*Darlin' she said,
::Darling Cheese head
:*I was yours to be seen
::I was yards too greasy
:*Poor
::oh-oh
:*me Israelites
::me ears are alight
*After these two verses, there are more text from the guy while no new lines are sung:
::I think that's what he says
::But I need to hear it on a {{w|Hitachi Maxell|Maxell}}
::(There is a picture of a {{w|Compact Cassette|cassette tape}} below that last line of text.)

===Non-ASCII characters===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Matching text
! Character
! Description
! Preview
|-
| THAI CHARACTER O ANG
| U+0E2D
| THAI CHARACTER O ANG
| อ
|-
| ARABIC SUBSCRIPT ALEF
| U+0656
| ARABIC SUBSCRIPT ALEF
| ٖ
|-
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN AA
| U+0F71
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN AA
| ཱ
|-
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN REVERSED II
| U+0F81
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN REVERSED II
| ཱྀ
|-
| TIBETAN MARK BSKA- SHOG GI MGO RGYAN
| U+0FD0
| TIBETAN MARK BSKA- SHOG GI MGO RGYAN
| ࿐
|-
| TIBETAN MARK INITIAL YIG MGO MDUN MA
| U+0F04
| TIBETAN MARK INITIAL YIG MGO MDUN MA
| ༄
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Dreams]]

1064: Front Door

2022-05-04T03:03:14Z

Soulus: removed invisible "crap"

{{comic
| number = 1064
| date = June 4, 2012
| title = Front Door
| image = front_door.png
| titletext = FYI: I'll be releasing a wolf into a randomly-chosen front yard sometime in the next 30 years. Now your fear is reasonable, and you don't need to feel embarrassed anymore. Problem solved!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is showing in graphical form three different actions/feelings as [[Randall]] is approaching his front door at night. His "Fear That There's Something Behind Me" rises, so then his "Forward Speed" rises to get to his door faster. And then when he gets in the door and finds that in fact, there is nothing behind him, his "Embarrassment" rises. The y-axis of the chart is not labeled, so it is presumed to indicate amount, as in how embarrassed Randall is.

The interesting fact revealed is that Randall gets more concerned that someone is behind him when he walks up the steps to this door, and not while walking in the yard where there might be more hiding places. The worst fear is just before he walks up the steps to lock himself in. This is probably because now that he is almost home and safe, he now has to fumble with the key concentrating on getting the key in the lock, thus not being able to pay attention to what's coming up behind him.

This is of course an irrational thought, but it seems to happen to many people, and has certainly been used for suspense in many movies, whether it is "Did I hear a noise upstairs?" or "Is that an axe murderer hiding in that hedge?" or "There might be a [[:Category:Velociraptors|velociraptor]] lurking nearby". (However in all of these cases getting inside would probably not help you anyway just adding to the funny part of how the fear drops once inside. See [[87: Velociraptors]] for why getting inside probably also would not help against them.)

The title text attempts to alleviate the problem of the following embarrassment by introducing potential threat that could affect anybody. Since Randall mentioned that he will randomly release a wolf into a front yard sometime in the next thirty years, there will always be a fear that a wolf has been released onto your front yard. In that case, the fear one feels will be justified and not embarrassing, as it is possible that there is indeed a wolf released by Randall into their front yard. However, even assuming that Randall can find and release a wolf onto someone's front yard, the chance of this happening to you is minuscule.

==Transcript==
:[A graph with three colored lines. There is no scale on the Y-axis but the X-axis represents geographic location and has four labels. From the Y-axis to around the midpoint is "Yard", with an arrow from the word yard pointing left, at a point beyond the midpoint there is a tick labeled "Steps", at a point after that is another tick labeled "Door", and all points afterward are "Inside" with an arrow pointing right from the word inside, there are no tick for the first and last label. The three lines are all labeled with a small lines going from the label to the lines. The blue line begins to slowly increase from the start, with a slight dip further into the yard, and a steep increase right before the steps, maxing on the steps, and declining steeply at the door, bottoming out once inside. The gray line is at a steady medium height until it gets to the steps, at which point it shoots upwards, and then slowly declines once inside. The red line stays at 0 until just before the steps, where it begins to trend upwards, spikes at the door, and begins to slowly decline once inside. Above the curves to the left there is a black frame with the title of the graph:]
:Walking Back to My Front Door at Night:
:X-axis labels: Yard Steps Door Inside
:Blue line: Fear That There's Something Behind Me
:Gray line: Forward Speed
:Red line: Embarrassment

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Animals]] 
[[Category:Psychology]]

2572: Alien Observers

2022-05-04T02:21:31Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232905 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2572
| date = January 24, 2022
| title = Alien Observers
| image = alien_observers.png
| titletext = ALERT: Human 910-25J-1Q38 has created a Youtube channel. Increase erratic jerkiness of flying by 30% until safely out of range.
}}
*This was the seventh comic to come out after the [[Countdown in header text]] started.

==Explanation==
This strip depicts a group of aliens observing earth, and discussing their "restricted flight zone", which they appear to change each time a human acquires a more powerful camera.

This comic was followed directly by [[2573: Alien Mission]], where aliens use similar looking flying-saucer type spacecrafts to observe Earth. It is not specifically stated that these two form a series, but the next comic could be seen as a direct follow up to the this one, indicating that the aliens are the same in the two comics. Just 7 comics later [[2579: Tractor Beam]] also used similar spacecraft.

Both strips are based on {{w|UFO conspiracy theories}}, which are common in the US and a number of other countries. It is often claimed that {{w|Unidentified Flying Objects}} seen in the sky are, in fact, extraterrestrial space craft, visiting earth for various reasons. Reports of such sightings have existed for a long time, and ever since cameras became widely available, photographs (and later videos) have been produced which are claimed to show such flying vessels. Almost invariably, these images are sufficiently distant, blurry, or otherwise obscured as to make any kind of detailed identification impossible - they could not be ''Unidentified'' Flying Objects if it were possible to identify them!

This strip lampoons such ideas by positing that aliens are real, but deliberately maintain a distance such that no clear photographs can be taken. While this concept might seem initially plausible, it doesn't stand up to examination. Over the past several decades, cameras have become far more common, with most of the population of many countries [[1235:_Settled|carrying cameras every waking moment]] (and even sleeping with those same cameras within reach). At the same time, cameras available to the average consumer have dramatically increased in resolution and zooming capabilities. The same shot that resulted in blurry and vague photographs in early digital photography could result in much more detailed images today, and also overcome many of the pitfalls associated with 'analogue' photography without sufficient skill and/or bulky equipment. What's more, the cameras owned by individual consumers have a wide range of resolutions and other capabilities, meaning that an image that would show little detail from one person's camera could result in highly detailed photograph if someone else took a picture. The fact that improving camera technology has not resulted in improved images of these supposed vessels is an impossibly weak point in these conspiracy theories.

The humorous premise of the strip is that these aliens are real, and are monitoring earth, but are taking deliberate actions to keep evidence of their presence ambiguous. To do this, they would need to not only monitor what camera technology exists on earth, but the exact type of camera each individual owns, and maintain their flights right at the outer visual limit of those cameras. Such information would need to be implausibly detailed, and constantly updated, because technology is constantly improving and people are constantly getting new phones with new cameras. Part of the joke is that the aliens would have to know the visual range of our cameras, but instead of remaining safely outside of it (so that no pictures of their vessels could be taken at all), they stay close enough to be seen, but never close enough for detailed images.

In a broader sense, this strip addresses the same issue as previous strips, such as [[718: The Flake Equation]] and [[1235: Settled]], in which the phenomenon of UFO sightings/reports is still left not resolved (either way) despite what modern technology should suggest is possible. The suggestion is that this trend either means that {{tvtropes|SufficientlyAdvancedAlien|sufficiently advanced aliens}} are deliberately leaving ambiguous evidence of their presence, or that no such alien visitors are here, and the purported evidence is either faked, or misinterpretations of other phenomena. It's pretty clear which explanation [[Randall]] favors.

In the title text, the aliens note that one particular human now has a YouTube account, meaning they are likely to record video instead of attempting to capture still images. This means that the alien craft used to create the sighting must behave as erratically as possible, in order to avoid being identified. This relates to the often wildly oscillating (as well as blurry) films and videos of 'UFOs' that have been taken by the impromptu human observer beyond the limit of their ability to hold their fully-zoomed camera steady. Here it is explained as the flying saucers ''actually'' moving in an improbably jerky manner to prevent detailed recording of their craft. Further briefings of the sort depicted would doubtless accompany upgrades in optical/digital-stability features or the purchase of a camera tripod.

The identifier for the one buying the phone begins with "Human 38XT11". This seems likely to be a reference to {{w|THX 1138}} as this was the title of {{w|George Lucas}}'s first film, which is also {{w|THX_1138#Etymology_and_references|referenced}} in the original {{w|Star Wars (film)|Star Wars}} film. The name contains the number in reverse, as well as the letters, if "human" could be written as H.

==Transcript==
:[Three aliens are looking at a screen. They each have six tentacles, of which four are used as legs, and the other two can be used as arms. They also have a small mouth and two eye stalks with a large eye at the end of each. The eyes has large eyelashes all the way around. One of the aliens is standing to the left of the screen, pointing to it by raising one of its tentacles. The other two aliens stand to the right of the screen looking at the picture. The screen's image depicts a cross-sectional diagram showing two humans in a rough landscape. There is a shaded area above each of the humans and the terrain. The shaded area's boundary consists of arcs of differing sizes centered upon each human. To the left of the first human there is also a small straight area over the ground. To the left of this towards the edge of the screen, what appears to be an arc with a very large radius that begins and rises high up compared to the other two arcs, around a point beyond the on-screen image's edge. The rightmost human's zone has a dashed region between concentric radii of different sizes indicating that this zone has been revised further out than before. Four flying-saucer like spaceships are shown in the air close to, but above, the shaded areas. One high near the left curve, one over the flat area, one near the intersection between the two small arcs and one over the middle of the right arc.]
:Left Alien: Human 38XT11-B-C54  just bought a new phone with a 10x zoom, so we have to expand our restricted flight zone by 1,800 meters to keep our ship blurry.
:Right Alien 2: Seriously? Didn't they '''''just''''' upgrade?
:Left Alien: I know, I know...

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The hardest part of being an alien observing Earth is keeping track of what cameras everyone has.

==Trivia==
* The aliens depicted here appear to be the same lifeforms as seen in the bottom row of [[2359: Evidence of Alien Life]].
* They also have similarities to the illustration in the [[what if]] ''{{what if|20|Diamond}}''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]

1826: Birdwatching

2022-05-04T02:21:18Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232900 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1826
| date = April 19, 2017
| title = Birdwatching
| image = birdwatching_small.png
| titletext = No, tell the park rangers to calm down, it's fine--I put a screen on the front. I just want to get the birds a little closer.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Cueball]] and [[Knit Cap]] are out birdwatching (hence the title). {{w|Birdwatching}} is an activity to observe birds. Usually this is done at a distance, as birds are flying in the air, and are far away. It is thus helpful to use {{w|binoculars}}.

[[Knit Cap]] uses binoculars and manages to spot a {{w|hawk}} a mile up. Cueball, however, has brought his camera, probably his superzoom camera from [[1719: Superzoom]]. (He uses that again already two comics later in [[1828: ISS Solar Transit]]). It is very difficult to find anything in such a camera, especially if held in one's hand (as opposed to on a tripod) and zoomed in. Maybe Cueball is with his trained friend, out birdwatching for the first time. Cueball is frustrated and comments on the difficulty and is amazed [[Knit Cap]] can spot birds over such distances.

Frustrated with his camera, Cueball comes up with a solution, which is to use a {{w|vacuum cleaner}}, specifically a {{w|shop vac}}, to pull the birds in closer so he won't need the superzoom camera to see them. This is physically impossible with such a small device. Even if the shop vac created a perfect vacuum, it can only pull out air at the speed of sound, which amounts to approximately 1 cubic meter per second considering the apparent size of the hose. This is not enough to create a significant amount of wind or affect the atmosphere. (He might've borrowed it from [[Beret Guy]] who has many [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] that also extends to improving vacuum cleaners, which Cueball knows about as seen in [[1486: Vacuum]]).

Cueball's shop vac bird collector is similar in concept to [http://biostor.org/reference/76824/page/3 vacuum-based insect collectors] [http://media.nola.com/environment/photo/xuanchen1jpg-fca88349bf05fe83.jpg used by] [http://www.rinconvitova.com/d-vac.htm entomologists]. Cueball evidently thinks that a similar concept will work to easily collect birds.

The title text refers to {{w|park ranger}}s, who are officials in charge of protecting the natural elements (i.e. plants, animals, etc.) in many parks and would certainly object to birds being forced to coalesce via an extremely powerful vacuum. If such a vacuum were created and used for this purpose, it probably would pose a threat to the safety of birds. Cueball says he has solved this problem by placing a perforated screen in front. In doing so, he can safely attract the birds without trapping them inside the vacuum. He implies that this should remove the danger to the birds, which is not the case. While the birds can no longer enter the vacuum itself, having a large number of birds pulled into a (presumably small) screen would probably fare poorly for the birds, so Cueball's solution is rather poor.

When out birdwatching it is a great idea to have a silhouette chart to be able to recognize the birds by the shadow they make against the sky. Two comics before this one [[Randall]] made a comic with just such a chart, [[1824: Identification Chart]], although that was for combinations of birds and planes...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Knit Cap with a knit cap are standing together looking up in the sky. Cueball holds a camera with a large lens down in front of him, and his friend holds binoculars down in front of him.]
:Cueball: Birdwatching is hard.
:Cueball: They're all way too small and far away.

:[In a frame-less panel they both raise their tool eyepieces to their eyes.]
:Cueball: That hawk is over a mile up! How did you even spot it?

:[Both lower their eyepiece again. The friend still looks up while Cueball looks down on his camera which he holds up in front of him. A black squiggly line above his head indicates that he is fuming over his camera's abilities.]

:[Cueball now has a vacuum cleaner with a big body and a large hose which he is pointing towards the sky, as air is visibly sucked in to the hose and the vacuum cleaner is making a very loud noise which extends beyond the frame of the panel.Cueball is holding one hand on the vacuum cleaner which has a label with its brand on it. Cueball's camera lies on the ground in front of the vacuum cleaner. The friend looks back at Cueball.]
:Vacuum cleaner: <big>'''''Whrrrrr'''''</big>
:Label: Shop Vac

==Trivia==
*This comic was originally published with a very large picture, much larger than the standard screen.
**The original image was named [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/birdwatching_huge.png birdwatching_huge.png]
**The image at that location has also been downsized to normal dimensions.
**It was later updated to use an image without the "_huge" in its name, at the usual size.
*The unexpected size was at first interpreted as being part of the joke, see the [[#Discussion|discussion page]].
**The idea was that the reader was only seeing an inconvenient subset of the magnified image on the screen, just like Cueball was experiencing an inconvenient subset of the magnified sky through the zoom of his camera lens.
**It seems, however, that it wasn't meant to be like this, as both the size and name of the image were later corrected.
*Alternatively the size gave people trouble with reading the page, and made Randall change his mind and reset it to normal size.
**It seems weird he would make a "_huge" version by mistake?
*The premise is similar to the {{w|Superman_(1940s_cartoons)|Fleischer Superman}} cartoon {{w|The Magnetic Telescope}}, where a mad scientist does essentially the same thing with comets.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2283: Exa-Exabyte

2022-05-04T02:21:03Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232670 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2283
| date = March 20, 2020
| title = Exa-Exabyte
| image = exa_exabyte.png
| titletext = To picture 10^18, just picture 10^13, but then imagine you connect the left side of the 3 to close off the little bays.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is arguably the ninth comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}. This comic does not mention the disease but it does mention biology.

This is a comic about the difficulty of picturing or understanding large numbers. As mentioned in the comic, an {{w|exabyte}} is 1018 bytes, while an "exa-exabyte"—not a common word, but one that abuses the principles of {{w|metric prefix}}es—would be 1036 bytes. 1036 is properly given the name undecillion (in short scale, and sextillion in long scale).
According to [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/science/counting-all-the-dna-on-earth.html a 2015 article] by ''The New York Times'', researchers estimate that there are about 5 * 1037 DNA {{w|base pair}}s on Earth (50 trillion trillion trillion). So [[Miss Lenhart]]'s claim of 10 exa-exabytes—1 * 1037 bytes is a reasonable approximation ({{w|Fermi estimation}}). (The estimate was 5 plus or minus 4 * 1037. There are 4 possible base pairs, or 2 bits per pair, a byte is 8 bits.)

These numbers are larger than most people can imagine. Even much smaller numbers such as a billion (109) or a trillion (1012) are [[2091: Million, Billion, Trillion|hard to imagine.]] For instance:
* 1 billion seconds is equal to 31.7 years; 1 trillion seconds is equal to 31,688.74 years.
* [https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/a-billion-grains-of-rice-91202220e10e 1 billion grains of rice] weigh approximately 34,447 lb (15,625 kg).

Wikipedia has an article on the {{w|exabyte}} and one on large numbers which describes {{w|Orders of magnitude (numbers)#1018|various things close to 1018}}.
* [https://abc7news.com/science/possibly-habitable-planet-found-100-light-years-away/5821548/ TOI 700 d], a potentially habitable Earth-like {{w|exoplanet}} is 100 light years away, which is about 1018 meters.

[[Cueball]] expresses his difficulty in visualizing a number even as large as ''one'' exabyte (1018 bytes).

[[Megan]] trivializes the problem away by describing an exabyte as 10 apples, with "18 smaller apples, floating next to them and a little above", representing the notation 1018 using apples for digits. This is entirely unhelpful, as using apples in a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unary_numeral_system base-1] enumeration offers no obvious advantages over base-10 in understanding exponents; Megan's bad advice & Cueball's seemingly ready acceptance of it causes Miss Lenhart to yell out "No!" in frustration.

The title text further trivializes the problem of visualizing large numbers by suggesting that you can visualize 1018 as a number by simply visualizing the similar-looking number of 1013 with some extra lines drawn to turn the 3 into an 8. Changes in exponents can cause huge changes in the value shown, and this is no exception: Changing that 3 into an 8 changes the value by a factor of 100,000.

Randall has previously discussed the difficulty of large numbers in [[2091: Million, Billion, Trillion]], [[1894: Real Estate]], and [[558: 1000 Times]].

[[1605: DNA]] also discusses how "hard" biology is.

==Transcript==
:[Miss Lenhart is holding a pointer, and is pointing it towards a blackboard behind her, while she addresses her student Cueball who is sitting on a chair at a desk to the left of her, holding his hands on his knees.]
:Miss Lenhart: Biology is hard because there's so ''much'' of it. Earth hosts about 10 exa-exabytes worth of DNA.

:[In a frame-less panel, the panel has panned to the left and is now showing Miss Lenhart holding the pointer to her side, but without the blackboard. In front of her is now both Cueball and Megan sitting at their desks. Cueball has taken one hand on to the table. Megan has both hands folded on the table in front of her.]
:Cueball: What's an exa-exabyte?
:Miss Lenhart: It's 1036 bytes.
:Cueball: How do I picture '''''that?'''''
:Miss Lenhart: Imagine you had an exabyte of data, but each byte ''contained'' an exabyte of data.

:[Zoom in on Cueball's head. A starburst to the right indicates Miss Lenhart's voice from off-panel.]
:Cueball: I can't even picture what an exabyte is.
:Miss Lenhart (off-panel): It's 1018 bytes.
:Cueball: But how do I picture 1018?

:[Zoomed out to showing Megan, Cueball, and Miss Lenhart along with the blackboard. Megan has raised a hand palm up. Cueball is looking back at her over his shoulders. Miss Lenhart is forming a closed first with her empty hand, the one without the pointer.]
:Megan: Imagine you had 10 apples.
:Megan: Now imagine 18 smaller apples, floating next to them and a little above.
:Cueball: Cool, got it.
:Miss Lenhart: '''''No!'''''

==Trivia==

In [[1519: Venus]], release date May 1, 2015, [[Miss Lenhart]] indicated that she was retiring as a primary or secondary school teacher in a month. Here we see Megan and Cueball, both adults, sitting in a classroom setting with Miss Lenhart providing instruction. A reasonable assumption is that Miss Lenhart has taken some form of {{w|adult education}} job during her retirement. For example, in the United States it is common for {{w|community colleges}} to use low paid {{w|adjunct professors}} who either have a day job or another source of income such as a teacher's pension.

There is also a hint of irony in her having to now put up with the same type of blatantly incorrect explanations that she herself was freely giving out just prior to her retirement.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Biology]]

2331: Hamster Ball 2

2022-05-04T02:20:47Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232661 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2331
| date = July 10, 2020
| title = Hamster Ball 2
| image = hamster_ball_2.png
| titletext = The worst is being teased by responsible, mask-wearing teens. They even spritz the hamster ball with disinfectant before rolling it, carefully avoiding the filter vents.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

A {{w|hamster ball}} is a small, transparent sphere in which a hamster or other pet rodent can run around (reasonably) safely, without being in its cage. Cueball had [[152: Hamster Ball|previously]] [[211: Hamster Ball Heist|obtained]] a "{{w|zorbing|human-sized hamster ball}}" for himself.

Cueball relates that, once upon a time, he was teased for this seemingly-frivolous pursuit, but he feels that now, in the midst of a worldwide [[:Category:COVID-19|coronavirus pandemic]], having his own bubble to be inside is a smart move. He is contrasted to White Hat, who is wearing a {{w|Surgical mask|facemask}} for protection.

"Who's laughing now" is a common phrase that you know better than others who originally laughed at you, or that the "tides have turned" and you have a control over the situation. However, as White Hat notes, the same people who laughed at Cueball before are still laughing at him, for the same reasons as before: even though his hamster ball has some practical utility now (enforcing social distancing), it still looks ridiculous and is lots of fun to roll around.

In the title text, Cueball says that he feels worst about being teased by "responsible, mask-wearing" teens, who treat the outside of his hamster ball as a potentially-contaminated surface (which it is, if it has previously been rolled around by ''ir''responsible teens who might have contracted and spread the coronavirus) and disinfect it, taking care to avoid spraying the vents and thus not exposing Cueball's lungs to a hazardous chemical, before rolling him around. It's not clear why he doesn't like being rolled around by responsible teens; it could be that he vindictively wishes that they ''would'' catch the coronavirus from the outside of his hamster ball, thus proving that he was correct to use it, or it could be that his ego is injured by the fact that even responsible and otherwise well-mannered and socially-conscious teenagers (who are not likely to be particularly harmed themselves by COVID-19, but conscientiously follow guidance to reduce transmission and protect those who are at-risk) find his hamster ball so ridiculous that they have to have fun at his expense.

As the title indicates, this is the second comic specifically devoted to hamster balls; the first was [[152: Hamster Ball]], in which Cueball wished for a genie to give him a human-sized hamster ball (and then had no other wishes he wished to wish). A human hamster ball also features prominently in [[211: Hamster Ball Heist]].

==Transcript==
: [Cueball is inside a transparent human-sized sphere, evidently "rolling" forward. Ahead of him is White Hat, wearing a mask.]
: Cueball: They laughed at me, all those years ago, when I got this human-sized hamster ball.

: [Frameless panel with just Cueball rolling forward, with his hand in a fist.]
: Cueball: But who's laughing now?!?

: [Cueball and White Hat have stopped. White Hat is pointing into the distance.]
: White Hat: Sounds like the same people.
: White Hat: See? There's some of them over there.

: [Cueball turns around to roll backwards while White Hat stands next to him still.]
: Cueball: Yeah, neighborhood kids.
: Cueball: At least they've stopped trying to roll me into soccer goals.
: Cueball: No, here they come.
: Cueball: Run!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Hamster Ball 2]]
[[Category:Hamster Ball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring face masks]]

1963: Namespace Land Rush

2022-05-04T02:20:29Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232655 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1963
| date = March 5, 2018
| title = Namespace Land Rush
| image = namespace_land_rush.png
| titletext = You can also just mash the keyboard at random, but you might end up with a gibberish name no one can pronounce.
}}

==Explanation==

When a new web service starts, such as a forum, a social media server or an email portal, the people who sign up get to choose their username on the service, which, in most cases, blocks future users from using those usernames. Common names such as "john" are likely to be taken quickly. This is analogous to the way that land was distributed in America, with the first to claim able to choose the best land.

This comic is a list of usernames [[Randall]] suggests should be used if they are available.

The title text is a self-reference to "xkcd"; the name of the comic is a purposefully unpronounceable phrase created by Randall. The fact that an unpronounceable name is portrayed as a disadvantageous outcome is also humorous because the comic has a section dedicated to unpronounceable usernames.

(Note: for a more serious list of problematic user names to block from a service provider’s point of view, see [https://ldpreload.com/blog/names-to-reserve Hostnames and usernames to reserve] as well as [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142 RFC 2142].)

==Table==
{| class="wikitable"
!style="width:30%"|Entry
!style="width:70%"|Explanation
|-
!colspan=2|Straightforward (Usernames that a person would use under typical circumstances)
|-
|<Your usual username, if any>
|Most internet users will have settled on some unique handle that they try to use across all platforms. Even if this wasn't a new service, most people would try this first.
|-
|<Your given name>
|More rare is using one's nickname or first name as their username, since the amount of common names will mean many users share a name. Thus, if you can get your given name, you will have a simple username that many others wanted, and without resorting to prefixes or numbers (i.e. Xx_MyName00_xX)
|-
|<Your full name>
|Similar to your given name, but slightly more unique since a last name and/or middle name is added.
|-
|<Initial><Surname>
|A common second choice if a given or full name is already in use.
|-
|<Surname>
|Possibly available if your last name is more uncommon; names like "Smith" or "Kim" will probably be taken faster than even given names.
|-
!colspan=2|Recognizable (Usernames that would make it look like the email came from an official source within the organization named)
|-
|Google
|Registering the name "Google" would allow for communicating on the site (or even outside of it) with a name that appears to be an official Google account. For any of the examples in this section, you would select the names for the same reason. This has been done in the past with both [https://twitter.com/BiIIMurray humorous] and [http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-russian-twitter-account-tennessee-gop-20171018-story.html nefarious] results.
|-
|iPhone
|Many services would mark messages sent from an iOS client on iPhone as "sent from iPhone".
This could make people believe that your messages are sent from an iPhone even if you don't own one.
|-
|Facebook
|Similiar to Google above.
|-
|Bitcoin
|One could pose as the Bitcoin Core development group by using this handle and/or scam uninformed users interested in cryptocurrencies.
|-
|Obama
|Impersonating a president, supposedly to send messages as them to make them seem bad (or not).
|-
|Canada
|Impersonating a whole country might get you in trouble.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|NFL
|The American "National Football League".
|-
|Garfield
|In the original "GMail" service on the Internet, the G stood for "Garfield".
|-
|<Your city>
|Impersonating the official account for your place of residence.
|-
|NASA
|The American "National Aeronautics and Space Administration". Randall worked there as a contract programmer and roboticist.
|-
|<Name of person who runs the service>
|Impersonating the site owner can get you the trust of users.
|-
!colspan=3|Causing Trouble (Usernames that might cause errors when mixed with the service's back-end code)
|-
|User
|This is usually the default username for a non-administrative account. This may trick a user that this is owned by the operator of the service.
|-
|Username
|See above.
|-
|Name
|See above.
|-
|You
|Many services display "You" as the signed-on user, so naming oneself "You" makes users think that they are you/they are signed on when they aren't.
|-
|Guest
|Attempts to fool users into thinking that they have a guest account.
|-
|Account
|The opposite of "Guest" (someone without an account). However, for someone with an account, their username will usually be displayed.
|-
!colspan=2|Causing More Trouble
|-
|Admin
|Impersonating to be a system administrator will let someone fool people and cause a lot of trouble. In particular, it could be used to obtain SSL certificates by demonstrating ownership of a supposedly internal address.
|-
|Administrator
|See above.
|-
|System
|Pretending to be a system-controlled account - might give permissions if the server checks by name.
|-
|<Name of service>
|Pretending to be the official account of the service.
|-
|Help
|Pretending to be the help account. This could led to many questions from new users.
|-
|Error
|This may trick users to do what the user says as they could claim that it was a legitimate error.
|-
!colspan=2|Impossible to Say
|-
|Hyphen-Emdash
|Could be read "Hyphen hyphen Em dash" or "Hyphen dash em dash".
|-
|Dash-8hyphen-8
|Could be read "Dash dash eight hyphen dash eight" or "Dash hyphen eight hyphen hyphen eight". "Hyphen eight" sounds like "hyphenate".
|-
|Zero0ne2numeral2
|Could be read "Zero zero one two numeral two" or "Zero zero ne two numeral two" or "Zero oh ne two numeral two".
|-
|KrisasinHemsworth
|This would be confusing to say out loud, as it would sound like the user was saying that their username was "Chris," spelled the same way that famous actor {{w|Chris Hemsworth}} spells his name. However, the actual username uses the name "Kris," spelled a completely different way than Chris Hemsworth's name, and the phrase "as in Hemsworth" being also part of the username, rather than a clarification of the spelling of "Kris" as would be assumed.
|-
|TheWord&Ampersand
|This would also be confusing and difficult to communicate, as anyone trying to read the username to someone else would say "The word ampersand ampersand" which could be interpreted as "ampersand&" or "ampersand ampersand". Having the phrase "the word" in front of a symbol makes it quite difficult to communicate which variation of ampersand (word or symbol) is actually being referred to.
|-
|ZettaWith3Teees 
|Read aloud, this would lead the listener to expect a username of 'Zettta'. Clarifying that "with three tees" is text and not description would in turn make it difficult to explain the spelling of 'Zetta' with two 't's, and 'Teees' with three 'e's.
|-
!colspan=2|Misc
|-
|<Single Letters> and <Single Numbers>
|These are highly valuable. The Twitter handle "@n" for example is constantly bombarded with offers and hacking attempts.
|-
|<Common Words>
|Also highly valuable; overlaps with "Recognizable" and "Causing (more) Trouble".
|-
|<SQL/JS Injection>
|Codes such as "Drop Table" intended to cause errors or even damage the service's back-end code. (See [[327|Comic 327]])
|-
|ASDF and QWERTY
|Since those keys are right next to each other (on English language layouts), they are often typed as placeholders.
|-
|Yes
|This might be a [[Beret Guy]]-esque misunderstanding when filling out the sign up form. When encountering the form field "Username:" someone may type "Yes" (as in "yes, I want a username") instead of specifying it.
|-
|Bot and Computer
|Pretending to be a bot.
|-
|Blocked
|When users get banned or blocked, their name is often replaced by a string like this.
|-
|Deleted
|Some services like Reddit keep up user posts and data after account deletion, marking the content as submitted by the user "[Deleted]" or "Deleted".
|-
|Jeeves
|Might refer to {{w|Ask Jeeves}} (now Ask.com), a Internet Search Engine.
|-
|Narrator
|In books, radio plays and movies it is quite common to have a narrator explain parts of the story. In an online forum however, it is not.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Internet
|"The Internet" sometimes refers to a large group of users, the collective hive-mind if you will. However, there cannot be a single user account speaking on behalf of them, as they aren't a single entity.
|-
|NPC
|Stands for Non-player character.
|-
|Password
|If the user accidentally typed their password into the username field, this would be the result.
|-
!colspan=2|Permissive Character Sets
|-
|<Space>
|Usernames containing only whitespace can not only be confusing for other people, but often systems 'trim' (remove whitespace at the beginning and end) user input. If the username was only made of spaces, after trimming it would be completely empty, which can cause a whole slew of other problems.
|-
|<nowiki>@ é |</nowiki>
|The @ seperates the local part from the domain part of email addresses. If a service decides to create email addresses for their users, they will have a hard time if they allowed the "at" character as part of a username.
é is encoded in many character sets, like Latin-1 and Unicode. In Unicode, it can even be described either "U+00E9 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE" or as the sequence "U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E" and "U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT". If a system uses {{w|Unicode normalization}} after the check if the username is available, this might allow someone to take over someone else's account.
|-
|<nowiki>“ ” " ‘ ’ ' `</nowiki>
|Various quotation marks.
“, ”,‘ and ’ (Unicode quotes): can expose a system's inability to handle multi-byte-encodings. If they are converted to their ASCII counterparts, they might cause code injections.
' and " (ASCII single and double quotes): often used as string delimeter (causing the rest of the name to be interpreted as HTML, or worse, code.
` (ASCII grave / backtick): Sometimes used as string delimeter; Perl (which some websites are still programmed in) executes commands ("shell code") when between backticks.
|-
|<NBSP>
|Unicode character "U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE". Similar attack vector as <Space>, but some programming languages will not strip non-ASCII whitespace (therefore the validation will pass).
|-
|<nowiki>\ . #</nowiki>
|The backslash is very often used for "escape sequences", that get expanded to other characters. (\n -> newline, \t -> tab character, \b -> backspace character (deletes the character to its left), etc.)
The period can be problematic in emails. RFC 2822 forbids periods at the beginning or end of the local part or more than one period in a row.
In URLs, the Octothorpe (#) is used as the 'anchor'. Anything following a # will not be transmitted to the server. If a user is named 'logout#blahblah' (which might be a valid username) and the user profile is located at http://example.com/<the_username>, the server might generate the URL http://example.com/logout#blahblah. Since the URL will be truncated at the '#', any user attempting to view this profile will be logged out of the service.
|-
|<RTL override>
|The right to left override is an Unicode character which forces text after it to be laid out right to left. Thus, in left-to-right locales, it flips everything after it. This can be rather amusing if permitted. (See [[1137|Comic 1137]])
|-
|<nowiki>– - _ /</nowiki>
|Includes both the em-dash and the hyphen, which are easily confused and are highly unusual for user names. The forward slash is also the path delimeter for URLs; if user profiles are located at e.g. http://example.com/user/the_username, this can cause obvious issues.
|-
|<Any emoji>
|Current databases are not set up to store emojis as characters.
|-
|","
|In CSV files this separates one column or data item from another. This could cause bugs if the usernames are used as part of a CSV file since the next column on the row could be left blank filled with other data.
|-
|<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>;
|The special entity in HTML (web page language) for a non-breaking space, or a space that prevents an automatic line-break at its position. When rendered as part of an HTML page without sanitization, this would only display a space.
|-
|<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>
|This is trying to inject code for the web page using the user name. If the user name is not sanitized and does not have special characters encoded, this HTML end tag could end the HTML document, leading to page errors.
|-
|&LT;/HTML&GT;
|&LT; and &GT; are special character entities in HTML that represent < and >, repectively. So all together, when rendered as part of an HTML document, this would print "<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>" Although this would look similar to the previous <nowiki></HTML></nowiki> entry, it would be unlikely to cause problems as the symbols are not interpreted if encoded as special entities.
|-
|OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML GreaterThanActualGreaterThan Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver”
|The abundance of symbols and symbol related worlds and phrases such as ActualGreaterThanSymbol would make this extremely difficult to vocally communicate to another person. This difficulty is further compounded by the parts at the beginning and end, which sound like they are part of the explanation despite being part of the name itself.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Layout not standard (eg. indentation) and a short description at the beginning about what is shown should be given.}}
'''Namespace Land Rush Cheat Sheet'''
(Note: if an item is "quoted", it is meant literally, otherwise the reader is supposed to substitute their own information for words in <angle brackets>)

When a new service appears that lets you register a name, here are some you may want to try and get first:

* Straightforward
** <Your usual username, if any>
** <Your given name>
** <Your full name>
** <Initial><Surname>
** <Surname> (Bold & Slightly Unconventional)

* Recognizable
** "Google"
** "iPhone"
** "Facebook"
** "BitCoin"
** "Obama"
** "Canada"
** "NFL"
** "Garfield"
** <Your city>
** "NASA"
** <Name of person who runs the service>

* Causing Trouble
** "User"
** "Username"
** "Name"
** "You"
** "Guest"
** "Account"

* Causing More Trouble
** "Admin"
** "Administrator"
** "System"
** <Name of service>
** "Help"
** "Error"

* Impossible to Say
** "Hyphen-Emdash"
** "Dash-8hyphen-8"
** "Zero0ne2numeral2"
** "KrisasinHemsworth"
** "TheWord&Ampersand"
** "ZettaWith3Teees" 

* Misc
** <Single Letters>
** <Single Numbers>
** <Common Words>
** <SQL/JS Injection>
** "ASDF"
** "QWERTY"
** "Yes"
** "Bot"
** "Computer"
** "Blocked"
** "Deleted"
** "Jeeves"
** "Narrator"
** "Internet"
** "NPC"
** "Password"

* Permissive Character Sets
** <Space>
** <NBSP>
** <RTL override>
** <Any emoji>
** "<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>;"
** "<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>"
** "&LT;/HTML&GT;"
** one or more of the following symbols: <nowiki>@ é | “ ” \ . # " ‘ – - _ / ’ ' `</nowiki>
** "," (including quote marks)
** "OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's<LessThan\ForwardSlashHTMLGreaterThanActualGreaterThanSymbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfTheName,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver”"

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

2310: Great Attractor

2022-05-04T02:20:09Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232649 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2310
| date = May 22, 2020
| title = Great Attractor
| image = great_attractor.png
| titletext = Living in the southern hemisphere was nice because I could jump extra high, but I like it here too. Besides, if I ever want to move back, I can just curl up in a ball and wait!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] comments on the fact that as summer approaches, the sun rises earlier and sets later, a common topic of conversation, especially to complain that it is still light at times of day where you are used to it being dark out. [[Beret Guy]] comments that he fell off of the wall this morning, a seemingly unconnected topic.

People will often complain about falling out of bed as an indicator of having slept badly. The later sunset is [https://www.insider.com/why-its-hard-to-sleep-in-the-summer-2018-6 often linked to worsened sleep]. However, Beret Guy didn't fall from the bed, he fell from the wall. While being able to figure out he's talking about his worsened sleep, Cueball is understandably confused, so Beret Guy clarifies.

Beret Guy is strongly affected by the {{w|Great Attractor}}, a large gravitational anomaly that influences the galaxies near it, but is difficult to observe directly. Beret Guy claims that the Great Attractor pulls on him unusually hard, which could be another one of his [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]]. This attraction, while not overpowering the gravity of the Earth, (he states in the title text that he can "Jump extra high" when it is above him) affects his life greatly.

For Beret Guy his attraction to the Great Attractor means that, at various times, like now, he can lie on the vertical surface of any wall (external or internal) that is currently oriented in a fortuitous direction (i.e. facing north). He fell off the wall this morning due the Great Attractor being below him during daylight hours and on the horizon during night hours. Thus, Beret Guy's complaint in the first panel comes across as an attempted solidarity with Cueball's complaint; he was still asleep when the Great Attractor moved to below him, causing him to fall off the wall and presumably awaken him. The Great Attractor reaches the same apparent location once in a stellar day which is about four minutes shorter than the solar day. This means Beret Guy would only be able to sleep on walls for certain part of the year, as the time of day when the Great Attractor is near the horizon would occur 4 minutes earlier each day.

He gives a short explanation of which Attractor he refers to (the space one) and why the Great Attractor affects him. According to his doctors it is apparently caused by the motion of galaxies and how many dimensions his bones have. Since having fewer than 3 spatial dimensions may lead to trouble, his bones may be existing in more dimensions than our normal 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time. Galactic motions normally have no significant effect on a person with 3-D bones.{{Citation needed}}

Beret Guy then says that day-sliding season is near, due to the Great Attractor being at the horizon in the day, and offers to run errands for Cueball in the South, implying that he will be pulled towards the south during day-sliding season, and can run much faster in that direction.

Beret Guy is not standing straight up during this comic, he has one knee slightly bent towards Cueball in the first two panels. This is because it is evening (8:00 PM as Cueball states) and the Great Attractor is now coming near the horizon, where it will be during the night. So Beret Guy will be pulled towards the south, behind him in the comic, and thus leans away from the pull. In the final panel, when he leaves Cueball, moving right towards south and into the pull, he can be seen sliding along the ground without walking. He leans a bit back to not stumble forward. His last sentence also indicates that he either speeds up or that he is a little uncertain on his feet altering his voice.

He mentions that at the moment during day-time the Great Attractor is beneath him so he can stand straight. He then just feels a little heavier (he will thus weigh more than another person with the same mass).

In the title text he says he liked living in the south because the Great Attractor was often above him, meaning he could jump higher with the help of its pull (and would weigh less than a normal person with same mass). Since he could jump, the force is clearly weaker than Earth's gravity, but still enough for him to easily slide over the ground when it is near the horizon. So he could likely win some high-jump or long-jump competitions if he chose the right time and place.

Being Beret Guy, he is never really unhappy, so he states that he also likes it here (in the north). But then he continues to comment on how easy it will be for him to get to the south. Because if he entirely stopped bracing himself against the pull by crouching into a more spherical shape, and just waited for the Great Attractor to get near the horizon again, then the pull would cause him to start rolling over the ground to some place with lower net gravitational potential, i.e. further south, where the Great Attractor will be more directly over his head. In practice travelling any extended distance, let alone thousands of kilometers, by rolling would likely result in unpleasant bruising and be generally a bad idea.{{Citation needed}}

A prior example of an xkcd character with alternate gravitational susceptibility is [[417: The Man Who Fell Sideways]], where a consistent off-vertical pull somehow applies (rather than one linked to a spot on the stellar sphere). In [[1376: Jump]] Cueball floats sideways across the ground a bit above Earth, in a similar idea to being pulled sideways.

See also these other fictional examples of [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/872243.The_Revolving_Boy 'personalized'] [https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Tethys gravitational] [https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sally_Cambric susceptibilities].

Beret Guy has previously been interested in strange attracting forces in the universe, in [[502: Dark Flow]], where he hoped it was his mom and wished she would pull on him. It was though not about the Great Attractor, and the force did not clearly affect him, although his love for his mom did affect two space probes, as mentioned in the title text.

This comic came out just a bit more than a month before the next comic with one of Beret Guy's strange powers, [[2325: Endorheic Basin]]. Which is interesting since the previous comic with such a power came back in November 2017, [[1922: Interferometry]], more than 2.5 years before this one. Also in the Endorheic Basin comic strange forces exerted a pull on Beret Guy, although in that it was he who attracted water, where here it was himself that was most affected.

=====More detail=====
Some of the humor of the comic has to do with the immense differences in scale between Beret Guy and the Great Attractor.

In very round numbers our own {{w|Milky Way}} galaxy is 150,000 - 200,000 light years across. It is just one of several galaxies in something called the {{w|Local Group}}, which is around 10,000,000 light years across. And the Local Group is itself in something called the {{w|Virgo Supercluster|Local Supercluster}} (also called the Virgo Supercluster), around 110,000,000 light years across. Each galaxy, each group, and each {{w|supercluster}} is not just a chance alignment, but is a gravitational coherent structure. And all this is just yet a part of the even larger {{w|Laniakea Supercluster}} in which also the Great Attractor is located, along with more than 100,000 other galaxies, in a region of space spanning more than 500 million light years.

Something unpredictable (hence "anomalous") is going on with the galaxies in the Local Supercluster (including our own). These galaxies are indeed accelerating away from one another as seen by their red shift. {{w|Hubble's Law}} predicts the expansion should be uniformly proportional to their distance from Earth and from one another. But for the Local Supercluster something is restricting the expansion. That something is, as "viewed" from Earth, somewhere in the direction of the Southern Triangle constellation but 250,000,000 light years distant, and has (but only since 1988) been termed the Great Attractor. The Great Attractor can't conveniently be seen at visible wavelengths, because that direction is the so-called {{w|Zone of Avoidance}}: the area of the night sky obscured by our own Milky Way.

Boiling this all down: something a quarter of a billion light years away that makes an anomalous blip in the local rate of expansion of the universe, and whose existence astronomers deduce only by X-ray observations of stellar red-shift, has large-scale effects on everyday gravitational forces uniquely experienced by Beret Guy. OK, now you can smile.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Beret Guy stand next to each other, talking. Beret Guy leans towards Cueball by bending down one knee.]
:Cueball: I can't believe it's still light out. It's 8:00 PM!
:Beret Guy: Seriously! This morning I fell off the wall.

:[In a frame-less panel with the same setting Beret Guy is looking and pointing to the right.]
:Cueball: Wait, why were you sleeping on the wall?
:Beret Guy: The Great Attractor is near the horizon at night right now.

:[Zoom in on Beret Guy, who hold one hand palm up towards Cueball who is speaking to him off-panel.]
:Cueball (off-panel): The Great Attractor?
:Beret Guy: Yeah! The space one.
:Beret Guy: It pulls on me extra hard. Doctors said it's something to do with galactic motion and how many dimensions my bones have.

:[Cueball is still standing as Beret Guy slides away to the right, while looking and leaning back towards Cueball. He holds his arms slightly out, to keep his balance. Lines behind him and at his feet indicates his motion, even if he is clearly not walking. In his last word the letters becomes italic after Good and the last three Ts becomes smaller and smaller than the previous letters.]
:Beret Guy: This time of year, it's below us all day, so I stand vertically. But day-sliding season is near!
:Beret Guy: Let me know if you have any errands to run to the south!
:Beret Guy: Good''niiighttt''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

351: Trolling

2022-05-04T02:19:31Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232694 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 351
| date = November 30, 2007
| title = Trolling
| image = trolling.png
| titletext = And I was really impressed with how they managed to shock the Goatse guy.
}}
[[File:Rick_Astley_-_Pepsifest_2009.jpg|thumb|200px| Rick Astley. (from Wikimedia Commons)]]
==Explanation==
The term ''{{w|Trolling}}'' is used to describe provocative, destructive, or annoying behavior on the {{w|Internet}}. Especially common are Internet pranks of the {{w|bait-and-switch}} type, an example of which is {{w|Rickrolling}}. It involves placing a {{w|hyperlink|link}} that is supposed to contain interesting or funny material, but instead directs to the music video of the 1987 {{w|Rick Astley}} song ''{{w|Never Gonna Give You Up}}''. The prank first occurred in May 2007 on the popular {{w|imageboard}} {{w|4chan}} and has since become a widespread {{w|internet meme}}.

The comic has [[Black Hat]] and [[Cueball]] digging into the ground and splicing Black Hat's computer into the TV cables of {{w|Rick Astley}}'s house. They are feeding the video of ''{{w|Never Gonna Give You Up}}'' into Astley's TV signal, who can be seen sitting in his living room and wondering why CNN has been replaced by his own video. The act of Rickrolling Rick Astley himself is declared to be a "great moment in trolling".

The title text mentions {{w|Goatse.cx}} (pronounced ''goat sex''), a former {{w|shock site|shock website}} that was used in a similar prank. People clicking on the feigned link would instead see the disturbing picture of a practitioner of anal stretching. The title text suggests that Black Hat and Cueball somehow made the (unknown) founder of the site click on an even more shocking link, or possibly put him in the personal presence of anal stretching.

Also note that the comic image itself is itself a Rickroll. Anyone curious enough as to why their mouse pointer became the selection icon to click on the comic (on the original [https://www.xkcd.com/351/ xkcd page]) would find themselves watching "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Rick Astley was actually Rickrolled on reddit ([https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/haucpf/ive_found_a_few_funny_memories_during_lockdown/fv505w1/ at r/pics]) on June 17th, 2020.

==Trivia==
*Almost 13 years later, on 18th June 2020, {{w|Rick Astley}} was actually rickrolled
**He was rick rolled by someone pretending that he had met Rick backstage when he was 12, and posted a link that was actually a rickroll.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat and Cueball are in Rick Astley's yard, hacking into his cable TV connection and replacing the signal. Rick Astley is sitting in a chair in his house, watching TV.]
:TV: CNN has obtained this exclusive footage of the riot-torn-- ''*CZZZHT*'' ♫ Never gonna give you up... ♪
:Rick Astley: What the hell?

:[Caption below the frame:]
:GREAT MOMENTS in TROLLING:
:Rick Astley is successfully Rickrolled

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

2258: Solar System Changes

2022-05-04T02:19:19Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232704 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2258
| date = January 22, 2020
| title = Solar System Changes
| image = solar_system_changes.png
| titletext = "Actually, Jupiter already has a very impressive ring system!" --someone who knows Jupiter is within earshot
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows a drawing with a standard sketch of the {{w|Solar System}}, featuring the Sun, 8 planets, the asteroid belt, and Pluto. [[Randall]] then proposes eight changes to the solar system that he would make if he had the power to do so. Each change is drawn in red with explanatory labels. Performing these changes would be impossible in practice{{Citation needed}}, and would probably make the solar system unstable if actually performed{{Citation needed}}.

See explanations of each proposed change in the [[#Table of proposed changes|table]] below.

The title text refers to {{w|Rings of Jupiter|Jupiter's rings}}, which exist but which are not nearly as prominent as Saturn's.

The title text is being spoken by "someone who knows [that] Jupiter is within earshot," implying that the speaker does not wish to offend Jupiter. While Jupiter does have its own ring system, it is so faint that it wasn't discovered until 1979. Considering that Jupiter is known to disrupt the asteroid belt and send asteroids towards the inner solar system (cf. {{w|Kirkwood gap}}) and completely destroy other celestial bodies ({{w|Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9}}), someone who is "within earshot" of Jupiter may wish to reassure the planet that they think its ring system is already very impressive when they really don't.

Randall has in the past proposed other types of ridiculous changes, such as in [[1061: EST]], [[1069: Alphabet]], and [[1902: State Borders]].

==Table of proposed changes==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Proposed change !! Explanation
|-
| Add mysterious planets inside Mercury's orbit || In the 19th century, scientists found discrepancies between Mercury's predicted orbit and observations. They proposed a hypothetical planet, {{w|Vulcan (hypothetical planet)|Vulcan}}, to account for this discrepancy. After general relativity was discovered by Albert Einstein in the 20th century, it was found to account for these discrepancies.

Planets inside Mercury's orbit would be "mysterious" because they would be difficult to see (due to being above the horizon only during the day and a short period of twilight) or visit (spacecraft travelling inside Mercury's orbit are subject to enormous amounts of sunlight, causing them to overheat). If such planets existed, it's plausible that flybys wouldn't have occurred until very recently.
|-
| After what it's been through, Venus deserves rings and a moon || Billions of years ago, Venus and Earth are believed to have been almost identical objects orbiting the Sun. However, orbiting somewhat closer to the Sun, Venus became sufficiently hot that its oceans evaporated, cloaking the surface with gases that caused the Sun's heat to become trapped. This made the planet even hotter, causing a [[1519|runaway greenhouse effect]], and ultimately Venus became very much hotter than the Earth. In turn, the lack of water caused Venerean plate tectonics to fail, causing Venus to have periodic "resurfacing" events where the entire crust is recycled by volcanism. On top of that, Venus was almost certainly hit by an enormous object, hard enough that its spin was completely reversed. Randall may be saying that Venus has fared so badly throughout its life that it deserves some compensation, like rings or a moon.

Alternatively, Randall could be referring to how we see Venus now as opposed to in the past. A hundred years ago, scientists considered Venus and Mars to be equally likely candidates for life and future human exploration - one being a little warmer than Earth and the other a little colder. However, when we sent spacecraft to Venus and Mars in the 1960s, we quickly discovered that [https://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ Venus is a terrible place]. Its atmosphere is more than 90 times as dense as Earth's and its surface temperature is over 450° C (800° F), not to mention the sulfuric acid rain. Spacecraft that have landed on its surface have lasted a couple hours at most. As a result, missions to Venus have become far rarer since the 1960s, while missions to Mars have remained frequent. Randall might be saying that most people don't consider Venus to be nearly as fascinating place as they used to, and that it would be far more interesting with rings, or at least a moon like Earth or Mars.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, some astronomers (most notably Giovanni Cassini) claimed to have found a {{w|Neith (hypothetical moon)|moon of Venus}}, but that was later determined to be an illusion.

Note that, due to the retrograde spin of Venus, any prograde-orbiting moon would inspiral due to tidal drag (the same effect causing the Moon to slowly move away from the Earth). It is unknown whether Venus used to have moons that were destroyed by this mechanism (possibly passing through a ring state in the process).
|-
| Replace our moon with Mars. Mars is more interesting and we can consolidate missions. || Mars has a lot more geological variety than the Moon, a much faster rotational period, and is much larger and has active weather patterns, and would therefore look far more interesting than the Moon when seen from Earth. In addition, by replacing Earth's current moon with Mars, sending spacecraft to the moon and Mars wouldn't require separate missions and could thus be consolidated into a single one. This would benefit NASA's space exploration efforts, which have suffered from presidents alternating targets for human exploration between "moon-to-Mars" versus "Mars direct" architectures.

Unfortunately, replacing our moon with Mars would have some negative side-effects for both worlds. Mars is 8.7 times more massive than the moon, which means that it would raise much stronger tides on Earth than our moon does now. As for Mars, it would now be significantly warmer than in its present orbit. The ice caps would likely sublimate, and what little water is left on the planet could boil away due to the lack of a thick atmosphere.

Incidentally, the Moon is thought to have been formed by an impact between the young Earth and a Mars-sized body. While Randall probably means well, the situation could get out of control very quickly.
|-
| The solar system needs a super-Earth || {{w|Super-Earth|Super-Earths}} are a type of {{w|Exoplanet|exoplanet}} -- a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun -- that are significantly larger than Earth but significantly smaller than the gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). While they are relatively common among systems in which smaller exoplanets have been found, our Solar System doesn't have any super-Earths, and with Mars being moved to replace the Moon, its location would be open to a new planet. With a super-Earth nearby, astronomers would be able to get a much better idea of what they are like. A super-Earth might also be an exciting place to colonize, although [https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition30/tryanny.html it would not be possible to return to orbit from such a planet] with current rocket technology.
|-
| More asteroids! || Asteroid belts are usually portrayed in fiction as being incredibly crowded with asteroids, so much so that they pose a significant hazard for spaceships. In reality, the asteroid belt is much more boring, as most large asteroids are millions of miles from their nearest neighbor. The number of asteroids in the asteroid belt is indeterminate, as they range in size from dwarf planets {{w|Asteroid|down to about a meter across}}, and more than 100,000 have been found. Despite this, the density of asteroids in the belt is low enough that spacecraft have no problem flying through the belt untouched. Randall wants more asteroids.
|-
| Merge the big planet and the ringed planet into a big ringed planet ("Jaturn") || Jupiter is the largest planet, with a volume larger than all other planets combined, and it displays striking weather patterns such as the {{w|Great Red Spot}}. Saturn, with its prominent ring system, is perhaps the most spectacular, but the planet itself looks very bland with the exception of an enormous hexagonal storm at the north pole. Randall would merge the two, creating one planet that would dominate by both size and appearance. This new planet has Jupiter's cloud features, but Saturn's rings and polar hexagon. The two planets' moons would also be combined: the "Jaturn" diagram shows both the Galilean moons (the four largest moons of Jupiter) and Titan (the largest moon of Saturn) orbiting outside of Jaturn's rings.
|-
| Cut Uranus. Uranus and Neptune are redundant and Neptune is better. Tough but fair. || Uranus and Neptune are often regarded as being planetary "fraternal twins." Both have approximately the same size, the same mass, and the same composition - they even have similarly bizarre magnetic fields. Uranus's most notable trait is that its axial tilt is almost 98°, meaning it lies on its side and has a seasonal cycle unlike that of any other planet. However, this causes Uranus to look completely featureless most of the time, which makes it less interesting, while Neptune has more active weather patterns, including, episodically, a {{w|Great Dark Spot}} similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The name "Uranus" is also {{tvtropes|UranusIsShowing|subject to ridicule}} by English speakers. Randall also characterized Neptune as the slightly more interesting planet of the two in {{what if|30}}.
|-
| Settle the planet thing by making Pluto a moon of Neptune || Pluto was considered a planet from its discovery in 1930 until 2006, when the International Astronomical Union changed its definition of "planet" and reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet. However, many people who grew up with Pluto listed as the ninth planet of the solar system were unhappy with the change, a topic that has been the topic of several other xkcd comics ([[473: Still Raw]], [[1551: Pluto]], [[1555: Exoplanet Names 2]], etc.). Randall proposes a {{w|Solomonic compromise}} to "satisfy" both the camps who prefer to think of Pluto as "not a dwarf planet" and "not a planet" by making it into a moon. The diagram shows that Charon will also be made a moon of Neptune, and presumably Pluto's other moons as well. Even if the entire Pluto system were transplanted all at once, tidal forces would cause the bodies to drift apart and orbit Neptune independently.

Interestingly, one of the original hypotheses for Pluto's origin is that it and Triton were originally both moons of Neptune, but Triton knocked Pluto out of its orbit into a new orbit around the sun, while Triton remained with Neptune.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A not-to-scale diagram of the solar system is shown with the right edge of the sun on the left side, featuring all eight planets along with their major moons, Pluto (along with its major moon), and the asteroid belt. The original solar system is drawn in black, but several changes have been proposed. If some of the existing planets are removed or changed, they are greyed out, possibly with red crosses over them or red circles or arrows. New planets, moons, rings and asteroids have been added all in red. Each change has been labeled with red text. Only the Sun and Mercury are completely unchanged, Earth and Neptune are not changed directly but their moons have changed. The only black text is a caption at the top:]
:<big>Changes I Would Make to the Solar System</big>

:[Below each of the changes to the solar system is mentioned from left to right, with their labels, that are all in red text. Except for the label under Jupiter and Saturn, there is a line going from the changes to the relevant label.]

:[Three additional planets, one Mercury sized and two smaller on either side very close to each other, have been drawn in between Mercury and the Sun. A bracket marks all three of them and a long line goes from that to the label above, which is even above the next label positioned above the planets.]
:Add mysterious planets inside Mercury's orbit

:[A ring has been drawn around Venus, and a dot representing a moon has been added on its left. A small line goes from the label beneath to Venus.]
:After what it's been through, Venus deserves rings and a moon

:[Next to Earth, drawn with four of the major continents visible, the Moon has been grayed out and crossed out with a red X. Also Mars has been grayed out and it is inside a red circle. An arrow goes from the circle around Mars to the Moon. a small line goes from the arrow between the Moon and Mars to the label above the planets.]
:Replace our moon with Mars. Mars is more interesting and we can consolidate missions.

:[An additional planet, all in red, has been added between Mars and the asteroid belt, about halfway in size between Earth and Neptune. Four continents are visible in a large ocean, along with weather patterns as in an atmosphere. A small line goes from the planet to the label beneath.]
:The Solar System needs a super-Earth

:[Numerous asteroids have been drawn, half in black, with the other half in red added to the existing asteroids that were already there. A small line goes from the asteroids to the label beneath.]
:More asteroids!

:[Jupiter and Saturn have both been greyed out and also crossed out with two red X'es. Two arrows points from each of the original planets to a new larger red planet drawn above the two. This new planet has the belts, zones, Red Spot, and size of Jupiter, and the hexagon on the north pole and rings of Saturn. It also has the four largest moons from Jupiter on one side and the largest moon from Saturn on the other side, with all five drawn similarly to the original moons. Below the two original planets is a label.]
:Merge the big planet and the ringed planet into a big ringed planet ("Jaturn")

:[Uranus is greyed out and also crossed out with a red X. A line goes down to the label beneath it.]
:Cut Uranus. Uranus and Neptune are redundant and Neptune is better. Tough but fair.

:[Pluto and Charon have both been greyed out and are inside a red circle. An arrow points from Pluto and Charon to the right side of Neptune, where Pluto and Charon have been redrawn in red. Neptune's own largest moon is on the other side of Neptune. A line goes from the arrow up to a label above the planet.]
:Settle the planet thing by making Pluto a moon of Neptune

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Compromise]]

2173: Trained a Neural Net

2022-05-04T02:19:02Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232706 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2173
| date = July 8, 2019
| title = Trained a Neural Net
| image = trained_a_neural_net.png
| titletext = It also works for anything you teach someone else to do. "Oh yeah, I trained a pair of neural nets, Emily and Kevin, to respond to support tickets."
}}

==Explanation==

An {{w|artificial neural network}}, also known as a neural net, is a computing system inspired by a human brain, which "learns" by considering lots and lots of examples to develop patterns. For example, these are used in image recognition - by analyzing thousands or millions of examples, the system is able to identify particular objects. Neural networks typically function with no prior knowledge, and are "trained" by feeding in examples of the thing that they are told to analyze.

Here, [[Cueball]] is telling [[White Hat]] how he trained a neural net to sort photos into categories. The joke in the comic, is the engineering tip from the caption. It states that since a human brain is already a neural network, albeit a biological one instead of an artificial one, then by teaching oneself (or others) to do a task, you are ''de facto'' training a neural network to do so. So instead of designing and training an artificial neural net that could do this task, all Cueball did was manually sort the photos into categories (although he could then use those sorted images to train an artificial neural network). This is the first time such a tip has been used, but engineering tip just continues the [[:Category:Tips|tips]] trend that [[:Category:Protip|Protip]] began long ago.

It is not advisable to say this in real life, because you might then be expected to use your already-trained neural net to do a similar task (or redo the same task) with much greater speed, thus ruining the façade. However, presenting work done by humans as work done by machines has been done in real life, perhaps starting with {{w|The Turk}} in 1770 and continuing into the present day by various AI-themed startups. For example, Engineer.ai described itself as using "natural language processing and decision trees" to automate app development, but [https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/08/15/2223222/ai-startup-claims-to-automate-app-making-but-actually-just-uses-humans was actually employing humans].

The title text is a continuation of this joke, as instead of designing and training two artificial neural nets named "Emily" and "Kevin", all he has done is train two people with those names to manually respond to support tickets. Again, doing this in real life is not advisable, as people are offended when they are referred to by programmers as deterministic automata with no free will.{{Citation needed}}

Neural networks have been trained to perform other tasks that are routine for humans, but formerly more difficult for computers, such as driving cars, playing games like chess, go, and Jeopardy!, and communication skills like extracting phonological information from speech as per [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.06533.pdf Figure 1 here]. In [[1897: Self Driving]], Randall suggested that crowdsourced applications like ReCAPTCHA, that have been used to train neural nets to recognize objects necessary for safe driving in photographs, may also be used for [[wikipedia:Wizard of Oz experiment|Wizard of Oz experiments]]. An example of such a [http://www.5flops.com/su/pdf/asru2017.pdf Wizard of Oz experiment for phonological training] as a form of peer learning has been explored, and related work is occurring on [https://www.langep.com/assets/pdf/Ramanarayanan2018b.pdf automating vocational training.]

The extent to which [[wikipedia:Artificial neural network#Models|computer neural nets]] are analogous to [[wikipedia:Neuroscience|human neurobiology]] is a topic which fascinates the scientist and layperson alike. While there is no fully universal consensus on the matter, at least [https://sci-hub.tw/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05709.x one] [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tops.12068 apparently longstanding] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG8_hlnFdWM theoretical paradigm] has [https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03121 received attention] recently.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat is looking at a smartphone in his hand, while he talks to Cueball, who lifts a hand palm up towards White Hat.]
:White Hat: Oh, hey, you organized our photo archive!
:Cueball: Yeah, I trained a neural net to sort the unlabeled photos into categories.
:White Hat: Whoa! Nice work!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Engineering Tip: When you do a task by hand, you can technically say you trained a neural net to do it.

==Trivia==
*Cueball is depicted abusing the training of such a chatbot in [[1696: AI Research]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

2215: Faculty:Student Ratio

2022-05-04T02:18:35Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232713 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2215
| date = October 14, 2019
| title = Faculty:Student Ratio
| image = faculty_student_ratio.png
| titletext = They managed to briefly hit the top of the rankings when they rejected everyone except one applicant, published 5 billion research papers that just said "Hi," and hired one of their graduates for $50 trillion/year (then fired them after 10 microseconds.)
}}

==Explanation==
Universities are often rated in various ways to help students/parents pick which one to attend. This comic satirizes the very real culture of schools modifying their actions to artificially inflate their ratings. One metric used in ratings is the {{w|Student–teacher ratio|ratio between the number of faculty members to the number of students}}. Typically this is expressed as the student-teacher ratio, which normally determines how much time teachers get to spend with individual students. The lower the ratio, i.e., the fewer students per teacher, the smaller classes teachers have to teach, and thus the more attention the teachers can give to each student. However, having many more teachers than student(s), as in this comic, is not very beneficial to the student(s). (For context for international readers, high student-teacher ratios are common and expected in the United States, Randall's home country, whereas some nations especially in Asia sometimes report much lower ratios, often close to 1:1 in some areas.)

Another metric commonly used to measure a college's exclusivity and therefore prestige is the college's rejection rate; more prestigious schools get more applicants, and since they can accept only a limited number, they must reject many. Less prestigious schools often accept a higher fraction of their applicants, but some schools will reject students whose test scores, résumé, etc. are much higher than average for the school since it's likely that college is a "safety school" and the student won't actually go there. This rejection can decrease the school's acceptance rate and make it appear more prestigious. However, if the above-average student does want to attend that school, they are unable to, even though it would be good for both the college and the student.

{{w|Proprietary colleges|For-profit universities}} and {{w|diploma mills}} may use techniques like this to artificially boost their ratings or use fabricated metrics and {{w|accreditation mills}} to give an inflated appearance of value. {{w|Predatory publishing|Predatory publishers}} and conferences are other techniques used to inflate the perceived value of a school or to pad curriculum vitae.

In the title text, other metrics are skewed in the school's favor:

*Having a high standard for entry is usually associated with better or high-prestige schools; however, this is subverted by the fact that the school has only one student per class. A class of one would make (at least for most students) for a poor educational experience,{{Citation needed}} especially in this case, where the student is apparently being micro-managed by all of the teachers at once. Even if it were a good academic environment, it could only benefit one student per year, which means the school would only have a very modest impact on the world.

*A high number of research papers would normally indicate a high level of scientific research at the school; however, ''these'' research papers have no real content in them and are all identical, rather missing the point of a research paper - namely, to make the scientific community aware of new research.

*A high hiring rate (percentage of students that have gotten a job after education) and a high average salary after graduation is favorable, as it is one goal for many students attending college. However, the school in question artificially inflates these metrics by having all (one out of one) of their student body be hired by them, producing a 100% hiring rate, and giving them a starting salary that is astronomically high, but not giving them enough employment time to actually gain very much income. $50 trillion/year for 10 microseconds is approximately $15.85 (= $50e12 / (365 * 24 * 60 * 60) * 10e-6 * 10) if pay is assumed to be spread constantly over the full 365 days of the year. Assuming fifty-two 40-hour workweeks would make this <abbr title="$66.77=$50e12 / (52 * 5 * 8 * 60 * 60) * 10e-6 * 10">$66.77</abbr>. Since xkcd originates in the USA, trillion [[2091: Million, Billion, Trillion|most likely means]] 1e12 (i.e., {{w|Long and short scales|short scale}}), as compared to 1e18 (long scale interpretation).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting hunched over a desk writing while ten people crowd around him, five on each side, all leaning towards him. On the left side, they are Hairbun, a Cueball-like man, Hairy, Megan - who speaks, and another Cueball-like man. On the right are Ponytail, a third Cueball-like man, another Megan-like woman, Blondie, and finally a fourth Cueball-like man.]
:Megan: How's the work going?
:Cueball: Can you all at least stand back a little?

:[Caption below the panel]:
:My school tried to game the ratings by having a 30:1 faculty:student ratio

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category: Research Papers]]

331: Photoshops

2022-05-04T02:18:20Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232716 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 331
| date = October 19, 2007
| title = Photoshops
| image = photoshops.png
| titletext = When I look into your eyes, I see JPEG artifacts. I can tell by the pixels that we're wrong for each other.
}}

==Explanation==
This whole comic, including the title text, are a play on the then-popular {{w|internet meme}} "[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-looks-shopped This Looks Shopped]." It may also be making fun of how everything and anything you find on the internet has someone insisting that it's 'fake' or 'photoshopped', regardless of whether it's true in actuality.

{{w|Adobe Photoshop}} is a popular {{w|Graphics software|image manipulation tool}}. It is used to manipulate photographic images and for drawing. Of course, Photoshop and similar tools like Paint Shop Pro can only be used for imagery, not for real life objects.

The title text contains the second part of the internet meme, the complete text of which is: "THIS LOOKS SHOPPED / I CAN TELL FROM SOME OF THE PIXELS AND FROM SEEING QUITE A FEW SHOPS IN MY TIME."

Quite a few interesting images have been uncovered as "shopped" using various techniques. Some examples: shadows are in the wrong direction, extra hands appear, movie stars are made thinner, wrinkles or spots are removed, and objects are added or removed. This of course triggered the start of the meme.

{{w|JPEG}} is an image compression algorithm that works by finding frequencies in blocks of 8x8 pixels and saving that instead of the original pixels. This works remarkably well, but sometimes leaves artifacts that can be seen when zooming in enough. The iris of an eye contains all kinds of odd colored spots - and there's not a JPEG algorithm in sight.

This is another strip in the [[My Hobby]] series.

==Transcript==
:[Megan holds a sword while Cueball looks on.]
:My hobby: Insisting that real-life objects are photoshopped.
:Megan: This sabre is a 19th-century family heirloom.
:Cueball: It looks photoshopped.
:Megan: Huh?
:Cueball: Yeah, the reflections are all wrong. Definitely photoshopped.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Computers]]

2226: Recombination And Reionization

2022-05-04T02:17:58Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232742 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2226
| date = November 8, 2019
| title = Recombination And Reionization
| image = recombination_and_reionization.png
| titletext = These signals seem to be pre-star-formation but post-Malone.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|hydrogen line}} is a {{w|spectral line}} of neutral (un-ionized) hydrogen atoms. The electrons in an atom have a property called spin, equal to either 1/2 or -1/2, and one "spin state" of the electron in neutral hydrogen has slightly more energy than the other spin state. This means that when the electron in a hydrogen atom spontaneously switches its spin state, it releases a photon at a certain frequency called the hydrogen line. This line falls in the {{w|microwave}} region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with a frequency of ~1.42 gigahertz (GHz). The wavelength corresponding to this frequency is about 21.1 centimeters, giving it the common name of the 21-centimeter line. In this comic, [[Ponytail]] is attempting to detect the signal of this emission line from the ancient universe, although due to {{w|redshift}}, the line's frequency has decreased from 1.4 GHz to only ~100 megahertz (MHz), putting it in the current {{w|FM broadcast band}}. In most parts of the world, FM radio makes use of frequencies from 87.5 to 108 MHz.

The problem that FM radio and the signal for which Ponytail is searching overlap in frequency quickly becomes apparent when tuning to the frequency detects a local radio station rather than the desired signal. The radio station is called Hot 92.7: The Vibe; this indicates that Ponytail is searching for a signal at 92.7 MHz, but there is a [https://vibe927miami.com/ radio station] interfering with it. She demonstrates this to [[Cueball]] by playing the live signal for him, but says that once the radio DJ stops talking, their research will result in a {{w|Nobel Prize}}. This is unlikely, as most radio stations broadcast 24 hours a day without ever stopping (except in cases of power failure, which would also affect Ponytail's radio telescope). An unstated joke is that Ponytail's observational setup receives the FM radio signal at all; any actual {{w|radio telescope}} would have incorporated methods from its inception to exclude local sources of radio signals such as FM radio.

Cueball points out that perhaps the signal is what the supposed primordial hydrogen line actually sounds like during the phase of universe formation called {{w|reionization}}. Ponytail jokes back that the primordial universe must enjoy playing popular singer {{w|Selena Gomez}}. Although it is theoretically possible that a naturally occurring radio transmission might sound like music to humans, it would not contain clearly understandable coherent sentences in a language that did not exist when the transmission was created.{{fact}}

The title text refers to the signal Ponytail is detecting, claiming that it originates from before the formation of the first stars in the universe (which took place approximately 150 to 200 million years after the {{w|Big Bang}}), but is additionally post-Malone. "{{w|Post Malone}}" is the stage name of a popular hip hop musician and singer, so this is a play on words, as the "Post" in his stage name isn't referring to "after" something, but is simply his (real) last name, and perhaps a play on the expression "a star is born" for an artist becoming a famous celebrity.

==Transcript==

:[Panel showing Ponytail sitting working at some type of console, possibly in her laboratory. Cueball is standing on the other side of the console, facing her.]
:Ponytail: Our lab is trying to pick up the spin line of neutral hydrogen. It's the only radiation from the era before the first stars formed.

:[Panel showing Ponytail and Cueball. Ponytail has paused working, with one hand raised off the console.]
:Ponytail: It was 1.4 GHz at first, but by now it's redshifted to the 100-MHz range.
:Cueball: Isn't that also where FM radio broadcasts?

:[Frameless panel showing Ponytail and Cueball. Ponytail is pressing a key on the console to enable and disable a live signal from her lab's equipment.]
:Ponytail: Yeah. That's the problem. Listen:
:Sound of switch on console: *Click*
:Audio signal from console: ''You're tuned to Hot 92.7: the Vibe! Coming up next...''
:Sound of switch on console: *Click*

:[Panel showing Ponytail and Cueball. Ponytail has resumed working at the console, and Cueball has raised a hand to his chin.]
:Ponytail: But once this guy stops talking, that Nobel Prize will be '''''ours'''''.
:Cueball: Maybe that's not a station – maybe that's just what reionization sounds like.
:Ponytail: Reionization plays a lot of Selena Gomez.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[category: Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Nobel Prize]]

840: Serious

2022-05-04T02:17:44Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232747 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 840
| date = December 29, 2010
| title = Serious
| image = serious.png
| titletext = Not to be confused with Serious PuTTY, the Windows terminal client where everything is in Impact.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a play on words with the child's putty known as "{{w|Silly Putty}}", which is "silly" because it likes to be played with. Whereas Serious Putty does not even liked to be touched.

As it says in the title text {{w|PuTTY}} is a Windows Terminal client. {{w|Impact (typeface)|Impact}} is a font that is distributed with Windows that is used in the vast majority of "{{w|internet meme|meme}}" image macros, such as {{w|lolcat}} pictures.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing next to a table. There is a can on the table.]

:[The label on the can reads, "Serious Putty".]

:[Cueball is looking at the table again.]

:[He reaches out to touch the can. The can speaks.]
:Can: Don't touch me.

==Trivia==
*[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:LongPages&limit=20&offset=2540| This is the shortest comic explanation] on explainxkcd, as of writing this.

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

1451: Background Screens

2022-05-04T02:17:23Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232760 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1451
| date = November 24, 2014
| title = Background Screens
| image = background_screens.png
| titletext = No way, we gotta rewind and cross-reference this map with the list of coordinates we saw on the other screen. This Greenland thing could be big.
}}

==Explanation==
Plot and characters are generally the parts a movie that most people presumably pay attention to, as the story, the emotional connection, and character development are generally the things most people find enjoyable about particular films{{Citation needed}}.

On the other hand, [[Cueball]], likely representing [[Randall]], pays particular attention to what's on the computer screens shown briefly in the background. Generally speaking, these screens are shown to the audience for a short period of time, and at a low-level of detail, just to dress a set and make a scene feel more realistic or high-tech. They may contain endless columns of gibberish or miscellaneous data flashing by in an eye-blink (only visible by freeze-framing), or cross-hairs zipping across maps.

Often the contents of the computer screens are so unimportant or hard-to-read that the filmmakers do not bother to spend much time (if any at all) ensuring that what is shown on the screen is accurate or even relevant to the film. They may be designed by artists not fully aware of the details of the plot, and as a result, their content (where it is intelligible, such as in a map) can have little to no connection to the dialog or other story events going on in front of them. They sometimes even contain jokes. It is rare, if ever, that important information would be communicated to the viewer through background computer screens. Hence, Cueball's spending most of his time watching the screens seems counter-intuitive to understanding and enjoying the film.

{{w|Greenland}}, a large island east of Canada, is 80% covered in ice up to several kilometers in depth, and has a population of fewer than 100,000 people. Depending on the aliens' priorities (and the plot of the movie) there are myriad reasons both for and against wanting to land in such a remote area. In the title text, Cueball suggests investigating how a list of coordinates from another background screen relates to the location of the alien craft in Greenland, suggesting that Cueball thinks the filmmakers may have intended the viewers to record the information early in the film and analyze the data to learn relevant plot information - something that is very unlikely (and in the rare instance it is true, is intended to be superfluous). Most of the time, filmmakers take efforts to ensure the audience can easily follow plot points by making them more obvious than they might be in reality.

==Transcript==
:What I pay attention to in movies:
:[A pie chart with a small piece (5%) in the upper right part labeled:]
:Plot, characters
:[The rest of the chart (95%) is labeled:]
:Computer screens shown briefly in the background

:[Below the chart Cueball, sitting on the floor, and Hairy, sitting in an armchair, are watching a movie on the TV. Cueball points the remote at the TV.]
:Cueball: Hang on– That blurry map behind the general shows one of the alien ships is in ''Greenland''! Why '''''Greenland?!'''''
:Hairy [quietly]: Can we ''please'' just watch the movie?

==Trivia==
*There are a number of websites which specialize in documenting computer screens as seen in movies, including: (partial list - please expand/improve)
**[http://www.reddit.com/r/itsaunixsystem Reddit] - It's a Unix System I know This!
**[http://waxy.org/2013/07/screens_on_screen/ Waxy.Org] - Screens on Screen.
**[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/jan/10/computer-code-in-film-movie-terminator-girl-dragon-tattoo The Guardian] - Computer Code in Films.
**[http://moviecode.tumblr.com Moviecode tumblr]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Pie charts]]

1352: Cosmologist on a Tire Swing

2022-05-04T02:16:56Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232766 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1352
| date = April 7, 2014
| title = Cosmologist on a Tire Swing
| image = cosmologist_on_a_tire_swing.png
| titletext = No matter how fast I swing, I can never travel outside this loop! Maybe space outside it doesn't exist! But I bet it does. This tire came from somewhere.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and the curious [[Science Girl]] walk through a landscape with trees in the background and with many small pools of water. The setting of trees interspersed with these many small pools resembles the {{w|Wood between the Worlds}}, a meta-verse described in C.S. Lewis's ''{{w|The Magician's Nephew}}''; each pool leads into a different universe — one of these is ours, another is {{w|Narnia}}, and Charn (the world of Jadis the {{w|White Witch}}) is also visited through these pools.

Science Girl asks about the time before the {{w|Big Bang}}. Cueball says he thinks there was no time before — which is implied by most forms of the Big Bang theory. But then they happen upon a {{w|cosmologist}}, [[Megan]], on a swing who has several other theories about the universe.

Simply put, the tire swing is a symbolic representation of our universe. Scientific observations tell us that both space and time began with the Big Bang ~13.8 billion years ago. We don't know if there was such a thing as "before" the universe, or what that might be.

The first 6 panels reference ongoing speculation about where the universe came from and why it even exists in the first place. The last two panels relate to recent observations of the {{w|accelerating universe}} in which galaxies are now receding from each other at higher and higher speeds, due to {{w|dark energy}}.

The swing itself is likely a reference to the {{w|Cyclic Model}}, where the universe expands from a Big Bang, then contracts back in on itself under its own gravity for a {{w|Big Crunch}}, before bouncing outward again in another Big Bang, and repeating the whole process. On the other hand, the swing is accelerating as the universe — so it may also be a reference to the entire universe. We are all "trapped" on this swing — and it's accelerating! For the layman (and most scientists as well) cosmology is ''pretty confusing'' as Science Girl states at the end, to which the cosmologist just replies ''Wheeeee!'' and enjoys her ride with this accelerating swing/universe.

Another interpretation of the acceleration may referring to the physics of orbital motion in which a centrifugal force is always causing constant acceleration toward the center of the motion.

The title text references questions about the {{w|shape of the universe}} and what could lie "outside" of it. By the current understanding on physics laws, we can't see outside of the {{w|observable universe}}, but it's likely that the universe is bigger than this observable universe and uniform on large scale. Even though nobody can leave our own universe, Megan bets that such unknown worlds do exist - because this universe is here, and it must have come from somewhere — like her tire.

The shape of our universe was visited soon after in [[1365: Inflation]] where we can see what the outer boundaries of our universe looks like.

Science Girl is seen later in conjunction with a tire swing in [[1659: Tire Swing]]; maybe she is preparing to become a cosmologist herself. Also this may explain from where the tire came from...

==Transcript==
:[A tall panel with Cueball and Science Girl walking together through a landscape with three trees in the background and with many small pools of water. Their reflection is showing in the pool nearest to them.]
:Science Girl: What was before the big bang?
:Cueball: I think time began with the big bang.
:Cueball: So it doesn't make sense to ask what came before it.
:Cosmologist (off panel): ''Look out''

:[The next six panels are between the first tall panel and a similar panel at the end. They should be read from above and down in two columns of three images. The bottom of the first panel at the top is partly hidden by the second panel which is likewise partly hidden by the lower panel, and this repeats in the second column.]
:[A cosmologist looking like Megan comes swinging left past Science Girl and Cueball, who turns to look after her. She sit on an upstanding tire swing and the movement is indicated by two lines going from right to left.}
:Cosmologist: ''Wheeee'' Hi I'm a cosmologist on a tire swing!

:[The cosmologist swings back right, hanging in her arms with her body almost vertical. The other two also turns right.]
:Cosmologist: We don't know whether time

:[Going left, similar to the first of the small panels.]
:Cosmologist: started at the big bang.

:[Going right, similar to the second of the small panels, but with the cosmologist sitting more upright.]
:Cosmologist: It might have!

:[Going left, similar to the first of the small panels.]
:Cosmologist: Or maybe not! We don't know!
:Cueball: Oh. OK!

:[Going right, similar to previous going right panels.]
:Science Girl: ...Your tire swing looks fun!
:Cosmologist: I can't stop!

:[The last panel is again a full panel, with Cueball and Science Girl looking towards the right after the cosmologist who continued the last swing to the right from the last small panel, having just reach the upper part of the curve and has thus turned left to face them, before the swing will go down left again. The background is completely white with no indications of the trees and pools from the first panel.]
:Science Girl: Won't the swing stop on its own?
:Cosmologist: I thought it would, but it seems to be accelerating.
:Science Girl: Cosmology sounds pretty confusing.
:Cosmologist: ''Wheeeee!''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

707: Joshing

2022-05-04T02:16:43Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232768 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number =707
| date =February 26, 2010
| title =Joshing
| image =joshing.png
| titletext =You'd be moved up from 49 of ~7 billion to 31 of ~7 billion.
}}

==Explanation==
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" is a flippant response to a question that's been around at least since the movie ''{{w|Top Gun}},'' and has entered regular use in the English speaking world, even among people who don't know its origin.

The [[Cueball]] uses the line here, but the joke is that he actually ''is'' planning to kill the other one, and if he answered the question he'd have to kill him even sooner.

According to the title text, he'd go from #49 on his hit list (which apparently includes an approximation of the entire world population) to #31.

The title 'Joshing' refers to the colloquial American verb 'to josh', meaning to joke with.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: So, is the new project going forward?
:Friend: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!

:[The men laugh cautiously.]

:[The men resume conversation.]
:Friend: I mean, kill you even sooner.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

227: Color Codes

2022-05-04T02:16:24Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232773 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 227
| date = February 23, 2007
| title = Color Codes
| image = color_codes.png
| titletext = It's the TMBG Dial-a-Song line, to save you some time.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Resistor|Resistors}} are electronic components carrying color-coded bands indicating their value (measured in {{w|Ohm|ohms}}) and tolerance (e.g. 5%). [[Cueball]] has been hunched over his work for so long that, when asked for his phone number (by his Cueball-like friend), he absentmindedly reads out his phone's area code as a sequence of colors found on the aforementioned resistors (each colour corresponding to one of the ten decimal digits, in this case 718 – see {{w|Electronic_color_code#Resistor_color-coding|Resistor color-coding}}). He realizes his mistake after these first three digits and begins again using numbers to state the entire phone number. His friend points out that such a mistake means it's a good time to take a break, and Cueball concurs.

It's not uncommon for readers to try calling phone numbers they see inside a book or a comic strip, just to discover what it actually goes to. Randall foresees this, and in the title text he simply tells you what the phone number is.

TMBG is ''{{w|They Might Be Giants}}'', an alternative rock band responsible for toe-tapping chart-topping "Birdhouse In Your Soul." At one point, they recorded individual songs on an answering machine and advertised the phone number so people could call and listen to the song on the machine. Hence, {{w|They_Might_Be_Giants#Dial-A-Song|Dial-A-Song}}. However, the number was changed to (844)-387-6962 in 2015. TMBG has also created a website with the same function: https://dialasong.com.

Resistor color codes were mentioned again in [[1604: Snakes]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits hunched over his desk, which is littered with objects. His Cueball-like friend holding his cell phone talks to him.]
:Friend: Hey, what's your cell number?
:Cueball: (Violet Brown Gray)— Uh, I mean, (718)-387-6962.
:Friend: Okay, you are putting down those resistors and going outside for a while.
:Cueball: That's probably a good idea.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Phones]]

392: Making Rules

2022-05-04T02:16:10Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232775 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 392
| date = March 5, 2008
| title = Making Rules
| image = making_rules.png
| titletext = I never understood why someone would expect me to accept their rules right after they'd punched me. I'm sure it's all very symbolic or something.
}}

==Explanation==
"{{w|Punch Buggy}}" is a game played by two people with a view of traffic (often, but not here, during a car ride). For each {{w|Volkswagen Beetle}} that passes nearby, the first player to see it is entitled to punch the other player, while calling "Punch Buggy" followed by the colour of the spotted Beetle. Traditionally the other player is permitted to return the punch, unless the first player also calls "no punch back."

Many people will just assume that the game is always being played and punch you out of the blue, giving you no chance to opt out. [[Cueball]], however, finds the idea that he can simply be roped into a game without consent odd, and decides to make the game stakes more desirable than just the right to punch someone, and (seemingly successfully) uses the same principle to secure the right to sleep with the other man's girlfriend.

The title text is [[Randall]] elaborating on how ridiculous these types of games are, such as the idea that after being punched, one should just accept a "no punch back" rule.

In the UK, a common variant uses a yellow {{w|Mini}} rather than the VW Beetle. Other examples of this type of game are the {{w|Car numberplate game}} and {{w|Padiddle}}.

==Transcript==
:[Two men are sitting. A yellow buggy passes by.]
:Man: Punch buggy yellow no punch back!
:[Man punches Cueball, Cueball punches the man back, with seemingly greater force, causing the man to fall of the bench they are sitting on.]
:Man: I said no punch back!
:Cueball: You can do that?
:Cueball: Man, this changes everything.
:Soon...
:[A blue buggy passes by, and Cueball is holding Megan's hand.]
:Cueball: Sleep with your girlfriend buggy blue!
:Man: Hey!
:Cueball: No complaining back!
:Man: Aww...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Sex]]

2434: Vaccine Guidance

2022-05-04T02:14:20Z

Soulus: Undo revision 233927 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2434
| date = March 8, 2021
| title = Vaccine Guidance
| image = vaccine_guidance.png
| titletext = I can't wait until I'm fully vaccinated and can safely send chat messages in all caps again.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

On the day this comic was published, the {{w|Centers for Disease Control and Prevention}} (CDC) released [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html new guidelines] relating to COVID-19, lifting many of the existing restrictions for people who have been [[:Category:COVID-19 vaccine|fully vaccinated]] for two weeks. [[Megan]], speaking as a CDC spokesperson, is introducing these new guidelines in a video press conference. However, the other participants in the press conference quickly start asking about actions that have little or nothing to do with the vaccine, some of which would be dangerous whether COVID-19 was a risk or not, similarly to [[2238: Flu Shot]]. It's possible that they do not remember life before the pandemic very well, as in [[2391: Life Before the Pandemic]].

[[Blondie]] asks whether it would be okay to visit neighbors and drink milk directly from the carton. In most Western cultures, drinking directly from a container that could be shared with others (such as a milk carton) is considered unsafe, due to the risk of diseases being transmitted, and generally gross, as saliva and other biological material is passed that way. While these risks are arguably worse during the pandemic, it was unacceptable before the pandemic and will presumably be so afterward.

[[Science Girl]] asks whether it would be okay to ride a bike down the stairs of a family member's house, which has a severe risk of injury.

[[White Hat]] follows up asking whether he can get a horse, and whether it would help for him and/or the horse to wear masks. This has basically no relation to anything else that was said. In response, Megan gives up trying to answer the increasingly irrelevant questions and ends the call.

In the title text, [[Randall]] mentions that when he is fully vaccinated, he will be able to write messages in {{w|ALL CAPS}}. This is generally used to indicate shouting, an activity which could spread COVID-19 and cause infection if done in person.

==Transcript==
:[Megan's face is seen at the bottom of the panel with the CDC-logo slightly above her and to the left; it is a black rectangle with the letters in white, and with a white jiggly line to the left of the first C.]
:Megan: Our new guidance: Fully vaccinated people can gather privately with no masks or distancing, and can visit with unvaccinated low-risk people in one household.
:Megan: Any questions?
:Logo: CDC

:[Blondie, Hairy and Megan are seen at the bottom of the panel in three separate rectangular panels with Blondie and Hairy's panels at the left above one another. Those panels are almost square and also smaller than Megan's, more rectangular panel to the right of theirs. This panel is centered at the middle of those two panels to the left, and the logo is still visible. It is also shown that Megan is standing behind a lectern. Blondie, above Hairy, is the one asking questions to Megan.]
:Blondie: If my neighbors and I are all vaccinated, can I visit them unmasked and drink milk straight from the jug in their fridge?
:Megan: I...You can visit, yes.
:Blondie: And the jug thing?
:Megan: ...Next question?
:Logo: CDC

:[In a frame-less panel there are two panels at the bottom, with Science Girl in the largest to the left and Megan in the smaller to the right, with the logo still visible, but unreadable still the lectern is shown.]
:Science Girl: I'm fully vaccinated. Can I ride my bike in my sister-in-law's house?
:Megan: In her ''house?''
: Science Girl: Like, down the stairs.
:Megan: I guess? You should at '''''least''''' wear a helmet.
: Science Girl: Even if she's not high-risk?
:Megan: Any ''other'' questions?

:[White Hat is in a rectangular box at the bottom of the panel. Megan is replying from off-panel to the right from a star burst at the edge of the panel. At the bottom there is a message in a black rectangle with white text.]
:White Hat: I'm two weeks past my second dose.
:White Hat: Can I get a horse?
:Megan: Thank you all for coming.
:White Hat: What if I wear a mask?
:White Hat: What if the horse does?
:Message: Meeting ended by host.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:COVID-19 vaccine]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Animals]]

369: Dangers

2022-05-04T02:13:56Z

Soulus: Undo revision 233928 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 369
| date = Jan 11, 2008
| title = Dangers
| image = dangers.png
| titletext = Zero results: 'snake charming' and 'haberdashery'. (Things like 'car' and 'boating' and such are of course the highest, by a huge margin.)
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a chart of the frequency of certain phrases in Google search results, based on the format "died in a ______ accident." At the time of this comic, if you enclosed search terms in quotation marks, Google looked up the exact phrase rather than the individual words in any order.

"Died in a blogging accident" was very rare in Google {{w|Observer effect|until this comic appeared}}. It could be found on over 10,000 webpages approximately 12 hours after the comic was posted. Similarly, both snake charming and haberdashery accidents also return hundreds of Google results.

==Transcript==
:Dangers
:Indexed by the number of Google results for
:"Died in a _____ Accident"
:[A bar chart showing "Type of Accident" vs "Google Results" each with a bar representing a number]
:Skydiving: 710
:Elevator: 575
:Surfing: 496
:Skateboarding: 473
:Camping: 166
:Gardening: 100
:Ice Skating: 94
:Knitting: 7
:Blogging: 2

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Google Search]]

1318: Actually

2022-05-04T02:13:31Z

Soulus: Undo revision 233935 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1318
| date = January 17, 2014
| title = Actually
| image = actually.png
| titletext = Protip: You can win every exchange just by being one level more precise than whoever talked last. Eventually, you'll defeat all conversational opponents and stand alone.
}}

==Explanation==
The image shows a sphere, a simple model for the shape of the Earth. Six people stand on its surface, talking about ways to best describe it, starting with a flat surface, the first belief held, and ending with general relativity. As the statements form a circle, the very first statement can lead recursively off the last, as described below.

The statements in detail:

;Actually, measurements suggest it's flat.
*This statement is located at the top of the sphere in the comic, making it most likely to be read first. Given no other context, it will be interpreted as referring to the Earth; i.e. "The Earth is flat." This references the earliest view of our planet's surface.
;Actually, it's a sphere.
*This refers to the second earliest view of our planet's surface, as a ball with uniform radius everywhere.
;Actually, it's an oblate spheroid.
*This clarifies the previous statement; an {{w|oblate spheroid}} has a wider radius at the equator than through the poles. On Earth, this occurs because a rotating body tends to bulge at the equator, where the matter experiences greater centrifugal forces (analogous to experiencing more force at the outside of a round-a-bout rather than at the center). This is known as the {{w|equatorial bulge}}.
;Actually, it's a shape defined by the EGM96 coefficients.
*This adds even more clarification to the previous statement; the {{w|EGM96|Earth Gravitational Model 1996}} is a detailed map of the Earth's gravitational field, which is not as uniform as a pure oblate spheroid would suggest.
;Actually, it's that plus local topography.
*This adds an almost unnecessary level of clarification to the previous; obviously the Earth's surface is not a smooth shape but rather contains numerous mountains, hills, valleys, etc. which constitute "local topography".
;Actually, it's embedded in a universe that's curved.
* This shifts the perspective from the actual shape of the Earth to the "shape" of the space around it. According to {{w|General relativity}}, our planet's gravity bends the space-time around it, making it curved. At the time General relativity was discovered, it was not conclusively known whether the {{w|Shape of the universe|whole universe was flat or curved}}.
;Actually, measurements suggest it's flat.
*Looping around to the first statement and given the context from the previous one, this can now be interpreted as "the universe is flat" rather than "the Earth is flat". Recent measurements of the universe's shape strongly suggest that it is more or less completely flat rather than curved.
*This could also refer to Thomas Friedman's 2005 book "The World is Flat" which discusses globalization and the idea of the world as a level playing field of equal opportunity for commerce.
;Actually...
*The next two statements could also be interpreted as referring to the universe rather than the Earth - but they would no longer continue to be more precise than the previous ([[Cueball]]'s) statement.
*The text will not continue on to form a ''recursive loop'' - as the statement about the EGM by [[Megan]] would no longer make sense in context of the universe - and the same would be true for the next two statements.
;Title text
The title text pulls the whole comic together, pointing out that each statement in the comic is more precise than the previous. Unlike the loop in the comic, someone who does this will likely eventually win any real-life debate. The victory will not necessarily be a result of actually proving your logical argument, however: the phrase "stand alone" refers to driving away all conversation, resulting in no one wanting to speak to the person.

==Transcript==
:[Six people are standing upon a white circle as if it were a miniature planet. Each person is facing the reader and says something to the person on their right. All texts are displayed as a near-continuous stream over their heads to form one circle that encloses the whole picture.]
:[From topmost, going clockwise.]
::Cueball: '''''Actually,''''' measurements suggest it's flat.
::Ponytail: '''''Actually,''''' it's a sphere.
::White Hat: '''''Actually,''''' it's an oblate spheroid.
::Megan: '''''Actually,''''' it's a shape defined by the EGM96 coefficients.
::Hairy 1: '''''Actually,''''' it's that plus local topography.
::Hairy 2: '''''Actually,''''' it's embedded in a universe that's curved.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Protip]]

1044: Romney Quiz

2022-05-04T02:06:32Z

Soulus: Undo revision 234824 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1044
| date = April 18, 2012
| title = Romney Quiz
| image = romney quiz.png
| titletext = Charlie actually delivered the Medicare line almost verbatim in the 1971 movie's Fizzy Lifting Drink scene, but it was ultimately cut from the final release.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic satirizes "either/or" quizzes seen on websites such as mentalfloss.com. These quizzes normally have an element of challenge by presenting tonally similar quotes, such as "Who Said It: Ted Nugent or Cartman from ''South Park''?". The two people are generally chosen carefully to fulfill a particular role, for example:
*Polar opposites - Republican vs Democrat, Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice, Christian vs Atheist
*Real vs fictional
*Politician/Celebrity vs villain - George Bush vs Hitler, Nigel Farage vs Ku Klux Klan, Obama vs Lucifer

In each case the idea is usually to surprise the reader with the fact that the quotes are difficult to tell apart, with the implied "conclusion" that person A is essentially indistinguishable from person B. In some cases the quizzes may be used as a tool to portray a particular person or group in a certain way, or alternatively may be light-hearted jest.

{{w|Mitt Romney}} was the {{w|Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2012|Republican candidate for President of the United States}} (officially declared presumptive nominee on April 25, 2012, one week after this comic) during the {{w|United States presidential election, 2012|2012 US presidential election}} and, as it says above, the former Governor of Massachusetts. During the election, Mad Magazine published a popular [https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2012/03/02/who-said-it-mitt-romney-or-mr-burns article] ([https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2012/11/16/mad-asks-who-said-it-mitt-romney-or-mr-burns-volume-2 volume 2]) which compared quotes from Romney with quotes from the ''{{w|The Simpsons|Simpsons}}'' villain {{w|Montgomery Burns}}, the implication being that like Burns, Romney was a corrupt out-of-touch plutocrat and had similar views and affectations. In this comic, Burns is substituted with Charlie Bucket, the main character of the 1964 {{w|Roald Dahl}} children's novel, ''{{w|Charlie and the Chocolate Factory}},'' adapted to film in 1971 as ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.''

The joke here is that the two categories of quotes are not at all similar, and thus are very easy to attribute. Where the question "Is there even a difference?" usually implies some kind of political satire, in this case the point of the quiz appears to be lost, leading to a situation of bewilderment for the reader.

The title text refers to a Romney comment on {{w|Medicare (United States)|Medicare}}, a national program launched in 1965 to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. So the quote being used in a movie in 1971, while obviously not true, is indeed ''possible''. (Though, given that Charlie's supposed to have said it while floating in midair in the Fizzy Lifting Drinks scene, he'd have been more likely to be referring to ''himself'' as needing to regain "solid footing.")

==Transcript==
:[One long panel, with a large headline at the top, flanked by two small pictures on each side: a portrait of Mitt Romney on the left, and a child running with a golden ticket in his hand on the left. Below is a list numbered 1 - 12 down the left. The answers on the bottom are written upside down.]
:QUIZ: Who said it - former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, or Wonka contest winner Charlie Bucket?
:''Is there even a difference?''

:1. ———— "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country."
:2. ———— "Returning Medicare to solid footing represents our greatest entitlement challenge."
:3. ———— "Look, everyone, look, I've got it! The fifth golden ticket is mine!"
:4. ———— We have lost faith in government. Not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government."
:5. ———— "This banana's fantastic! It tastes so real."
:6. ———— "Grandpa... on the way home today, I ran into Mr. Slugworth."
:7. ———— "I'm not happy exporting jobs, but we must move ahead in technology and patents."
:8. ———— "Hey, the room is getting smaller."
:9. ———— "It would be impossible to reach unanimity on every aspect of our budget."
:10. ——— "Grandpa, look over there across the river! They're little men!"
:11. ——— "I'm... going too high! Hey, Grandpa, I can't get down! Help! Grandpa, the fan!"
:12. ——— "Barack Obama has failed America."

:Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11.
:[Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

953: 1 to 10

2022-05-04T02:06:04Z

Soulus: Undo revision 232811 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 953
| date = September 19, 2011
| title = 1 to 10
| image = 1 to 10.png
| titletext = If you get an 11/100 on a CS test, but you claim it should be counted as a 'C', they'll probably decide you deserve the upgrade.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Binary number|binary numeral system}} refers to a counting system in base-2, which uses only the digits 0 and 1, as opposed to the more familiar base-10 decimal system, which uses the digits 0 through 9. In this case, the scale of 1 to 10 is using binary, so in decimal it would be a scale of 1 to 2. Since 4 in binary is "100" it doesn't fit into the range "1" to "10" in a binary system. And [[Megan]] doesn't even know the number "4" because she's only working on the binary system, this character does not exist for her.

It is also possible that Megan is using base-3 or base-4, both of which don't have a 4 (base-3 counts 1, 2, 10, etc., and base 4 counts 1, 2, 3, 10 etc.)

It should be noted that if Megan is indeed speaking out loud in such a way that confuses Cueball, she would be saying "ten" out loud; this would automatically indicate she is indeed using base-10 (or higher). The correct pronunciation of "10" in base-2 is "one zero".

The title text uses a similar joke. Since test scores are usually written as either a letter grade or a percentage, 11 correct questions out of 100 would be a failing score in decimal notation. However, 11/100 in binary translates to 3/4 in decimal, which would be 75%, accepted in most classes as a 'C' grade.

It could also be argued that a score of 11 should count as a "B", as 11 is B in hexadecimal, however this link is a bit more tenuous, as the whole score would then be interpreted as "B/256".

==Transcript==
:Megan: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that this question is using Binary?
:Cueball: ...4?
:Megan: What's a 4?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Math]]

477: Typewriter

2022-05-04T02:05:40Z

Soulus: Undo revision 233733 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 477
| date = September 17, 2008
| title = Typewriter
| image = typewriter.png
| titletext = Somewhere in the world, my actual grandmothers are reading this and angrily exclaiming that I never write even malformed thank-you notes. DEAR GRANDMOMS: I AM SORRY! YOU ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE AND THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING LOVE reddit.com RANDALL.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] is writing a letter to his grandmother on a typewriter, thanking her for taking him and at least one other person on a trip. However, due to a habit he's developed from using a computer for so long, Randall inadvertently litters the letter with chunks of blank space followed by website URLs. As if through muscle memory, Randall periodically attempts to check the latest news by pressing a combination involving the Tab key, typing the URL of a specific website, then pressing a combination using the Tab key again.

On a computer, the ''Ctrl+Tab'' keyboard combination usually switches to between browser tabs within a window, such as between two {{w|Firefox}} tabs, while ''Alt+Tab'' switches between windows. However, there is only a simple ''Tab'' key on an old-fashioned typewriter. Pressing Tab there doesn't switch to another screen, it just moves the platen (the typewriter's cursor, so to speak) to the next tab stop, leaving a wide space before the next typing on the same piece of paper. So the key combination that would satisfy Randall's somewhat hyperactive impulses on a computer is dramatically different on a typewriter, where that key instead causes movement of the platen. So, he hits the tab key, types a URL, and hits the tab key again right in the middle of his letter. It also shows Randall's love of news and information websites.

The title text references that Randall's real grandmothers, upon seeing this comic, might feel bad that he doesn't write to them at all — not even poorly-written letters like in the comic. To remedy this, he writes a brief thank you note to his grandmothers... which also includes one ''Ctrl/Alt+Tab'' combination.

==List of websites==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Website address
! Name of website
! Description
|-
| [http://www.cnn.com/ cnn.com]
| CNN
| News website
|-
| [http://www.reddit.com/ reddit.com]
| Reddit
| Discussion forums
|-
| [http://www.news.google.com/ news.google.com]
| Google News
| Collection of news websites
|-
| [http://www.boingboing.net/ boingboing.net]
| BoingBoing
| Blogging
|-
| [http://www.bbc.co.uk/ bbc.co.uk]
| BBC
| British Broadcasting Corporation's website
|-
| [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ fivethirtyeight.com]
| FiveThirtyEight
| News, mainly politics
|-
| [http://www.slashdot.org/ slashdot.org]
| Slashdot
| News and forums
|}

==Transcript==
:[A typewriter is shown with the following letter in it:]
<pre>
Dear Grandmom, cnn.com
I hope this reddit.com letter
finds you well. I wanted to say I
really news.google.com enjoyed the
trip you boingboing.net took us on,
and am looking forward to bbc.co.uk
visiting later fivethirtyeight.com
this year.
Love, slashdot.org

Your grandson,
</pre>

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I didn't realize how bad my habit of tabbing to Firefox every few seconds to check news sites had gotten until I tried writing on a typewriter.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Nate Silver]]

2523: Endangered

2022-05-04T02:05:11Z

Soulus: Undo revision 234049 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2523
| date = October 1, 2021
| title = Endangered
| image = endangered.png
| titletext = The list includes polio, Guinea worm, and this one particular enterovirus strain that they've been tracking out of spite after it went around the lab a few years ago.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|endangered species}} list (also known as the {{w|IUCN Red List}}) is a system for categorizing species based on "level of extinction". This list is primarily focused on macroscopic organisms such as animals and plants, as it is these organisms whose extinction is easiest to quantify, and on which most conservation efforts focus. Generally, it is a serious concern when a species is listed on the endangered species list, as this indicates its extinction could be at hand. [[Ponytail]], [[Cueball]], and [[Megan]] in this comic are scientists who maintain an endangered species list of microscopic pathogens. People generally want harmful pathogens and parasites to go extinct,{{citation needed}} unlike harmless plants and animals, so each species added to the pathogen endangered species list is a cause for celebration rather than concern, and the characters in the comic indulge in this celebration by sarcastically pretending to be upset about the potential for pathogen extinction, while in reality being excited about the possibility.

The title text mentions some of the species on the list, including {{w|polio}} and {{w|Dracunculiasis|Guinea worm disease}} - diseases that have historically sickened and killed many people but are currently being {{w|Eradication of infectious diseases|eradicated due to worldwide efforts}} - the former, famously, through vaccination, and the latter through education and prevention techniques. As their eradication proceeds, they become more and more endangered of extinction, and thus earn their place on the list. The title also mentions a much less important pathogen, namely a certain strain of an {{w|enterovirus}}, also known as a stomach flu, which unlike polio and guinea worm is likely only to cause temporary discomfort, not death or long-term disability, in infected people. However, the strain in question infected every member of the lab maintaining the list, and as a result of their personal negative experience with it, and the spiteful feelings that resulted from that experience, the characters will celebrate its extinction as much as that of polio, and have accordingly added it to the list.

Randall was most likely inspired by [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00642-4 this article] about different {{w|influenza}} strains. Influenza causes the yearly flu, which infects 5–15% of the global population annually and causes 3-5 million severe cases worldwide.

The bitter irony here is that much recent scholarship has described [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/parasites-are-going-extinct-heres-why-thats-a-bad-thing-180964808/ links between parasite biodiversity and ecosystem-wide, indeed planet-wide, biodiversity]. In a few cases, if preserving and expanding biodiversity are seen as good things, then preserving and expanding biodiversity of parasites is a good thing, the one not being possible without the other. Parasites and disease agents, arguably, are classes of predators, and their removal can help establish a superpredator, the actions of which can catastrophically drive down biodiversity. Humans, released from predation by a large percentage of formerly-effective microbial predators, through the introduction of penicillin and other antibiotics plus other elements of 'heroic medicine', sanitation, etc., have arguably [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/modern-humans-have-become-superpredators-180956348/ become such a superpredator], and one that is mediating a loss of global biodiversity that may become the largest single species-extinction event in the history of planet Earth.

There also seems to be some evidence that infections with influenza viruses increase the chance of a heart attack. For instance regular flu shots [https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/11/18/flu-shot-reduces-risk-of-death-for-people-with-heart-disease reduce the risk of heart attacks]. Thus the fact that we are "heartbroken" when B/Yamagata goes extinct could be sarcastic since we might suffer less from broken hearts.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail stands facing Cueball and Megan in front of a poster board.]
:[Ponytail is pointing a stick to the board reading "Current List" with bullet points beneath.]
:[The first bullet reads Influenza B/Yamagata.]
:[Four further bullet points follow, which are left indistinct.]

:Ponytail: Influenza's genetic diversity has declined during the pandemic, and the B/Yamagata lineage is at risk of extinction.
:Ponytail: Which would be ''such'' a shame.
:Megan: Yeah, I'm sooooooo worried about it.
:Cueball: We'd be just ''heartbroken!''

:[Caption below the panel]:
:When a pathogen that scientists really don't like is close to disappearing, it gets added to the sarcastic endangered species list.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Sarcasm]]

2441: IMDb Vaccines

2022-05-04T01:57:06Z

Soulus: Undo revision 233200 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2441
| date = March 24, 2021
| title = IMDb Vaccines
| image = imdb_vaccines.png
| titletext = I'm actually not sure if Vader and the Emperor count as a household or if Vader lives in that weird black egg thing or what.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

This is another entry in the [[My Hobby]] series. Cueball is evaluating movies on {{w|IMDb}} (the ''Internet Movie Database''), based on how many people would need to be [[:Category:COVID-19 vaccine|vaccinated for COVID-19]], in order for them to follow the CDC's most recent guidelines. The guidelines tell how fully vaccinated people should act ([https://web.archive.org/web/20210324142553/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html at time of posting]). The evaluation assumes that the COVID-19 pandemic spread to the universes where the movies take place by the time at which they take place. This is part of a [[:Category:COVID-19|continuing pattern of comics]]. In these comics Randall applies COVID-19 safety standards to pre- or post-COVID situations.

At the moment, Cueball is viewing the final confrontation between Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader (formerly Anakin Skywalker), and Emperor Sheev Palpatine. This confrontation takes place on the second Death Star in ''{{w|Return of the Jedi}}''. Darth Vader wears a breathing apparatus in a mask that fully covers his face. Vader wears this because he sustained massive respiratory damage several movies earlier. During the confrontation, the Emperor is killed. Then Luke removes Vader's mask to see his face. (It is revealed in a previous film that Vader is Luke's father.) COVID-19 would be impossible for the Star Wars movies. It would be impossible because the Star Wars movies take place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away". This time was well before COVID-19 existed.{{Citation needed}}

Cueball notes that if only Luke had been vaccinated, he would still be a possible risk to Vader. The various vaccines seem to do well to protect recipients from the harsher outcomes of the virus. The vaccines may not completely prevent them from mild infection and potentially then passing it onwards. Luke is young and healthy. Luke is probably less susceptible, if Luke were to be exposed to the virus at any point. Vader's health issues mean that Vader would be in much greater danger from such a respiratory disease without Vader's own personal inoculation. The Emperor is elderly, but probably not at as great of a risk as Vader is. However, the Emperor, too is susceptible if the Emperor were infected.

Cueball judges that Darth Vader's mask and breathing apparatus would protect Vader from the virus, a topic that was previously considered in [[2367: Masks]]. The protection is at least to a limited extent. This is not an unreasonable assumption. Vader's suit has allowed Vader to [[wikia:w:c:starwars:Darth Vader's armor#Discomfort, limitations and enhancements|survive the vacuum of space for short periods of time]]. Cueball concludes that all the characters in this fight need to be vaccinated in order to prevent the spread of the virus. This will be true until the Emperor dies. After the Emperor dies, only Vader needs to be vaccinated.

The title text refers to two separate CDC recommendations. If you are visiting with people from a single household when vaccinated, all at low risk of serious complications from COVID-19, you do not have to take precautions. The precaution that you do not have to take include physical distancing or masks. If you are visiting with people from multiple households, then it is recommended that you take precautions against the spread of the disease regardless. Cueball is unsure whether or not Darth Vader and the Emperor live in close enough proximity to count as a single household. Whether Vader and the Emperor live in a single household would change how Cueball decides who should and should not be vaccinated. It is unknown, based on the Original Trilogy of Star Wars movies alone, how much time Vader and the Emperor spend in proximity. The "weird black egg thing" refers to [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Vader%27s_meditation_chamber Darth Vader's meditation chamber]. The meditation chamber first seen in ''{{w|The Empire Strikes Back}}'', which allows Vader to spend some time outside of his suit.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at a desk typing on a laptop. There is a large thought bubble of his thoughts above his head, and his typing on the laptop makes sounds.]
:Cueball's thoughts:
::For the throne room scene, I think it's all three until the Emperor dies, then Vader only.
::It can't be Luke only, since he's visiting Vader, who is clearly at elevated respiratory risk.
::Plus, he removes Vader's mask!
:Keyboard: Type type.

:[Caption below the panel]:
:My Hobby: Editing IMDb to note the minimum set of people who need to be vaccinated in each scene for it to pass muster under current CDC guidance.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:COVID-19 vaccine]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Talk:2250: OK/okay/ok

2020-01-06T09:40:36Z

Soulus:

He forgot the eternal joke - 0K
Come on Randall, you're a person of science[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.40|141.101.98.40]] 11:25, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
I think this should have been a table. Put spellings down the side (I've seen a lot of "oki" online; maybe "A-OK" too, or some humorous misspelling) and possible permutations of punctuations and capitalisation across the top. I want to know how "o.k.ay." makes you sound :p
[[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 17:41, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
:But when you do a single word response, it should just be, "k".
:[[User:Hax|Hax]] ([[User talk:Hax|talk]])
:: "'kay" is better, but I've also seen "'k" -- highlighting, perhaps, that the "o" is supposed to be there even if people are lazy and cut off too much when speaking and writing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.100|108.162.237.100]] 06:43, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
::: I'm totally fine with "k" - I even use it while speaking. It originates (afaik) from Internet chats generalically and chats in gaming specifically where time efficiency is of essence (you don't deal many headshots while typing ;) ). Another form would be "kk", which is still shorter (to type) than "ok" but is more emphasized as "k". And then - of course - we have Mr Mackey, mkay... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
:If it's not capitalized, I'm definitely imagining the person making clucking noises, even if I ''know'' that's not what they meant... Doesn't ''everybody'' read "ok" phonetically, as "ock", as in grok? ;S
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:42, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

As of this writing, the title text is wrong. I don't know how to edit it. The current explainXKCD version ends with ("oK".). But the xkcd website ends with ("oK.") The location of the period within the quote changes the meaning of this comment. [[User:Agrasin|Agrasin]] ([[User talk:Agrasin|talk]]) 20:43, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
:Good catch! I edited it. I was the one who put it in wrong in the first place as well. I had to insert the quotes manually, when I copy-pasted the title text from the inspect tool of xkcd.com and made this error. Things like the title text or the date can be edited easily when you use the edit button on top of the page instead of the small one at the explanation/transcript. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 21:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
:The period's placement does not necessarily change the meaning of the sentence as its inclusion within the quotation marks does not imply it is part of the quote. Punctuation immediately following a quote goes inside the quotation marks under English grammar. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.112|172.68.174.112]] 21:23, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
::That's a ridiculously bad rule & I'd hope nobody actually does that. Punctuation should only go inside the quotation marks if it's part of the quote. To put punctuation in where it wasn't used muddles whether the punctuation is part of the quote or part of the sentence containing the quote, & offers no possible benefit to comprehension. Bad rule: Don't do that.
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
:::Totally agree although I suspect that english grammar is not supposed to be logical. Also, I think using "oK" would be good idea. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:03, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
:::However, it looks much nicer and mimics proper handwriting, where the comma sign is directly underneath the quotation mark. It's considered proper form for American English, whereas Brits put it outside.
:::[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.142|162.158.134.142]] 23:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
::No, that's only for comma signs. Periods go inside if it's a part of the quote, outside if it isn't, and in both places if you end your sentence with a quote. "This quoted sentence ends with a period.".
::[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.142|162.158.134.142]] 23:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
:::I have never seen a double period like that anywhere. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 05:15, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
:In SWE (Standard Written (American) English), commas and ending punctuation go inside closing quotation marks (probably originating from typewriters allowing a comma and a period to be put _under_ the closing quotation marks). This rule holds true in American English unless there's a very good reason to leave the punctuation on the outside.
:There is a difference between the two following sentences:
: * The teacher said, "There is no test!" (the exclamation point belongs to the teacher's statement)
: * The teacher said, "There is no test"! (the exclamation point belongs to the narrator's statement)
: For cases where there would be ambiguity or a presumed reason to use both external and internal punctuation, writers are advised to rewrite the sentence. There is no grammatical/conventional basis for the following:
: * Did the teacher ask, "Who's there?"?
: Do note that other than commas, punctuation that is not ending punctuation (commonly dashes, colons, semicolons) or containers (parens, brackets, etc) -- depending on how they're used -- belong outside the quotation marks.
: Perhaps the British standard of putting all punctuation on the outside unless it explicitly belongs to the quoted material is more logical, but until some major style manuals in the USA adopt it, it won't be legit in SWE.
: Circling back to the original point (ending with '"oK."' vs '"oK".'), that's one of those situations where the sentence should be reworded to avoid the ambiguity on whether the period belongs to the quoted abbreviation or not.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.100|108.162.237.100]] 18:01, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
This is kind of like the LEGO bridge question in What If. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.120|172.69.34.120]] 18:32, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I just added the bit about the readers' narrative voices (see [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2250:_OK/okay/ok&diff=185524&oldid=185508|edit comments] for additional thoughts), but my parenthsisised justification for the 'quoting' looks a bit clunky even to me. Further changes (or at least partial reversion) are welcome, and in fact invited... Fill your boots! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.221|141.101.99.221]] 20:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

== New comic up ==

The new comic is already up. As the bot is not working, someone has to insert it manually. It is quite easy with a bit of trial and error and the tutorial on [[User:DgbrtBOT]]. It should be done by a user who is on here for a time with an account (and has by that earned the right to upload files.) - I will not be able to do so myself within the next ~10 hours, as I will not be on my own computer. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:21, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
: I just made an account to do this before i checked this talk page lol
: I've changed the [[List_of_all_comics]] page (first step on [[User:DgbrtBOT]]) but NOTHING ELSE. Ty all
: Side note: I was going to write 'LOL' before i realized the content of this comic and got self-conscious of it. [[User:Soulus|Soulus]] ([[User talk:Soulus|talk]]) 09:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

List of all comics (3000-3500)

2020-01-06T09:26:15Z

Soulus: new comic 2251 bot borked

This is the list of comics from '''2001 to {{LATESTCOMIC}}'''.
:For the first 500 comics, see [[List of all comics (1-500)]].
:For comics 501-1000, see [[List of all comics (501-1000)]].
:For comics 1001-1500, see [[List of all comics (1001-1500)]].
:For comics 1501-2000, see [[List of all comics (1501-2000)]].
: The whole list is available at [[List of all comics (full)]].

{| class="wikitable sortable plainlinks table-padding"
|-
!xkcd
!Title
!Talk
!Image
!Date<onlyinclude>
{{comicsrow|2251|2020-01-05|Alignment Chart Alignment Chart|alignment chart alignment chart.png}}
{{comicsrow|2250|2020-01-03|OK/okay/ok|ok okay ok.png}}
{{comicsrow|2249|2020-01-01|I Love the 20s|i love the 20s.png}}
{{comicsrow|2248|2019-12-30|New Year's Eve|new years eve.png}}
{{comicsrow|2247|2019-12-27|Weird Hill|weird hill.png}}
{{comicsrow|2246|2019-12-25|Christmas Presents|christmas presents.png}}
{{comicsrow|2245|2019-12-23|Edible Arrangements|edible arrangements.png}}
{{comicsrow|2244|2019-12-20|Thumbtacks And String|thumbtacks and string.png}}
{{comicsrow|2243|2019-12-18|Star Wars Spoiler Generator|star wars spoiler generator.png}}
{{comicsrow|2242|2019-12-16|Ground vs Air|ground vs air.png}}
{{comicsrow|2241|2019-12-13|Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect|brussels sprouts mandela effect.png}}
{{comicsrow|2240|2019-12-11|Timeline of the Universe|timeline of the universe.png}}
{{comicsrow|2239|2019-12-09|Data Error|data error.png}}
{{comicsrow|2238|2019-12-06|Flu Shot|flu shot.png}}
{{comicsrow|2237|2019-12-04|AI Hiring Algorithm|ai hiring algorithm.png}}
{{comicsrow|2236|2019-12-02|Is it Christmas?|is it christmas.png}}
{{comicsrow|2235|2019-11-29|Group Chat Rules|group chat rules.png}}
{{comicsrow|2234|2019-11-27|How To Deliver Christmas Presents|how to deliver christmas presents.png}}
{{comicsrow|2233|2019-11-26|Aurora Meaning|aurora meaning.png}}
{{comicsrow|2232|2019-11-22|Hotel Room Party|hotel room party.png}}
{{comicsrow|2231|2019-11-20|the Time Before And After Land|the time before and after land.png}}
{{comicsrow|2230|2019-11-18|Versus Bracket|versus bracket.png}}
{{comicsrow|2229|2019-11-15|Rey and Kylo|rey and kylo.png}}
{{comicsrow|2228|2019-11-14|Machine Learning Captcha|machine learning captcha.png}}
{{comicsrow|2227|2019-11-11|Transit of Mercury|transit of mercury.png}}
{{comicsrow|2226|2019-11-09|Recombination And Reionization|recombination and reionization.png}}
{{comicsrow|2225|2019-11-06|Voting Referendum|voting referendum.png}}
{{comicsrow|2224|2019-11-05|Software Updates|software updates.png}}
{{comicsrow|2223|2019-11-01|Screen Time|screen time.png}}
{{comicsrow|2222|2019-10-30|Terminator: Dark Fate|terminator dark fate.png}}
{{comicsrow|2221|2019-10-29|Emulation|emulation.png}}
{{comicsrow|2220|2019-10-25|Imagine Going Back in Time|imagine going back in time.png}}
{{comicsrow|2219|2019-10-23|Earthquake Early Warnings|earthquake early warnings.png}}
{{comicsrow|2218|2019-10-21|Wardrobe|wardrobe.png}}
{{comicsrow|2217|2019-10-19|53 Cards|53 cards.png}}
{{comicsrow|2216|2019-10-17|Percent Milkfat|percent milkfat.png}}
{{comicsrow|2215|2019-10-15|Faculty:Student Ratio|faculty student ratio.png}}
{{comicsrow|2214|2019-10-11|Chemistry Nobel|chemistry nobel.png}}
{{comicsrow|2213|2019-10-09|How Old|how old.png}}
{{comicsrow|2212|2019-10-07|Cell Phone Functions|cell phone functions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2211|2019-10-04|Hours Before Departure|hours before departure.png}}
{{comicsrow|2210|2019-10-02|College Athletes|college athletes.png}}
{{comicsrow|2209|2019-09-30|Fresh Pears|fresh pears.png}}
{{comicsrow|2208|2019-09-27|Drone Fishing|drone fishing.png}}
{{comicsrow|2207|2019-09-25|Math Work|math work.png}}
{{comicsrow|2206|2019-09-23|Mavis Beacon|mavis beacon.png}}
{{comicsrow|2205|2019-09-20|Types of Approximation|types of approximation.png}}
{{comicsrow|2204|2019-09-18|Ksp 2|ksp 2.png}}
{{comicsrow|2203|2019-09-16|Prescience|prescience.png}}
{{comicsrow|2202|2019-09-13|Earth-Like Exoplanet|earth like exoplanet.png}}
{{comicsrow|2201|2019-09-11|Foucault Pendulum|foucault pendulum.png}}
{{comicsrow|2200|2019-09-11|Unreachable State|unreachable state.png}}
{{comicsrow|2199|2019-09-06|Cryptic Wifi Networks|cryptic wifi networks.png}}
{{comicsrow|2198|2019-09-04|Throw|throw.png}}
{{comicsrow|2198|2019-09-03|Throw|throw.png}}
{{comicsrow|2197|2019-09-02|Game Show|game show.png}}
{{comicsrow|2196|2019-08-30|Nice To E-Meet You|nice to e-meet you.png}}
{{comicsrow|2195|2019-08-28|Dockless Roombas|dockless roombas.png}}
{{comicsrow|2194|2019-08-26|How to Send a File|how to send a file.png}}
{{comicsrow|2193|2019-08-23|Well-Ordering Principle|well ordering principle.png}}
{{comicsrow|2192|2019-08-21|Review|review.png}}
{{comicsrow|2191|2019-08-19|Conference Question|conference question.png}}
{{comicsrow|2190|2019-08-16|Serena Versus the Drones|serena versus the drones.png}}
{{comicsrow|2189|2019-08-14|Old Game Worlds|old game worlds.png}}
{{comicsrow|2188|2019-08-12|E Scooters|e scooters.png}}
{{comicsrow|2187|2019-08-09|Geologic Time|geologic time.png}}
{{comicsrow|2186|2019-08-07|Dark Matter|dark matter.png}}
{{comicsrow|2185|2019-08-05|Cumulonimbus|cumulonimbus.png}}
{{comicsrow|2185|2019-08-05|Disappearing Sunday Update|disappearing sunday update.png}}
{{comicsrow|2184|2019-08-02|Unpopular Opinions|unpopular opinions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2183|2019-07-31|Icon Swap|icon swap.png}}
{{comicsrow|2182|2019-07-29|When I'm Back at a Keyboard|when im back at a keyboard.png}}
{{comicsrow|2181|2019-07-26|Inbox|inbox.png}}
{{comicsrow|2180|2019-07-24|Spreadsheets|spreadsheets.png}}
{{comicsrow|2179|2019-07-23|NWS Warnings|nws warnings.png}}
{{comicsrow|2178|2019-07-19|Expiration Date High Score|expiration date high score.png}}
{{comicsrow|2177|2019-07-17|Gastroenterology|gastroenterology.png}}
{{comicsrow|2176|2019-07-15|How Hacking Works|how hacking works.png}}
{{comicsrow|2175|2019-07-12|Flag Interpretation|flag interpretation.png}}
{{comicsrow|2174|2019-07-10|First News Memory|first news memory.png}}
{{comicsrow|2173|2019-07-08|Trained a Neural Net|trained a neural net.png}}
{{comicsrow|2172|2019-07-05|Lunar Cycles|lunar cycles.png}}
{{comicsrow|2171|2019-07-03|Shadow Biosphere|shadow biosphere.png}}
{{comicsrow|2170|2019-07-01|Coordinate Precision|coordinate precision.png}}
{{comicsrow|2169|2019-06-28|Predictive Models|predictive models.png}}
{{comicsrow|2168|2019-06-26|Reading in the Original|reading in the original.png}}
{{comicsrow|2167|2019-06-24|Motivated Reasoning Olympics|motivated reasoning olympics.png}}
{{comicsrow|2166|2019-06-21|Stack|stack.png}}
{{comicsrow|2165|2019-06-19|Millennials|millennials.png}}
{{comicsrow|2164|2019-06-17|Glacier|glacier.png}}
{{comicsrow|2163|2019-06-14|Chernobyl|chernobyl.png}}
{{comicsrow|2162|2019-06-12|Literary Opinions|literary opinions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2161|2019-06-10|An Apple a Day|an apple a day.png}}
{{comicsrow|2160|2019-06-07|Ken Burns Theory|ken burns theory.png}}
{{comicsrow|2159|2019-06-05|Comments|comments.png}}
{{comicsrow|2158|2019-06-03|Qualifiers|qualifiers.png}}
{{comicsrow|2157|2019-05-31|Diploma Legal Notes|diploma legal notes.png}}
{{comicsrow|2156|2019-05-29|Ufo|ufo.png}}
{{comicsrow|2155|2019-05-27|Swimming|swimming.png}}
{{comicsrow|2154|2019-05-24|Motivation|motivation.png}}
{{comicsrow|2153|2019-05-22|Effects of High Altitude|effects of high altitude.png}}
{{comicsrow|2152|2019-05-20|Westerns|westerns.png}}
{{comicsrow|2151|2019-05-17|A/B|a b.png}}
{{comicsrow|2150|2019-05-15|XKeyboarCD|xkeyboarcd.png}}
{{comicsrow|2149|2019-05-13|Alternate Histories|alternate histories.png}}
{{comicsrow|2148|2019-05-10|Cubesat Launch|cubesat launch.png}}
{{comicsrow|2147|2019-05-08|Appendicitis|appendicitis.png}}
{{comicsrow|2146|2019-05-06|Waiting for the But|waiting for the but.png}}
{{comicsrow|2145|2019-05-03|Heists And Escapes|heists and escapes.png}}
{{comicsrow|2144|2019-05-01|Adjusting a Chair|adjusting a chair.png}}
{{comicsrow|2143|2019-04-29|Disk Usage|disk usage.png}}
{{comicsrow|2142|2019-04-26|Dangerous Fields|dangerous fields.png}}
{{comicsrow|2141|2019-04-24|UI vs UX|ui vs ux.png}}
{{comicsrow|2140|2019-04-22|Reinvent the Wheel|reinvent the wheel.png}}
{{comicsrow|2139|2019-04-19|Email Settings|email settings.png}}
{{comicsrow|2138|2019-04-17|Wanna See the Code?|wanna see the code.png}}
{{comicsrow|2137|2019-04-15|Text Entry|text entry.png}}
{{comicsrow|2136|2019-04-12|Election Commentary|election commentary.png}}
{{comicsrow|2135|2019-04-10|M87 Black Hole Size Comparison|m87 black hole size comparison.png}}
{{comicsrow|2134|2019-04-08|Too Much Talking|too much talking.png}}
{{comicsrow|2133|2019-04-05|EHT Black Hole Picture|eht black hole picture.png}}
{{comicsrow|2132|2019-04-03|Percentage Styles|percentage styles.png}}
{{comicsrow|2131|2019-04-01|Emojidome|industry nicknames.png}}
{{comicsrow|2130|2019-03-29|Industry Nicknames|industry nicknames.png}}
{{comicsrow|2129|2019-03-27|1921 Fact Checker|1921 fact checker.png}}
{{comicsrow|2128|2019-03-25|New Robot|new robot.png}}
{{comicsrow|2127|2019-03-22|Panama Canal|panama canal.png}}
{{comicsrow|2126|2019-03-20|Google Trends Maps|google trends maps.png}}
{{comicsrow|2125|2019-03-18|Luna 2|luna 2.png}}
{{comicsrow|2124|2019-03-15|Space Mission Hearing|space mission hearing.png}}
{{comicsrow|2123|2019-03-13|Meta Collecting|meta collecting.png}}
{{comicsrow|2122|2019-03-11|Size Venn Diagram|size venn diagram.png}}
{{comicsrow|2121|2019-03-08|Light Pollution|light pollution.png}}
{{comicsrow|2120|2019-03-06|Brain Hemispheres|brain hemispheres.png}}
{{comicsrow|2119|2019-03-04|Video Orientation|video orientation.png}}
{{comicsrow|2118|2019-03-01|Normal Distribution|normal distribution.png}}
{{comicsrow|2117|2019-02-27|Differentiation and Integration|differentiation and integration.png}}
{{comicsrow|2116|2019-02-25|.NORM Normal File Format|norm normal file format.png}}
{{comicsrow|2115|2019-02-22|Plutonium|plutonium.png}}
{{comicsrow|2114|2019-02-20|Launch Conditions|launch conditions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2113|2019-02-18|Physics Suppression|physics suppression.png}}
{{comicsrow|2112|2019-02-15|Night Shift|night shift.png}}
{{comicsrow|2111|2019-02-13|Opportunity Rover|opportunity rover.png}}
{{comicsrow|2110|2019-02-11|Error Bars|error bars.png}}
{{comicsrow|2109|2019-02-08|Invisible Formatting|invisible formatting.png}}
{{comicsrow|2108|2019-02-06|Carbonated Beverage Language Map|carbonated beverage language map.png}}
{{comicsrow|2107|2019-02-04|Launch Risk|launch risk.png}}
{{comicsrow|2106|2019-02-01|Sharing Options|sharing options.png}}
{{comicsrow|2105|2019-01-30|Modern OSI Model|modern osi model.png}}
{{comicsrow|2104|2019-01-28|Biff Tannen|biff tannen.png}}
{{comicsrow|2103|2019-01-25|Midcontinent Rift System|midcontinent rift system.png}}
{{comicsrow|2102|2019-01-23|Internet Archive|internet archive.png}}
{{comicsrow|2101|2019-01-21|Technical Analysis|technical analysis.png}}
{{comicsrow|2100|2019-01-18|Models of the Atom|models of the atom.png}}
{{comicsrow|2099|2019-01-16|Missal of Silos|missal of silos.png}}
{{comicsrow|2098|2019-01-14|Magnetic Pole|magnetic pole.png}}
{{comicsrow|2097|2019-01-11|Thor Tools|thor tools.png}}
{{comicsrow|2096|2019-01-09|Mattresses|mattresses.png}}
{{comicsrow|2095|2019-01-07|Marsiforming|marsiforming.png}}
{{comicsrow|2094|2019-01-04|Short Selling|short selling.png}}
{{comicsrow|2093|2019-01-02|Reminders|reminders.png}}
{{comicsrow|2092|2018-12-31|Consensus New Year|consensus new year.png}}
{{comicsrow|2091|2018-12-28|Million, Billion, Trillion|million billion trillion.png}}
{{comicsrow|2090|2018-12-26|Feathered Dinosaur Venn Diagram|feathered dinosaur venn diagram.png}}
{{comicsrow|2089|2018-12-24|Christmas Eve Eve|christmas eve eve.png}}
{{comicsrow|2088|2018-12-21|Schwarzschild's Cat|schwarzschilds cat.png}}
{{comicsrow|2087|2018-12-19|Rocket Launch|rocket launch.png}}
{{comicsrow|2086|2018-12-17|History Department|history department.png}}
{{comicsrow|2085|2018-12-14|arXiv|arxiv.png}}
{{comicsrow|2084|2018-12-12|FDR|fdr.png}}
{{comicsrow|2083|2018-12-10|Laptop Issues|laptop issues.png}}
{{comicsrow|2082|2018-12-07|Mercator Projection|mercator projection.png}}
{{comicsrow|2081|2018-12-05|Middle Latitudes|middle latitudes.png}}
{{comicsrow|2080|2018-12-03|Cohort and Age Effects|cohort and age effects.png}}
{{comicsrow|2079|2018-11-30|Alpha Centauri|alpha centauri.png}}
{{comicsrow|2078|2018-11-28|Popper|popper.png}}
{{comicsrow|2077|2018-11-26|Heist|heist.png}}
{{comicsrow|2076|2018-11-23|Horror Movies 2|horror movies 2.png}}
{{comicsrow|2075|2018-11-21|Update Your Address|update your address.png}}
{{comicsrow|2074|2018-11-19|Airplanes and Spaceships|airplanes and spaceships.png}}
{{comicsrow|2073|2018-11-16|Kilogram|kilogram.png}}
{{comicsrow|2072|2018-11-14|Evaluating Tech Things|evaluating tech things.png}}
{{comicsrow|2071|2018-11-12|Indirect Detection|indirect detection.png}}
{{comicsrow|2070|2018-11-09|Trig Identities|trig identities.png}}
{{comicsrow|2069|2018-11-07|Wishlist|wishlist.png}}
{{comicsrow|2068|2018-11-05|Election Night|election night.png}}
{{comicsrow|2067|2018-11-02|Challengers|challengers.png}}
{{comicsrow|2066|2018-10-31|Ballot Selfies|ballot selfies.png}}
{{comicsrow|2065|2018-10-29|Who Sends the First Text?|who sends the first text.png}}
{{comicsrow|2064|2018-10-26|I'm a Car|im a car.png}}
{{comicsrow|2063|2018-10-24|Carnot Cycle|carnot cycle.png}}
{{comicsrow|2062|2018-10-22|Barnard's Star|barnards star.png}}
{{comicsrow|2061|2018-10-19|Tectonics Game|tectonics game.png}}
{{comicsrow|2060|2018-10-17|Hygrometer|hygrometer.png}}
{{comicsrow|2059|2018-10-15|Modified Bayes' Theorem|modified bayes theorem.png}}
{{comicsrow|2058|2018-10-12|Rock Wall|rock wall.png}}
{{comicsrow|2057|2018-10-10|Internal Monologues|internal monologues.png}}
{{comicsrow|2056|2018-10-08|Horror Movies|horror movies.png}}
{{comicsrow|2055|2018-10-05|Bluetooth|bluetooth.png}}
{{comicsrow|2054|2018-10-03|Data Pipeline|data pipeline.png}}
{{comicsrow|2053|2018-10-01|Incoming Calls|incoming calls.png}}
{{comicsrow|2052|2018-09-28|Stanislav Petrov Day|stanislav petrov day.png}}
{{comicsrow|2051|2018-09-26|Bad Opinions|bad opinions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2050|2018-09-24|6/6 Time|6 6 time.png}}
{{comicsrow|2049|2018-09-21|Unfulfilling Toys|unfulfilling toys.png}}
{{comicsrow|2048|2018-09-19|Curve-Fitting|curve fitting.png}}
{{comicsrow|2047|2018-09-17|Beverages|beverages.png}}
{{comicsrow|2046|2018-09-14|Trum-|trum.png}}
{{comicsrow|2045|2018-09-12|Social Media Announcement|social media announcement.png}}
{{comicsrow|2044|2018-09-10|Sandboxing Cycle|sandboxing cycle.png}}
{{comicsrow|2043|2018-09-07|Boathouses and Houseboats|boathouses and houseboats.png}}
{{comicsrow|2042|2018-09-05|Rolle's Theorem|rolles theorem.png}}
{{comicsrow|2041|2018-09-03|Frontiers|frontiers.png}}
{{comicsrow|2040|2018-08-31|Sibling-in-Law|sibling in law.png}}
{{comicsrow|2039|2018-08-29|Begging the Question|begging the question.png}}
{{comicsrow|2038|2018-08-27|Hazard Symbol|hazard symbol.png}}
{{comicsrow|2037|2018-08-24|Supreme Court Bracket|supreme court bracket.png}}
{{comicsrow|2036|2018-08-22|Edgelord|edgelord.png}}
{{comicsrow|2035|2018-08-20|Dark Matter Candidates|dark matter candidates.png}}
{{comicsrow|2034|2018-08-17|Equations|equations.png}}
{{comicsrow|2033|2018-08-15|Repair or Replace|repair or replace.png}}
{{comicsrow|2032|2018-08-13|Word Puzzles|word puzzles.png}}
{{comicsrow|2031|2018-08-10|Pie Charts|pie charts.png}}
{{comicsrow|2030|2018-08-08|Voting Software|voting software.png}}
{{comicsrow|2029|2018-08-06|Disaster Movie|disaster movie.png}}
{{comicsrow|2028|2018-08-03|Complex Numbers|complex numbers.png}}
{{comicsrow|2027|2018-08-01|Lightning Distance|lightning distance.png}}
{{comicsrow|2026|2018-07-30|Heat Index|heat index.png}}
{{comicsrow|2025|2018-07-27|Peer Review|peer review.png}}
{{comicsrow|2024|2018-07-25|Light Hacks|light hacks.png}}
{{comicsrow|2023|2018-07-23|Y-Axis|y axis.png}}
{{comicsrow|2022|2018-07-20|Sports Champions|sports champions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2021|2018-07-18|Software Development|software development.png}}
{{comicsrow|2020|2018-07-16|Negative Results|negative results.png}}
{{comicsrow|2019|2018-07-13|An Apple for a Dollar|an apple for a dollar.png}}
{{comicsrow|2018|2018-07-11|Wall Art|wall art.png}}
{{comicsrow|2017|2018-07-09|Stargazing 2|stargazing 2.png}}
{{comicsrow|2016|2018-07-06|OEIS Submissions|oeis submissions.png}}
{{comicsrow|2015|2018-07-04|New Phone Thread|new phone thread.png}}
{{comicsrow|2014|2018-07-02|JWST Delays|jwst delays.png}}
{{comicsrow|2013|2018-06-29|Rock|rock.png}}
{{comicsrow|2012|2018-06-27|Thorough Analysis|thorough analysis.png}}
{{comicsrow|2011|2018-06-25|Newton's Trajectories|newtons trajectories.png}}
{{comicsrow|2010|2018-06-22|Update Notes|update notes.png}}
{{comicsrow|2009|2018-06-20|Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram|hertzsprung russell diagram.png}}
{{comicsrow|2008|2018-06-18|Irony Definition|irony definition.png}}
{{comicsrow|2007|2018-06-15|Brookhaven RHIC|brookhaven rhic.png}}
{{comicsrow|2006|2018-06-13|Customer Rewards|customer rewards.png}}
{{comicsrow|2005|2018-06-11|Attention Span|attention span.png}}
{{comicsrow|2004|2018-06-08|Sun and Earth|sun and earth.png}}
{{comicsrow|2003|2018-06-06|Presidential Succession|presidential succession.png}}
{{comicsrow|2002|2018-06-04|LeBron James and Stephen Curry|lebron james and stephen curry.png}}
{{comicsrow|2001|2018-06-01|Clickbait-Corrected p-Value|clickbait corrected p value.png}}</onlyinclude>
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[[Category:Comics| ]]