explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3141: Mantle Model

2025-09-22T13:00:53Z

Theclapp:

;xkcd outage discussion
The wiki lives! 🥹 [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 21:04, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
FINALLY, WE’RE BACK《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 13:12, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
:So it wasn't just my computer that wouldn't show explain xkcd? [[User:BobcatInABox|BobcatInABox]] ([[User talk:BobcatInABox|talk]]) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
::Also: what went wrong and how did they fix it? [[User:BobcatInABox|BobcatInABox]] ([[User talk:BobcatInABox|talk]]) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
:::And: do we have a plan in case it happens again? [[User:BobcatInABox|BobcatInABox]] ([[User talk:BobcatInABox|talk]]) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
::::It was clearly a server-side issue. (Well, more server-side than Cloudflare, which still covers a lot of ground.( There are a number of different things that could have been wrong, from the server rack-space no longer being paid for (a potentially more permanent death than the domain not being paid for - which we know has been, anyway) to someone having been messing about with the site and caused fatally excessive parsing errors (there's no sign of that, in the page-edit history that we see, although there's always a potential for the person who got the server working 'sensibly' again to have purged the evidence along with the problem).
::::Could also have just been a temporary power-outage/blown-fuse in the apartment of the person who currently lets the server hum away in the background (if that's the server's physical location, which I doubt) ''or'' that person was moving it from one residence to another and so obviously had to unplug it, transport it and plug it back in again to power and network connection (again, from what I know, I doubt that... but it's not an impossible scenario).
::::Unless we get to hear from whoever fixed the problem, we can just keep on guessing.
::::Assuming that any actual person ''did'' fix the problem rather than (for yet another theory...) it being a connectivity issue further along the chain that just happened to catch our server in that, and was just sorted out as a more general restorating of service.
::::I had several 'likely' ideas during the downtime... Well, ''obvious'' they couldn't all be actually likely, as they were mutually exclusive to each other, but a larger share of the divided percentages than some of the more out-there ones... but very little proof of any of them, now we're up and running again. Not ruled out, but without the basic fingerprints that I'd have expected to support their realities. And some of my imagined solutions to the outage were situations where I would not actually have expected the site to return at all, too, and these have obviously been defied/subverted given that we're now talking here about this.
::::The good news (with reservations, at least) is that, the way we've been returned to 'normality', this raises the chances of this issue not being a recurring one. With a side-line chance of ''if'' whatever-it-was recurs, it'll be solved far quicker next time. Whoever/whatever we have to thank for it.
::::The bad news is that I don't think anyone 'active' has anything to do with it (please do let us know, if you did!). Either no direct hands-on fix at all, as described, or someone who ''really'' doesn't want to bother talking to us users and only steps/stepped in for a bit of quiet background fixing that nobody'll properly appreciate. (My kind of person, that, actually. I rather like it when I fix issues so that nobody besides my more immediate colleagues knows they've been fixed... although ideally I'd be doing so before anyone even knew they ''needed'' fixing. And this wasn't my work, of course. With so little access, or even familiarity with the basic setup, you'd have to look elsewhere for any mysterious house-elf who sorted this one out.)
::::TL;DR; - I don't know how to answer your question. I get the idea that nobody will answer your question as long as [[1305: Undocumented Feature|anyone who knows doesn't want to]]. I don't eventhink there's any possible plan that we can devise to deal with it. Even with an 'off-wiki' forum to talk amongst ourselves about things, the next time this happens again. Even if we could [[1810: Chat Systems|agree on where to go]], it'd just end up being a legacy chatroom (like the Euphoria one) once the inevitable day comes when something means that this site goes dark and never lights up again. ''C'est la vie'', etc... [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 00:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
::::: TLDR indeed. >"''the apartment of the person who currently lets the server hum away in the background (if that's the server's physical location, which I doubt)''" Elsewhere this year we learned of a forum which actually sat in the admin's garage. He had a health issue, weeks in hospital then months recovering at a relative's house. Forum went down. His #2 said he got some better and the forum came to life, but went down again. Life is like that. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
:I had noticed this issue too. I was actually drafting up an email to [[User:Davidy22]] when I came back on here to get a screenshot and Cloudflare started working again! I had suspected that we were getting DDoSed, since Explain XKCD had some issues with that before and the server was clearly down across multiple devices and networks. Recent Changes also shows a 36+ hour gap between editing, confirming that the server was down across the board. I suggest that we coordinate some other form of communication so that we can share messages with each other and still have points of contact if this goes down. Jeff has proven himself to be flaky and unreliable, and I'm now treating everyday on here like it's my last. Check [[explain xkcd: Community portal/Proposals#Explain XKCD Discord.2FSocial Media Server.3F|the proposals board]] for more info. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 06:02, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
::This seems to be a recurring feature of many sites at the moment, whether behind Cloudflare or not. My suspicion is that scraping for AI is out of control, acting as a particularly stupid (vibe-coded) and well-funded DDoS. --[[Special:Contributions/81.96.108.67|81.96.108.67]] 06:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
:Cloudflare was working on my error page. It looked like it was just the host server with a problem《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 13:12, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

;Comic discussion

La plume de la Terre est sous le bureau de mon oncle. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 21:33, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm truly shocked that this comic (#3141) didn't have anything (obvious) to do with pi. [[Special:Contributions/2603:3003:BCC:6200:FC4E:5757:BC86:E656|2603:3003:BCC:6200:FC4E:5757:BC86:E656]] 02:03, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
: Off by 0.001 error. Or maybe Randall's sworn off [https://www.dude-n-dude.com/2023/03/14/amoebas-lorica-14-march-icymi/ pi/pee jokes]. Perhaps we'll see when comic 3142 is released to the wild. [[Special:Contributions/2605:59C8:160:DB08:925:A1C6:D2C8:428B|2605:59C8:160:DB08:925:A1C6:D2C8:428B]] 11:51, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
::Only off by 0.001 if we're aware of the additional digits. I choose ignorance. [[Special:Contributions/2603:3003:BCC:6200:98AA:C11E:AA31:F089|2603:3003:BCC:6200:98AA:C11E:AA31:F089]] 15:56, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

I assume those that manage this great resource for those of us that REALLY NEED xckd explained know comic 3139 got missed in the kerfuffle... [[Special:Contributions/209.240.124.28|209.240.124.28]] 02:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Using the {{Citation needed}} tag '''FOUR''' times in a single explanation is not funny. {{Citation needed}} [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 01:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
: Counterpoint: Yes it is. [[User:Theclapp|Theclapp]] ([[User talk:Theclapp|talk]]) 19:25, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
:: Synthesis: It could be, but wasn't here. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:30, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::: 😆 [[User:Theclapp|Theclapp]] ([[User talk:Theclapp|talk]]) 13:00, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

My interpretation of the comic was that it was more of a satire on geology and how it interprets mantle plumes rather than just some random absurd thing. After all, looking at the Wikipedia page for mantle plumes, it lists like 10 totally random things that geologists sometimes attribute to mantle plumes. [[User:Qoiuoiuoiu|Qoiuoiuoiu]] ([[User talk:Qoiuoiuoiu|talk]]) 02:54, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
: There is too much truth in this cartoon, see [https://www.mantleplumes.org] to get an overview over the problems of the competing plume hypotheses. In short, yes geologists made up so many different plume models that this term has become either all-encompassing or meaningless. [[Special:Contributions/87.180.165.87|87.180.165.87]] 07:38, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

I like that the title text seems to also suggest that Mantle should properly be pronounced Mega-antle [[Special:Contributions/2001:1C05:71D:AB00:49C6:27F5:15E6:49C4|2001:1C05:71D:AB00:49C6:27F5:15E6:49C4]] 09:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

To my knowledge, D. B. isn't an "alias" of the plane hijacker but more of a cultural nickname. The hijacker named himself "Dan Cooper" (an European comic about a pilot. Relevancy never proved or disproved by the FBI according to Wikipedia) while D. B. Cooper was a random person misnamed by the media? {{unsigned ip|91.181.199.112|12:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)}}
::Yep, D.B. Cooper is a nickname given by a reporter that stuck, after the composite drawing was released. But back to the comic, this case could have been made much harder in 1980 due to a mantle plume. LOTS of stuff got buried under ash in the Mt. St. Helens eruption in May of 1980.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 15:47, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm off base here, but isn't this one a joke about Dark Matter? 12:54, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
It seems like a Dark Matter joke to me too [[Special:Contributions/136.62.202.91|136.62.202.91]] 18:18, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

He did this whole comic just so he could do the "antle plumes" pun in the title text, didn't he? [[User:Theclapp|Theclapp]] ([[User talk:Theclapp|talk]]) 19:25, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I am a bit surprised of the passive/agressive tone of this explanation. Is it simply me not being good enough in english ? {{unsigned ip|66.159.217.128|14:49, 16 September 2025}}

Talk:3141: Mantle Model

2025-09-15T19:25:08Z

Theclapp:

;xkcd outage discussion
The wiki lives! 🥹 [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 21:04, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
FINALLY, WE’RE BACK《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 13:12, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
:So it wasn't just my computer that wouldn't show explain xkcd? [[User:BobcatInABox|BobcatInABox]] ([[User talk:BobcatInABox|talk]]) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
::Also: what went wrong and how did they fix it? [[User:BobcatInABox|BobcatInABox]] ([[User talk:BobcatInABox|talk]]) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
:::And: do we have a plan in case it happens again? [[User:BobcatInABox|BobcatInABox]] ([[User talk:BobcatInABox|talk]]) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
::::It was clearly a server-side issue. (Well, more server-side than Cloudflare, which still covers a lot of ground.( There are a number of different things that could have been wrong, from the server rack-space no longer being paid for (a potentially more permanent death than the domain not being paid for - which we know has been, anyway) to someone having been messing about with the site and caused fatally excessive parsing errors (there's no sign of that, in the page-edit history that we see, although there's always a potential for the person who got the server working 'sensibly' again to have purged the evidence along with the problem).
::::Could also have just been a temporary power-outage/blown-fuse in the apartment of the person who currently lets the server hum away in the background (if that's the server's physical location, which I doubt) ''or'' that person was moving it from one residence to another and so obviously had to unplug it, transport it and plug it back in again to power and network connection (again, from what I know, I doubt that... but it's not an impossible scenario).
::::Unless we get to hear from whoever fixed the problem, we can just keep on guessing.
::::Assuming that any actual person ''did'' fix the problem rather than (for yet another theory...) it being a connectivity issue further along the chain that just happened to catch our server in that, and was just sorted out as a more general restorating of service.
::::I had several 'likely' ideas during the downtime... Well, ''obvious'' they couldn't all be actually likely, as they were mutually exclusive to each other, but a larger share of the divided percentages than some of the more out-there ones... but very little proof of any of them, now we're up and running again. Not ruled out, but without the basic fingerprints that I'd have expected to support their realities. And some of my imagined solutions to the outage were situations where I would not actually have expected the site to return at all, too, and these have obviously been defied/subverted given that we're now talking here about this.
::::The good news (with reservations, at least) is that, the way we've been returned to 'normality', this raises the chances of this issue not being a recurring one. With a side-line chance of ''if'' whatever-it-was recurs, it'll be solved far quicker next time. Whoever/whatever we have to thank for it.
::::The bad news is that I don't think anyone 'active' has anything to do with it (please do let us know, if you did!). Either no direct hands-on fix at all, as described, or someone who ''really'' doesn't want to bother talking to us users and only steps/stepped in for a bit of quiet background fixing that nobody'll properly appreciate. (My kind of person, that, actually. I rather like it when I fix issues so that nobody besides my more immediate colleagues knows they've been fixed... although ideally I'd be doing so before anyone even knew they ''needed'' fixing. And this wasn't my work, of course. With so little access, or even familiarity with the basic setup, you'd have to look elsewhere for any mysterious house-elf who sorted this one out.)
::::TL;DR; - I don't know how to answer your question. I get the idea that nobody will answer your question as long as [[1305: Undocumented Feature|anyone who knows doesn't want to]]. I don't eventhink there's any possible plan that we can devise to deal with it. Even with an 'off-wiki' forum to talk amongst ourselves about things, the next time this happens again. Even if we could [[1810: Chat Systems|agree on where to go]], it'd just end up being a legacy chatroom (like the Euphoria one) once the inevitable day comes when something means that this site goes dark and never lights up again. ''C'est la vie'', etc... [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 00:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
::::: TLDR indeed. >"''the apartment of the person who currently lets the server hum away in the background (if that's the server's physical location, which I doubt)''" Elsewhere this year we learned of a forum which actually sat in the admin's garage. He had a health issue, weeks in hospital then months recovering at a relative's house. Forum went down. His #2 said he got some better and the forum came to life, but went down again. Life is like that. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
:I had noticed this issue too. I was actually drafting up an email to [[User:Davidy22]] when I came back on here to get a screenshot and Cloudflare started working again! I had suspected that we were getting DDoSed, since Explain XKCD had some issues with that before and the server was clearly down across multiple devices and networks. Recent Changes also shows a 36+ hour gap between editing, confirming that the server was down across the board. I suggest that we coordinate some other form of communication so that we can share messages with each other and still have points of contact if this goes down. Jeff has proven himself to be flaky and unreliable, and I'm now treating everyday on here like it's my last. Check [[explain xkcd: Community portal/Proposals#Explain XKCD Discord.2FSocial Media Server.3F|the proposals board]] for more info. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 06:02, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
::This seems to be a recurring feature of many sites at the moment, whether behind Cloudflare or not. My suspicion is that scraping for AI is out of control, acting as a particularly stupid (vibe-coded) and well-funded DDoS. --[[Special:Contributions/81.96.108.67|81.96.108.67]] 06:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
:Cloudflare was working on my error page. It looked like it was just the host server with a problem《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 13:12, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

;Comic discussion

La plume de la Terre est sous le bureau de mon oncle. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 21:33, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm truly shocked that this comic (#3141) didn't have anything (obvious) to do with pi. [[Special:Contributions/2603:3003:BCC:6200:FC4E:5757:BC86:E656|2603:3003:BCC:6200:FC4E:5757:BC86:E656]] 02:03, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
: Off by 0.001 error. Or maybe Randall's sworn off [https://www.dude-n-dude.com/2023/03/14/amoebas-lorica-14-march-icymi/ pi/pee jokes]. Perhaps we'll see when comic 3142 is released to the wild. [[Special:Contributions/2605:59C8:160:DB08:925:A1C6:D2C8:428B|2605:59C8:160:DB08:925:A1C6:D2C8:428B]] 11:51, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
::Only off by 0.001 if we're aware of the additional digits. I choose ignorance. [[Special:Contributions/2603:3003:BCC:6200:98AA:C11E:AA31:F089|2603:3003:BCC:6200:98AA:C11E:AA31:F089]] 15:56, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

I assume those that manage this great resource for those of us that REALLY NEED xckd explained know comic 3139 got missed in the kerfuffle... [[Special:Contributions/209.240.124.28|209.240.124.28]] 02:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Using the {{Citation needed}} tag '''FOUR''' times in a single explanation is not funny. {{Citation needed}} [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 01:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
: Counterpoint: Yes it is. [[User:Theclapp|Theclapp]] ([[User talk:Theclapp|talk]]) 19:25, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

My interpretation of the comic was that it was more of a satire on geology and how it interprets mantle plumes rather than just some random absurd thing. After all, looking at the Wikipedia page for mantle plumes, it lists like 10 totally random things that geologists sometimes attribute to mantle plumes. [[User:Qoiuoiuoiu|Qoiuoiuoiu]] ([[User talk:Qoiuoiuoiu|talk]]) 02:54, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
: There is too much truth in this cartoon, see [https://www.mantleplumes.org] to get an overview over the problems of the competing plume hypotheses. In short, yes geologists made up so many different plume models that this term has become either all-encompassing or meaningless. [[Special:Contributions/87.180.165.87|87.180.165.87]] 07:38, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

I like that the title text seems to also suggest that Mantle should properly be pronounced Mega-antle [[Special:Contributions/2001:1C05:71D:AB00:49C6:27F5:15E6:49C4|2001:1C05:71D:AB00:49C6:27F5:15E6:49C4]] 09:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

To my knowledge, D. B. isn't an "alias" of the plane hijacker but more of a cultural nickname. The hijacker named himself "Dan Cooper" (an European comic about a pilot. Relevancy never proved or disproved by the FBI according to Wikipedia) while D. B. Cooper was a random person misnamed by the media? {{unsigned ip|91.181.199.112|12:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)}}
::Yep, D.B. Cooper is a nickname given by a reporter that stuck, after the composite drawing was released. But back to the comic, this case could have been made much harder in 1980 due to a mantle plume. LOTS of stuff got buried under ash in the Mt. St. Helens eruption in May of 1980.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 15:47, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm off base here, but isn't this one a joke about Dark Matter? 12:54, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
It seems like a Dark Matter joke to me too [[Special:Contributions/136.62.202.91|136.62.202.91]] 18:18, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

He did this whole comic just so he could do the "antle plumes" pun in the title text, didn't he? [[User:Theclapp|Theclapp]] ([[User talk:Theclapp|talk]]) 19:25, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

1246: Pale Blue Dot

2013-08-02T18:04:11Z

Theclapp: /* Explanation */ Fixed spelling of "Cthulhu"

{{comic
| number = 1246
| date = August 2, 2013
| title = Pale Blue Dot
| image = pale_blue_dot.png
| titletext = Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. There is no road out of this oblivion; we must embrace it. We must join with the darkness. Ba'al the Annihilator offers us no happiness, no answers, naught but the cold embrace of the void. To imagine any other end is delusion. We must give in to the will of Ba'al, for he will one day consume us and our world alike. I therefore call on Congress to fully fund space exploration, and to join with Ba'al, the Eater of Souls. Thank you.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
The {{w|Pale Blue Dot}} is a picture of the Earth taken in 1990 by the {{w|Voyager 1}} spacecraft at a distance about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). It was part of the {{w|Family Portrait (Voyager)|Family Portrait}}, a series of images of the entire {{w|Solar System}} from beyond it.

The picture was taken at the request of {{w|Carl Sagan}}, a well known space scientist at that time. In 1994 Sagan wrote the book "{{w|Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space}}" inspired by this picture. In the book, Sagan waxed eloquent about the picture in a widely-quoted passage. Cueball quotes from a condensed version of this passage until he is interrupted by an argument over ''which'' speck in the picture is actually the Earth. When Cueball cries out in exasperation that it doesn't matter, then the entire authenticity of the image is called into question. This pokes fun at the fact that the {{w|Pale Blue Dot}} picture has very little visual attractiveness, apart from the viewer's knowledge that the central speck is actually our home planet seen from a great distance.

The first two sentences of the title text are also a quotation from Sagan's paen to the Pale Blue Dot picture, but then the text veers humorously into a very non-scientific conclusion about pagan deities.

The title text evokes the {{w|Cthulhu_mythos|Cthulhu Mythos}}, as expounded in fantasy/horror works by H.P. Lovecraft and, later, August Derleth, which features a cosmology in which humanity is doomed to destruction through the workings of vastly more powerful supernatural forces. The text references {{w|Ba'al}}, originally a Semitic deity since associated with demonic or otherwise evil forces.

An other, maybe better, explanation is that [[Randall]] speaks about the film character {{w|Ba'al_(Stargate)#Ba.27al|Ba'al}} from {{w|Stargate}}, which is trying to conquer the Earth. At the last sentence of the title text Randall urges the US Congress for a greater fund to space exploration, leading humans to the same technology level as Ba'an has.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands on a podium, the Pale Blue Dot picture is behind him]
:Cueball: Consider this Pale Blue Dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. Everyone you love, every human being who ever was, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived out their lives on this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. All our -
:[Heckling]: I think that's a stuck pixel. We're the speck on the left.
:Cueball: ...Ok, '''''this''''' Pale Blue Dot is everything you -
:[Heckling]: No you were right before. ''That'' one is earth.
:Cueball: '''''Look, it doesn't matter!'''''
:[Heckling]: I ''knew'' it.
:[Heckling]: I think this is just a lens cap picture.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Science]]