https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=141.101.99.114&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T16:02:44ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:980:_Money/Prices_in_tables&diff=312892Talk:980: Money/Prices in tables2023-05-11T17:59:04Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
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<div>This seems to be done. Is it?<span> — [[User:Sqrt-1|The <b>𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭</b>]] <sup>[[User talk:Sqrt-1|<span style="color: blue">talk</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|<span style="color: blue">stalk</span>]]</sup></span> 06:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Verified the Dollars and Thousands section. Perhaps move "New video game" from books to a new section? --[[User:IonIceXIII|IonIceXIII]] ([[User talk:IonIceXIII|talk]]) 23:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Should there be a comic description as well in addition to the tables? --[[User:continuum|continuum]] ([[User talk:continuum|talk]]) 5:44, 5 May 2023 (UTC)<br />
:There is, in [[980: Money|the original comic page]]. This is a break-out page devoted to holding the ''large'' amount of total information that would otherwise clutter/overwhelm the comic description page. (With an onward link for the reader to get here... Though maybe you landed on it via the Random button, and didn't read the note at the top that says what Comic Description it is part of?) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.114|141.101.99.114]] 17:59, 11 May 2023 (UTC)</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=753:_Southern_Half&diff=312369753: Southern Half2023-05-05T12:41:02Z<p>141.101.99.114: Undo revision 312360 by 172.71.242.202 (talk) Someone is determined to add CNs to *everything*, but sometimes that's just overkill. Many times, even, but defo twice in quick succession!</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number =753<br />
| date =June 14, 2010<br />
| title =Southern Half<br />
| image =southern_half.png<br />
| titletext =Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
On May 25, 1961, U.S. President {{w|John F. Kennedy}} gave a [http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/xzw1gaeeTES6khED14P1Iw.aspx speech before a joint session of Congress], in which he set as a goal for the American people the task of landing a man on the moon and returning him successfully to earth. Though Kennedy didn't live to see that goal become a reality - he was assassinated in 1963 - the {{w|Apollo 11}} lunar module landed {{w|Neil Armstrong}} and {{w|Buzz Aldrin}} on the moon in July, 1969.<br />
<br />
During that speech, Kennedy said the sentence that the comic is referring to, and the map provided shows that the vast majority of the regions he mentioned are actually in the Northern Hemisphere, despite Kennedy calling them "the whole southern half of the globe", not to mention the Southern Hemisphere has regions which are not included (like Australia).<br />
<br />
The actual meaning behind Kennedy's statement is likely a reference to the common lingo used describing the 'third world' as the '{{w|Global South}}', which is a metaphorical rather than geographical description which includes all of the regions mentioned (though leaving out the USSR from Asia, as Soviet satellite states are commonly referred to as “second-world” to the West’s “first world” and un- or underdeveloped nations’ “third world”). At the time, a number of proxy wars between the U.S. and the USSR had broken out and were in progress in many third world countries across the entirety of the regions mentioned. Thus, Kennedy was describing the Cold War and his expectation that it would continue, and that the 'Global South' would be the actual battlefield. Out-of-context, and insisting on a literal geographic interpretation for the words, this part of the speech sounds particularly funny.<br />
<br />
Another way to understand Kennedy's phrasing is a reference to the "southern half" of the land on earth. Because the area south of the equator is mostly water, the {{w|geographical centre of Earth}} (geometric centre of all land surfaces) is in Turkey, meaning that (with the exception of the Russian part of Asia) almost the entirety of the regions Kennedy listed are in the southern half of Earth's land surfaces.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to a [http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm September 1962 speech] Kennedy gave at Rice University. One of the most famous quotes from that speech is, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Randall suggests that all of the arguments Kennedy made for going to the moon could also serve the cause of ''many'' different "innovations", such as blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or, ridiculously, constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars. Or, as seen [https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/ here], eating a bag of pinecones.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:"The great battlefield for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe - Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East."<br />
:-John F. Kennedy, 1961 speech to Congress.<br />
<br />
:[An ovoid world map, with Latin America colored in red, Africa in yellow, the Middle East in green, and Asia in Blue. There is an arrow pointing to the top of the map marked 'northern half', and another arrow pointing to the bottom half marked 'southern half.' The majority of these places are actually in the northern half.]<br />
<br />
:Okay, so I'm half a century late on this, but it's been bugging me: did JFK ''own'' a globe?<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Politics]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring John F. Kennedy]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=327:_Exploits_of_a_Mom&diff=102831327: Exploits of a Mom2015-10-04T23:50:39Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 327<br />
| date = October 10, 2007<br />
| title = Exploits of a Mom<br />
| image = exploits_of_a_mom.png<br />
| titletext = Her daughter is named Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son <code>Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--</code>, a rather unusual name. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "Little Bobby Tables". As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the student table in the database to be deleted.<br />
<br />
The comic also has an unexpected twist, in that the parent in this situation (who normally might be clueless about such an arcane prank), fully understands the nature of the both the prank itself and its security implications. This suggests that "Bobby" got not only his technical savvy, but his sense of humor, from his mom.<br />
<br />
The title of this comic is a pun—''exploit'' can mean an accomplishment or heroic deed, but in computer science the term refers to a program or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability in other software. In fact, one could say that her exploit is to exploit an exploit (her achievement is to make use of a vulnerability). The title can also refer to her choice of name for her son, which is rather extraordinary.<br />
<br />
~<br />
<br />
In {{w|SQL}}, a database programming language, commands are separated by semicolons <code>;</code> and strings of text are often delimited using single quotes <code>'</code>. Parts of commands may also be enclosed in parentheses <code>(</code> and <code>)</code>. Data entries are stored as "rows" within named "tables" of similar items (e.g. <code>Students</code>). The command to delete an entire table (and every row of data in that table) is <code>DROP</code>, as in <code>DROP TABLE Students;</code>.<br />
<br />
The exploited vulnerability here is that the single quote in the name input was not correctly "escaped" by the software. That is, if a student's name did indeed contain a quote mark, it should have been parsed as one of the characters making up the text string and not as the marker to close the string, which it erroneously was. Lack of such escaping is a common SQL vulnerability; this type of exploit is referred to as {{w|SQL injection}}. Mrs. Roberts thus reminds the school to make sure they have added data filtering code to prevent code injection exploits in the future.<br />
<br />
For example, if the site was running PHP, the code might store the student's name in a variable called <code>$name</code>, and generate an SQL statement to search the database and check that the name is valid, like this:<br />
<br />
<code>$sql = "SELECT * FROM Students WHERE (first_name=<nowiki>'</nowiki>'''$name'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>);";</code><br />
<br />
For a student named "Annie", this would give the following SQL command:<br />
<br />
<code>SELECT * FROM Students WHERE (first_name=<nowiki>'</nowiki>'''Annie'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>);</code><br />
<br />
which is a valid command where the 5-character string "Annie" has been substituted for "$name" in the PHP code above. However, with Mrs. Roberts' exploit, the SQL command becomes:<br />
<br />
<code>SELECT * FROM Students WHERE (first_name=<nowiki>'</nowiki>'''Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>);</code><br />
<br />
As semicolons separate statements, this will be read by the interpreter as three commands:<br />
<br />
<code>SELECT * FROM Students WHERE (first_name='Robert');</code><br/><br />
<code>DROP TABLE Students;</code><br/><br />
<code>--');</code><br />
<br />
The first line runs as normal, caused by the '''<code>');</code>''' punctuation in part of Little Bobby Tables' name properly closing the current command. The second injected command then does the damage, deleting the student records from the school's database. The third line begins with two hyphens <code>--</code> which are used to mark a comment in SQL, meaning that the interpreter ignores it as well as the partial fragment of code originally after <code>$name</code> in the PHP statement.<br />
<br />
For this to work, it helps to know a little about the structure of the database. But it's quite a good guess that a school's student management database might have a table named <code>Students</code>. Mrs. Roberts' exploit also assumes that the person who wrote the code used exactly one set of parentheses around <code>(first_name='$name')</code> in the PHP example, so that the single close parenthesis in the name could match it, which apparently was a successful guess. Of course, in real life most exploits of this kind would be performed not by socially engineering a person's name such that it would eventually be entered into a database query, but rather by accessing some kind of input system (such as a website's login screen or search interface) and guessing various combinations by trial and error until something works, perhaps by first trying to inject the <code>SHOW TABLES</code> command to see how the database is structured.<br />
<br />
~<br />
<br />
It should be noted that while data sanitization can mitigate the risks of SQL injection, the proper prevention technique is to use {{w|Prepared statement}}s.<br />
<br />
The title text references that her daughter is named "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory". This is a play on how if someone is stuck and forced to work in a manufacturing factory/plant then they will write on the product "Help I am trapped in a ____ factory" in order to tell people on the outside. Having this name would cause any police officer that pulls her over to show some concern, as well as getting the license in the first place would be difficult. The idea of inserting a help message like this was already used in [[10: Pi Equals]].<br />
<br />
This xkcd comic has become rather famous, spawning at least one site about preventing SQL injection named http://bobby-tables.com. Noted security expert {{w|Bruce Schneier}} (who often quotes xkcd) [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/pen-and-paper_s.html mentioned a similar attack] which happened in the 2014 Swedish general elections.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school.]<br />
:Caller: Hi, This is your son's school. We're having some computer trouble.<br />
<br />
:Mrs. Roberts: Oh, dear - did he break something?<br />
:Caller: In a way -<br />
<br />
:Caller: Did you really name your son <code>Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--</code> ?<br />
:Mrs. Roberts: Oh, yes. Little Bobby Tables, we call him.<br />
<br />
:Caller: Well, we've lost this year's student records. I hope you're happy.<br />
:Mrs. Roberts: And I hope you've learned to sanitize your database inputs.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Mrs. Roberts]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Little Bobby Tables]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Elaine Roberts]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=207:_What_xkcd_Means&diff=102830207: What xkcd Means2015-10-04T23:20:21Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 207<br />
| date = January 8, 2007<br />
| title = What xkcd Means<br />
| image = what xkcd means.png<br />
| titletext = It means shuffling quickly past nuns on the street with ketchup in your palms, pretending you're hiding stigmata.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic purports to finally answer the question, "What does 'xkcd' mean?" However, instead of giving an answer as to what the letters actually mean (according to Randall, it's literally "just a word with no phonetic pronunciation"), he offers five quirky behaviors. This is reminiscent of TV commercials that ask, "What does [brand name] mean? It means [happy activity]!".<br />
<br />
The first panel shows a driver making a {{w|right turn on red|right turn at a red light}}, a {{w|U-turn}} on the connecting road, and then another right turn, returning them to their original direction presumably faster than waiting for the light. Right turns at red lights and U-turns are legal in some states and at some intersections, but not always, hence this complicated maneuver is "questionably legal".<br />
<br />
The second panel shows [[Cueball]] searching for his mobile phone by having his friend call it to locate the ringtone, only to hear a ring from inside of his dog's stomach.<br />
<br />
In the third panel, {{w|Graham's number}} is a (very) large number (once celebrated as the largest number ever used in a proof, although it is no longer the record holder), and the {{w|Ackermann function}} is a (very) fast-growing function, thus the function's output must be insanely large. (In fact, A(g<sub>64</sub>, g<sub>64</sub>) is only "slightly" greater than g<sub>65</sub>.)<br />
<br />
The fourth panel shows somebody walking in a pattern based on the position of black and white tiles on the floor. This is further referenced in [[245: Floor Tiles]].<br />
<br />
The title text refer to {{w|stigmata}}, marks corresponding to Jesus' crucifixion wounds. Devout Catholics have claimed to have spontaneously developed stigmata.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:What does xkcd mean?<br />
<br />
:[Two cars sitting at a red light at a multi-lane intersection; one of them makes a right turn, then shifts over to the left lane and makes a U-turn across the dividing line to go back the way it came. It then shifts back to the right lane and makes another right turn, continuing down the road past the traffic light. This is shown with a red arrow.]<br />
:It means saving a few seconds at a long red light via elaborate and questionably legal maneuvers.<br />
<br />
:[In an inset circle in the panel, someone is on a cell phone. In the panel itself, a second person is looking at a dog.]<br />
:It means having someone call your cell phone to figure out where it is.<br />
:Dog's stomach: ''Ring''<br />
<br />
:[The mathematical function "A(g<sub>64</sub>, g<sub>64</sub>)=" appears in the panel. Next to the equal sign stands a mathematician, clutching his head.]<br />
:It means calling the Ackermann function with Graham's number as the arguments just to horrify mathematicians.<br />
:Mathematician: ''Aughhh''<br />
<br />
:[An approximately 8 by 8 square of floor tiles is shown; the first, fourth and seventh across in the first, fourth and seventh rows are black and the rest are white. A guy and girl are shown next to it, walking on what is presumed to be the same pattern of floor tiles.]<br />
:It means instinctively constructing rules for which floor tiles it's okay to step on and then walking funny ever after.<br />
:[Line indicating the uppermost right black tile: Black tiles okay.]<br />
:[Line indicating tile directly below it: White tiles directly between black tiles okay.]<br />
:[Line indicating a white tile in the last column over: Not okay.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*In his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=44m30s Google-speech], [[Randall]] said that ''xkcd'' originated as a previously unused random 4 letter string which he used, e.g., as his account name on various internet services.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Traffic light]]<br />
[[Category:Religion]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1529:_Bracket&diff=1028291529: Bracket2015-10-04T23:09:08Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1529<br />
| date = May 25, 2015<br />
| title = Bracket<br />
| image = bracket.png<br />
| titletext = I'm staring at the "doctor" section, and I can't help but feel like I've forgotten someone.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
A {{w|Bracket (tournament)|tournament bracket}} shows the planned series of matchups in a tournament. In this comic [[Randall]] has shown a plan for a tournament between a wide range of cultural icons, both real and fictional, based mostly on similarities in their names. Various Internet groups have speculated on who would win in a fight between characters from different films. It may be relevant that the film {{w|Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice}} is soon to be released where the two eponymous {{w|superheroes}}, {{w|Batman}} and {{w|Superman}}, fight against each other.<br />
<br />
The individual starting pairings are generally based on common or similar given names or surnames. Some adjacent brackets are "segued" by someone like Jeff Daniels, who segues from a bracket of "Jeff"s into a bracket of "Daniels"es. The bracket itself is fairly arbitrary. Most initial matchups are pairs, although several are trios and there's a quadruplet in the Russels group, while a single entry, {{w|Beyoncé}}, is given a first- and second-round {{w|bye (sports)|bye}}. Most of the participants in the tournament are people, with a few exceptions. {{w|Shallots}} (small onions), {{w|scallops}} (bivalve mollusks), and {{w|scallions}} (green onions) are similar sounding foods, therefore may be confusing for some individuals (perhaps including [[Randall]]). The final grouping on the lower right of the bracket features a several retail stores and a film.<br />
<br />
The [[title text]] possibly refers to {{w|Dr. Dre}}, particularly as a reference to his 2001 song "{{w|Forgot About Dre}}". It could also be a play on the name of the famous sci-fi pop culture icon, Doctor. Who Alternatively, the title text could simply be a reference to the large number of pop culture personas that include the word "Doctor", such as {{w|Gregory House|Doctor House}}, {{w|Mehmet Oz|Dr. Oz}}, {{w|Phil McGraw|Dr. Phil}}, {{w|Dr. Watson}}, {{w|Emmett Brown|"Doc" Brown}}, {{w|Dr. Seuss}}, {{w|Dr Pepper}}, {{w|Doctor Doom}}, {{w|Zoidberg|Dr. Zoidberg}}, {{w|Dr. Horrible}}'s Sing-Along Blog and {{w|List of fictional doctors|many others}}. <br />
<br />
The incentive for the comic may have been the {{w|2015 French Open|French Open 2015}}, which started on the day of the publication.<br />
<br />
The comic inspired several groups to play out versions of the bracket. One user-voting based match-up on twitter, [https://twitter.com/xkcdbracket XKCD Bracket], was featured by Randall on the xkcd home page, with a link at at the top of the website, although the account was not created by Randall. (The link was part of a "news" flash, the other was regarding his book based on [[1133: Up Goer Five]]. See more on this news in that comics explanation). In the final match on July 29, Neil Armstrong defeated Mister Spock (see the [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLKJUpFWIAAlDnW.png:orig complete bracket]). The link was removed sometimes before Monday, 10 August 2015, within two weeks of the final result was revealed.<br />
<br />
===Table of the bracket===<br />
*The names and other entries in the bracket are given here below, sorted to explain why the individual entries have been grouped as they are.<br />
*The first-round match-ups are grouped by shading.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!Grouping<br />
!Subgrouping<br />
!Person/Entry<br />
!Known as<br />
!Winning probability<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="4"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Armstrong<br />
|{{w|Louis Armstrong}}<br />
|Jazz-musician<br />
| rowspan="4" |1/32<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Neil Armstrong}}<br />
|First human on the moon<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Lance Armstrong}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Cyclist<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Stretch Armstrong}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Action figure<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|Jeff *<br />
|Jeff Gordan (Probably {{w|Jeff Gordon}})<br />
|Race car driver<br />
| rowspan="9" |1/64<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Jeff Bridges}}<br />
|Actor in ''King Kong'', ''The Big Lebowski'', ''Iron Man'', ''Tron: Legacy''<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Jeff Daniels}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Actor in ''Dumb and Dumber''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|J* Daniels<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Jack Daniel's|Jack Daniels}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Alcoholic beverages<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="4"|<nowiki>*</nowiki>Well<nowiki>*</nowiki><br />
|{{w|Orson Welles}}<br />
|Director of ''{{w|Citizen Kane}}'' and known for his {{w|The War of the Worlds (radio drama)|radio-play}} of {{w|H. G. Wells}}' ''{{w|The War of the Worlds}}''<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|H.G. Wells}}<br />
|Author, known for ''The War of the Worlds'' and ''{{w|The Time Machine}}''<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|George Orwell}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Author of ''{{w|Nineteen Eighty-Four}}'' and ''{{w|Animal Farm}}''<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Wells Fargo}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Bank and stage coach company<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="4"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Russell *<br />
|{{w|Kurt Russell}}<br />
|Actor in ''John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.'', ''The Thing'', ''Big Trouble in Little China'', ''Fast & Furious 7''<br />
| rowspan="5" |1/128<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Russell Brand}}<br />
|Comedian<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Russell Crowe}}<br />
|Actor in ''Gladiator'', ''A Beautiful Mind'', ''Les Misérables'', ''Noah''<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Russell Simmons}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Rapper<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Simmons<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Richard Simmons}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Host of exercise program<br />
| rowspan="3" |1/64<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Gene Simmons}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Musician, known from ''KISS''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Gene <nowiki>*</nowiki><br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Gene Hackman}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Actor<br />
|rowspan="5" |1/96<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|<nowiki>*</nowiki>ckman<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Hugh Jackman}}<br />
|Actor in the ''{{w|X-Men}}'' franchise as {{w|Wolverine (character)|Wolverine}}<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Alan Rickman}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Actor in ''Die Hard'', ''Harry Potter'' franchise, ''The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy''<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="3"|Alan <nowiki>*</nowiki><br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|Alan Par*<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Alan Parsons}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Musician<br />
|rowspan="7" |1/64<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Alan Partridge}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Fictional radio character<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> McCarthy<br />
|{{w|Jenny McCarthy}}<br />
|Anti-vaccination activist<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Joseph McCarthy}}<br />
|Senator known for anti-communist witch-hunt<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Eugene McCarthy}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Senator and Presidential candidate<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="3"|<nowiki>*</nowiki>gene<nowiki>*</nowiki><br />
|rowspan="2"|Eugene <nowiki>*</nowiki><br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Eugene V. Debs}}<br />
|Labor leader<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="3"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Wilde*<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Gene Wilder}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor in ''Bonnie and Clyde'', ''Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory''<br />
| rowspan="4" |1/96<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Olivia Wilde}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actress in ''Tron: Legacy'', ''Her'', ''House M.D."<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Oscar Wilde}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Writer<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Oscar *<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Oscar De La Renta}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Fashion Designer<br />
|rowspan="3"|1/32<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Oscar De La *<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Oscar De La Hoya}}<br />
|Boxer<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Jack Nic*<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Jack Nicklaus}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Golf player<br />
| rowspan="9" |1/32<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Jack Nicholson}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Actor in ''One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'', ''The Shining'', ''The Bucketlist''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|<nowiki>*</nowiki>ichol* / *ickel* / *ickle*<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Phil Mickelson}}<br />
|Golf player<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Nicholas Nickleby}}<br />
|Charles Dickens protagonist in the novel by the same name<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|<nowiki>*</nowiki>ryan Adams<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Ryan Adams}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Singer<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Bryan Adams}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Singer<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Singers with Stage Names Referencing Weight/Games<br />
|{{w|Chubby Checker}}<br />
|Singer famous for "The Twist"<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Fats Domino}}<br />
|Rock and Roll Singer<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Colin F*<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Colin Firth}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor, ''Pride and Prejudice'', ''Love Actually''<br />
| rowspan="5" |1/64<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Colin Farrell}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Actor in ''Daredevil'', ''In Bruges'', ''Total Recall''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|F*rell*<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Will Ferrell}}<br />
|Comic actor, ''Anchorman'' and ''The Other Guys''<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|The Farrelly Brothers}}<br />
|Comedy film-makers<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|J<nowiki>*</nowiki> * *evitt/*ewitt (three names)<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Joseph Gordon-Levitt}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor in ''Third Rock from the Sun'', ''Dark Knight Rises''<br />
| rowspan="2" |1/32<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Jennifer Love Hewitt}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actress in ''Garfield: The Movie'' <!-- Nothing else really --><br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|D* Glover<br />
|{{w|Danny Glover}} <br />
|Actor, ''Lethal Weapon'' series<br />
| rowspan="7" |1/64<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Donald Glover}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Actor, ''Community'', also a rapper, aka ''Childish Gambino''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Don*<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Donnie Wahlberg}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Singer, ''{{w|New Kids on the Block}}''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Wahlberg<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Mark Wahlberg}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Actor in ''The Departed'', ''The Other Guys'', and former hip-hop singer for ''Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|Mark *<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Mark Ruffalo}}<br />
|Actor, known for his role as {{w|Hulk (comics)|the Hulk}} in the film ''{{w|The Avengers (2012 film)|The Avengers}}''<br />
| rowspan="2" |1/32<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Mark Shuttleworth}}<br />
|Entrepreneur, founder of {{w|Ubuntu (operating system)|Ubuntu}}<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Pullman<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Philip Pullman}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Author, ''Dark Materials'' and ''Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ''<br />
|rowspan="4"|1/48<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Bill Pullman}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Actor in ''Spaceballs'', and ''Independence Day''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|Bill *<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Bill Paxton}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor in ''Apollo 13'', ''Aliens''<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Bill Murray}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Actor in ''Ghostbusters'', ''Groundhog Day''<br />
|rowspan="3"|1/32<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Ghostbusters/SNL alumni<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Dan Aykroyd}}<br />
|Actor in ''Ghostbusters'', ''The Blues Brothers''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Rogers<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Ginger Rogers}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actress known for dancing with {{w|Fred Astaire}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|1/64<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Confusing reference to {{w|Fred Rogers}} (host of children's show, popularly known as "Mister Rogers") and to {{w|Fred Astaire}} (Dancer, actor, and singer)<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Spock<br />
|{{w|Mister Spock}}<br />
|Character on ''Star Trek'' portrayed by {{w|Leonard Nimoy}}<br />
|rowspan="10"|1/96<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Doctor Spock}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Author of book on childcare<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="8"|Doctors<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Doctor Octopus}}<br />
|Villain in Spider-Man comic books<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Doctor Manhattan}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Character in Alan Moore's Watchmen<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Doctor Strangelove}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Character in a movie about nuclear war by {{w|Stanley Kubrick}}<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Doctor Strange}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Sorceror Supreme in Marvel Comics<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Julius No|Dr. No}}<br />
|Main villain in the {{w|Dr. No (film)|first James Bond movie}}<br />
|-<br />
|The Doctor<br />
|Ambiguous reference to either the {{w|The Doctor (Doctor Who)|main protagonist}} of the science fiction series ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' or the {{w|Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager)|emergency medical holographic program}} in ''{{w|Star Trek: Voyager}}''. <br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Cory Doctorow}}<br />
|Real person - [[:Category:Comics featuring Cory Doctorow| who has been in a number of xkcd comics]]<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|J* Lewis<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Jerry Lee Lewis}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Rock and Roll singer<br />
|rowspan="9"|1/32<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Jerry Lewis}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Comedian and former chairman of charitable organization<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Jenny Lewis}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Indie singer-songwriter<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Sounds like *"enny"<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Xeni Jardin}}<br />
|Digital commentator, Boing Boing co-editor<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="4"|Chris *<br />
|rowspan="2"|Chris * (Avengers actors)<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Chris Evans (actor)|Chris Evans}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor, ''Captain America''<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Chris Hemsworth}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor, ''Thor''<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|Chris P*<br />
|{{w|Chris Pine}}<br />
|Actor, ''Star Trek''<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Chris Pratt}}<br />
|Actor, ''Guardians of the Galaxy''<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|'S' Foods That Rhyme Assonantly<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Shallots}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Small onions<br />
|rowspan="3"|1/96<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Scallops}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Bivalve mollusks<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Scallions}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Green onions<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Suz* (Similar phonetics)<br />
|{{w|Siouxie Sioux}}<br />
|Rock singer<br />
|rowspan="2"|1/64<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Suzanne Vega}}<br />
|Folk rock singer-songwriter<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|<nowiki>*</nowiki> Arnold *<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Tom Arnold (actor)|Tom Arnold}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Actor; ex-husband of {{w|Roseanne Barr}}<br />
|rowspan="4"|1/48<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Arnold Palmer}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Golf player<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|A* Palmer<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Amanda Palmer}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Singer/songwriter<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Wes *<br />
|{{w|Wes Craven}}<br />
|Film maker<br />
|rowspan="10"|1/64<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Wes Anderson}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Movie Director<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|* Anderson<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Paul Thomas Anderson}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Film maker<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|P*ul Anderson<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Poul Anderson}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Science fiction author<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="3"|Sirs<br />
|rowspan="2"|Sir Walter *<br />
|{{w|Sir Walter Scott}}<br />
|Scottish poet and writer<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Sir Walter Raleigh}}<br />
|British explorer of Virginia<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|rowspan="2"|F* Drake<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Sir Francis Drake}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|British explorer, 2nd to circumnavigate the Earth<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Frank Drake}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Astrophysicist, SETI pioneer<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="5"|"Van"<br />
|rowspan="3"|Van *<br />
|{{w|Van Halen}}<br />
|Rock band<br />
|rowspan="3"|1/96<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Van Morrison}}<br />
|Singer/songwriter<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Van Wilder}}<br />
|Comedy film<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|rowspan="2"|R* Van Winkle<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Robert Van Winkle}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|AKA Vanilla Ice, rapper<br />
|rowspan="3"|1/64<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Rip Van Winkle}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Fictional character<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|Rip/Torn<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Rip Torn}}<br />
|Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, actor on ''Cross Creek'', ''Larry Sanders Show''<br />
|rowspan="2"|1/32<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Natalie Imbruglia}}<br />
|Singer of "Torn"<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Businesses with the word "Body" in their name<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|The Body Shop}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Shop<br />
|rowspan="6"|1/64<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|{{w|Bath and Body Works}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6" rowspan="2"|Shop<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Businesses with the word "Bath" in their name<br />
|-<br />
|rowspan="2"|{{w|Bed Bath and Beyond}}<br />
|rowspan="2"|Shop<br />
|-<br />
|colspan="2" rowspan="3"|Beyon*<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Beyond Thunderdome}}<br />
|Motion picture<br />
|-<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|{{w|Beyoncé}}<br />
|bgcolor="E6E6E6"|Singer<br />
|1/16<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A tournament bracket. With the names listed in groups on the left-hand side and right-hand side as shown below. Within individual groups the names are ordered in match-ups, two, three or even four in the first match. The last name on the right, Beyoncé, is not even matched for first round. The winners goes on to the next match, but there are many that skips some of the matches up until the quarterfinals, so some need to win 5 matches to reach the quarterfinals, others only need to win 4 of 3, and Beyoncé only 2. After the first level, the match-ups are always between two names. The two sides join up in a final in the middle, where the winner of the left side has a place for the name below and the winner of the right a place for the name above a central rectangular frame with place for the winners name. Below the pairing in the first round matches are mentioned above each of the clear groupings of the bracket.]<br />
:{| class="wikitable" style="background:transparent;border:none;width:100%;"<br />
| style="background:transparent;border:none;"|<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Louis Armstrong<br />
<br/>Neil Armstrong<br />
<br/>Lance Armstrong<br />
<br/>Stretch Armstrong<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Jeff Gordan<br />
<br/>Jeff Bridges<br />
<br/>Jeff Daniels<br />
<br/>Jack Daniels<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Orson Welles<br />
<br/>H.G. Wells<br />
<br/>George Orwell<br />
<br/>Wells Fargo<br />
<br />
<br/>[The first four, two, three and two are paired.]<br />
<br/>Kurt Russell<br />
<br/>Russell Brand<br />
<br/>Russell Crowe<br />
<br/>Russell Simmons<br />
<br/>Richard Simmons<br />
<br/>Gene Simmons<br />
<br/>Gene Hackman<br />
<br/>Hugh Jackman<br />
<br/>Alan Rickman<br />
<br/>Alan Parsons<br />
<br/>Alan Partridge<br />
<br />
<br/>[The first four, three and two are paired.]<br />
<br/>Jenny McCarthy<br />
<br/>Joseph McCarthy<br />
<br/>Eugene McCarthy<br />
<br/>Eugene V. Debs<br />
<br/>Gene Wilder<br />
<br/>Olivia Wilde<br />
<br/>Oscar Wilde<br />
<br/>Oscar De La Renta<br />
<br/>Oscar De La Hoya<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Jack Nicklaus<br />
<br/>Jack Nicholson<br />
<br/>Phil Mickelson<br />
<br/>Nicholas Nickelby<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired.]<br />
<br/>Ryan Adams<br />
<br/>Bryan Adams<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired.]<br />
<br/>Chubby Checker<br />
<br/>Fats Domino<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Colin Firth<br />
<br/>Colin Farrell<br />
<br/>Will Ferrell<br />
<br/>The Farrelly Brothers<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired.]<br />
<br/>Joseph Gordon-Levitt<br />
<br/>Jennifer Love Hewitt<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Danny Glover<br />
<br/>Donald Glover<br />
<br/>Donnie Wahlberg<br />
<br/>Mark Wahlberg<br />
<br/>Mark Ruffalo<br />
<br/>Mark Shuttleworth<br />
<br />
| style="background:transparent;border:none;"|<br />
<br/>[The first three and two are paired.]<br />
<br/>Philip Pullman<br />
<br/>Bill Pullman<br />
<br/>Bill Paxton<br />
<br/>Bill Murray<br />
<br/>Dan Aykroyd<br />
<br />
<br/>[The first two, and then three times three are paired.]<br />
<br/>Ginger Rogers<br />
<br/>Fred Rogers|Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers<br />
<br/>Mister Spock<br />
<br/>Doctor Spock<br />
<br/>Doctor Octopus<br />
<br/>Doctor Manhattan<br />
<br/>Doctor Strangelove<br />
<br/>Doctor Strange<br />
<br/>Dr. No<br />
<br/>The Doctor<br />
<br/>Cory Doctorow<br />
<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Jerry Lee Lewis<br />
<br/>Jerry Lewis<br />
<br/>Jenny Lewis<br />
<br/>Xeni Jardin<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Chris Evans<br />
<br/>Chris Hemsworth<br />
<br/>Chris Pine<br />
<br/>Chris Pratt<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired.]<br />
<br/>Shallots<br />
<br/>Scallops<br />
<br/>Scallions<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired.]<br />
<br/>Siouxie Sioux<br />
<br/>Suzanne Vega<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired.]<br />
<br/>Tom Arnold<br />
<br/>Arnold Palmer<br />
<br/>Amanda Palmer<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Wes Craven<br />
<br/>Wes Anderson<br />
<br/>Paul Thomas Anderson<br />
<br/>Poul Anderson<br />
<br />
<br/>[These are paired two and two.]<br />
<br/>Sir Walter Scott<br />
<br/>Sir Walter Raleigh<br />
<br/>Sir Francis Drake<br />
<br/>Frank Drake<br />
<br />
<br/>[The first three, two and two are paired.]<br />
<br/>Van Halen<br />
<br/>Van Morrison<br />
<br/>Van Wilder<br />
<br/>Robert Van Winkle<br />
<br/>Rip Van Winkle<br />
<br/>Rip Torn<br />
<br/>Natalie Imbruglia<br />
<br />
<br/>[The first four are paired two and two the last is the only one not paired.]<br />
<br/>The Body Shop<br />
<br/>Bath and Body Works<br />
<br/>Bed Bath and Beyond<br />
<br/>Beyond Thunderdome<br />
<br/>Beyoncé<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cory Doctorow]]<br />
[[Category:Doctor Who]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1578:_Squirrelphone&diff=1020711578: Squirrelphone2015-09-19T06:12:41Z<p>141.101.99.114: /* Explanation */ a squirrel is not a word. "squirrel" is a word. a squirrel is an animal.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1578<br />
| date = September 16, 2015<br />
| title = Squirrelphone<br />
| image = squirrelphone.png<br />
| titletext = After a while, the squirrel starts making that beeping noise and doesn't stop until it hops back up onto the stump.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
"Squirrelphone" is a {{w|Compound (linguistics)|compound word}} combining "{{w|squirrel}}" and "{{w|phone}}".<br />
<br />
In this comic, we see a squirrel pretend to be a telephone, only to bite [[Cueball]] who tries to pick it up and use it as one. This is humorous because a living squirrel is not an appropriate creature to maintain a phone call{{Citation needed}}. This could be seen as an example of {{w|mimicry}} in nature, or parasitism where one creature gains a benefit from another.<br />
<br />
It may be an allusion to the {{w|Tufted ground squirrel|vampire squirrel}} which was [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/11/vampire-squirrel-caught-on-camera-for-the-first-time-ever/ documented recently] that allegedly 'attacks and kills' deer. The comic follows the absurd conclusion that the squirrel uses mimicry to 'attack and kill' humans. Cueball may be lucky to still be alive.<br />
<br />
The sounds the squirrel makes correspond to the tones that the terminals make when you use the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) in the US:<br />
* When someone else calls you and the receiver of your phone is on the hook, the phone makes loud and long "riiing riiiing" tones. --- This is the case in the first frame of the comic.<br />
* When you pick the receiver up, the phone call is established and no extra noises are made.<br />
* When no phone call is established and you pick up, a continuous humming tone is heard, meaning the service is up and you can dial someone else's number. (A {{w|dial tone}})<br />
* If a phone is left off hook for too long, a loud {{w|Off-hook tone|howler-tone}} is played. This is to alert anyone present that the phone is off-hook. In this case, you should hang up so that you can receive calls. Once on-hook, the receiver can be picked up again to dial. Many cordless phones will also beep if left off their cradles for too long, to warn that their rechargeable batteries are getting drained.<br />
<br />
[[:Category:Squirrels|Squirrels]] have been used frequently in xkcd, also in [[what if?]], where it has for instance been used as a cute animal to replace a drawing of something scary or unpleasant like in [http://what-if.xkcd.com/98/ Blood Alcohol] or [http://what-if.xkcd.com/105/ Cannibalism]. So this is some twist for the cuteness factor of squirrels in xkcd.<br />
<br />
It may also be the case that "squirrelphone" is a reference to the popular web-mail software [http://squirrelmail.org/ SquirrelMail].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is approaching a stump with a squirrel perched on it. A ringing noise is coming from the squirrel's back.]<br />
:Squirrel: Riiiiing<br />
:Squirrel: Riiiiiing<br />
<br />
:[Cueball has picked up the squirrel and is holding it to his left ear]<br />
:Cueball: Hello?<br />
<br />
:[The squirrel bites Cueball's head]<br />
:Squirrel: Chomp!<br />
:Cueball: Ow!<br />
<br />
:[Cueball holds his hand to his cheek while the squirrel leaps away, fleeing]<br />
:Cueball: ???<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Squirrels]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1574:_Trouble_for_Science&diff=1014581574: Trouble for Science2015-09-10T11:04:48Z<p>141.101.99.114: /* Explanation */ moo</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1574<br />
| date = September 7, 2015<br />
| title = Trouble for Science<br />
| image = trouble_for_science.png<br />
| titletext = Careful mathematical analysis demonstrates small-scale irregularities in Gaussian distribution<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|More details in each article, especially the humor/irony in the first one about antibodies.}}<br />
The comic highlights the fact that several well-publicized scientific critiques have recently been published that raise questions about some commonly accepted scientific methods. For scientists, these critiques serve as reminders of the dangers of overconfidence in any method, hopefully leading those who have naively accepted results to remember that any scientific conclusion is by its very nature tentative and limited by methodological reliability. However, popular-press reporting of these papers may lead a general public of modest scientific literacy to the impression that science might be in trouble, as implicated by the title. Some of these methodological issues and shortcomings are well-known in the scientific community, but are – for better or worse – the best toolkit science has at its disposal today. This is however greatly exaggerated by the last (fictional) headline, which suggests that Bunsen burners in fact have a cooling effect, which is of course absolutely ridiculous, but would nevertheless change one more fundamental scientific belief drastically. Additionally, each headline contains irony or a double meaning for comical effect.<br />
<br />
The title of five scientific articles are shown:<br />
<br />
;Many commercial antibody-based immunoassays are unreliable<br />
This sentence is true. See Kebaneilwe Lebani, [http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:352531 Antibody Discovery for Development of a Serotyping Dengue Virus NS1 Capture Assay], 2014. In this PhD thesis, 11 references are given.<br />
<br />
;Problems with the p-value as an indicator of significance<br />
p-value is the probability that an event is observed just by chance. If p-value is under a threshold level (''α'', usually <5%, or <1% for being more conservative) one can assume that the event observed "exists".<br />
The value used for ''α'' has been proposed by [http://web.lru.dk/sites/lru.dk/files/lru/docs/kap9/kapitel_9_126_On_the_origins.pdf Fisher] and is completely arbitrary.<br />
<br />
The use of p-values as a measure of statistical significance is frequently criticized, for example in [http://wiki.bio.dtu.dk/~agpe/papers/pval_notuseful.pdf Hubbard and Lindsay]. Randall has demonstrated this problem in the past in [[882: Significant]].<br />
;Overfeeding of laboratory rodents compromises animal models<br />
<br />
[http://tpx.sagepub.com/content/24/6/757.full.pdf Keenan et al.] makes this case. Additionally, the word model takes on two meanings. In one sense, a model can refer to a scientific description that makes sense of a phenomenon; in another sense, model can refer to an individual whose job it is to demonstrate fashions, typically fashionable outfits. Fashion models are notorious for being exceptionally thin.<br />
<br />
;Replication study fails to reproduce many published results<br />
A [https://explorable.com/replication-study Replication Study] is a study designed to replicate the results of a previous study by using the same methods for a different set of subjects and experimenters. It aims to recreate the results to gain confidence in the results of the previous study as well as ensuring that the findings of the previous study are transferable to other similar areas of study.<br />
<br />
Randall is probably referring to this recent study: http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248<br />
It might be also reference to at least 3 studies mentioned here: http://www.jove.com/blog/2012/05/03/studies-show-only-10-of-published-science-articles-are-reproducible-what-is-happening<br />
<br />
;Controlled trials show Bunsen burners make things colder<br />
This is a joke, but possible in high temperature cases. There is probably some methodological error if putting something over the Bunsen burner flame (which is between 1000K and 2000K) makes it colder. If that thing were already much hotter than the flame (more than 2000 Kelvin), the Bunsen Burner's flame would equalize the temperature between the flame and thing resulting in cooling. It's also possible that if the "controlled trial" involved a Bunsen burner that was not lit, but was turned on to allow gas to flow, it would have a cooling effect as the gas expanded from the line pressure to atmospheric pressure.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, a trial could be set up to test something against a bunsen burner on the one hand, and an even hotter flame on the other hand. As compared to that hotter flame, the bunsen burner would not heat up the tested material as much, resulting in something being made "colder" than the alternative.<br />
<br />
;Careful mathematical analysis demonstrates small-scale irregularities in Gaussian distribution<br />
<br />
This is another joke of a premise that is obviously untrue. The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_function Gaussian distribution] is a mathematical construct that is generally known as the bell curve or the Normal distribution. As it is an ideal mathematical construction, by definition, it cannot have any irregularities -- similar to how the equation y = 2x + 1 cannot have small-scale irregularities. The joke probably alludes to the fact that many types of observations are frequently initially modeled as a Gaussian distribution, though on careful observation the actual distribution of outcomes will often deviate from a pure Gaussian distribution.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Five panels, each with the top part of a scientific article, where only the title is legible. Below is the list of authors and subheading and text in unreadable wiggles.]<br />
<br />
:Many Commercial Antibody-Based Immunoassays Are Unreliable<br />
<br />
:Problems With the p-Value as an Indicator of Significance<br />
<br />
:Overfeeding of Laboratory Rodents Compromises Animal Models<br />
<br />
:Replication Study Fails to Reproduce Many Published Results<br />
<br />
:Controlled Trials Show Bunsen Burners Make Things Colder<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Science]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1575:_Footprints&diff=101413Talk:1575: Footprints2015-09-09T14:11:36Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
<hr />
<div>I know a lot about the poem this is referencing as it was my deceased grandmothers favourite. However I am omitting myself from making any changes other than putting in the poem it is referencing and the most brief of explanations to begin so someone with less emotional bias can fix formatting and improve wording. The poem can be found here: http://www.onlythebible.com/Poems/Footprints-in-the-Sand-Poem.html [[User:Squirrel killer-|Squirrel killer-]] ([[User talk:Squirrel killer-|talk]]) 06:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Should we address that AT-ST' nickname is "chicken Walker"? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.243.249|198.41.243.249]] 08:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The title text is not in textese (which you be "theres 1 set of fps bcs I carried U".) I'm not sure what it is exactly (not being American) the closest I can get is "Valley girl" (which is not right) and "that one dialect the frat-boys speak in the movies", which can't be it's name. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.224|141.101.88.224]] 09:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Going home == death" Are we certain that this is meant? I feel it could also poke fun at the whole "walk of life" concept, and going home simply means going home... --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.10|162.158.92.10]] 09:55, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I've removed the definite implication that "Going home == death", and instead made it a possible interpretation. I agree that the title text is "frat-boy speak", but I'm not sure what you would call it -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.55|141.101.99.55]] 10:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think the quicksand is a reference to Lawrence of Arabia, in the movie(spoiler alert?) Lawrence walks across the Sinai Desert only to see one of his men caught in quicksand and die immediately before reaching their destination.<br />
[[User:Joar|Joar]] ([[User talk:Joar|talk]]) 10:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I'd call the title text dialect "bro talk" or something similar. Also, the quicksand bit is definitely in reference to Jesus' ability to walk on water: since quicksand is a mixture of water and sand, presumably it would be easier to walk on than regular water. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.153|173.245.54.153]] 13:52, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The presumed reference to "Winnie the Pooh" is very far fetched. The joke of following its own footprint is used in many other works. Same for drawing in a quicksand. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.66.23|141.101.66.23]] 14:03, 9 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Ha! Edit conflict, for exactly the same subject. What I was about to say was: The 'following our own footprints' bit reminded me, initially, of Tintin (In The Land Of The Black Gold?), with Thomson and Thompson's jeep, although that was two, four, six, etc tyre-tracks. I think the Pooh example is the more likely archetype.<br />
:(i.e., in light of what I'm now replying to, more likely than the Tintin version. Whether or not Pooh was ''the'' inspiration.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.114|141.101.99.114]] 14:11, 9 September 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:303:_Compiling&diff=101329Talk:303: Compiling2015-09-08T00:30:07Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
<hr />
<div>I was sooo amused when I heard about the most common error report when Delphi was released to the linux platform: "the compile button doesn't do anything"...<br />
<br />
The "fix" was to introduce a checkbox that defaulted to not close the compile window once complete :-)<br />
<br />
For being so open-sourced they are quite close-minded ;-)<br />
<br />
Usually interpreters don't create any code but use the source language as instructions to the interpreter. The situation is complicated by the existence of compilers which compile to an intermediate code (Java byte code for example), then compile the byte code to machine code.<br />
<br />
[[User:Jstout|Jstout]] ([[User talk:Jstout|talk]]) 21:54, 13 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.4|141.101.81.4]] 07:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)Nicklas<br />
:(In response to the JavaByte thing, whoever said that) I just revamped the explanation (because it looked like two different explanations mashed together). Now it's not repetitious, but longer than I had intended it to be. It would have been even longer had I gone into Java, so I left that out. However, ''I'' would say that Java (human writable) source code is 'compiled' into Javabyte code, which is then 'interpretted' by the Java Engine on the end-user's machine. But the original compilation puts it in an easier-to-interpret form than any human-written version would be, even whilst being still flexible across differing platforms. However, it can be a fuzzy line, these days, what exactly does what. YMMV. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.114|141.101.99.114]] 00:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Liquid Crystal Display Displays" This bothers me. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.85|173.245.55.85]] 19:59, 13 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome -- [[User:Wesha|Wesha]] ([[User talk:Wesha|talk]]) 19:36, 11 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Made it into a wiki link and removed Displays. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:10, 28 March 2014 (UTC)</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=303:_Compiling&diff=101326303: Compiling2015-09-08T00:09:50Z<p>141.101.99.114: /* Explanation */ Took wo disconnected paragraphs with an overlap of information and... made it longer, but /possibly/ less repetitious.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 303<br />
| date = August 15, 2007<br />
| title = Compiling<br />
| image = compiling.png <br />
| titletext = 'Are you stealing those LCDs?' 'Yeah, but I'm doing it while my code compiles.'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Computer programming involves writing instructions for a computer to follow, in a specific {{w|programming language}}, which is largely human readable and writable, at least to programmers who understand that language. However, for the computers to follow instructions, they need to be given {{w|machine code}} — the actual "language" that computers "speak" and one that that ''can'' be written directly with the correct tools, but would be too tedious and error-prone for just about any practical modern project where alternatives exist, where anything more than a {{w|%22Hello,_World!%22_program|Hello World}} could be awkward to implement straight into machine-code.<br />
<br />
Conversion from the more conveniently human-writable code into {{w|computer-executable files}} is performed by {{w|Interpreter_(computing)|interpreters}} or {{w|compilers}}. Interpreters (e.g. that for {{w|PHP}} for one example) generally read through the code, or script, each line at a time as and when required, and has to do a lot of work with various processing overheads and the risk of hitting an invalid instruction or mistake in syntax that it can't handle. It also requires that a relevent version of the interpreter exist on any machine that has to run the script and perhaps some additional knowledge by the end-user.<br />
<br />
For widely distributed (and especially commercial) programs, some form of compilation will instead be used. Compiling may have just one computer system read through the man-written code and (barring errors) produces the equivalent stand-alone and direct machine-readable code, suitable for a given range of computers. This process might involve several passes to check for 'obvious' errors in the code, as well as converting some programming concepts that are easiest for humans to understand into equivalent concepts that may be far easier for the computer to work with.<br />
<br />
As such, compiling takes a certain amount of time at the time of production. Depending on the size of the project and the power of the computer doing the compilation, it may measure in hours, but at least only needs to be repeated if an untrapped error needs fixing or additional features added in at a later date. As of 2015 the {{w|Linux Kernel}} contains over 19 million lines of code, arguably a massive job for any compiler, but if done correctly it saves time for all the people who will ultimately be using its output.<br />
<br />
Thus, when Cueball is caught wasting time at work, he argues that such activities are not worse than any other possible ones, at this moment. If his job writing code and compiling it, then there may be nothing else that he ''can'' do right now. He cannot usefully tweak the code before it finishes compiling and the expected result checked.<br />
<br />
The title text takes this a step further. Cueball claims that ''all'' activities are equally benign while the code is compiling — and that includes committing illegal acts, such as stealing {{w|LCD}} monitors.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:The #1 Programmer Excuse for Legitimately Slacking Off: "My code's compiling."<br />
:[Two programmers are sword-fighting on office chairs in a hallway. An unseen manager calls them back to work through an open office door.]<br />
:Manager: Hey! Get back to work!<br />
:Cueball: Compiling!<br />
:Manager: Oh. Carry on.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Programming]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1574:_Trouble_for_Science&diff=101316Talk:1574: Trouble for Science2015-09-07T19:36:11Z<p>141.101.99.114: </p>
<hr />
<div>Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The only two rules are the two rules mentioned above: Capitalize the first word and all proper nouns. Everything else is in lowercase. http://www.dailywritingtips.com/rules-for-capitalization-in-titles/ [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.154|173.245.50.154]] 12:30, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Problems with the p-value as an indicator of significance<br />
<br />
The p-value alone can never be an indicator of significance. However, it is still often used as the only indicator, because a full set of parameters (including sample size, test setup, etc.) can't easily be packed into a single number. There's a nice article in nature about this problem: [http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-statistical-errors-1.14700]<br />
I can also recommend [http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800this story] about (ab-)using hacked p-values to get maximum publicity. I hope this helps :-) --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.183|141.101.105.183]] 12:41, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
:In this section, I really want to reword the p-valye explanation that "one can assume that the event observed 'exists'." Except where it's an event indirectly observed through a chained effect (unseeable gas molecules observed through brownian motion, unstable particles through detection of their decay particles, prehistoric meteorite impact through a geological/chemical fingerprint, etc) I think it should be more that "this (directly observed) event was directly linked to the presumed cause rather than spontaneous and random, at least w.r.t. the presumed cause being tested". But writing it better than I did just now. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.114|141.101.99.114]] 19:36, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think the joke is that these newspapers are talking about how bad science is, and yet they manage to come up with a stupid story about Bunsen burners, presumably being too scientifically illiterate to know the problem. [[User:Timband|Timband]] ([[User talk:Timband|talk]]) 12:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC) Although reading the other comments, it's a much better joke if the Bunsen Burner story is actually true, because that makes all of them about journalists not realising that they are highlighting their own ignorance. [[User:Timband|Timband]] ([[User talk:Timband|talk]]) 16:05, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
See [[Significant]] for another comic on p-values.--[[User:Henke37|Henke37]] ([[User talk:Henke37|talk]]) 14:22, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Controlled trials show Bunsen burners make things colder<br />
he<br />
Actually, I can easily imagine a way to use a Bunsen burner to make something colder. Involving an unlit Bunsen burner that has been placed in the freezer for a couple hours, for example. Nowhere in the headline is there any mention of a flame. --[[User:Svenman|Svenman]] ([[User talk:Svenman|talk]]) 12:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Actually, there was a (badly formatted and badly placed, probably therefore now removed) comment on the explanation page earlier which pointed out that feeding a Bunsen burner from a propane bottle will cause the pressure, and therefore the temperature, in the bottle to decrease. That is a lot less contrived than my original idea. --[[User:Svenman|Svenman]] ([[User talk:Svenman|talk]]) 13:37, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::That was me. Trying to get my 2 cents in on my phone before I forgot. http://www.propane101.com/propaneregulatorfreezing.htm as an example. [[User:Mattiep|Mattiep]] ([[User talk:Mattiep|talk]]) 13:45, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think the joke is in the wording of the headlines. The fact that a replication study fails to reproduce can be seen as a contradiction. Overfeeding rodents leads to fat rodents. This compromises their ability to function als animal (runway) models. I haven't figured out the other ones yet. But that's çause I'm dumb :-). Alva. {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.80}}<br />
<br />
:It's way simpler than that - The joke is that people outside of sciences (with no understanding really of how to science) will report basically anything that sounds shocking or exciting, especially if it proves those nerdy, scary scientists wrong! So Randall gives us a bunch of possibly headlines that to a layman read like real, scary news about science, but to scientists this is stuff that is generally well known and understood. The last one is just taking it a step further for credulous news editors - They've been lying to us all this time! 13:33, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's even simpler than that: the title is "Trouble for Science" and it shows a series of misleading headlines about misleading (i.e.: invalidated) scientific studies. The implication is "Trouble for Journalism".[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.87|173.245.54.87]] 14:21, 7 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I agree. All of the titles are poorly written. All immunoassays are antibody-based, so saying many commercial antibody-based immunoassays are unreliable is redundant, implying they have no idea what an immunoassay is. Problems with the p-value as an indicator of significance implies that there is some significant error in the use of a tool to measure significance of error, which leads one to wonder how they figured that out. If you don't know what a p-test is, the title is paradoxical. The last title would make someone assume that the controlled trials are using turned on bunsen burners to make things colder, but could mean almost anything, such as a bunsen burner being turned off the entire time, or a bunsen burner placed inside of a freezer, or even that people consider using bunsen burners in an experiment makes the experiment cool (or sweet or groovy or whatever).</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1491:_Stories_of_the_Past_and_Future&diff=851881491: Stories of the Past and Future2015-02-25T22:30:34Z<p>141.101.99.114: Left align of column "Year set in"</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1491<br />
| date = February 25, 2015<br />
| title = Stories of the Past and Future<br />
| image = stories_of_the_past_and_future.png<br />
| titletext = Little-known fact: The 'Dawn of Man' opening sequence in 2001 cuts away seconds before the Flinstones theme becomes recognizable.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}<br />
''A larger version of the image is available [http://xkcd.com/1491/large/ here].''<br />
<br />
X-axis: Date of publication.<br />
<br />
Y-axis, "Years in the future": Number of years the story's events take place, after the story's publication.<br />
<br />
Y-axis, "Years in the past": Number of years the story's events take place, before the story's publication.<br />
<br />
For example, "Water Margin" was published in the 14th century (x ~= 1300) and relates events from the 12th century, about 200 years before its publication (y ~= 200 in the past).<br />
<br />
Another example: The film ''{{w|The Bridge on the River Kwai}}'' was released in 1957 and it was set around 14 years before (~1942-43).<br />
<br />
Grey area in the "Years in the future" part: Stories set in the future (from their publication's date), whose the story's events' date is already past (from now).<br />
<br />
Grey area in the "Years in the past" part: Stories set in the past (from their publication's date), published closer to their setting than to today.<br />
<br />
<br />
Taking the "years in the past" on the y-axis to be read as negatives like in most graphs one can write:<br />
<br />
Dates on the lower line satisfy: y = x-2015. Corresponding works were published in the year x = 2015+y and are set in the year x+y = 2015+2y.<br />
<br />
Dates on the upper line satisfy: y = 2015-x. Corresponding works were published in the year x = 2015-y and are set in the year x+y = 2015.<br />
<br />
Thus it's clear that the definitions of the lines are consistent with each other as they follow similar but inverted functions.<br />
<br />
In the top portion of the graph, the two sides of the line are defined as "still possible" and "obsolete" (gray area). The gray area (obsolete) expands over time, the prediction (or science fiction work) that are not confirmed by reality are doomed to be obsolete. The author mark the line of the stories set in 2015; they are the expectation for our present in different past times. <br />
<br />
In the bottom graph, the line indicates the limit in which the publishing time is nearer to the time treated in the work than to the present. The work in the gray area could be perceived as written by contemporary writers while in most cases they refer to a further past. This is expressed in the warning: "Modern audiences may not recognize which part were supposed to sound old". This is a recurrent theme in the author's work, being already formulated in [[Period_Speech|Period Speech]] comic.<br />
<br />
The bottom of the chart has the Star Wars films, which are set "A long time ago".<br />
<br />
===Works listed===<br />
<br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Publication'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Description'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Year written'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Year difference'''<br />
| align="left" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Year set in'''<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Memoirs of the Twentieth Century|Memoirs of the Twentieth Century]]|| book written by Samuel Madden||1733||264||1997<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Golf in the Year 2000|Golf in the Year 2000]]|| novel written by J. McCullough||1892||108||2000<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Looking Backward|Looking Backward]]|| novel written by Edward Bellamy||1888||112||2000<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Enoch Soames|Enoch Soames]]|| short story by Max Beerbohm||1897||100||1997<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:The Time Machine|The Time Machine]]|| novel written by H.G. Wells||1895||800,806||802,701<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]||novel written by George Orwell||1949||35||1984<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd|A Week in the Wales of the Future]]||novel written by Islwyn Ffowc Elis||1957||76||2033<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:The Jetsons|The Jetsons]]||TV series produced by Hanna-Barbera||1962 *||100||2062 †<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek !TOS!]]||TV series created by Gene Roddenberry||1966 *||298||2264<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]||novel written by Arthur C. Clarke||1968||33||2001<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Space: 1999|Space: 1999]]||TV series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson||1975 *||24||1999<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:2010: Odyssey Two|2010: Odyssey Two]]||novel written by Arthur C. Clarke||1982||28||2010<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek: The Next Generation]]||TV series created by Gene Roddenberry||1987 *||377||2364<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:2061: Odyssey Three|2061: Odyssey Three]]||novel written by Arthur C. Clarke||1987||74||2061<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Zero Wing|Zero Wing]]||arcade/computer game||1989||112||2101 (previously referenced in [[887: Future Timeline]])<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:3001: The Final Odyssey|3001: The Final Odyssey]]||novel written by Arthur C. Clarke||1997||1004||3001<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]||TV series||2001 *||150||2151<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Back to the Future Part II|Back to the Future Part II]]||film directed by Robert Zemeckis||1989||26||2015<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:The Transformers (TV series)|Transformers (TV Series)]]||TV series||1984 *||~ 20||< 2010<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Terminator 2: Judgment Day|Terminator 2 (1995 Portion)]]||film directed by James Cameron||1991||4||1995<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]||film directed by Michael Curtiz||1942||< 1||1941<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:The Pillow Book|The Pillow Book]]||book written by Sei Shōnagon||1002||6||996<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:History of the Peloponnesian War|History of the Peloponnesian War]]||history written by Thucydides||~400 BCE||~10||431-411 BCE<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Moby-Dick|Moby-Dick]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Gospels|Gospels]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Epic of Gilgamesh|Epic of Gilgamesh]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Iliad|Iliad]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Ashokavadana|Ashokavadana]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Book of Genesis|Book of Genesis]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Water Margin|Water Margin]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:King John (play)|King John]]||play by William Shakespeare||1623||~400||~1200-1216<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Henry IV (play)|Henry IV]]||plays by William Shakespeare||1598*||185-196||1402-1413<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Richard III (play)|Richard III]]||play by William Shakespeare||1597||112-119||1478-1485<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Henry VIII (play)|Henry VIII]]||play by William Shakespeare||1623||90-102||1521-1533<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]||play by William Shakespeare||1623||1667-1670||45-2 B.C.<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:King Lear|King Lear]]||play by William Shakespeare||1608||2400|| 8th century B.C.<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court|A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]||novel by Mark Twain||1889||1200||6th Century<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Lest Darkness Fall|Lest Darkness Fall]]||alternate history SF novel by L. Sprague de Camp||1939||1404||535<br />
|-<br />
|[[wikipedia:Asterix|Asterix]]||French comic by Goscinny and Uderzo||1959*||-2009||50 B.C.<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Ten Commandments (1956 film)|The Ten Commandments]]||film by Cecil B. DeMille||1956||->3000||[[wikipedia:The Exodus#Date|1446 BCE]]†<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Flintstones|The Flintstones]]||TV series produced by Hanna-Barbera||1960*||->2,5 million||[[wikipedia:Stone Age|Stone Age]]<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:2001: A Space Odyssey|2001: A Space Odyssey (prologue)]]||novel written by Arthur C. Clarke||1968|||-3 million||3 million years B.C. (4 in the movie)<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Star Wars#Original trilogy|Star Wars (IV - VI)]]||original film trilogy ||1977-1983|| ||A long time ago<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Star Wars#Prequel trilogy|Star Wars (I - III)]]||prequel film trilogy||1999-2005|| ||A long time ago<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Raptor Red|Raptor Red]]||novel by Robert Bakker||1995||->65 million||Cretaceous Period<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Star Wars sequel trilogy|Star Wars (VII - IX)]]||sequel film trilogy||2015-2021|| ||A long time ago<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Ice Age (film series)|Ice Age]]||animated films by Blue Sky Studios||2002*||->12,000||[[wikipedia:Last glacial period| Paleolithic-Mesolithic]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[wikipedia:10,000 BC (film)|10,000 BC]]||film by Roland Emmerich||2008||-11,992||10,000 BC<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:300 (film)|300]]||film by Zack Snyder||2007||-2487||[[wikipedia:Battle of Thermopylae|480 BC]]<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Year One (film)|Year One]]||film by Harold Ramis||2009||-2008||1 AD<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Prince of Egypt|The Prince of Egypt]]||animated film by DreamWorks||1998||->3400|[[wikipedia:The Exodus#Date|1446 BCE]]†<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Downton Abbey|Downtown Abbey]]||TV series||2010*||->90||1912-1923<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Pearl Harbor (film)|Pearl Harbour]]||film by Michael Bay||2001||-60||1941<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Saving Private Ryan|Saving Private Ryan]]||film by Steven Spielberg||1998||-54||1944<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Chariots of Fire|Chariots of Fire]]||film by Hugh Hudson||1981||-57||1924<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Blazing Saddles|Blazing Saddles]]||film by Mel Brooks||1974||-100||1874<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Back to the Future Part III|Back to the Future Part III]]||film by Robert Zemeckis||1990||-105||1885<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Roots (miniseries)|Roots]]||TV series, adapted from eponymous novel||1977||->113||1750-1861<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Treasure Island|Treasure Island]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Last of the Mohicans|The Last of the Mohicans]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:A Tale of Two Cities|A Tale of Two Cities]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Gone With The Wind|Gone With The Wind]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Gunsmoke|Gunsmoke]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Rip Van Winkle|Rip Van Winkel [sic]]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Les Misérables|Les Miserábles [sic]]]||||||||<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Oklahoma!|Oklahoma!]]||Broadway musical||1943||-37||1906<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Lawrence of Arabia|Lawrence of Arabia]]||film by David Lean||1962||->44||1916-8<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Music Man|The Music Man]]||Broadway musical||1957||-45||1912<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Annie (musical)|Annie (play)]]||Broadway musical||1977||-44||1933<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Annie (1982 film)|Annie (movie)]]||film adaptation of the above by John Huston||1982||-49||1933<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Schindler's List|Schindler's List]]||film by Steven Spielberg||1993||->48||1939-1945<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Mad Men|Mad Men]]||TV series||2007*||->47||1960-1970<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Evita (1996 film)|Evita]]||film by Alan Parker||1996||-44||1952<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Bonnie and Clyde(film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]||film by Arthur Penn||1967||->33||1932-4<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Chinatown (1974 film)|Chinatown]]||film by Roman Polanski||1974||-37||1937<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Gandhi (film)|Gandhi]]||film by Robert Attenborough||1982||->34||1893-1948<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Sandlot|The Sandlot]]||film by David Mickey Evans||1993||-31||1962<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Back to the Future|Back to the Future]]||film by Robert Zemeckis||1985||-30||1955<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Patton (film)|Patton]]||film by Franklin J. Schaffner||1970||->25||1943-5<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Catch-22 (film)|Catch-22 (Movie)]]||film by Mike Nichols||1970||->26||1942-44<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Great Escape (film)|The Great Escape]]||film by John Sturges||1963||-20||1943-4<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Catch-22|Catch-22 (Book)]]||novel by Joseph Heller||1961||->17||1942-44<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:MASH (film)|M*A*S*H]]||film by Robert Altman||1970||-19||1951<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Grease (film)|Grease]]||film by Randall Kleiser||1978||-20||1958<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Happy Days|Happy Days]]||TV series||1974-84||-19||1955-1965<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Platoon (film)|Platoon]]||film by Oliver Stone||1986||-21||1967<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Wonder Years|The Wonder Years]]||TV series||1988-93||-20||1968-73<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Dirty Dancing|Dirty Dancing]]||film by Emile Ardolino||1987||-24||1963<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Right Stuff (film)|The Right Stuff]]||film by Philip Kaufman||1983||->20||1947-63<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:JFK (film)|JFK]]||film by Oliver Stone||1991||->22||1963-9<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Apollo 13 (film)|Apollo 13]]||film by Ron Howard||1995||-25||1970<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:That '70s Show|That '70s Show]]||TV series||1998-2006||->22|||1976-1979<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Wolf of Wall Street|The Wolf of Wall Street]]||film by Martin Scorsese||2013||->18||1987-1995<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Freaks and Geeks|Freaks and Geeks]]||TV series||1999-2000||-19||1980-1<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:I Love the '80s (U.S. TV series)|I Love the '80s]]||TV miniseries by VH1||2002||-22||1980<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Bridge on the River Kwai|The Bridge on the River Kwai]]||film by David Lean||1952||-9\10||1942-3<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:American Graffiti|American Graffiti]]||film by George Lucas||1973||-11||1962<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:Apocalypse Now|Apocalypse Now]]||film by Francis Ford Coppola||1979||-10||1969<br />
|-<br />
| [[wikipedia:The Big Lebowski|The Big Lebowski]]||film by the Coen Brothers||1998||-7||1991<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:United 93 (film)|United 93]]|| film directed by Paul Greengrass||2006||-5||2001<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:I Love the '90s (U.S. TV series)|I Love the '90s]]|| TV miniseries on VH1||2004||-14||1990<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:Hotel Rwanda|Hotel Rwanda]]|| film directed by Terry George||2004||-10||1994<br />
|-<br />
| [[Wikipedia:I Love the 2000s|I Love the 2000s]]|| TV miniseries on VH1||2014||-14||2000<br />
|-<br />
| <br />
|}<br />
<br />
* = first episode aired. † = conjectured year set in.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
There is a hypercorrection in ''{{w|Rip Van Winkle}}'' as ''Rip van Winkel''. Washington Irving may have misspelled ''van {{w|nl:Winkel|Winkel}}''.<br />
<br />
It's ''{{w|Les Misérables}}'' not ''Les Miserábles''. Note that French doesn't have "á".<br />
<br />
{{w|Lest Darkness Fall}} takes place about 1400 years in the past, but is places around the -500 years line on the graph.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
:'''Date of publication'''<br />
:[A logarithmic scale running horizontally, from 3000 BCE to past 2015 CE]<br />
:'''Years in the future'''<br />
:[A logarithmic scale running vertically, from 1 billion down to 0]<br />
:'''Stories set in the future''' (science fiction, prediction)<br />
::Stories set in 2015<br />
::[A line divides this region into two. The upper side is labelled "still possible"; the lower side is labelled "obsolete".]<br />
:[from left to right...]<br />
::Memoirs of the Twentieth Century [1733, 265 years in the future]<br />
::Looking Backward [1888, 112 years in the future]<br />
::Golf in the Year 2000 [1892, 108 years in the future]<br />
::The Time Machine [1895, 800 thousand to 30 million years in the future]<br />
::Enoch Soames [1916, ''circa'' 60 years in the future]<br />
::1984 [1949, 35 years in the future]<br />
::A Week in the Wales of the Future [1957, 76 years in the future]<br />
::The Jetsons [1962-63, 100 years in the future]<br />
::Star Trek [1966-69, 300 years in the future]<br />
::2001: A Space Odyssey [1968, 33 years in the future]<br />
::Space: 1999 [1975-77, 24 years in the future]<br />
::2010: Odyssey Two [1982, 28 years in the future]<br />
::Transformers (TV series) [1984-87, 20 years in the future]<br />
::2061: Odyssey Three [1987, 74 years in the future]<br />
::Star Trek: The Next Generation [1987-94, ''circa'' 500 years in the future]<br />
::Back to the Future Part II [1989, 26 years in the future]<br />
::Zero Wing [1989, 112 years in the future]<br />
::Terminator 2 (1995 portion) [1991, 4 years in the future]<br />
::3001: The Final Odyssey [1997, 1004 years in the future]<br />
::Enterprise [2001-2005, 150 years in the future]<br />
::This chart [2015, 0 years in the future]<br />
:'''Years in the Past'''<br />
:[A logarithmic scale running vertically, from 0 down past 1 billion to "Big Bang"]<br />
:'''Stories Set in the Past''' (History, Period Fiction)<br />
::Stories written X years ago and set 2X years ago<br />
::[A line divides this region into two. The upper side is labelled as follows.]<br />
::'''Former Period Pieces'''<br />
::Stories set in the past, but<br/>created long enough ago that<br/>they were published closer<br/>to their setting than to today.<br />
::Modern audiences may not<br/>recognize which parts were<br/>''supposed'' to sound old.<br />
:[from left to right...]<br />
::The Epic of Gilgamesh [''circa'' 2100 BCE, 600 years in the past]<br />
::The Iliad [''circa''' 800 BCE, 450 years in the past]<br />
::History of the Peloponnesian War [''circa'' 390 BCE, 10 years in the past]<br />
::Book of Genesis [''circa'' 500 BCE, 4000 years in the past]<br />
::Ashokavadana [''circa'' 100 BCE, 300 years in the past]<br />
::Gospels (various estimates) [''circa'' 250 CE, 24 to 75 years in the past]<br />
::The Pillow Book [1000 CE, 5 years in the past]<br />
::Water Margin [''circa'' 1300, 195 years in the past]<br />
::Richard III [''circa'' 1590, 115 years in the past]<br />
::Julius Caesar [1599, 1650 years in the past]<br />
::King John [''circa'' 1600, 500 years in the past]<br />
::Henry IV [''circa'' 1600, 190 years in the past]<br />
::King Lear [''circa'' 1606, 3000 years in the past]<br />
::Henry VIII [''circa'' 1612, 105 years in the past]<br />
::The Last of the Mohicans [1826, 69 years in the past]<br />
::Rip Van Winkel [1819, 31-51 years in the past]<br />
::A Tale of Two Cities [1859, 60 years in the past]<br />
::Moby-Dick [1851, around 10 years ago]<br />
:::"Some years ago--never mind how long precisely..."<br />
::Les Miserábles [1862, 30 years in the past]<br />
::A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court<br />
::Treasure Island<br />
::Gone With the Wind<br />
::Lest Darkness Fall<br />
::Casablanca<br />
::Oklahoma!<br />
::The Ten Commandments<br />
::The Bridge on the River Kwai<br />
::Gunsmoke<br />
::Catch-22 (book)<br />
::The Flintstones<br />
::The Great Escape<br />
::Asterix<br />
::Lawrence of Arabia<br />
::The Music Man<br />
::Bonnie and Clyde<br />
::2001: A Space Odyssey (prologue)<br />
::American Graffiti<br />
::Patton<br />
::Catch-22 (movie)<br />
::Chinatown<br />
::Blazing Saddles<br />
::Apocalypse Now<br />
::Happy Days<br />
::Grease<br />
::M*A*S*H<br />
::Annie (play)<br />
::Roots<br />
::Chariots of Fire<br />
::Star Wars (IV-VI)<br />
::Annie (movie)<br />
::The Right Stuff<br />
::Back to the Future<br />
::Gandhi<br />
::Platoon<br />
::Dirty Dancing<br />
::Back to the Future Part III<br />
::The Wonder Years<br />
::JFK<br />
::The Sandlot<br />
::Schindler's List<br />
::Raptor Red<br />
::Apollo 13<br />
::Star Wars (I-III)<br />
::The Big Lebowski<br />
::Evita<br />
::Saving Private Ryan<br />
::The Prince of Egypt<br />
::Freaks and Geeks<br />
::Hotel Rwanda<br />
::I Love the '80s<br />
::That '70s Show<br />
::Pearl Harbor<br />
::Ice Age<br />
::I Love the '90s<br />
::United 93<br />
::300<br />
::10,000 BC<br />
::Year One<br />
::The Wolf of Wall Street<br />
::I Love the 2000s<br />
::Mad Men<br />
::Downton Abbey<br />
::Star Wars (VII-IX)<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Large drawings]]</div>141.101.99.114https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1474:_Screws&diff=828331474: Screws2015-01-16T10:43:45Z<p>141.101.99.114: /* Explanation */ typo</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1474<br />
| date = January 16, 2015<br />
| title = Screws<br />
| image = screws.png<br />
| titletext = If you encounter a hex bolt, but you only brought screwdrivers, you can try sandwiching the head of the bolt between two parallel screwdriver shafts, squeezing the screwdrivers together with a hand at either end, then twisting. It doesn't work and it's a great way to hurt yourself, but you can try it!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First draft. Needs expansion, possibly with origins of the various real screws. Title text explanation required.}}<br />
<br />
The comic features various real or imagined types of screws, listed below. <br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
! Screw type<br />
! Description<br />
|-<br />
| Phillips head<br />
| {{w|List of screw drives#Phillips|Phillips screw drive}} and its corresponding screw head is one of the most recognizable types of screw heads that is commonly used in construction.<br />
|-<br />
| Flat head<br />
| {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Slot|Slot head screws}} are frequently erroneously referred to as flat heads (a flat head screw refers, in fact, to the shape of the screw head, regardless of the shape of the drive socket). The slot head is also commonly used in construction. The diagram shows the slot truncated, where in reality the slot almost always runs across the entire head of the screw (as in fictional case of the "uranium screw" below).<br />
|-<br />
| Star-shaped screw<br />
| Manufacturers sometimes used screws that require special heads in order to remove them, in order to prevent the customer tampering with the product. The reference to Amazon is the speaker's suggestion to look on Amazon.com for the appropriate screwdriver. A number of star-shaped screw heads exist, notably the six-pointed {{w|Torx}}, and Apple's rounded {{w|Pentalobe screw|pentalobe screw}}.<br />
|-<br />
| Cursed -1 Phillips head<br />
| The head of a screw can be stripped by overuse, tightening the screw too much, or other misuse. As the driving surfaces wear away, removing the screw becomes more and more difficult, usually damaging the screw more in the process. <br />
The addition of "cursed" and "-1" in the titles is a reference to various fantasy games (E.g. Dungeons and Dragons), where magical items which have been damaged or are denoted as cursed or have a rating of a negative integer. <br />
Additionally, Phillips bit sizes are numbered, with larger numbers denoting smaller bits. The most common sizes are #2, #1, and #0. There are no negative sizes; smaller bits than #0 are indicated by repeating zeroes, for example #00. The "-1" could refer to an imaginary size smaller than any real Phillips bit that would now fit in the stripped out head.<br />
|-<br />
| Rivet<br />
| A {{w|rivet}} is not a screw - it is a permanent fastener which is secured by deforming the body of the fastener. Rivets cannot be removed with a screwdriver, they must be "drilled out".<br />
|-<br />
| Phillips head ruiner<br />
| A reference to the fact that {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Hex_socket|hex socket}} screws can, in a pinch, be removed with a Phillips screwdriver, but will likely damage the driver in the process.<br />
|-<br />
| Uranium screw<br />
| This is (probably) a representation of a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fission_bomb_assembly_methods.svg gun-type fission weapon], two hemispheres made of uranium that achieve a {{w|Critical mass|critical mass}} when pushed into each other during initial stage of detonation. A real thing, when seen from aside, indeed vaguely resembles the appearance of a slot screw head (the latter as seen from the top). Multiple radially extending short straight lines around the "screw" symbolize radiant energy output - either a natural radioactivity of the uranium or an explosive outburst during detonation. The former option is likely to be more logical, as the presence of a gap (graphically corresponding to a slot in the slot screw head) indicates that the weapon assembly has not been detonated yet, as the detonation requires extremely tight contact between flat portions of the surfaces of the hemispheres. The "uranium head" could also be a reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core#Second_incident an incident involving a screw driver and a fission experiment called 'demon core'].<br />
|-<br />
| Phillip's head<br />
| This is a rather morbid interpretation of "Phillips head". Rather than refer to the screw type, this "screw" is actually a bloody bag containing the severed head of someone named Phillip. It is also a reference to some people's tendency to apostrophize words ending in -s, disregarding grammatical rules.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
A {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Hex|hex bolt}} has six external sides, so it could in theory be held by squeezing two screwdriver shafts together with the bolt in between. The amount of force on the two screwdriver shafts needed to turn the hex bolt will probably exceed the strength of human hands and would most likely result in hurting your hands and not in turning the bolt.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
<br />
Phillips head<br />
<br />
Flat head<br />
<br />
Uh oh. Maybe it's on Amazon?<br />
<br />
Cursed –1 Phillips head<br />
<br />
Crap, it's a ''rivet''.<br />
<br />
Phillips-head ruiner<br />
<br />
Uranium screw (a real thing)<br />
<br />
Phillip's head<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>141.101.99.114