https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=141.101.99.193&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T16:07:41ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2470:_Next_Slide_Please&diff=2129832470: Next Slide Please2021-06-02T13:30:26Z<p>141.101.99.193: /* Explanation */ I think this is more apt for the context.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2470<br />
| date = June 1, 2021<br />
| title = Next Slide Please<br />
| image = next_slide_please.png<br />
| titletext = "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by -- Next slide, please -- a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic presumes that many famous quotes are actually excerpts from {{w|Slide show|slideshow presentations}}, and the text they were reading was split across multiple slides. Splitting sentences across multiple slides can often be a useful tool if there are images accompanying it, which could explain the specific placement of many of "next slide, please" comments. For example, in the quote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," one can imagine the speaker starting with a slide that showed the prosperity of some people then, in the middle of the sentence, switching to a slide of many people's destitution. When using images this way, it is often better for timing purposes to have control of your own slides. However, Randall claims that, in these speeches, the person making the speech wasn't controlling their slide presentation, so they had to ask the operator to go to the next slide. A common way to ask this is to say "next slide, please", but these requests have been edited out of the historical transcripts. The comic imagines the places where the slide breaks might have been, and inserts that request.<br />
<br />
Most of these quotes are drawn from speeches, which could conceivably have been accompanied by slides or other stage directions ("pause for laughter"), but the list is quite ridiculous as it includes works of literature, where the reader is the one who turns pages as necessary, and speeches from periods of history, such as the {{w|American Revolution}} and {{w|Julius Caesar|Caesars}} {{w|Veni, vidi, vici}} speech, which predated slide projectors{{Citation needed}}. See details in the [[#Table of quotes|table]] below, including the quote in the title text.<br />
<br />
The phrase "Next slide, please" is perhaps in a sweet-spot of utility and performance. A rehearsed presentation, with speaker and 'slide handler' working with a tight script, could probably do without off-stage prompting at all, or the better lecturers with an oft-repeated talk could set it all on timings knowing they can keep the changes synchronised with their speech, or vice-versa. But when a cue is necessary, an unambiguous signal should be used, and an audible 'clicker' (or a small and briefly flashed light) has been used historically, especially with pre-electronic slide-shows where the slide-operator at the back of an auditorium needed to clearly discern the intent of the person at the lectern.<br />
<br />
===Table of quotes===<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!Quote<br />
!Attribution<br />
!Context<br />
|-<br />
| "Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!"<br />
| {{w|Patrick Henry}}, at the {{w|Second Virginia Convention}} on March 23, 1775, as part of the American Colonies' War of Independence from {{w|Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain}}.<br />
| A {{w|Give me liberty, or give me death!|quotation}} from his speech to convince the convention to provide troops for the {{w|American Revolutionary War}}.<br />
|-<br />
| "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall."<br />
| {{w|Ronald Reagan}}, {{w|Berlin Wall Speech}} (1987).<br />
| A speech calling for the opening of the Berlin Wall. This speech was later well known after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union. <br>In the comic Ronald Regan is shown next to his slide with a picture of the wall.<br />
|-<br />
| "It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times."<br />
| {{w|A Tale of Two Cities}}, novel by {{w|Charles Dickens}}. <br />
| At the current pace, the intro would have 13 "Next slide, please" instances. <br />
|-<br />
| "We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself."<br />
| Inauguration of {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}} in 1933. <br />
| {{w|First inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt|A speech}} outlining Roosevelt's plan to recover from the Great Depression. The correct phrasing of this speech is: "the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself".<br />
|-<br />
| "To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question."<br />
| From the play ''{{w|Hamlet}}'' by {{w|William Shakespeare}}, Act III, Scene i. <br />
| This speech is considered a soliloquy, even though Ophelia was in the room reading a book. <br />
|-<br />
| "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."<br />
| Shakespeare's {{w|Sonnet 18}}. <br />
| A sonnet is a type of poem and it requires specific rhyming and pacing. The inclusion of "Next slide, please" breaks the poetic flow and unbalanced the length of lines, making it unpredictable when a rhyme is supposed to occur. <br />
|-<br />
| "We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..."<br />
| {{w|Winston Churchill}}, ''{{w|We shall fight on the beaches}}'' speech.<br />
| On 4 June 1940, after the disastrous first weeks of the {{w|battle of France}}, Churchill had to acknowledge a military disaster but to convene confidence in victory and will to fight. <br/>In the comic Winston Churchill is shown next to his slide of a beach. The beach image shown, shows [[Ponytail]] sitting under a parasol [[Cueball]] sitting on the sand with a drink and a kid playing with a beach-ball, as opposed to {{w|British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_the_Second_World_War#Coastal_crust|the rapidly fortified}} sea-fronts [http://ww2.brightonmuseums.org/defence-measures/ of wartime Britain].<br />
|-<br />
| "Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes."<br />
| {{w|George H. W. Bush}}, spoken at 1988 Republican National Convention<br />
| A significant part of Bush's political platform was the opposition of new taxes. However, after winning the election, he was unable to keep this promise and ultimately did raise taxes in 1990.<br />
|-<br />
| "That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."<br />
| {{w|Neil Armstrong}}, when he stepped off the {{w|Apollo 11}} lunar module and onto the surface of the Moon. <br />
| Normally would be proof of a fake moon landing, although Neil Armstrong strongly insisted that the speech be made on location.{{fact}} The positioning of the "next slide, please" was placed at the intended comma, although there was also a small gap within "one giant" which could also be a potential placement in the audio clip. <br />
|-<br />
| "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."<br />
| From the play ''{{w|Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar}}'' by Shakespeare, Act III, Scene ii. <br />
| Takes place after Julius Caesar suffered a few stab wounds in Act III, scene ii. If it were a presentation, the pictures would need to be created between scenes, although the play implies there would barely be enough time in response to a recent event. <br />
|-<br />
| "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife."<br />
| Intro to ''{{w|Pride and Prejudice}}'', written by {{w|Jane Austen}}.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."<br />
| {{w|Julius Caesar}}, wrote his famous sentence {{w|Veni, vidi, vici}} in a letter after defeating Pharnaces II (47 BC). The sentence literally means, "I came, I saw, I conquered."<br />
| Caesar used this phrase to refer to a swift, conclusive victory at the Battle of Zela.<br />
|-<br />
| "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat." (title text)<br />
| Winston Churchill, ''{{w|Blood, toil, tears and sweat}}'' speech.<br />
| From 1940, shortly after he was appointed the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, when asking for a vote of confidence in the new all-party (unity) cabinet.<br />
It would have to respond to the continuing challenges of the {{w|United_Kingdom_home_front_during_World_War_II|war-footing}} and active conflicts of WW2. The country had already been at war for eight months and was yet to experience Dunkirk, prompting yet another of Churchill's defiant speeches (mentioned above).<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A list of 12 quotes is given. Above is a large header with a question, and then a description, before the quotes follows. The text above the quotes is centered:]<br />
:<big>'''''Did you know?'''''</big><br />
:''Transcripts of famous quotes often''<br />
:''leave out the slideshow instructions.''<br />
:''Here’s how these lines actually sounded:''<br />
<br />
:[The first six quotations, are written so they fit around an image of Ronald Reagan standing next to his slide showing six segments of the Berlin Wall. A large arrow points down on to the middle segment of the wall. There is something on the ground in front of the wall, could be puddles or debris. The image is to the right, and the two first and last quote goes above and below the image, while the other three stops to the left of the image:]<br />
:"Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!"<br />
:"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall."<br />
:"It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times."<br />
:"We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself."<br />
:"To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question."<br />
:"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."<br />
<br />
:[Below those five quotations is three more quotes to the right of an image showing Winston Churchill standing next to his slide showing a beach. The sun and three small clouds are over the ocean which has white waves on the black water. Ponytail is sitting under a parasol to the left, Cueball is sitting on the sand to the right with a drink in his hands, and behind him is a kid running after a large beach-ball.]<br />
:"We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..."<br />
:"Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes."<br />
:"That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."<br />
<br />
:[Below this picture is the last three quotations, without any pictures:]<br />
:"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."<br />
:"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife."<br />
:"Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The Blood, toil, tears and sweat speech was already the topic of [[1148: Nothing to Offer]]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ronald Reagan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Winston Churchill]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] <!-- in the beach picture --><br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] <!-- in the beach picture, the last is a child, thus not another Cueball --></div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2470:_Next_Slide_Please&diff=2129122470: Next Slide Please2021-06-01T10:41:14Z<p>141.101.99.193: /* Explanation */ Some possibly spurious thoughts that I have had, which didn't seem so long an addition before I set to putting finger to keyboard and making the concepts readable. Next Edit, Please!</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2470<br />
| date = June 1, 2021<br />
| title = Next Slide Please<br />
| image = next_slide_please.png<br />
| titletext = "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a SLIDESHOW WITH -- NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE -- FAMOUS QUOTES ON IT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic presumes that many famous quotes are actually excerpts from slideshow presentations, and the text they were reading was split across multiple slides. The person making the speech wasn't operating the slide projector, so they had to ask the operator to go to the next slide. The common way to ask this is to say "next slide, please", but these have been edited out of the historical transcripts. The comic imagines the places where the slide breaks might have been, and inserts that request.<br />
<br />
Most of these quotes are drawn from speeches, which could conceivably have been accompanied by slides or other stage directions ("pause for laughter"), but the list grows more ridiculous as it continues by including works of literature, where the reader is the one who turns pages as necessary, and then speeches from periods of history which predated slide projectors.<br />
<br />
The phrase "Next slide, please" is perhaps in a sweet-spot of utility and performance. A rehearsed presentation, with speaker and 'slide handler' working with a tight script, could probably do without off-stage prompting at all, or the better lecturers with an oft-repeated talk could set it all on timings knowing they can keep the changes synchronised with their speech, or vice-versa. But when a cue is necessary, an unambiguous signal should be used, and an audible 'clicker' (or a small and briefly flashed light) has been used historically, especially with pre-electronic slide-shows where the slide-operator at the back of an auditorium needed to clearly discern the intent of the person at the lectern.<br />
<br />
Single words might be more efficient, such as "Next", "Slide" or "Please" on their own, but occasionally could crop up in the rest of their patter, unrelated to a desired change. (It is a comedy staple that a person who was without an expected 'clicker' would actually resort to ''saying'' "Click", with or without later confusion when they say something that sounds like they intended an advance.)<br />
<br />
Two word signals (e.g. "Next slide", "Next, please" or "Slide, please") might suffice to be clear but sound a bit sharp, or even rude and condescending to the 'floor staff', devaluing the tacked on politeness. Overly long phrases, such as "Thank you, Mr Hargreaves, could you put the next image, if you would be so kind", are not unknown but indicative of an inexperienced yet amicable (or else supercilious) presenter, and would present greater distractions to the audience if used consistently for many instances of prompting.<br />
<br />
While still suffering from repetition, and the apparent sincerity of politeness may have worn thinner through overuse, it seems that these three words have been honed in on (at least in the anglosphere) as a commonly expected phrasing.<br />
<br />
The further test of the orator's character is now when a change is missed, accidentally doubled, the prepared sequence is subtly digressed from the talk or an audience comment requires reversal to prior material. At this point communications between the podium and off-stage become vastly more improvisational, dependent upon the situation encountered. If the audience is 'lucky', the exchange necessitates a full dialogue, with different joys depending upon how much of the non-presenter's half of the discussion can be heard as resolution or resignment is attained. <br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!Quote<br />
!Attribution<br />
!Context<br />
|-<br />
| "Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!"<br />
| {{w|Patrick Henry}}, at the {{w|Second Virginia Convention}} on March 23, 1775, as part of the revolutionary war against {{w|Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain}}. None of the comic's examples go this far but the possibilities of what they might have entailed, in each case, is easily imagined.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall."<br />
| {{w|Ronald Reagan}}, {{w|Berlin Wall Speech}} (1987).<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times."<br />
| {{w|A Tale of Two Cities}}, novel by {{w|Charles Dickens}}. <br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself."<br />
| Inauguration of {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}} in 1933. <br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question."<br />
| From the play ''Hamlet'' by {{w|William Shakespeare}}, Act III, Scene i. <br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."<br />
| Shakespeare's {{w|Sonnet 18}}. <br />
| A sonnet is a type of love poem, and it requires rhyming and pacing. The inclusion of "Next slide, please" would break said poetic flow. <br />
|-<br />
| "We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..."<br />
| {{w|Winston Churchill}}, ''{{w|We shall fight on the beaches}}'' speech.<br />
| 4 June 1940, after the disastrous first weeks of the {{w|battle of France}} Churchill had to acknowledge a military disaster but to convene confidence in victory and will to fight.<br />
|-<br />
| "Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes."<br />
| {{w|George H. W. Bush}}, spoken at 1988 Republican National Convention<br />
| <br />
|-<br />
| "That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."<br />
| {{w|Neil Armstrong}}, when he stepped off the {{w|Apollo 11}} lunar module and onto the surface of the Moon.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."<br />
| From the play ''{{w|Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar}}'' by Shakespeare, Act III, Scene ii. <br />
| Takes place after Julius Caesar suffered a few stab wounds.<br />
|-<br />
| "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife."<br />
| Intro to ''{{w|Pride and Prejudice}}'', written by {{w|Jane Austen}}.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
| "Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."<br />
| {{w|Julius Caesar}}, in a letter after defeating Pharnaces II (47 BC). Literally, "I came, I saw—Please, next picture—I conquered." - it seems to fit nicely into the alliteration.<br />
| Caesar used this phrase to refer to a swift, conclusive victory at the Battle of Zela.<br />
|-<br />
| "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat." (title text)<br />
| Winston Churchill, '''{{w|Blood, toil, tears and sweat}}'' speech.<br />
| From 1940, shortly after he became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom when asking for a vote of confidence in the new all-party (unity) cabinet.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
: [Text at the center:]<br />
: ''Did you know?''<br />
: ''Transcripts of famous quotes often''<br />
: ''leave out the slideshow instructions.''<br />
: ''Here’s the line actually sounded:''<br />
: [Below showing a list of quotations, with Ronald Reagan standing next to a slide showing the Berlin Wall to the right of the text.]<br />
: "Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!"<br />
: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall."<br />
: "It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times."<br />
: "We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself."<br />
: "To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question."<br />
: "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."<br />
: [Below showing another list of quotations, with Winston Churchill standing next to a slide showing a beach to the left of the text.]<br />
: "We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..."<br />
: "Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes."<br />
: "That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."<br />
: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."<br />
: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife."<br />
: "Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The Blood, toil, tears and sweat speach was already the topic of [[1148: Nothing to Offer]]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ronald Reagan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Winston Churchill]]</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2463:_Astrophotography&diff=2120282463: Astrophotography2021-05-16T21:33:20Z<p>141.101.99.193: /* Explanation */ I feel confident that this is the correct plural for this situation.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2463<br />
| date = May 15, 2021<br />
| title = Astrophotography<br />
| image = astrophotography.png<br />
| titletext = [One hill over, a competing astrophotographer does a backflip over a commercial airliner while throwing a tray of plastic space stations into the air, through which a falcon swoops to 'grab' the real one.]<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BACKFLIPPING ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER. Title text needs to be outlined as the main explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Astrophotography}} is the practice of taking pictures of astronomical objects. Sometimes it is specified as a hobby, as opposed to the work of professional astronomers. Astrophotographers like to take pretty pictures of all sorts of objects in the sky, but photographing the {{w|Sun}} is a popular subgenre within the field, especially if something is transiting in front of it. Typical things include planes, the {{w|International Space Station}} (ISS), and the {{w|Moon}} ({{w|Solar eclipses}}).<br />
<br />
During the [[:Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017|Total Solar Eclipse 2017]] visible across US it was possible to see the ISS pass in front of the Sun during a partial part of the Eclipse (from a site that was later in the total Eclipse zone.) This was [https://www.smartereveryday.com/eclipse photographed] and filmed by Destin from Smarter Every Day and can be seen in his video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepQoU4oek4&feature=youtu.be Space Station Transiting 2017 ECLIPSE]. (Go to the time of the flyby of the ISS in the video [https://youtu.be/lepQoU4oek4?t=209 here]).<br />
<br />
The practice of "one-upmanship" refers to the practice of achieving something superior to what another has achieved, or "getting one up on" them. The term being coined by Stephen Potter in "One-Upmanship: Being Some Account of the Activities and Teachings of the Lifemanship Correspondence College of One-Upness and Games Lifemastery." the third of his sequence of comic self-help books.<br />
<br />
The caption claims that the photo shown in the comic is the result of a continuous string of one-upmanship among astrophotographers in a community, each striving to one-up the other.<br />
<br />
In this comic there seems to be an abundance of things:<br />
<br />
* The ISS can be seen transiting in the upper center.<br />
* There is an ongoing {{w|partial solar eclipse}} so the view of the Sun is partially obscured by the Moon in the upper right quadrant. <br />
<br />
These two things are what Destin managed. But this photographer achieved several ones-up on him.<br />
<br />
* The sun is setting or rising from behind a hill.<br />
* [[Megan]] is standing slightly below the peak of a hill and seems to be juggling, with five balls, which are also in front of the sun. One or more of those balls might actually be {{w|sunspots}} or the planets Mercury or Venus.<br />
* [[Cueball]] is standing at the peak of the hill, shooting an arrow from a bow, one arrow has pierced what at first appears to be one of the juggling balls, but may be a {{w|Transit of Venus}}. <br />
* A simultaneous Eclipse and Transit of Venus is actually expected in the future, but not until April 5, 15232 (13211 years after the publishing of this comic). It would though likely be easier to make the arrow "hit" Venus than one of the joggled balls, as the planet's position is constant at the time the photo is taken. The other four balls are too large that any of them could represent Mercury, the only other planet that can transit the Sun, when seen from Earth. But Megan has been careful to make one ball go so much higher than the middle two, that it seems to fit that Venus has been shot out from between them.<br />
* Two airplanes pulling banners with the words "nice" and "shot" (which could refer to both the archer and the photographer) are flying in opposite directions above them. (Airplane banners that are not continuous sheets are made with thin support lines spanning the openings, which explains the presence of the apparently unsupported central disc in the "O"s.)<br />
<br />
Taking the picture required precisely scheduling and arranging the relative positions of several of the various subjects (and photographer) to coincide with the predictable but rare conjunctions of the rest of the scene, as well as special equipment:<br />
* All this had to be timed very very precisely as the [https://youtu.be/lepQoU4oek4?t=209 transit of the ISS only takes a second].<br />
* A solar filter must be used to photograph the sun without overexposing the image or even damaging equipment.<br />
* The photograph must be taken during a partial solar eclipse. These only happen a few times per year and are only visible in part of the world.<br />
* Related to the last point, a nearby person appears larger than the moon. It is possible to photograph the silhouette of a person or a cityscape in front of a full moon, making the moon look comparatively larger or smaller by adjusting the distance to the closer subject, and then the lenses used by the photographer to make them both fill just the right amount of the frame. The photographer needed to carefully choose their position relative to the subjects to make this happen.<br />
* The exposure time of the photograph had to be short enough to capture clear silhouettes of the ISS, the juggling balls and the arrow while these were in the air.<br />
* The mountain had to be in a location that would happen to see the ISS passing in front of the sun at the same time as the sun was rising from behind it.<br />
* The subjects had to achieve a moment in which four juggling balls were in the air and an arrow had pierced the point where Venus would appear, while sideways relative to the sun's light, with still near normal intensity.<br />
* The planes also needed to be flying in the correct directions for the text of the signs to be visible, and with very precise timing for them to be in the correct positions to read "Nice" as coming before "Shot" just as the ISS passes by.<br />
* The sky (at least between the photographer and the Sun) had to be free of clouds.<br />
<br />
The title text describes a similarly outlandish photo attempting to one-up Cueball and Megan:<br />
<br />
* An airliner is flying in front of the Sun.<br />
* The astrophotographer is performing a backflip such that they appear to be over the airliner.<br />
* The astrophotographer is tossing several tiny models of the ISS to also appear in front of the Sun.<br />
* A falcon is flying in front of the Sun, presumably intending to capture prey, in such a way that it appears to be snatching the real ISS out of the fakes.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[Cueball and Megan stand on a hill with the sun behind them. Cueball is at the top-left of the hill, holding a bow in his left arm, which has been recently shot, with the arrow to right. Megan is at the bottom-right of the hill, juggling some balls. There are two planes going in opposite directions with banners on them. Above the planes is the ISS. All these items are silhouetted against the sun partially eclipsed by the moon in the upper right.]<br />
<br />
:[Banners]: Nice Shot<br />
<br />
:[Caption beneath the panel]:<br />
:Our astrophotography community's one-upmanship is getting out of hand.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
Randall has commented on extreme photography in comics [[1855: Telephoto]] and [[1719: Superzoom]], and the ''How To'' chapter "How to take a selfie".<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Space]]</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2217:_53_Cards&diff=2070872217: 53 Cards2021-03-04T14:37:57Z<p>141.101.99.193: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2217<br />
| date = October 18, 2019<br />
| title = 53 Cards<br />
| image = 53_cards.png<br />
| titletext = Well, there's one right here at the bottom, where it says "53."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
In this comic, [[Cueball]] claims that he has found a way to manipulate a {{w|Standard 52-card deck|52-card deck}} into a 53-card deck by shuffling and rearranging the cards, presenting a complex-looking diagram to support his claim. [[Ponytail]] naturally disputes the claim immediately, which Cueball counters by challenging Ponytail to prove that his math is wrong.<br />
<br />
The comic is a satire of the way that conversations tend to go between physicists and perpetual motion enthusiasts (or cranks in general). {{w|Perpetual motion}} is the idea that it could be possible for a mechanical system to work indefinitely without any external input of energy. The {{w|laws of thermodynamics}} absolutely prohibit this, so the only way that this could be possible is if the laws of thermodynamics are wrong. Unfortunately, the laws of thermodynamics are some of the most foundational and well-tested laws in science, so perpetual motion is considered to be a {{w|pseudoscience}}, pursued only by ignorant or quixotic cranks.<br />
<br />
One of the things that you could do with a perpetual motion machine is to violate the {{w|law of conservation of energy}} - that is, you could create free energy out of nothing, simply by building a mechanical device. This is likely what Randall is satirizing with the idea of a process that can generate an extra card out of nowhere - it makes no physical sense, but nonetheless Cueball is convinced that he has found a way to do it.<br />
<br />
A common defense employed by pseudoscientists, when challenged on their ideas, is to issue a counter-challenge and demand people prove them wrong, as Cueball does in this comic. This is a fallacious line of argument, since the fact that Ponytail cannot prove Cueball wrong does not mean that he is right. Nonetheless, this aggressive defense often works to discourage argument, since it takes far less effort to make a claim than to refute it.<br />
<br />
Possibly, Cueball's plan involves usage of the {{w|Banach-Tarski paradox}}, a mathematical theorem which describes a method of "dismantling" a solid sphere, rearranging the component pieces, and reassembling them into two solid spheres identical to the original. This is only possible in a mathematical ideal case, because the "component pieces" are actually collections of infinitely many disjoint points; such a procedure cannot be performed in physical reality. Cueball's operations of shuffling and rearranging are analogous to the operations used in the Banach-Tarski operation, which involves only moving and rotating the component pieces without changing their shape. The Banach-Tarski paradox was also referenced in [[804: Pumpkin Carving]].<br />
<br />
In the title text, Ponytail responds to Cueball's challenge with snark, claiming that the most obvious error is the fact that the formula's result is "53". The implication is that his math results in the wrong ''answer'', which is proof that the calculations must contain errors. This, of course, starts with the assumption that Cueball's claimed result is impossible, rather than attempting to find the flaws in his specific method. Because most people would conclude, by basic physical reasoning, that merely shuffling and rearranging a deck of cards cannot increase the number of cards in the deck, that feels like a safe assumption. By analogy, increasing the amount of energy in a system only by moving and transferring energy should be equally impossible, on its face.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing next to a flowchart, with Cueball gesturing to it.]:<br />
:Cueball: I've found a way to turn a 52-card deck into 53 cards by shuffling and rearranging them.<br />
:Ponytail: No, you haven't.<br />
:Cueball: How do you know?! I challenge you to find an error in my math!<br />
<br />
:[The flow chart consist of 15 boxes of different sizes, connected with arrows. In four of them (top, bottom and two in the middle) a deck of card is shown. Next to the top and bottom a number is written, near the other two, which are the only round boxes, numbers are shown in one of the nearby boxes instead. Beneath the top box there are two boxes with readable text. The other 7 boxes, without numbers or card decks have unreadable text. From top to bottom are the readable content:]<br />
:52<br />
:Shuffle<br />
:Cut<br />
:21<br />
:38<br />
:53<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:Every conversation between a physicist and a perpetual motion enthusiast.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Flowcharts]]</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2204:_Ksp_2&diff=2070852204: Ksp 22021-03-04T14:28:12Z<p>141.101.99.193: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2204<br />
| date = September 18, 2019<br />
| title = Ksp 2<br />
| image = ksp_2.png<br />
| titletext = "The committee appreciates that your 2020 launch is on track, but the 'human capital/personnel retention' budget includes a lot more unmarked cash payments than usual. What are th--" "Public outreach."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
[[Cueball]], a programmer, is sitting at his computer while four other persons from {{w|NASA}}, [[Hairy]], [[Ponytail]], [[Hairbun]] and another Cueball-like person try to convince him to delay the release of a sequel to ''{{w|Kerbal Space Program}}'' (KSP 2).<br />
<br />
''Kerbal Space Program'' (KSP for short) is a space flight simulation video game with a Keplerian orbital physics engine, allowing for semi-realistic orbital maneuvers. KSP is a [[:Category:Kerbal Space Program|recurring theme]] in xkcd. A sequel, abbreviated here as KSP 2, was planned at the time of the comic's publication to be released in 2020, although it has since been delayed to Spring 2022.<br />
<br />
Also planned for 2020 is the {{w|Mars 2020|Perseverance}} mission, a [[:Category:Mars rovers|mars rover]] originally named {{w|Mars 2020}}, which successfully landed. The joke in the comic comes as engineers are likely to want to extensively play with KSP 2 to the exclusion of other things, and NASA is worried about the Mars 2020 mission being delayed or failing because the engineers are too focused on playing KSP 2, including taking an extended vacation and "sick" days off. <br />
<br />
Cueball, sitting at a desk in front of a computer, is represented here as being in charge of KSP 2, and the other characters standing around him are pleading with him to delay the release of KSP 2 until the Mars rover program is complete, even being willing to "give [him] a moon".<br />
<br />
Offering to give somebody the moon occurs occasionally in songs and poetry, as an idiom meaning desire to offer something of great value, or expressing great desire to please. Literally giving a moon to Cueball is impossible{{Citation needed}}, but it is possible to {{w|Naming of moons|name a moon}} after Cueball, so that may be what is implied instead. This could also be a reference to the film {{w|Despicable Me}}, which revolves around Gru and his {{w|Minions (Despicable Me)|Minions}} trying to steal the Moon. The Kerbals (mascots of Kerbal Space Program) resemble the Minions from the film.<br />
<br />
The title text is a sentence said by someone from a committee in NASA that oversees the progress and budget of the Mars 2020 mission. They are satisfied that the launch in 2020 is still on track, but has a question regarding the 'human capital/personnel retention' budget, which has several unmarked cash payments, more than they would expect. As they begin to ask what they are, someone from the Mars 2020 project interrupts, having probably foreseen this question, stating that it is Public outreach.<br />
<br />
In the original Kerbal Space Program, playing in career mode, the player can select various "strategies" at the administration building to exchange or boost various assets. "Public Outreach" appears similar to the "Public Relations" strategy "Appreciation Campaign", which exchanges a portion of in-game money earned completing mission contracts for prestige, which has an effect on mission contracts the game makes available.<br />
<br />
The title text suggests NASA could be paying Private Division, the developers of Kerbal Space Program, money to delay their release until after the Mars mission. <br />
<br />
NASA has dabbled in game physics engines for "public outreach," with the same mixed record of success as any promising R&D endeavor. Pertinent projects included a series of collaboration laboratories on various forms of social media including {{w|Second Life}} which hosted a "NASA CoLab" region active from 2007 to around 2013. While the unrealistic constraints imposed by real-time physics engine simulation prevented much actual engineering, such shared 3D {{w|computer aided design}} (CAD) systems provide a measure of drafting training in a play sandbox system outside of a formal work environment. [https://contest.techbriefs.com/2019/entries NASA frequently holds design competitions,] including some in which winning participants have spoken highly of KSP, and some of which are used for [https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/tb/stories/news/17581 developments in medical informatics,] for example, outside the field of aerospace engineering and space colonization simulation. The use of game development competitions to assist scientific progress is also used in the [https://fold.it/portal/ Fold.it] competitive protein folding game, where the winners build antibodies to save the lives of those who have health care. Such efforts have often been supported by {{w|SBIR}}-sized government agency grants from several countries, along with other individuals (i.e., customer) support and help from organizations to build software improving competitive score achievement. NASA has also been involved in asking software publishers to remove, withdraw, or restrict their releases, such as the {{w|COMSOL}} plasma physics engine library, rumored to be useful for the design of nuclear weapons. But whether any government agency has ever paid for the delay of a computer simulation game in order to increase their productivity is an open question.<br />
<br />
An alternative suggestion of the title text is that NASA gave cash to employees, their families, friends, associates, and foreign spy followers to purchase additional copies of KSP 2 to encourage development innovations, international collaboration, as a "force multiplier" for personnel retention, and as bonus incentive awards for [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8ijfaAUQAAyGCF?format=jpg engineers] who are [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318893834_Advanced_concept_for_a_crewed_mission_to_the_martian_moons ahead of schedule for their part of the Mars 2020 launch.]<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk in front of a computer. He is surrounded by four people, and is looking over his shoulder at the ones standing behind him, Hairy - holding his palms up - and Ponytail stretching her arms out towards him. On the other side of the desk is another Cueball-like guy holding his arms out palms up and Hairbun who stretches her arms out to the side.]<br />
:Hairy: Please hold off until the end of summer. We can't afford the personnel hit right before the late July launch window.<br />
:Ponytail: People have ''already'' started calling in sick!<br />
:Hairbun: Do you want a moon? '''''We'll give you a moon!'''''<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:NASA tries desperately to get the Kerbal Space Program team to delay '''''KSP 2''''' until after the '''''Mars 2020''''' mission launches.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]<br />
[[Category:Kerbal Space Program]]</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2431:_Leap_Year_2021&diff=206954Talk:2431: Leap Year 20212021-03-02T08:22:14Z<p>141.101.99.193: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
It's amazing how quickly some of us got to edit this. I hope I didn't cause too much edit-conflict confusion just by my changing the date value. Honestly just checked, before turning in, to find two (so far) other edits follow so quickly after... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.152|141.101.98.152]] 02:03, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Sorry,I did not see anything when I started<br />
:I wouldn't expect you to (the first Categories adder, yes?), until you perhaps tried to save. But that's what being shown edit-conflicts is important for. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.244|141.101.98.244]] 03:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
If someone actually did this, how many years would it take for the calendar to line back up again where it started? 365? [[User:Captain Video|Captain Video]] ([[User talk:Captain Video|talk]]) 02:20, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
: 365 years plus (around) 33% more because every fourth year (except every hundredth, except except every 400th) is already ''expected'' to have a 29th, so you'd not be able to shift the year that year and have to do those days after the first 365 mostly-shifted consecutive years - with the necessary overflow days ''still'' being only to be done for 3/4(ish) of the next 91ish years, leaving maybe 23 more years to be shifted. But 24 years would only allow 18 shifts, so 6 more years than that ''probably'' would use 5 years. And one year may be absorbed already, or left over. So 365+91+23+6. Ish. Because it'd depend exactly which year you start as to which non-expandable years occur within the strict (0.75)+(0.25*0.75)+(0.25*0.25*0.75)+... series. But that's the likely area of the answer, off the top of my head. Around 485 years, give or take. Unless I've made a big error! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.244|141.101.98.244]] 03:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
::A quick evaluation of the geometric progression (a/1-r = 365/(1-1/4)) gives an answer of 486.666... This means it would take at least 487 years to come past full circle (488 on a leap year) if not for the pesky 400-year rule. Given where the date lies, there can be either one or two per cycle; thus, we find a minimum of 488 years and a maximum of 490. If we started this current year, on a non-leap year with no round 400 in the next 87 years, it would take the minimum amount, 488 years, to cycle through 489 revolutions of the Earth around the Sun. Happy Leap Year, my friends! [[User:BlackHat|BlackHat]] ([[User talk:BlackHat|talk]]) 03:52, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
::It's a bit messier, but the rough calculation was indeed close. I did a quick Excel calculation (well, OpenOffice Calc, but essentially the same - easiest thing at hand without Perl-diving). Actual 'next synchronised' period is 482-484 (solar) years, in an intruiging but not surprising pattern. Prior to 2000's unusual leap-day (but not too early to miss encompassing the one in 2400) it is 484 actual years (483 uniformly 'enhanced' ones) - but if you start in the period of any year leading up to a LD (I was running of 28th of February baselines, but any time from March 1st the prior year would count) you get the 485th year meshed too. (These periods contain two quatrocentenial LDs. And obviously ''starting'' with a 'normal' leap-year means the very next year is just as accurate, before it gets shifted the year after.)<br />
::2001 until the late 2010s it's one set of 483 years to three of 484 (one of each has two synchronised years, 484th and 485th, because of adjacent starts landing on the same end), having just one century LD within. As you get close to 2020 you get a further non-LD century in (2020+480_and_change is 2500+) and 482 and/or 483 actual-years. "And/or" because only every second 482 ends on run-up to a LD so that the 483rd meshes as well, the 483s are not meshed correctly to do the same.<br />
::The cycle ''beyond'' that is individually roaming through the same 482 to 484 range (and a number of end-point adjacents) but as it plays hopscotch through and around the centennial patterns it adopts an off-rhythm variation that doesn't even really make simple sense at the millenial level, as you might imagine. It might make an interesting artistic 'regularly purturbed noise' at even longer sample-sizes, though. Hack it into a graphical format, maybe, various possible options according to taste. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.193|141.101.99.193]] 08:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can someone make a [[:Category:Calendar]] that is a subcategory of [[:Category:Time]]? I feel like there are several comics that could fit, e.g. [[994: Advent Calendar]], [[1140: Calendar of Meaningful Dates]], [[1930: Calendar Facts]], [[1073: Weekend]], [[1061: EST]], etc. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.210|162.158.255.210]] 02:39, 2 March 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
Sweden tried something like this in the early 18th century. When switching from Julian to Gregorian calendar, some bright spark decided to do it gradually, by removing all leap days between 1700 and 1740. The leap day of 1700 was skipped (It was a leap day in the Julian calendar, but not the Gregorian), but due to war and other things they 'forgot' to annul the leap days of 1704 and 1708. In 1712 it was decided to revert to Gregorian calendar, by adding a double leap day, resulting in the only known occurrence of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-standard_dates#February_30 February 30]. From 1700 to 1712 Sweden was out of sync with both the Gregorian and Julian calendars, resulting in quite a lot of confusion. For example, Carl Linnaeus birthday can be given as May 12, 13 or 23, depending on what calendar is used. [[User:Popup|Popup]] ([[User talk:Popup|talk]]) 07:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1416:_Pixels&diff=747431416: Pixels2014-09-03T06:13:44Z<p>141.101.99.193: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1416<br />
| date = September 3, 2014<br />
| title = Pixels<br />
| image = pixels.png<br />
| titletext = <br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
When the cursor is placed inside the field of the comic and the viewer scrolls down, the picture zooms in until the pixels are visible. Each pixel then resolves into another comic, with black-on-white comic panels making up the white spaces and white-on-black panels making up the black spaces. This is repeated for this and all subsequent sets of comic panels. Not all white and all black panels are the same; some sets involve more than two different panels, but all involve repetitive tiling. The first comic panel, of Cueball stacking turtles, is a reference to the idiom "turtles all the way down," which refers to the problem of infinite regression: if everything in the universe is "on top of" something else, so to speak, there must be a "bottom." A joking solution to the paradoxical nature of such a bottom is the proposition that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down the world rests on an infinite stack of turtles].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=24:_Godel,_Escher,_Kurt_Halsey&diff=7371424: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey2014-08-15T06:55:02Z<p>141.101.99.193: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 24<br />
| date = September 30, 2005<br />
| title = Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey<br />
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]<br />
| image = godel_escher_kurthalsey.jpg<br />
| titletext = I love the idea here, though of course it's not a great-quality drawing or scan.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|the bubbles, expanding text, shreds & ending are not yet explained.}}<br />
Before starting xkcd, [[Randall]] worked on robotics at {{w|NASA}}'s Langley Center. This drawing was apparently made during that period, while attending a talk that he didn't like.<br />
<br />
The name of the comic is a portmanteau-like play on the following:<br />
* {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}} is a book by {{w|Douglas Hofstadter}}. He is an American author who has written several books about philosophy, mathematics, and science. This particular book is his most famous one, about "strange loops", self-reference, and recurring patterns, partially shown through the works of the three people in its title:<br />
** {{w|Kurt Gödel}} was a 20th-century mathematician most famous for proving that in our commonly used axiomatic systems, there are true propositions that cannot be proved from the axioms. His proof used a self-referential paradox.<br />
** {{w|M. C. Escher}} was a 20th-century artist most famous for mathematically-inspired engravings of tessellated animals, impossible scenes, [http://philosopherdeveloper.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/devilsangels.jpg fractals], and so on. The form of this strip resembles one of his [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Escher,_Metamorphosis_II.jpg Metamorphosis etchings]. <br />
** {{w|Johann Sebastian Bach}} was a German composer and musician from the Baroque Period, famous for numerous works such as the Brandenburg Concerto.<br />
<br />
* [http://www.kurthalsey.com Kurt Halsey] is a comic artist from Oregon. His work often contains introspective philosophical musings.<br />
<br />
The comic is drawn in the form of a {{w|storyboard}} and is clearly intended to be visualized as an animated sequence.<br />
<br />
In the first part of the comic, two people discuss the difficulty of comparing past and present generations, since the person making the comparison invariably belongs to one of the two groups.<br />
<br />
It's unclear whether the hatted guy is [[Black Hat]], because Randall hadn't standardized his character designs yet. The sarcastic comment suggests that it is.<br />
<br />
The assembly of text panels found in the middle of the strip is similar to his [[124: Blogofractal]].<br />
<br />
==Interpretations==<br />
''While I feel this article can't be improved with rational arguments, I believe a standalone section with different hypothesis is a great way to tackle the problem. If the goal here is not to go into subjective interpretations of the comic, then I think its better tagged as closed, because you obviously can't go any further by ignoring the symbols. (You may want to edit meta-comments out, but I wanted to make my point first). Please add to or adapt my interpretation to whatever suits you or the community here. It would be very nice if we could have a subjective section for people to explain what they interpreted out of the strips.''<br />
<br />
* The bubbles may illustrate ideas, memories or subjects that one could wonder about. In the context of the boring talk, this would mean that Randall is lost in thoughts and gradually looses focus of things going on around him. He sees the talk as mundane, as a part of so many other "subject bubbles". <br />
** Even the comic vertical lines (and therefor the strip's structure) seems to loose their sense to Randall as they collapses and become part of the scene, eventually merging three panels into one. They later reappear for the last six panels.<br />
* The big bubble pushing the small ones further outside may demonstrate how shallow the surface bubbles are to him or represent an infinite (or very large) amount of small bubbles.<br />
* The quote stating "There's too much. And so little feels important." tell us that he feels overwhelmed by the world; maybe by information given in the NASA talk or by events in his life. He recognizes what is important to him, and feels it is small compared to the size of the worries of the world (or the big bubble). He may have experienced a sort of existential crisis before turning to his feeling of love in the last panels, when asking himself "What do you do?".<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Drawn during an unending NASA lecture.<br />
:[Two people are talking, one in a hat.]<br />
:Cueball: it's just so hard to compare kids now with kids in the past. you can't help but to belong to one group or the other.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: and of course every generation seems awful to the one before it. look at quotes from throughout history.<br />
<br />
:Hatted: yeah, and it sure would be nice to have some historical perspective on some of this stuff. I just don't know what to make of it.<br />
:[Circles are appearing--maybe snow?]<br />
<br />
:Cueball: i guess you do what you can to help the people around you and hope it turns out okay.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: in the end, what else can you do?<br />
<br />
:Hatted: lead a crusade?<br />
<br />
:[We can no longer see the people, just the circles.]<br />
:it's presentism, man. the idea that historical context is irrelevant, that we understand it<br />
<br />
:all that we need take no warnings from the follies of the past. that we're facing something new.<br />
<br />
:socrates couldn't imagine the internet. but people don't change.<br />
:[We can start to see the corner of a darker circle in the lower right.]<br />
<br />
:(The borders between the three panels on this line are cracking.)<br />
:have you seen those collections of historical pornography? talk about historical context.<br />
<br />
:did you know the first porn photo was bestial in.<br />
:[inside a circle:] nature?<br />
<br />
:at least that stuff was out of the mainstream<br />
:[each word in one circle:]<br />
:no<br />
:just<br />
:in<br />
:history<br />
<br />
:(the three panels have merged into one on each row.)<br />
<br />
:i don't know about you, but<br />
:[circled] I<br />
:[uncircled] never<br />
<br />
:even once seen<br />
<br />
:[The circles are highly variable in size now, and pressed up against a larger one on the right side.]<br />
<br />
:[There is mass of circles of different sizes, with some dark fissures in between, against the side of a large circle which we can see part of in the right half of the panel. They look like cells. There's a tiny square in the center of the giant cell.]<br />
<br />
:[We see only the tiny square, centered. It has a few marks inside it.]<br />
<br />
:[Closer, the square is divided into rectangles of different sizes, each of which has text in it.]<br />
<br />
:[Much closer, we can see fragments of the text. Some are sideways, some are cut off, some are too small to read.]<br />
:machine language translated by principles of isomorphism it is a consequence of the Church-Turing thesis that ...<br />
:but how do you select the channel you wish to se-<br />
:thou ... shou ... palin ... stri ... it is a ... crab ...<br />
<br />
:[Closer still, we can just see a huge sideways s and h.]<br />
<br />
:[Those letters are faded and mixed with a faded version of the next panel.]<br />
<br />
:girls take boys away ...<br />
:never be further than a phone call and a goosebumped shiver away ...<br />
:drove all night listening to mix tapes ...<br />
:the past is just practice<br />
:[There is a heart at the bottom and, in the lower left, the name Kurt.]<br />
<br />
:[The same as the previous panel, but with the words blurred out to scribbles.]<br />
<br />
:[Jagged, shaded shapes and strands start to fall. Faint panel borders appear again. There is a person on the far right.]<br />
<br />
:(Back to three panels per row.)<br />
:[Cueball and Megan are standing amid the fragments.]<br />
<br />
:Man: There's too much. And so little feels important.<br />
<br />
:[The jagged edge of the shaded area is encroaching on the sides of the panel.]<br />
<br />
:What do you do?<br />
<br />
:[We see them from farther away through a rough hole in the shaded area. Bits continue to fall around them.]<br />
<br />
:[They are holding hands.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*This is the sixth comic originally posted on livejournal. The previous was [[1: Barrel - Part 1]]. The next was [[13: Canyon]]. View archive [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40 here].<br />
*[Original title]: "Strip series"<br />
*[Original [[Randall]] quote]: "One of a series of strips I drew during a long and boring NASA lecture. It careens wildly from intellectual to chaotic to Godel, Escher, Bach to Kurt Halsey to chaotic and sappy." This might suggest that the image on LiveJournal was only part of this strip. Unfortunately, the image link on LiveJournal is broken.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Romance]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=24:_Godel,_Escher,_Kurt_Halsey&diff=7371324: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey2014-08-15T06:53:16Z<p>141.101.99.193: Escher links</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 24<br />
| date = September 30, 2005<br />
| title = Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey<br />
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]<br />
| image = godel_escher_kurthalsey.jpg<br />
| titletext = I love the idea here, though of course it's not a great-quality drawing or scan.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|the bubbles, expanding text, shreds & ending are not yet explained.}}<br />
Before starting xkcd, [[Randall]] worked on robotics at {{w|NASA}}'s Langley Center. This drawing was apparently made during that period, while attending a talk that he didn't like.<br />
<br />
The name of the comic is a portmanteau-like play on the following:<br />
* {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}} is a book by {{w|Douglas Hofstadter}}. He is an American author who has written several books about philosophy, mathematics, and science. This particular book is his most famous one, about "strange loops", self-reference, and recurring patterns, partially shown through the works of the three people in its title:<br />
** {{w|Kurt Gödel}} was a 20th-century mathematician most famous for proving that in our commonly used axiomatic systems, there are true propositions that cannot be proved from the axioms. His proof used a self-referential paradox.<br />
** {{w|M. C. Escher}} was a 20th-century artist most famous for mathematically-inspired engravings of tessellated animals, impossible scenes, fractals[http://philosopherdeveloper.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/devilsangels.jpg], and so on. The form of this strip resembles one of his Metamorphosis etchings[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Escher,_Metamorphosis_II.jpg]. <br />
** {{w|Johann Sebastian Bach}} was a German composer and musician from the Baroque Period, famous for numerous works such as the Brandenburg Concerto.<br />
<br />
* [http://www.kurthalsey.com Kurt Halsey] is a comic artist from Oregon. His work often contains introspective philosophical musings.<br />
<br />
The comic is drawn in the form of a {{w|storyboard}} and is clearly intended to be visualized as an animated sequence.<br />
<br />
In the first part of the comic, two people discuss the difficulty of comparing past and present generations, since the person making the comparison invariably belongs to one of the two groups.<br />
<br />
It's unclear whether the hatted guy is [[Black Hat]], because Randall hadn't standardized his character designs yet. The sarcastic comment suggests that it is.<br />
<br />
The assembly of text panels found in the middle of the strip is similar to his [[124: Blogofractal]].<br />
<br />
==Interpretations==<br />
''While I feel this article can't be improved with rational arguments, I believe a standalone section with different hypothesis is a great way to tackle the problem. If the goal here is not to go into subjective interpretations of the comic, then I think its better tagged as closed, because you obviously can't go any further by ignoring the symbols. (You may want to edit meta-comments out, but I wanted to make my point first). Please add to or adapt my interpretation to whatever suits you or the community here. It would be very nice if we could have a subjective section for people to explain what they interpreted out of the strips.''<br />
<br />
* The bubbles may illustrate ideas, memories or subjects that one could wonder about. In the context of the boring talk, this would mean that Randall is lost in thoughts and gradually looses focus of things going on around him. He sees the talk as mundane, as a part of so many other "subject bubbles". <br />
** Even the comic vertical lines (and therefor the strip's structure) seems to loose their sense to Randall as they collapses and become part of the scene, eventually merging three panels into one. They later reappear for the last six panels.<br />
* The big bubble pushing the small ones further outside may demonstrate how shallow the surface bubbles are to him or represent an infinite (or very large) amount of small bubbles.<br />
* The quote stating "There's too much. And so little feels important." tell us that he feels overwhelmed by the world; maybe by information given in the NASA talk or by events in his life. He recognizes what is important to him, and feels it is small compared to the size of the worries of the world (or the big bubble). He may have experienced a sort of existential crisis before turning to his feeling of love in the last panels, when asking himself "What do you do?".<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Drawn during an unending NASA lecture.<br />
:[Two people are talking, one in a hat.]<br />
:Cueball: it's just so hard to compare kids now with kids in the past. you can't help but to belong to one group or the other.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: and of course every generation seems awful to the one before it. look at quotes from throughout history.<br />
<br />
:Hatted: yeah, and it sure would be nice to have some historical perspective on some of this stuff. I just don't know what to make of it.<br />
:[Circles are appearing--maybe snow?]<br />
<br />
:Cueball: i guess you do what you can to help the people around you and hope it turns out okay.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: in the end, what else can you do?<br />
<br />
:Hatted: lead a crusade?<br />
<br />
:[We can no longer see the people, just the circles.]<br />
:it's presentism, man. the idea that historical context is irrelevant, that we understand it<br />
<br />
:all that we need take no warnings from the follies of the past. that we're facing something new.<br />
<br />
:socrates couldn't imagine the internet. but people don't change.<br />
:[We can start to see the corner of a darker circle in the lower right.]<br />
<br />
:(The borders between the three panels on this line are cracking.)<br />
:have you seen those collections of historical pornography? talk about historical context.<br />
<br />
:did you know the first porn photo was bestial in.<br />
:[inside a circle:] nature?<br />
<br />
:at least that stuff was out of the mainstream<br />
:[each word in one circle:]<br />
:no<br />
:just<br />
:in<br />
:history<br />
<br />
:(the three panels have merged into one on each row.)<br />
<br />
:i don't know about you, but<br />
:[circled] I<br />
:[uncircled] never<br />
<br />
:even once seen<br />
<br />
:[The circles are highly variable in size now, and pressed up against a larger one on the right side.]<br />
<br />
:[There is mass of circles of different sizes, with some dark fissures in between, against the side of a large circle which we can see part of in the right half of the panel. They look like cells. There's a tiny square in the center of the giant cell.]<br />
<br />
:[We see only the tiny square, centered. It has a few marks inside it.]<br />
<br />
:[Closer, the square is divided into rectangles of different sizes, each of which has text in it.]<br />
<br />
:[Much closer, we can see fragments of the text. Some are sideways, some are cut off, some are too small to read.]<br />
:machine language translated by principles of isomorphism it is a consequence of the Church-Turing thesis that ...<br />
:but how do you select the channel you wish to se-<br />
:thou ... shou ... palin ... stri ... it is a ... crab ...<br />
<br />
:[Closer still, we can just see a huge sideways s and h.]<br />
<br />
:[Those letters are faded and mixed with a faded version of the next panel.]<br />
<br />
:girls take boys away ...<br />
:never be further than a phone call and a goosebumped shiver away ...<br />
:drove all night listening to mix tapes ...<br />
:the past is just practice<br />
:[There is a heart at the bottom and, in the lower left, the name Kurt.]<br />
<br />
:[The same as the previous panel, but with the words blurred out to scribbles.]<br />
<br />
:[Jagged, shaded shapes and strands start to fall. Faint panel borders appear again. There is a person on the far right.]<br />
<br />
:(Back to three panels per row.)<br />
:[Cueball and Megan are standing amid the fragments.]<br />
<br />
:Man: There's too much. And so little feels important.<br />
<br />
:[The jagged edge of the shaded area is encroaching on the sides of the panel.]<br />
<br />
:What do you do?<br />
<br />
:[We see them from farther away through a rough hole in the shaded area. Bits continue to fall around them.]<br />
<br />
:[They are holding hands.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*This is the sixth comic originally posted on livejournal. The previous was [[1: Barrel - Part 1]]. The next was [[13: Canyon]]. View archive [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40 here].<br />
*[Original title]: "Strip series"<br />
*[Original [[Randall]] quote]: "One of a series of strips I drew during a long and boring NASA lecture. It careens wildly from intellectual to chaotic to Godel, Escher, Bach to Kurt Halsey to chaotic and sappy." This might suggest that the image on LiveJournal was only part of this strip. Unfortunately, the image link on LiveJournal is broken.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Romance]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]</div>141.101.99.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1386:_People_are_Stupid&diff=70397Talk:1386: People are Stupid2014-06-25T16:31:42Z<p>141.101.99.193: </p>
<hr />
<div>On average yes, an individual is of average intelligence. But taken as a population of a whole, well, that's a different story entirely. Randall needs a vacation, ever since he jumped the shark with the dead baby it just feels like the downward trend is getting steeper. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.135|108.162.210.135]] 13:20, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Isn't that a reference to the Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.119|103.22.200.119]] 04:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)krayZpaving<br />
<br />
White Hat being burned? This certainly will not end here.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.102.208|141.101.102.208]] 04:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
'''''Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.''''' This wiki is founded on the very principle that people are stupid. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.223.29|108.162.223.29]] 05:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: You make an intelligent point, which I both appreciate and like. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.50|108.162.222.50]] 13:41, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
::Awww, it's just a joke, it's not personal or anything! '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This comment is one that makes me scratch my head and wonder... surely Randall is able to see that intelligence is not a relative but rather an absolute thing (if one were to kill the 10% most intelligent people the rest wouldn't get dumber, nor smarter). Surely intelligence is not to be measured in units of the common denominator. Surely it is obvious that 2nd panel is a pure strawman. Sigh...<br />
Oh and btw an IQ of 100 is the median, not the average. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.17|141.101.104.17]] 09:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: I am wondering if the explanation should not include a mention of the Median/Mean problem because it is entirely possible for a majority of a population to be above or below some mean (average) statistic depending on the distribution. Also stupidity is a standard that is not dependent on either median or mean.[[User:Sturmovik|Sturmovik]] ([[User talk:Sturmovik|talk]]) 11:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: The IQ of 100 is actually defined to be the median AND the average (and also the mode). It is also defined that the distibution around the IQ of 100 is a perfect bell curve. The IQ just tells you how many people in the world have your IQ (It is also defined that two values that have same distance from hundred, e.g. 80 and 120 have the same amount of people, 'cause it's a perfect bell curve (this means that there are as many people with IQ 120 as people with IQ 80). If the overall population gets more intelligent they have to make the IQ tests harder, so that 100 is again the average and median (This really happened). This and some other things are reasons why I think that IQ tests are BS. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.93.219|141.101.93.219]] 14:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: "A test device with numerous correlates measures an amount of environmental influences beside innate determinants, therefore bullshit"... What are your other objections to I.Q. testing? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.221|141.101.89.221]] 14:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The mocking "award", which is an analogy of saying "intelligence isn't everything" (an EXTREMELY common cliche), reflects the fact that Randall, like just about anyone, is oblivious to the magnitude of the totality of positive correlates of intelligence, and even (TRIGGER WARNING, TABOO CONCEPT AHEAD) I.Q. Intelligence, I.Q., not only makes you happier, it also makes you more helpful to other people, more creative, more socially stable, better-to-do, less susceptible to mental illnesses, more likely to remember events in your life, etc. etc. etc... Basically, there isn't a positive trait or quality of life with which intelligence doesn't correlate. But people positively LOATHE awareness of how highly intelligence, in fact, matters. Hence the vehement denial whenever someone indicates its importance, all the "I know an intelligent person who is miserable/mean/...", all stressing of exceptions, all ridicule of the notion of intelligence in general, all the "don't think about it"-mentality, all writing off of I.Q. as "antiquated, grossly limited, racist, metric" rather than the extremely potent predictor that it is. tl;dr Randall at all, take time to actually STUDY intelligence or the g factor before you mock it like that. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 09:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: In other words (and this is going to be my last addendum to this note, because it is a vast subject), whenever people say (or imply, as in the comic's case) that "intelligence isn't everything", the question to ask in return is, "okay, now what is the degree to which intelligence enables, facilitates, contributes to, 'the rest' to which you're opposing intelligence here?". People minimise the depth and breadth of the intellectual substrate of achievement. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 09:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Also, Randall (and everyone saying that) is being highly unjust in equating "people aren't smart" with "people aren't as smart as me". A perfectly valid alternative sense is, "people aren't as smart as to be rationally expected to contribute to rather than damage the discussion/situation/position at hand"--having the objective good, the objective recognition that certain situations (for instance, a certain online conversation which is expected to be competent) require certain minimal intellectual thresholds (for instance, an I.Q. of 120), in mind rather than egotic comparison. Lower intelligence, deny it all you please, comes with temperamental problems for instance. Selection for intelligence will largely filter them out. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 09:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: tl;dr of my entire production here: people must learn that BOTH situations of the Dunning-Kruger are equally harmful, the one that's less often considered perhaps actually even more so. Mistaken self-perception as intelligent is bad for the individual, but refusal to acknowledge the importance of one's own cognitive capacity (which is as good as universal in intelligent people--"I am not that smart" (who hasn't heard that one innumerable times?), "I just like doing thing x, my proficiency in it has nothing to do with my intelligence or I.Q.", "I have areas in which I'm 'stupid' too", "effort counts too") has societal consequences, of contributing to erroneous dismissal of the notions of intelligence & I.Q. & g etc. Shutting up for good now. Night. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 10:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
::: GAHHHHH just one more thing. Consider this: the fact that people dismiss I.Q. is the best indicator of how important a trait it really is. Thing is, people would not feel compelled by modesty to deny its importance had it not been vitally integral to many, many things. We deny what we value, so to give hope to those who lack that thing (to comfort those who lack intelligence). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 10:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::: Hey 141.101.89.211... I wonder if you have something to say, but despite my best efforts, I'm having trouble following everything you're saying - I have a feeling you were a bit emotional (perhaps tired?) when writing that, or you might have had fewer "more things" immediately following "I'm done" statements. If you're up for it, I'd appreciate you taking the time to make sure you're saying what you want to say, and ''then'' say it, because you seem to at least have good grammar (though there ''were'' a few British spellings... :-D), so I suspect you probably have a good point. It's also conceivable that I'm just not smart enough to get what you're saying (?) or perhaps it's just too ''early'' for me. BTW the best way of making sure I see what you're saying would probably be to let me know on my [[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk page]]... might even have the conversation there if you'd prefer. Thanks for your time. [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 11:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would add one "people are stupid" angle not yet mentioned: judging by behavior, most groups of people are less intelligent that any member of that group individually. This is valid even for the "all people" group - just look at the planet. Surprisingly, judging by content of most wikis, the "editors of wiki" groups seems to immune. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Good point--conforming to pressures of one's group or one's position to the detriment of one's judgment is a separate personality trait. The phenomenon is remedied by intelligence, but independent from it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 10:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Beat me to it. I'd like to add that even individual people have their occasional stupid and intelligent moments, with the stupid ones typically being of greater magnitude. Thus, it's not unreasonable to say that the average actions of people are at least slightly less intelligent than the average intelligence of most people on most days. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.83|173.245.55.83]] 12:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I can't believe people say things like that, man, people are stupid [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 10:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Thanks for the Lake Wobegon references. Not only is it on-target, but I take personal joy seeing mentions of uniquely Minnesotan culture anywhere I can find them. --BigMal27, Minnesota-born, Minnesotan-raised // [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.88|173.245.55.88]] 11:53, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Instead of saying, "People are stupid," we would do better to say "People make poor decisions / statements / judgments." And this, for multiple reasons, few of them I suspect tied to basal intelligence. Stage of life, level of health and stress, experience relative to the topic, level of education and the quality of that education, cultural idiotic beliefs that interfere with optimal choices, and a zillion others. Plus, as a large percentage of humans are either just coming online in experience and education, or are winding down in health and mental function, we are guaranteed to see a large percentage of stupid decisions right across the IQ landscape. No help for it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.217|108.162.246.217]] 13:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: I.Q. affects level of health and stress, rate of acquisition of experience, level of education, quality of education obtained, preference of cultural beliefs. It doesn't seem to defy reason that it affects the zillion other factors, too. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.221|141.101.89.221]] 13:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Remember, in interaction between psychological and social factors, the question is never of *existence* of a connection, but of its magnitude. It is fine to posit a multitude of environmental factors that determine (ir)rationality, but as long as such position keeps people from connecting I.Q. with those factors' actual occurrence (how much I.Q. does it take to finish a good school? to develop a habit of reading a book every month? this is not at all trivial question, and it needs to be resolved with more than anecdotal evidence of "I know an intelligent illiterate person"), there might be an elephant buried underneath the room which no one knows about. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.221|141.101.89.221]] 13:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I know Cueball's explanation can be construed to illustrate otherwise; but I doubt the comic was meant to be a comment on the relative intelligence of humanity. It seems more likely, to me, that the purpose of the comic was to comment on the stonewalling that the mindset, "I'm better than you," induces. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.35|108.162.216.35]] 15:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The cartoon never mentions I.Q. at all, Just "Average Intelligence", so the Mean/Median discussion is moot. As for the other discussion on this page, I'm just going to quote Blaise Pascal: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time" [[User:Jim E|Jim E]] ([[User talk:Jim E|talk]]) 16:00, 25 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
As mentioned above, in other comments that it's hard to find a way to indent from, there's a difference between different 'average's. (To compare "the median" with "the average" is not a good way of doing it, because one needn't know whether you're talking mean or mode in the second sense. I could even say that I have more than the average number of arms, for a human.) The assumption that the median [i]and[/i] mean (and, perhaps, also mode) are a single location at which 100IQ can be placed is dependant upon the bell curve being symmetrical. Just one hyper-intelligent could skew the mean well above the median. (Ok, so we're talking about comic-book "hyper"ness, to make it significant, in a world's worth of population, but the principle still stands for any more manageable population.) And about IQ tests being recalibrated... there is already a common convention that there's a score-adjuster (or a look-up table, based on this) that gives you different IQs for the same number of correct answers but for people of different ages (and sometimes male/female). Which seems to me like "we give up trying to be demographically neutral, let's just find how well different people answer in our test and then work out where their own arbitrary sub-group's bell-curve stradles". That said, I like IQ tests. I do well in them, and have fun doing them, even if I don't actually believe in them any more than I believe in Sudoku puzzles! And, sorry, I ended up typing far more than I had intended... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.193|141.101.99.193]] 16:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)</div>141.101.99.193