explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3064: Lungfish

2025-03-17T21:13:16Z

Tofudragon7:

Huh, first time I've seen a comic the literal minute it was posted. Weird seeing a completely empty explainxkcd page. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 16:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Got the basics of a transcript going. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:21, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
People often talk about DNA being the program that builds life, but it seems to me more as if its the static-data used by the program that builds life
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.236|172.70.90.236]] 16:24, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Anyone know how to add categories? If so, I can handle those. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking of creating the category Genetics as a subcategory to biology, if it hasn't already been done. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:29, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi chat, we got a new undiscovered xkcd page to talk about: [[Dot]]. Any info would be helpful. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 16:52, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

"a common issue when coding" or it could be just editing a doc, a picture, a video, etc.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.21|172.71.151.21]] 17:09, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
: I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE, OKAY???

Somewhat related, is is quite common for someone to have filenames like "Thesis (final)", "Thesis (really final)", "Thesis (really really final)" (instead of "Thesis" it might be "Presentation"). I have just checked the RCS log of my MSc Thesis: the 2.16 version was the final, but then there were the 3.1 and 3.2, which were the correction of two typos. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 18:48, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Anybody else notice that the science in this one is completely incorrect? I added a note, but I'm curious why the comic doesn't instead mention something like Trichomonas or rice/cotton/bread wheat, which actually *do* feature widespread gene duplication [[User:tofudragon7]]

Talk:3064: Lungfish

2025-03-17T21:12:54Z

Tofudragon7:

3064: Lungfish

2025-03-17T21:10:08Z

Tofudragon7: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3064
| date = March 17, 2025
| title = Lungfish
| image = lungfish_2x.png
| imagesize = 317x403px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I know having so many base pairs makes rebasing complicated, but you're in Bilateria, so shouldn't you at LEAST be better at using git head?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COPY OF COPY OF COPY OF COPY OF LUNGFISH - more information on lungfish if necessary. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Lungfish (the class ''Dipnoi'') have the largest known genome among the vertebrates (155 billion base pairs), and the third-largest known genome of all species. The comic relates this to a common issue when editing documents or coding, where the author accidentally makes changes to two separate documents when they meant to only edit one, making both documents essential for the completion of a project. The comic posits that Lungfish has a habit of doing this with its own genome, making both genes essential and increasing the amount of base pairs.

For anyone curious about the science, it's important to note that [https://www.science.org/content/article/odd-fish-has-30-times-much-dna-humans-new-record-animals this is absolutely not why lungfish have a large genome]; while some organisms do contain many copies of genes as a diversification strategy, this mostly occurs only in some plants and single-celled eukaryotes. Lungfish have roughly the same number of genes as a human (and likely slightly fewer), and the large size of the lungfish genome is likely due to poor transposon control causing their chromosomes to fill up with junk.

The names of the "files" reference several things about computer files:
* Older versions of Windows, when copy-and-pasting a file within the same folder, would automatically append "Copy of" to the start of the filename, resulting in a file named "Copy of [Document]". (This was previously referenced in the title text of [[1459: Documents]].) If ''that'' file was then copied, it would be likewise appended, thus producing "Copy of Copy of [Document]". (Newer versions of Windows instead add "- Copy" to the end of the filename, which produces the same effect but keeps things in roughly the same order when sorted by name.) Google Docs automatically adds "Copy of ''x''" to documents when copied.
* Numbered labels in brackets can be produced by a couple different actions:
** If multiple files are highlighted and a Rename action is performed, all of the files will be given the same name with a numeric designator, starting with the one clicked on for the Rename action and then proceeding from the top of the list down as originally sorted. For example, if three files named "Alpha", "Beta", and "Gamma" are highlighted, and the user right-clicks on "Gamma" and renames it to "Alphabet", then "Gamma" will be renamed to "Alphabet (1)", followed by "Alphabet (2)" [formerly Alpha] and "Alphabet (3)" [formerly Beta].
** If a copied file is pasted multiple times in the same folder, it will also receive number labels in the same format.
* Some users will keep older drafts of a file in case of a need to revert back to an older version; this can be done with a number label (i.e. "v1", "v2", etc.) or a proper word (i.e. "draft", "edited", etc.) at the user's discretion. This can be useful if it's discovered an edit breaks something important, or in the event that a mistaken save action loses data, but it can also lead to file hoarding.

The file names "Copy of Copy of Gene v3 (Newest) (2)" and "Copy of Copy of Gene v3 (Final) (2)" suggest a very poorly-organized filesystem - and a tendency to copy-paste unnecessarily - on the part of the lungfish, which certainly explains why it keeps editing multiple documents instead of a single one.

The title text further compares the biology of lungfish to managing versions of files. Rebasing is the act of moving changes from one file branch to another, which Cueball says is complicated due to the large amount of base pairs. {{w|Bilateria}} is a clade of animals characterized by embryonic bilateral symmetry, giving their bodies distinguishable "head" and "tail" ends. Since this applies to lungfish, Cueball says the lungfish should at least know how to use the "head" branch with the {{w|Git}} version control system.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing on the end of a wooden dock looking down at the ocean. A lungfish is sticking its head out of the water close to the dock and looking at Cueball.]
:Lungfish: It turns out I've been editing both '''''Copy of Copy of Gene v3 (Newest) (2)''''' and '''''Copy of Copy of Gene v3 (Final) (2)''''' so now I can't delete either one.
:Cueball: You have '''''got''''' to stop doing this.
:Lungfish: It's fine, I'll just buy more storage.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Why lungfish have such enormous genomes

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Version Control]]

2640: The Universe by Scientific Field

2022-07-02T04:26:14Z

Tofudragon7: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2640
| date = July 1, 2022
| title = The Universe by Scientific Field
| image = the_universe_by_scientific_field.png
| titletext = The math and philosophy people also claim everything, but the astronomers argue that the stuff they study really only comprises a small number of paper surfaces.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A GIVEN PROPORTION OF THE UNIVERSE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Astronomy}} is the study of outer space and celestial phenomena. This comic makes a joke that most of the "universe" falls under the study of astronomy, which makes sense because it is so vast and large and is not studied directly by other fields of science.

The volume of the {{w|observable universe}} is 3.566×1080 cubic meters. The volume of Earth is 1.08321×1021 cubic meters.

1.08321×1021 m3 ÷ 3.566×1080 m3 × 100% ≈ 3×10-58%, which is scientific notation for the second of the two percentages, the first being its difference from 100%.

The title text says that mathematicians and philosophers claim that what they study also represents everything. But astronomers counter this by saying that they just study things that are written down, and this comprises just tiny amounts of "paper" on the Earth. This claim by mathematicians also appears in [[435: Purity]].

The information provided by {{w|Observational astronomy|astronomical observations}} of light, subatomic particles, and gravity's effects represents only a tiny fraction of the scientific properties of the extraterrestrial substances in the volume of space that astronomers study. Moreover, the adjacent fields of optics, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and geometry underpin almost all aspects of astronomy other than {{w|Astronomical naming conventions|nomenclature}}, so the comic may be seen as biased by proponents of those disciplines. Other objections could conceivably include the fact that most matter in the universe is described just as well by the laws of chemistry or physics as by astronomy, or the fact that almost everyone's subjective life experiences are overwhelmingly more involved with matters best described by fields other than astronomy, even in the case of professional astronomers (who often complain about how little time they can allocate to making actual astronomical observations) although this is to be expected as all but typically a handful of people are terrestrial.

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

:The Universe by Scientific Field

:[A pie chart is shown.]
:Astronomy
:99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999997%
:Other
:0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000003%

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Pie charts]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

1957: 2018 CVE List

2018-02-19T10:29:07Z

Tofudragon7: /* Explanation */

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

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

{|class="wikitable"
!Security vulnerability
!Notes
|-
|Apple products crash when displaying certain Telugu or Bengali letter combinations.
|This refers to a real vulnerability in iOS and MacOS publicized a few days before the comic released <ref>https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/15/iphone-text-bomb-ios-mac-crash-apple/</ref>.
|-
|An attacker can use a timing attack to extploit[sic] a race condition in garbage collection to extract a limited number of bits from the Wikipedia article on Claude Shannon.
|Timing Attack to explit a race condition in garbaje collection refers to Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws that can be exploited in cloud server like the ones in wikipedia
|-
|At the cafe on third street, the post-it note with the wifi password is visible from the sidewalk.
|This could refer to the hawaian missile alert incident
|-
|A remote attacker can inject arbitrary text into public-facing pages via the comments box.
|Describes a common feature on news sites or social media sites like Facebook. The possibility for users to "inject" text into the page is by design. This is a humorous reference to the relatively common security vulnerability "[[Wikipedia:Cross-site_scripting|persistent cross-site scripting]]", where input provided by the user is displayed to other users in a dangerous fashion that allows attackers to inject arbitrary HTML or Javascript code into e.g. a comment section. It might also be a humorous reference to the events before, during and after the 2016 US Presidential elections where Internet Research Agency employees based remotely in St. Petersburg, Russia, but disguised as US citizens, "injected" arbitrary text in the form of political propaganda into comments on multiple web sites, according to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on February 16, 2018.
|-
|MySQL server 55.45 secretly runs two parallel databases for people who say "S-Q-L" and "sequel."
|Some people pronounce "SQL" like "sequel", after SQL's predecessor "SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language)". MySQL is an open-source relational database management system, the latest version is MySQL 5.6.
|-
|A flaw in some x86 CPUs could allow a root user to de-escalate to normal account privileges.
|This vulnerability refers to DOM0 attacks on Virtualization CPUs, regulary escalate from normal(few privileges) to root (full privileges), this is the inverse.
|-
|Apple products catch fire when displaying emoji with diacritics.
|This is taking the first CVE to an extreme conclusion by combining it with the Samsung exploding phones
|-
|An oversight in the rules allows a dog to join a basketball team.
|This likely refers to the movie Air Bud. It's a movie about a dog playing basketball {{w|Air Bud}}. This has been a common theme in xkcd comics, see [[115: Meerkat]], [[1439: Rack Unit]], [[1819: Sweet 16]], [[1552: Rulebook]]
|-
|Haskell isn't side-effect-free after all; the effects are all just concentrated in this one. Computer in Missouri that no one's checked on in a while.
|Haskell is a functional programing language, funcional programing is characterized by using functions that dont have side effects in other parts of the program.
|-
|Nobody really knows how hypervisors work.
|Virtualization programing is hard, Meltdown and Specter are related to this
|-
|CRITICAL: Under Linux 3.14.8 on System/390 in a UTC+14 time zone, a local user could potentially use a buffer overflow to change another user's default system clock from 12-hour to 24-hour.
|Jokes about arcane systems that are running linux, that have bugs that nobody can replicate because there are no more machines on this type where reproduce the bug to fix it.
|-
|x86 has way too many instructions.
|This is a joke account for random acronyms of processor assembled language many of them are overspecialized version of general ones
|-
|Numpy 1.8.0 can factor primes in O(log n) time and must be quietly deprecated before anyone notices.
|NumPy is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python. If something can find the prime factors of a number this quickly, there are attacks to break many crypto functions used in internet security. However, prime numbers have only a single factor, and "factoring primes" quickly is a simpler problem.
|-
|Apple products grant remote access if you send them words that break the "I before E" rule.
|another joke on the first CVE and a common english writing rule. That's weird.
|-
|Skylake x86 chips can be pried from their sockets using certain flathead screwdrivers.
|Skylake x86 chips are a line of microprocesors, yes, you can remove forcefully any procesador from his socket with a screwdriver , there are many reports from people not using common sense.
|-
|Apparently Linus Torvalds can be bribed pretty easily.
|Linux Torvals is the benevolent dictator of the Linux kernel codebase, normally it is hard to pass a change because he has the last word about what merge to the code base because that code is replicated in all linux instalations, but apparently he is easy to bribe, that is a severe creitical vulnerability to all linux server and machines
|-
|An attacker can execute malicious code on their own machine and no one can stop them.
|This is a common CVE description
|-
|Apple products execute any code printed over a photo of a dog with a saddle and a baby riding it.
|This could refer to a CVE vulnerability of JPG files where javascript is executed by some application, only this time is in a printed photo instead of a file .
|-
|Under rare circumstances, a flaw in some versions of Windows could allow Flash to be installed.
|This is another common CVE description, Flash was discontinued because is abismal security record. All security experts advise against install.
|-
|Turns out the cloud is just other people's computers.
|This refers to a computer meme where replace "cloud" with "another people's computer" must be used in all marketing presentation to CEOs and not computer literate persons to evaluate the security impact of using "Cloud services"
|-
|A flaw in Mitre's CVE database allows arbitrary code insertion.[~~CLICK HERE FOR CHEAP VIAGRA~~]
|Mitress CVE database is the database where all CVE are listed, this is a joke between the 4th CVE in this list pointing that the site is also vulnerable
|-
|It turns out Bruce Schneier is just two mischevious kids in a trenchcoat. (title text)
|
|}
== References ==
<references/>

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

LEAKED LIST OF MAJOR 2018 SECURITY VULNERABILITIES

CVE-2018-????? Apple products crash when displaying certain Telugu or Bengali letter combinations.

CVE-2018-????? An attacker can use a timing attack to extploit[sic] a race condition in garbage collection to extract a limited number of bits from the Wikipedia article on Claude Shannon.

CVE-2018-????? At the cafe on third street, the post-it note with the wifi password is visible from the sidewalk.

CVE-2018-????? A remote attacker can inject arbitrary text into public-facing pages via the comments box.

CVE-2018-????? MySQL server 55.45 secretly runs two parallel databases for people who say "S-Q-L" and "sequel."

CVE-2018-????? A flaw in some x86 CPUs could allow a root user to de-escalate to normal account privileges.

CVE-2018-????? Apple products catch fire when displaying emoji with diacritics.

CVE-2018-????? An oversight in the rules allows a dog to join a basketball team.

CUE-2018-????? Haskell isn't side-effect-free after all; the effects are all just concentrated in this one. Computer in Missouri that no one's checked on in a while.

CVE-2018-????? Nobody really knows how hypervisors work.

CVE-2018-????? CRITICAL: Under Linux 3.14.8 on System/390 in a UTC+14 time zone, a local user could potentially use a buffer overflow to change another user's default system clock from 12-hour to 24-hour.

CVE-2018-????? x86 has way too many instructions.

CVE-2018-????? Numpy 1.8.0 can factor primes in O(log n) time and must be quietly deprecated before anyone notices.

CVE-2018-????? Apple products grant remote access if you send them words that break the "I before E" rule.

CVE-2018-????? Skylake x86 chips can be pried from their sockets using certain flathead screwdrivers.

CVE-2018-????? Apparently Linus Torvalds can be bribed pretty easily.

CVE-2018-????? An attacker can execute malicious code on their own machine and no one can stop them.

CVE-2018-????? Apple products execute any code printed over a photo of a dog with a saddle and a baby riding it.

CVE-2018-????? Under rare circumstances, a flaw in some versions of Windows could allow Flash to be installed.

CVE-2018-????? Turns out the cloud is just other people's computers.

CVE-2018-????? A flaw in Mitre's CVE database allows arbitrary code insertion.[~~CLICK HERE FOR CHEAP VIAGRA~~]

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1125: Objects In Mirror

2012-11-09T06:06:57Z

Tofudragon7:

Anyone else think that the smallness of this comic is unusual? I can barely read the mirror. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
:Agreed. The key part of the "punchline" is the word "bluer", and it's '''really''' hard to read. [[Special:Contributions/67.51.59.66|67.51.59.66]] 18:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

:The drawing has a different feel too. It seems to have been done with a pressure sensitive pen. Maybe Randall is trying out a new method. A galaxy note maybe? [[User:Fanboix|Fanboix]] ([[User talk:Fanboix|talk]]) 19:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

:Text on the mirror is larger than it appears.

:It's probably from the viewpoint of the driver.--[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 16:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think title text refers to the expansion of the universe and the speed of light. The observable universe is viewed from light that originated in the past. The further away the object, the further back in time we observe it. In an expanding universe, the universe we observe today is actually how it looked in the past (smaller) and we are unable to observe it's present size (larger) due to the great distances and the time it takes for the light to arrive. Thus, the universe is larger than it appears, no matter if you view it traveling towards or away from any object. --[[User:Bpiltz|Bpiltz]] ([[User talk:Bpiltz|talk]]) 15:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

If the object in the mirror were another car overtaking this one, it would actually be redder than it appears. --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 17:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

My first thought was that the title text refers to the fact that objects appear to be in different directions, as well as colors, from a moving viewpoint. So objects in front of a moving car will appear to be closer together than if the car were stopped.
See http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/aberration.html
But objects seen in the rear-view mirror will appear more spread out, so maybe not.
 [[Special:Contributions/75.36.234.236|75.36.234.236]] 18:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
: Naw, you're thinking too much about this. Randall is just commenting that the universe, (as visible through the relatively small aperature of a windshield or mirror) is much bigger than it appears in either viewport. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are visible through your view-portal, Horatio!" (to paraphrase the Bard.) If that's what he was trying to say in Click and Drag, too, so be it. -- [[Special:Contributions/207.225.239.130|207.225.239.130]] 21:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
::That would be "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than..." but the point is apt. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree, I reckon it just means there is whole lot of universe out there that you can't see, regardless of what direction you're looking or what you're looking at it through. [[User:Brendan|Brendan]] ([[User talk:Brendan|talk]]) 05:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC) BK

One thing confuses me: isn't the point that the scenery in the mirror is moving AWAY from the viewer - and hence would be red-shifted?? --[[User:Brahmafear|Brahmafear]] ([[User talk:Brahmafear|talk]]) 13:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

:If he were moving quite fast, the scenery in the mirror '''WOULD''' be red-shifted. But since he's not moving very fast, he doesn't see the expected red-shift, and thus things look bluer than they normally would.--[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 14:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

:That's a good question. He does appear to be in the passing lane (dashed lane to the right, unless he's driving on the wrong side of the road ;p but it wouldn't make sense to have a right-hand drive car with the warning on the driver side mirror), so he would ostensibly be going faster than slower traffic. Interesting conundrum. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 15:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

:The scenery is red shifted and as such appears red, but is truly bluer than it currently appears in the mirror. This is just like the actual safety warning that the mirror makes things appear smaller (farther away) than if you were looking at them directly (I suspect this is to increase the field of view), so the objects are actually closer than they appear in the mirror. --[[User:Chexwarrior|Chexwarrior]] ([[User talk:Chexwarrior|talk]]) 20:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

::Ah! I thought he was making a "Objects in mirror are losing" joke. But he's just going with a relativistic interpretation of objects being closer than they appear. Good catch. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

::The passenger-side mirror on cars is slightly convex in order to increase the field of view (and hence decrease the size of the blind spot). The side effect of this is printed on the mirror. The driver-side mirror is flat, however. [[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 20:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objects_in_the_Rear_View_Mirror_May_Appear_Closer_than_They_Are Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are], anyone? --[[Special:Contributions/137.132.22.191|137.132.22.191]] 07:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
:Commenting the same legal notice. There are several pop-culture references to objects-in-mirror. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
:: "Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they're actual size as she drives away" -- They Might Be Giants, "She's Actual Size" --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 11:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

This comic has bothered me considerably. You'd need extreme speed to notice any doppler shifting of light, but you'd still get substantial color distortion from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_scattering Atmospheric Scattering], which causes far-away objects to turn ''blue''—so objects in the mirror are almost certainly less blue than they appear. --[[User:Tofudragon7|Tofudragon7]] ([[User talk:Tofudragon7|talk]]) 06:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Approaching objects are redder than they appear. {{unsigned|204.191.29.154}}

Astrophysics major here.

The ACTUAL reason he says "Universe is larger than it appears" is because Edwin Hubble was part of the "Great Debate", which was a scientific conundrum in the early 20th century about whether the universe contained multiple galaxies or merely the Milky Way. Scientists were uncertain which theory was correct until Hubble's data, which conclusively showed, via observations of Cepheid variable stars, that galaxies such as Andromeda are located much too far away (about 2 million light years) to be located within our own galaxy. Consequently, the universe is much larger than it might originally appear to be.

[[Special:Contributions/71.167.97.24|71.167.97.24]] 15:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)