https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=162.158.159.76&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-19T01:00:43ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2402:_Into_My_Veins&diff=3372342402: Into My Veins2024-03-13T00:37:38Z<p>162.158.159.76: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2402<br />
| date = December 23, 2020<br />
| title = Into My Veins<br />
| image = into_my_veins.png<br />
| titletext = "Okay, for the last time, the shot is free, so we can't--" "Shut up and take my money!"<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}. It also references a common {{w|Internet meme|meme}}.<br />
<br />
Two of the next four comics also contain references to the vaccine, [[2404: First Thing]] and [[2406: Viral Vector Immunity]], and the first of these, like this one, additionally references a common Internet trend.<br />
<br />
The COVID-19 Pandemic has been one of the most consequential and broadly unpleasant events in living memory.{{Citation needed}} As of the publication of this strip, it is estimated to have caused over 1.5 million deaths worldwide, with over 300,000 deaths in the United States, and many more serious cases, often with lasting impacts. Even for those who have been spared infection, measures to slow the spread of the virus have been highly impactful, and have been ongoing for nearly a year.<br />
<br />
As a consequence of all of this, many people (including, presumably, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]]) are excited for the vaccine, which will hopefully end the pandemic. This comic shows [[Cueball]] clearly thrilled to receive the vaccine. "Inject this directly into my veins" is a meme based on a line (from ''{{w|The Simpsons}}''): in the episode "{{W|A Star Is Burns}}", an alcoholic character wins a lifetime supply of beer, and replies "just hook it to my veins". The meme is typically applied to things that are not injected at all (such as a form of media or entertainment) to express exaggerated enthusiasm. When Cueball applies the meme to the COVID-19 vaccine, it causes some confusion, because the vaccine ''is'' delivered by injection, but not {{w|Intravenous therapy|directly into a vein}}. The medical staff delivering the vaccine have apparently heard this or similar lines frequently, and appear to take it literally, explaining that it's intended to be administered intramuscularly (usually in the upper arm). In fact, at least [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34406358/ one study] has shown that inadvertent intravenous injection of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines may induce myopericarditis, i.e., inflammation of the pericardium (tissue surrounding the heart), although [https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/covid-19-vaccines/is-it-true/is-it-true-does-injecting-into-the-bloodstream-instead-of-muscle-cause-tts-or-myocarditis this claim has been disputed].<br />
<br />
The title text references another such meme, [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money "Shut up and take my money,"] which derives from the 2010 "{{w|Attack of the Killer App}}" episode of ''{{w|Futurama}}''. This meme, like the first, expresses extreme and immediate desire for something, with the implication that the speaker is not only willing but eager to pay whatever it costs, and is too excited to wait for a sales pitch or for any warnings or disclaimers. The COVID-19 vaccine is being provided free of charge to Cueball, so taking his money is entirely unnecessary (and possibly illegal). Once again, this is a source of potential confusion because, under the American healthcare system, many people likely will have to pay at least part of the cost of vaccination. The workers administering it could easily confuse the meme for a genuine request.<br />
<br />
This was the last comic before this years [[:Category:Christmas|Christmas comic]]. It was about the Covid-19 vaccine. The last comic before the 2021 Christmas comic, [[2558: Rapid Test Results]], was about Covid-19 tests.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Close up of Cueball.]<br />
:Cueball: Yesssss<br />
:Cueball: Inject this directly into my veins<br />
<br />
:[Beat panel. Ponytail looks down at a clipboard while Cueball is looking at her.]<br />
<br />
:[Zoom out to reveal that Cueball is standing by a stool, with Ponytail in front of him with a clipboard and syringe and Hairy behind him with a box of bandages and a first-aid kit.]<br />
:Ponytail: Ok, but the vaccine is intramuscular...<br />
:Hairy: Why do people keep ''saying'' that?<br />
:Cueball: Sorry, sorry.<br />
:Cueball: Just excited.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:COVID-19]]<br />
[[Category:COVID-19 vaccine]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2893:_Sphere_Tastiness&diff=3350992893: Sphere Tastiness2024-02-15T02:33:25Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2893<br />
| date = February 12, 2024<br />
| title = Sphere Tastiness<br />
| image = sphere_tastiness_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 388x392px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = Baseballs do present a challenge to this theory, but I'm convinced we just haven't found the right seasoning.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a STRANGELY TASTY MOON MADE OF RUSSIAN PELMENI - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This comic graphs the tastiness vs. the size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}} and the {{w|Moon}}. Based on the the fact that melons and grapes are (in this context) relatively small and tasty to most people, and that planetary scale bodies are relatively large and made mostly of rocks and metals generally considered not remotely tasty, [[Randall]] postulates the existence of an intermediate body, one which is approximately 800 meters in diameter and "tastes okay".<br />
<br />
This is the second comic in a row to feature fruit, graphs and predictions (after [[2892: Banana Prices]]), and continues the theme of a logarithmic axis scale to facilitate plotting a linear regression. Here the line is interpolated between known data, rather than extrapolated beyond it. Such interpolation is quite common in scientific analysis, and is often useful, but this example clearly leads to a ludicrous conclusion. Using such ridiculous analyses to show the dangers of flawed and/or sloppy methodology is a common theme in xkcd.<br />
<br />
There are multiple ways in which this analysis is flawed, and therefore why the conclusion is unsupportable:<br />
* there are only four data points, which is insufficient to interpolate from.<br />
* these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object (fruit vs. astronomical bodies) while other subclasses are not represented at all (the title text mentions this flaw).<br />
* as tight clusters of [[2533: Slope Hypothesis Testing|similarly sourced data]], it effectively reduces the data down to two useful data points. This also makes the choice of log-median interpolation unjustified.<br />
* the 'tastiness' scale has no indication of what assessment (subjective or objective) it records. Nor does it even have graduations, making it unknown if the graph is linear-log or log-log (or otherwise), changing the implied meaning behind the choice of straight-line interpolation.<br />
* according to astronaut John Young, who visited the Moon's surface during the Apollo 16 mission, [https://phys.org/news/2006-02-mysterious-moondust.html "moondust doesn't taste half bad"]. (Although other Apollo astronauts likened its smell and taste to burnt gunpowder, so make of that what you will.)<br />
<br />
The title text points out that {{w|baseball (ball)|baseballs}} seem to refute this theory since they're not usually thought of as tasty, but they're between the sizes of grapes and melons, which would place them in the bottom left of the graph, way off the fit line. Baseballs are typically made of a combination of a rubber or cork center wrapped in yarn, and covered by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather{{Actual citation needed}}. In point of fact, there are many, many common round objects that completely fail to conform to this graph, but rather than acknowledge that this analysis is fatally flawed, Randall suggests that the problem is that we lack "the right seasonings". While seasonings can improve the taste of foods, it's implausible that the inedible components of baseballs would be rendered "tasty" with any conceivable combination of seasonings. This argument lampoons the use of "cherry picking" and motivated reasoning, in which researchers include only data points which fit their hypothesis and make up reasons to exclude those which don't. This is obviously very poor science, but less exaggerated versions are all too common in scientific studies. <br />
<br />
The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since two clusters of paired points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes. But plotting a justifiably sufficient quantity of data points on a logarithmic plot, and then drawing a line through them, is a common way to visualize an actual exponential relationship more comprehensibly. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (an intrinsically logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency of occurrence, typically resulting in a statistically significant straight line.<br />
<br />
Other fruit opinions have previously been mentioned in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], but it is unknown what the line would be like if Randall included grapefruit.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating tastiness from "Not Tasty" to "Tasty" and X axis labeled "Sphere Diameter (meters)" with a logarithmic scale running from 10<sup>-5</sup> to around 10<sup>8</sup> (with 10<sup>-3</sup>, 10<sup>0</sup>, 10<sup>3</sup> and 10<sup>6</sup> labeled).]<br />
<br />
:[The graph contains two points for "Grapes" and "Melons" at the "Tasty" end of the Y axis, between 10<sup>-2</sup> and 10<sup>-1</sup> meters, and two points for "The Earth" and "The Moon" at the "Not Tasty" end, both around 10<sup>7</sup> meters. A straight dashed line shows a linear interpolation between the points. There's a circle with a question mark about halfway between them.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
: My research suggests the existence of an 800-meter sphere that tastes okay.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Food]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]<br />
[[Category:Baseball]]</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2347:_Dependency&diff=196291Talk:2347: Dependency2020-08-21T17:15:23Z<p>162.158.159.76: Graphicsmagick</p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
I worked for the Linux Foundation on the Core Infrastructure Initiative supporting OpenSSL and other projects. The one that scared me was Expat the XML parser maintained by two people on alternate Sunday afternoons assuming no other distractions. We did get funding for a test suite. Joe Biden was a supporter of LF and CII and was going to host a fund raiser for us at the White House until a perverse result.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.222|141.101.98.222]] 22:46, 17 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Relevance of Imagemagick? ==<br />
<br />
Could someone perhaps add to the explanation an explanation of how this applies to Imagemagick (as mentioned in the title text)? —[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.174|108.162.219.174]] 22:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
:I don't use it myself, but it is a very versatile standalone utility that does a lot through command-line (batched) processing or can be accessed through actual API interface (I use GIMP tools that way, in automation, when not using it directly as a manual interface, but I understand there's a lot of love out there for IM). There's potentially untold uses for that, hidden in the background of other applications. If it disappeared or changed in just the wrong way, could perhaps half the CAPTCHA dialogues suddenly break? Could a self-driving car company find its vehicles are suddenly blind? We might suddenly have so many fewer Doge memes! (Wow! Much up-to-datedness! So topical!). <br />
: In Randall's (or his characters') world, that is. In our world, I see someone mentioned Leftpad in the Explanation, which probably needs more Explanation (or else wikilinking) but is an interesting thing that actually happened in our world, albeit not ''quite'' armagg3don for society... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.131|162.158.154.131]] 23:22, 17 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Imagemagick is the de-facto standard for Image processing. Since the 90's engineers were either adding support for new formats to ImageMagick or adding new language bindings for ImageMagick. This resulted in a single library that is available on almost every server and desktop platform and can read and write almost every image format. Using imageMagick is sometimes unwieldly. e.g. on nodeJS it actually spawns a sub-process to run imagemagick. But it is still the de-facto (and the only practical) choice in most cases.--[[User:Deepjoy|Deepjoy]] ([[User talk:Deepjoy|talk]]) 00:24, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
:: I would put emphasis on the "almost every image format" ... there are lot of alternative image libraries, but most only support handful of formats (often just jpeg, png and gif). Meanwhile, I suspect not even Gimp supports as many formats as ImageMagick ... and, of course, Gimp is not really usable as library OR for shelling-out. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
::: The massive reliance on ImageMagick was recognized in 2002 by the developers of {{w|GraphicsMagick}} who needed to guarantee a stable version of ImageMagick and created their own fork. -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.48|162.158.159.48]] 17:10, 21 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== from the late 2010s onwards? ==<br />
<br />
I'm pretty sure re-use and modularization was a thing long before then. Maybe it got more popular in the 2010s, but it's been around since at least the '70s.<br />
: The ideal of reusable code libraries has been around for nearly ever, but except for some popular Fortran statistics libraries I don't think it achieved widespread achievement until much later, e.g. CPAN. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 03:25, 18 August 2020 (UTC)p<br />
<br />
The timezone database (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database#History) has been around since 1986. libc in various forms has been around as long as C has. Reuse and modularity is a fundamental principle of software engineering, and not an invention of the last few years. I'd just remove any mention of date.<br />
: I think it's relatively recent that you can delete a file from one Web server and everything on the internet breaks. Dependencies are one thing, dependency on live updated resources is new. Because it's rather a bad idea. Incidentally overall... I think today's comic needs to be explained slower. Most people in the world are very unfamiliar with these concepts. Although coronavirus responses have taught a lot of us about "supply chains" that put stuff into shops for us to buy. Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.87|141.101.69.87]] 10:18, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: While libc in various forms has been around as long as C has, it was never SINGULAR. Every version of C compiler had it's own version of C library maintained by different people. Even now there are alternatives to GNU libc. The timezone database might be better example. Also, reuse and modularity is fundamental principle, but reusing code maintained by someone else in project with bigger staff than that of such code is relatively recent. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== This has happened before ==<br />
<br />
It may be worth mentioning a case where this actually happened, like https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/ [[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.101|141.101.97.101]] 01:03, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
: That was only a problem for those who tried to compile against network versions, instead of having a local copy. One of the dumbest and laziest things you can do as a programmer. Not to mention that you could just copy the code directly into one of your files or just writing your own routine. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 02:04, 20 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
One particularly big risk that instantly came to mind is the timezone database, which is maintained by volunteers yet underpins basically everything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database#Maintenance<br />
<br />
I remember hearing about this a few years back at a Linux Foundation conference - the NTP daemon was underfunded (as I recall) and the one person maintaining it was struggling to pay bills. Losing NTP breaks an awful lot of things.... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.167|162.158.107.167]] 19:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I see this was [https://www.infoworld.com/article/3144546/time-is-running-out-for-ntp.html problem in 2016] ... I'm not able to find any update on the situation ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 19 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: [https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/350 Nice long interview with Harlan Stenn, author/maintainer of NTP]. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 05:56, 19 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I work with a E100k robot that keeps breaking on account of [[http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/ Atomic Parsley]]. Everyone is very amused at this [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 13:32, 20 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Some random person in Nebraska ==<br />
<br />
Is the reference to a random person in Nebraska totally arbitrary, or is it a reference to someone in particular?<br />
<br />
Also, it would be good to have examples of heavily used projects with very small (especially one person) maintainer teams. OpenSSL definitely comes to mind, from what I have read. [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 01:49, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Nebraska came up in 1667, "Algorithms" as well.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.33|162.158.79.33]] 02:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
:Nebraska is... Well, I'm sure some Nebraskonians might have a more fully-fleshed out and accurate opinion of its subtleties, depth of culture(s?) and Deity-given geographic artisanship but viewed from further afield it is one of the contenders for "miles and miles of not much going on", or similar, peopled by people that largely live within that promise.<br />
:It may be just a [https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Power_Cable meme of such a generality], as a brief look at a {{w|List_of_people_from_Nebraska|list of people from Nebraska}} tends to support the hypothesis that the ones who became significant (Astair, Brando, Carson...) probably did so only once they left.<br />
:OTOH, there are (at least) four computing pioneers/developers mentioned among them, creator or authors of significant 'products', and maybe {{w|Sketchpad|one of these}} matches the (intellectual) dependency meme quite well - other than being written in Massachusetts. Or {{w|Blogger_(service)|this one}}, though that might have been LA-baked, maybe?<br />
:I learnt [[1053|some interesting things]] when investigating this issue, just now. Cheers! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.142|108.162.229.142]] 09:54, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
:I feel like Nebraska is mentioned just because ot's the.most flyover-sounding flyover state name? Or is it actually home to some well known library maintainer?<br />
<br />
== Microservices reference ==<br />
Microservices reference is not related to this comic, as ImageMagick is monolith application. Also microservices are way of operating and deploying web services, not utility apps.<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.177|162.158.103.177]] 07:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:ImageMagick is a library. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:50, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== The Thirty Million Line Problem ==<br />
See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZRE7HIO3vk The Thirty Million Line Problem]. Randall's drawing looks like a house of cards on the verge of collapse. In the video, Casey talks about how the lack of a "hardware ISA" causes critical software (like OS'es and browsers) to bloat like crazy (a "hardware ISA" would be a standard for how hardware works, just like the x86 ISA is a standard for how an x86 CPU works, that both AMD and Intel agrees on). Also, he mentions how fragile and broken software is due to this "Thirty Million Line" bloat.<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.167|162.158.107.167]] 19:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Based on [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8iyqk9/the_thirty_million_line_problem/ related discussion], that's a VERY bad video: he may have a point, but it takes VERY long time before he gets to it. I'm not going to watch it that long myself. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 19 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:This reminds me of that old joke: If carpenters built buildings the same way programmers made programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.<br />
<br />
: I thought the drawing looks more like the [[w:Jenga|Jenga]] game, except the components are not simple rectangles. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== "Famous" Left Pad Incident ==<br />
The "famous" left-pad incident in JavaScript's package manager could use some elaboration for those of us for which it isn't. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.89|162.158.107.89]] 02:42, 19 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Loadsharers ==<br />
There is an initiative by Eric Raymond targeted specifically to mitigate this problem.<br><br />
Article: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/loadsharers-funding-load-bearing-internet-person<br><br />
Website: https://esr.gitlab.io/loadsharers/ &emsp; &mdash; [[User:Smartchair|Smartchair]] ([[User talk:Smartchair|talk]]) 16:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
==NTP==<br />
The [https://www.informationweek.com/it-life/ntp-harlan-stenn-and-an-uncertain-future-readers-react/d/d-id/1319521 Network Time Protocol] is also a great example. --[[User:Slashme|Slashme]] ([[User talk:Slashme|talk]]) 21:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2347:_Dependency&diff=1962902347: Dependency2020-08-21T17:11:08Z<p>162.158.159.76: Delete. Meant to add to dicussion section only.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2347<br />
| date = August 17, 2020<br />
| title = Dependency<br />
| image = dependency.png<br />
| titletext = Someday ImageMagick will finally break for good and we'll have a long period of scrambling as we try to reassemble civilization from the rubble.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by A PROJECT [[User:Dgbrt|SOME RANDOM PERSON]] HAS BEEN THANKLESSLY MAINTAINING SINCE 2013. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
Taking code re-usability and modularization to its logical extreme has been a long-time tenet for programmers; programming began as a slow task on very memory-constrained systems, utilizing punch cards and days of delay waiting to discover a bug, such that reuse made things possible that otherwise wouldn't be. Once systems became small, fast, and able to hold a lot of data, the ability to provide higher and higher degrees of automation made reusable libraries a huge engine behind the development of technology. By outsourcing what would seem like basic functions, such as string manipulation, to other libraries, developers waste less time reinventing the wheel, so the philosophy goes, and thus many tiny packages, many of which contained only one function, became popular dependencies. This was especially true in Unix and Linux, where an entire program is commonly used for one small task, and programs exist to tie others together into powerful shell scripts. Node.js (a breed of JavaScript) and Python are two modern ecosystems providing huge stashes of centralized libraries where developers of the world can come together to stand on the shoulders of all the small useful libraries they make for each other, to make new ones that are more and more powerful, and also more and more prone to sudden new unexpected bugs somewhere in the dependency chain. JavaScript was designed to be an easy to use front end scripting language, not a basic and core backend language as users of node.js's {{w|npm (software)|NPM}} package manager have made it be. While in theory, such a system may sound good for developers who would need to write and maintain fewer lines of code, systems which are highly optimized are also highly susceptible to rapid changes. For example, the famous left-pad incident in the NPM package manager left many major and minor web services which depended on it unable to build. A disgruntled developer unpublishing 11 lines of code was able to break everybody's build, because everyone was using it. [https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/]<br />
<br />
The current model of libraries and open-source development (topics which Randall has addressed extensively in the past) relies heavily on the free and continued dedication of unpaid hobbyists. Though some major projects such as Linux may be able to garner enough attention to build an organization, many smaller projects, which are in turn reused by larger projects, may only be maintained by one person, either the founder or another who has taken the torch. Maintaining libraries requires both extensive knowledge of the library itself as well as any use cases and the broader community around it, which usually is suited for maintainers who have spent years at the task, and thus cannot be easily replaced. Thus, there are many abandoned projects on the internet as people move on to greener pastures. Far from the days of backwards compatibility, that's usually not a problem, unless a project happens to be far up the dependency chain, as illustrated, in which case there may be a crisis down the road for both the developers and the users down the chain.<br />
<br />
Technology architecture is often illustrated by a stack diagram [https://www.guru99.com/images/1/102219_1135_TCPIPvsOSIM1.png], in which higher levels of rectangles indicate components that are dependent on components in lower levels. This is analogous to a physical tower of blocks, in which higher blocks rest on lower blocks. The stack in this cartoon bears a striking resemblance to a physical block tower, suggesting the danger that the tower will lose its balance when a critical piece is removed. The concept of balance is not intended to be communicated by a stack diagram, making this a humorously absurd extension of a well-known diagram style.<br />
<br />
{{w|ImageMagick}}, mentioned in the title text, is a popular, standalone utility released in 1990 that is used for performing transformations between various graphics file formats, and various other transformations. While there are also numerous libraries and API's for performing these tasks within larger programs, ImageMagick is so popular and easy to use that many programs use its API or just find it easier to {{w|Shell (computing)#Other uses|shell out}} to ImageMagick to perform a necessary transformation. They therefore {{w|Dependency hell|depend}} on ImageMagick, and would break if ImageMagick were to disappear.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
[A tower of blocks is shown. The upper half consists of many tiny blocks balanced on top of one another to form smaller towers, labeled:]<br />
<br />
All modern digital infrastructure<br />
<br />
[The blocks rest on larger blocks lower down in the image, finally on a single large block. This is balanced on top of a set of blocks on the left, and on the right, a single tiny block placed on its side. This one is labeled:]<br />
<br />
A project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category: Programming]]</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2337:_Asterisk_Corrections&diff=195222Talk:2337: Asterisk Corrections2020-07-27T13:23:28Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
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I think the only spot of the title text quote into which "witchcraft" makes a decent sentence is to replace "next": "I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Witchcraft week is looking pretty empty" [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.161|173.245.54.161]] 01:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC) Me<br />
:I'd go with replacing "meet up". "I'd love to witchcraft, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty." [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 01:14, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:: "I'd love to meet up, witchcraft in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty." would be the third interpretation [[User:Multiverse42|Multiverse42]] ([[User talk:Multiverse42|talk]]) 01:39, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
::Or it could be "I'd love to meet up, maybe witchcraft a few days?" Munroe really loves to mess with people. [[User:A|A]] ([[User talk:A|talk]]) 01:43, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
::If it can take out a whole sentence, "I'd love to meet up in a few days. [Magic & calendar shredding sounds, first sentence replaced with witchcraft] Next week is looking pretty empty." would be a pretty satisfying way I would do it IRL. My plan canceling capabilities are absolute witchcraft [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.82|172.69.71.82]] 08:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Alternatively, witchcraft replaces maybe: "I'd love to meet up, [how about we practice] witchcraft in a few days?" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.66|162.158.75.66]] 02:06, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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A splat? I didn't know that. IME it's just the messed up word resurrected to, summon a beech, auto corrected to the same wrong word. BTW the asterisk on an obsolete keyboard looked like a squished spider, thus 'splat.'<br />
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Asterisks can replace multiple words, right? Something like "I'd like to meet up, maybe witchcraft? Next week is looking pretty empty" could work, yeah? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.135|108.162.246.135]] 04:36, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:"I'd like witchcraft? Next week is looking pretty empty." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.18|162.158.159.18]] 12:35, 25 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I have to admit, before reading the title text I was expecting him to either have a sentence with a single replacement which could go in several locations (maybe both a noun and a verb), or a followup text implying that the obvious place to put those corrections wasn't the intended one. This time I feel a little disappointed; a sentence which feels natural with the replacement in several places would have been much more satisfying than one where it's a stretch to find any suitable place. [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 10:14, 26 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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does it necessarily have to replace a word? i find "I'd love to meet up, maybe witchcraft in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty." to make more sense. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.80|172.68.174.80]] 11:30, 26 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I'd go with replacing "meet". "I'd love to witchcraft up, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty." --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.54|172.69.34.54]] 21:22, 26 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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How about including the text before the quote (this is surely cheated a bit, but it's witchcraft so..): I like witchcraft to make it as hard as possible. "I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty"<br />
Maybe someone can even figure out a version, where interpreting the quote after "witchraft", i.e. "witchcraft"", as part of the correction, could make sense. My knowledge of weird english sentence types is limited, since english is not my mother tongue. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.146|162.158.92.146]] 22:20, 26 July 2020 (UTC) WhoCaresAboutMyNameh<br />
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I have NEVER seen splat used this way before. Is it really a thing? I have always used regex (s/wrong/correct). [[User:Vampire|Vampire]] ([[User talk:Vampire|talk]]) 03:28, 27 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I usually put the asterisk after the word, rather than before. For example:<br />
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There's smoke coming out of my cat, is that bad?<br />
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car*<br />
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Is that wrong? --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 07:27, 27 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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:It seems to be centred in the more modern messaging environments. Geeks from a time before Twitter (heck, before the Web!) might have used s///-notation because it was (to them, i.e. people like me) clear, unambiguous and directly parsable by many who were using (say) Usenet. Even if they weren't coders themselves, they may have picked it up. And it was probably that little less 'snappy' and high volume. I mean, early days-of-Web wasn't exactly a competitor on those fronts, and old conventions and priorities still applied in spades, whether 'chat', IRC, a telnet/dial-up BBS or whatever.<br />
:Then came the rapid demographic changes of The Eternal September, and social-messaging revolutions zooming through Web 2.0 and (what I call, but I don't think is 'official') Web 3.0 which basically dumped the masses into the scene of the day and had more time to think up their new way of working than adopting or adapting holdovers from the now minority/archaic lines of communication (I still use [''#''] for feetnete, a lot; luckily it seems understandable enough, still).<br />
:For what it's worth, I understand the asterisk to be footnote-like. You can't actually edit in the referer at the typo/thinko (if you could, you would just correct it!) but there's an implicit one there after the eroor* you make. Which is supposed to be obvious at the time or, at least, when subsequently your attention is called to it.<br />
:So the follow-up opportunity notes a back-referenced correction of the *error, simply and sharply. If maybe not as unambiguously as you might imagine, but that's how it rolls in today's world, daddy-o! You grok my jive, good buddy? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.96|141.101.98.96]] 08:24, 27 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:Linguists use an asterisk before something made up or erroneous that's being used as an example so, as a Linguistics graduate, I always saw the "*what I really meant" construction as a sort of progression on from this...but it occurs actually that a) really that's the opposite of how linguists use it and b) most people don't know that linguists do that anyway. So it shouldn't have made any sense to me. But it did.<br />
:So it seems that inasmuch as I immediately grasped what it signified despite all that, somehow it must be fundamentally embedded with very powerful levels of meaning! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.131|162.158.154.131]] 13:15, 27 July 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:806:_Tech_Support&diff=194873Talk:806: Tech Support2020-07-20T18:22:50Z<p>162.158.159.76: fix link</p>
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<div>Actually, a shibboleth's meaning is more complex. It's actually a phrase or principle that distinguishes a group of people and can be used to identify people foreign to said group. For example, in WWII, words with lots of L's were used as a shibboleth to identify Japanese spies, as many Japanese pronounce their L's as R's. [[Special:Contributions/67.85.230.8|67.85.230.8]] 04:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)Liz<br />
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As such, the term has been modernized to have the meaning of "password". [[Special:Contributions/194.106.220.85|194.106.220.85]] 13:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
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The "bearded dude with swords" is probably Richard Stallman. See 225 and 344. [[Special:Contributions/84.137.219.112|84.137.219.112]] 22:39, 5 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
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This comic perfectly illustrates why I prefer nightmares over dreams in which things are better than in real life. Truthfully!{{unsigned|108.28.72.186}}<br />
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There is a company in UK that has XKCD/806 comppliance: http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/10/xkcd806-compliance.html [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.41|108.162.219.41]] 18:33, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
The ravk link is broken. It can now be found at https://www.revk.uk/2010/10/xkcd806-compliance.html<br />
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Cueball asking if anyone has a subway map in their cubicle is likely a reference to Subways (http://xkcd.com/1196/) which is clever cross-marketing as the Subways poster is available for purchase (http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/subways). [[User:Lakeside|Lakeside]] ([[User talk:Lakeside|talk]]) 16:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Oh, Randall planned in 2010 a reference to a former (oh, future) comic from 2013? It's BS, I'm sorry. Please do more advertisements for Randall, he uses this shop for his own income and all the payment he has to do for the xkcd web site!.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think the "bearded dude with swords" = Stallman is a huge stretch. It makes much more sense, and is the simpler of the two explanations, that she would simply be a fantasy fan and have a poster of someone from say LOTR or a sword-and-sorcery book/film/game. [[User:AmbroseChapel|AmbroseChapel]] ([[User talk:AmbroseChapel|talk]]) 06:43, 15 September 2017 (UTC)<br />
:You can think that and be entirely wrong. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.94.124|172.68.94.124]] 16:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)<br />
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Interestingly, I just used 'shibboleet' as a shibboleth to identify friends who do not read xkcd. Better unfriend them. Just kidding. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.186.4|172.69.186.4]] 12:10, 17 August 2019 (UTC)<br />
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So I’m guessing this has been taken out in the clean up (which I’m sad about, there were some extremely funny dogmatic opinions expressed) - changing “leth” to “leet” was discussed? It’s a reference in the strip that amused me, but no comment on it here. [[User:Rereading xkcd|Rereading xkcd]] ([[User talk:Rereading xkcd|talk]]) 23:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2334:_Slide_Trombone&diff=194867Talk:2334: Slide Trombone2020-07-20T15:23:29Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
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I can't find any source saying that the CPS 2000 was discontinued ''because it was too powerful''. There's plenty of reasons why products get discontinued, and this product had various points of criticism apparently. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 21:09, 17 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
: It's not verified but it appears likely. The nozzle of the CPS 2000 was 2.5x larger than advertised on the box and had a prominent safety warning affixed to it. It shot water with higher pressures than ever before. There was a hullabaloo around somebody losing an eye from it; there's no proof this happened but such hullabaloos are still bad for business. The model was discontinued and no water gun with comparable power has ever been mass produced for consumers since. It's notable that you can shoot water with as much pressure as you want to the point of cutting metal from a distance (see water cutter, found in well funded makerspaces as an improvement from the laser cutter, plasma cutter, cnc machine) and the metal of a brass instrument could be made to hold higher pressure than plastic. CPS 2000 information from https://nerfpedialegacy.fandom.com/wiki/CPS_2000 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.192|108.162.219.192]] 23:58, 17 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
::Industrial water cutters use an abrasive (often garnet), as it is hard cut a material with something softer than that material. The water isn't doing the cutting, it is just there to provide pressure. In theory a high enough pressure pure water jet would cut metal, but it probably wouldn't be clean. To quote Randall, imagine throwing a ripe tomato into a cake. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 05:05, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:::For clarity, these cutting machines usually referred to as {{w|waterjet cutters}} (or "waterjets"), rather than "water cutters." [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 12:59, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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::There are actually two versions of the CPS 2000, and although it is true the original version is the most powerful retail super soaker, the mk2 version was only slightly less powerful. Several water guns were released 1996-2000 with comparable power. Take the CPS 2500 - it was released 2 years later in 1998 with the same pressure chamber as the mk2 CPS 2000, while adding a nozzle selector. It is my personal belief that Laramie (the company behind Super Soakers) actually shortened the pressure chamber in the mk2 to make it more reliable, not to make it safer. The mk1 longer bladder chamber (and associated higher pressure) can cause the firing valve to get stuck closed by the high pressure behind it, causing trouble as either the trigger broke or users over-pressurized and burst the bladder. Could be wrong, but you can only work with so much pressure using plastic parts. In any case, my source on the question of comparable power http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/soaker_listing.php has a list of all known water guns sortable by their output, range, power, reservoir size, etc.; sscentral.com has really in depth information on the physics of water guns, including a list of water gun related patents (http://www.sscentral.org/patents/ [https://patents.google.com/patent/US5799827 this] one is I think the one that most closely resembles the technology and design of a CPS 2000, Figure 4-6 diagram the pressure bladder, Figure 7-9 the other mechanisms of the gun). Hopefully these provide enough information as to how these water guns work. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.23.7|172.69.23.7]] 06:15, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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:: From Wikipedia (citing [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/1996/super_soaker_cps2000.php this page]): "The CPS 2000 has been criticized for its low field life (how long it can last between refills) depleting its pressure chamber in only 1 second and only being able to fire 4 or 5 such shots before needing to be refilled, and the large number of pumps that it takes to fully pressurize (20-24 depending on version)."<br />
:: I'm no expert when it comes to water guns, but shooting for just 1 second, with 20 pumps (!) required in between, does not sound fun. Maybe it was discontinued because they came up with more fun models?<br />
:: --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 15:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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::Good point, I'm trying to imagine kids really getting a kick out of pumping for 10 seconds, firing once, and having to pump again. Not fun. Combine that, reliability issues, and all around better models (from your link, iSoaker.com, lists lots of guns with better overall ratings), and I don't see the CPS 2000 lasting long in the marketplace. Plus it probably cost more, being bigger, which probably didn't help sales. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.170|172.68.141.170]] 16:14, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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This should come standard with all spit valves. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.192|108.162.219.192]] 21:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Maybe I'm too knowledgeable about musical instruments, but this doesn't seem funny even as a satire. And there are lots of musician jokes about trombonists. [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 23:34, 17 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Randal probably doesn't play these instruments. I don't either and don't yet understand why the joke is painful to you. It would be good for us to learn to respect musicians like you better. Is it because it's disrespectful of an expensive loved instrument that requires great dedication to own? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.192|108.162.219.192]] 23:58, 17 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:: No, we are good at disrespecting each other. It's just that the proposed "pump action" is nothing like how a 'bone works, or could work. Maybe I'm just being too picky[[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 11:57, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
::: Seems to me that in this comic a super soaker was embedded within the trombone. Not at all related to the normal operation of a trombone, and not intended to be. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 15:10, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
::: I think Randall just felt that the way a trombone slide goes back and forth reminded him the way a Super Soaker is pumped. It's just a silly joke, not intended as a serious comment on how trombones are operated. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:08, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
::: I'm not a trombone player. I googled trombones and learned the trombone in the comic is being held wrongly, kinda upside down and like a water gun rather than an instrument, with the mouth piece very distant from the user's mouth. I play piano myself and don't usually see pianos disrespected, but they are very intricate machines involving great skill to make. It's notable a water gun is a much simpler machine than a trombone, which needs each part to be the perfect dimensions to make tuned notes. It looks like turning a trombone into a supersoaker might require hiding a reservoir in the flare, rigging the mouth piece with a one-way valve to collect air when "pumped", closing all the other valves and rigging a way to open the reservoir as a trigger. You would likely need to remove the reservoir to play the trombone again, and it may be a damaged from the pressure and airtight seal around the reservoir. Brass may also corrode from water. I'm wondering if it's exciting to see a trombone and then shocking and frustrating to immediately see it used so impossibly without any actual trombone experience demonstrated in the comic but I can't know. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.8|108.162.219.8]] 18:25, 18 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
I do play trombone and am impressed at that instrument is so accurately represented. A 'Trigger' on a trombone refers to the a valve, typically on an extra length of tubes called an F-attachment. this was both drawn correctly and used with good effect. [[User:Essaunders|Essaunders]] ([[User talk:Essaunders|talk]]) 11:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Bagpipes. That's what I'm thinking next. Like [https://mobile.twitter.com/007/status/1066375901238181890 this] or [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OqgFY6ZhOfQ this] (possibly <!-- I've just started to get Certificate Errors on this connection, so linking it 'blind', will have to load it later to check it is as promised, from the /better/ Casino Royale film-->), but wetter. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 15:23, 20 July 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2333:_COVID_Risk_Chart&diff=1947232333: COVID Risk Chart2020-07-16T10:43:51Z<p>162.158.159.76: /* Explanation */</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2333<br />
| date = July 15, 2020<br />
| title = COVID Risk Chart<br />
| image = covid_risk_chart.png<br />
| titletext = First prize is a free ticket to the kissing booth.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by THE WINNER OF A TEST-TUBE EATING CONTEST. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic is a graph showing the risk of COVID-19 infection of numerous activities on the horizontal axis, while showing the other (ie. safety) risks of the activity on the vertical axis. The activities are also color coded green, yellow, orange, or red, presumably indicating whether engaging in them is a good idea. All the activities are green in the upper left corner (no COVID-19 danger and no other dangers), but change to yellow, orange, and red as you go right or down. This presentation and color progression is similar to a common presentation of a {{w|risk matrix}}.<br />
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The top of the graph contains activities that people are likely to engage in during the pandemic, beginning (from left to right) with staying at home, hanging out with friends at the park, grocery shopping, attending in-person classes, and singing in church. The first few activities are common and not very dangerous (colored green and yellow), but the last two come with significant risks of infection due to COVID-19 (they are colored orange and red). Lower on the graph the activities become more and more dangerous (though these dangers are not related to COVID-19, i.e.: they are non-covid risks) and then non-sensical, a trend often seen in XKCD comics. Some activities are grouped together, being variations of the same thing (such as going down a waterslide, going down a waterslide with a stranger, and going down a waterside on an electric scooter).The last row contains extremely dangerous activities such as (from left to right, or from low COVID-19 danger to high) bungee jumping while doing sword tricks, going down a waterslide on an electric scooter, (participating in an) axe catching contest, racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask over your eyes, and winning a test-tube-eating contest at a COVID testing lab. All these activities are likely to result in undesirable outcomes.<br />
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Part of the humor comes from the increasing ridiculousness of the "red" activities, some of which are unlikely combinations or escalations of other less-risky activities (e.g. renting an electric scooter is a "green" activity, but riding that scooter with a stranger carries more risk, and then still more from racing that scooter through a hospital, with or without a mask).<br />
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This comic strip is similar in presentation to [[2282: Coronavirus Worries]].<br />
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The '''title text''' suggests a ticket to "the" kissing booth as a prize. (Presumably, the kissing booth mentioned in the comic, "a kissing booth at a COVID testing site"). A kissing booth, is a kind of sideshow sometimes seen at carnivals, where members of the public can pay a small fee to kiss someone, usually an attractive woman. Winning a ticket would normally be positively received. However, since kissing is a very high risk activity for COVID-19 transmission, it would now be perceived as a kind of punishment.<br />
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=== Green (low risk) ===<br />
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The lowest-risk category of activities has very low COVID risk and also very low non-COVID risk.<br />
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;Staying home<br />
:The lowest-risk activity of all, as long as the home itself is safe, and your family members do not have COVID-19.<br />
;Video chats<br />
:Video chatting carries a slightly higher non-COVID risk than simply staying at home, because you might get into an upsetting argument or accidentally expose something embarrassing. As long as the person you're chatting with is not within your personal space, the risk of catching COVID from them is still zero.<br />
;Hanging out with friends in the park<br />
:Physically interacting with others creates an increased risk COVID transmission, but the major risk of transmission seems to come from sharing enclosed spaces, not the outdoors, and as long as everyone keeps to themselves, they can still safely enjoy the social interaction (as long as [[2330: Acceptable Risk|they aren't prone to overthinking everyday decisions]]).<br />
;Going for walks<br />
:Going for walks carries very little COVID risk as long as you stay by yourself. It is slightly more dangerous than staying home though, as you might fall or hurt yourself in some way.<br />
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;Hanging out with friends on the beach<br />
:This has a similar COVID risk as hanging out with friends in the park, but has slightly more safety concerns due to possible unpleasant encounters with crabs, jellyfish, and other ocean-going animals<sup>[cetacean needed]</sup> as well as the risks posed by extended UV exposure. There are also negligible risks of tsunamis, shark attacks, and encounters with other rare and deadly animals<sup>[cetacean needed]</sup>.<br />
;Riding an electric scooter<br />
:Electric scooters are scooters powered by electricity. They have increased in popularity recently, representing a form of lightweight transportation. If done by one’s self, riding one has essentially no risk of coronavirus, but it is relatively easy to injure one’s self when riding an electric scooter. Electric scooters have already been mentioned in [[E Scooters]].<br />
;Renting an electric scooter<br />
:This has a slightly higher COVID risk than riding your own scooter, as a previous renter could have left traces of the virus on the handle bars. In terms of general safety, it is the equivalent of riding your own scooter.<br />
;Going down a waterslide <br />
Waterslides are common attractions at water parks. They are simply slides made faster by running water down them. They are not extremely dangerous, though it is definitely possible to injure yourself on one. The COVID risk is near zero if the slide belongs to you and you are using it by yourself.<br />
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=== Yellow (medium risk) ===<br />
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;Grocery shopping<br />
:Going shopping for groceries involves entering a building in which others are present, including many workers who are present for hours-long shifts. The risk of catching COVID can be reduced by wearing face masks, barriers between staff areas and customer areas, and limiting customer densities.<br />
;Grocery shopping while hungry<br />
:Shopping for groceries ''while hungry'' does not carry any greater risk of catching COVID, but it is said to have a slightly increased non-COVID risk because people who go shopping while hungry tend to buy foods that are more expensive and less healthy. (Be advised that a study that popularized this "common sense" result [https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/jama-network-retracts-6-articles-that-included-dr-brian-wansink-as-author/ has been retracted] due to academic misconduct by its author, {{w|Brian Wansink}}.)<br />
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;Grocery shoplifting<br />
:Shoplifting means stealing, so this activity is stealing groceries. It would expose you to the same amount of COVID risk as regular grocery shopping, but might get you hurt by falling and crashing into stands, and might get you arrested. While this activity is not very risky and is colored yellow, it is probably not a good idea.<br />
;Riding a single rental scooter with a stranger<br />
:This is a bad idea, as most rental scooters are designed for only one person. It would also expose you to a stranger, who might have COVID. The safety concern of riding with two people on a one person scooter is not reflected in the comic.<br />
;Going down a waterslide with a stranger<br />
:This carries the same risks as going down a waterslide by yourself (as long as the waterslide is designed for two people), but exposes you to a stranger who could have COVID.<br />
;Getting in a stranger’s car<br />
:This can potentially be risky because driving is dangerous, and because murders have occurred in the past when people hitchhike. Getting into a stranger’s car would also expose you COVID, if they are carrying the virus. A car is a confined space, which is generally considered particularly bad from a COVID perspective.<br />
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=== Red (high risk) ===<br />
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;Singing in church<br />
:While singing is normally harmless, doing so in a church, which is a high-traffic and fairly contaminated place during COVID-19 (making it easier to be infected) will significantly expose the singer to COVID due to an increased breathing rate. In addition, when singing in a church, one often dooes it in a group with others during church sessions without masks, so this increases the risk further as multiple people are in close proximity without protection.<br />
;Going to a restaurant<br />
:Restaurants are also high-traffic and more contaminated (of COVID-19) areas, and also contain many people in a closed space which can also be small. Also, arguments and other fights could occur in a restaurant which adds to the non-COVID risk.<br />
;Going to a bar<br />
:Similarly to restaurants, bars are also a place where COVID-19 spreads often. However, since the customers are more likely to be drunk and to get into a fight, the non-COVID risk is increased.<br />
;Going to a party / Hosting a party<br />
:Parties involve participating in activities with (often many) others. Whether hosting a party or attending one, the risk of contracting COVID is similar, as are the non-COVID risks, since in both cases you're in the same room with others and also participating in the same (potentially dangerous) activities. The COVID risks are slightly higher for the host, as they are more likely to be touching objects or surfaces on which the virus is present as they tidy up during or after the party.<br />
;Going on a cruise<br />
:Cruises have been a site where many people have contracted COVID, leading to the high COVID-related risk. However, there are other risks assiciated with cruises that are non-COVID related, such as the risk of the ship sinking, or one falling overboard, etc.<br />
;Opening a kissing booth at a COVID testing site<br />
:This is a bad idea for COVID-related risks since many people who may not have been tested yet and are likely sick (since they are being tested, they are likely exhibiting COVID-related symptoms) will use it. Kissing is one of the easier ways to transfer COVID due to the proximity of people, and other diseases could be transferred as well. Opening a booth close to a testing site could also lead to a lot of controversy, adding to the non-COVID related risk.<br />
;Doing skateboard tricks in a bar<br />
:As mentioned before, bars are places where it is much more likely to contract COVID. Doing skateboard tricks in such a confined space also leads to a very large risk of injury.<br />
;Skateboarding in a mosh pit on a cruise ship<br />
:Mosh pits are often very densely crowded with people, so the risk of transmission is huge. Also, doing skateboard tricks with so many people means one could get trampled, knocked over, run into other people and/or things, etc.<br />
;Getting a COVID test from a stranger at a crowded bar<br />
:As mentioned before, bars greatly increase the risk of contracting COVID, and getting a test from a stranger means the test itself carries many non-COVID related risks coming from a malicious or incompetent stranger (such as poisoning from having the wrong materials in the syringe).<br />
;Bungee jumping while doing sword tricks<br />
:While bungee jumping is an activity that is often not performed in a crowded area, meaning that it is difficult to contract COVID while doing so, the act of bungee jumping while doing sword tricks could lead to a host of injuries.<br />
;Going down a waterslide on an electric scooter<br />
:As mentioned before, if the waterslide is not used by many people, it is not likely to contract COVID riding it. However, since waterslides contain water and electric scooters contain batteries (they don't mix well, safety-wise) many injuries may result.<br />
;Setting off fireworks in a stranger's car<br />
:A car is a confined space, and so the risk of contracting COVID is higher. Setting off fireworks in cars also could (will) cause many injuries to everyone in the car, and more injuries from the driver and/or other angry passengers.<br />
;Axe catching contest<br />
:The proximity to others during a contest means a higher risk of contracting COVID. As for the axe catching part, it is likely to get injuries form attempting to catch (presumably) flying axes, especially when the catcher is inexperienced.<br />
;Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask over your eyes<br />
:A hospital is a place where COVID patients are often concentrated, meaning a higher risk of contracting the disease. Riding a scooter while effectively blindfolded in an area that has many obstructions like a hospital can lead to many injuries.<br />
;Winning a test-tube-eating contest at a COVID testing lab<br />
:Eating many test tubes which potentially contain samples containing COVID will almost definitely lead to one contracting the disease, and eating glass will lead to many internal injuries.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[This comic is a graph plotting the safety risk of activities on the vertical axis and the risk of infection from COVID-19 on the horizontal axis. Lowest risks are in the upper left corner, and highest in the lower right. All activities are color coded green, yellow, orange, or red. A two way arrow labeled “non-COVID risk” points up and down to "high" and "low" labels on the left side of the graph. Another two way arrow labeled “COVID risk” points left and right to "high" and "low" labels on the top of the graph.<br />
From left to right and top to bottom:]<br />
:<span style="background:#acd8a8>Staying home</span> & <span style="background:#acd8a8>Video chats</span>, <span style="background:#acd8a8>Hanging out with friends at the park</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Grocery shopping</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Attending in-person classes</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Singing in church</span><br />
:<span style="background:#acd8a8>Going for walks</span>, <span style="background:#acd8a8>Hanging out with friends on the beach</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Grocery shopping while hungry</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Attending online classes while in class at a different school</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Going to a restaurant</span><br />
:<span style="background:#acd8a8>Riding an electric scooter</span>, <span style="background:#acd8a8>Renting an electric scooter</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Grocery shoplifting</span> & <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Riding a single rental scooter with a stranger</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Getting a dental cleaning</span> & <span style="background:#edbba3>Going on a tinder date</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Going to a bar</span> & <span style="background:#f58e8e>Going to a party</span> & <span style="background:#f58e8e>Hosting a party</span> & <span style="background:#f58e8e>Going on a cruise</span><br />
:<span style="background:#acd8a8>Going down a waterslide</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Going down a waterslide with a stranger</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Getting in a stranger’s car</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Getting a dental cleaning from a tinder date</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Opening a kissing booth at a COVID testing site</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f9dfa4>Playing lawn darts</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Climbing a waterslide with a stranger</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Getting in a stranger’s car uninvited</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Doing skateboard tricks in a hospital</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Doing skateboard tricks in a bar</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f9dfa4>Doing skateboard tricks</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Riding a conveyor belt through the TSA x-ray machine</span>, <span style="background:#f9dfa4>Axe throwing contest</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask on</span> & <span style="background:#edbba3>Racing a scooter through a hospital without a mask</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Skateboarding into a mosh pit on a cruise ship</span> & <span style="background:#f58e8e>Getting a COVID test from a stranger at a crowded bar</span><br />
:<span style="background:#edbba3>Setting off fireworks in your car</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Running and sliding headfirst into the pins at a bowling alley</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Stealing a stranger’s car</span>, <span style="background:#edbba3>Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask on</span> & <span style="background:#edbba3>Racing a scooter through a hospital without a mask</span> [extends from previous row], <span style="background:#f58e8e>Skateboarding into a mosh pit on a cruise ship</span> & <span style="background:#f58e8e>Getting a COVID test from a stranger at a crowded bar</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f58e8e>Bungee jumping while doing sword tricks</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Going down a waterslide on an electric scooter</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Setting off fireworks in a stranger’s car</span> & <span style="background:#f58e8e>Axe catching contest</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Racing a scooter through a hospital with a mask over your eyes</span>, <span style="background:#f58e8e>Winning a test-tube-eating contest at a COVID testing lab</span><br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
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[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:COVID-19]]</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2331:_Hamster_Ball_2&diff=194556Talk:2331: Hamster Ball 22020-07-10T23:53:51Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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Whoa. {{w|Hamster ball}}s are more popular than I though ... also, surprisingly, not recommended for guinea pigs. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:24, 10 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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{{w|The_Avengers_(1998_film)|The Avengers}} (not {{w|The_Avengers_(2012_film)|''those'' Avengers}}, though, that I know) used Human Hamster-Balls to cross a lake. Trying to google-fu a clip of it while excluding the other upstarts from a search has so far been impossible, though. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 23:53, 10 July 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2329:_Universal_Rating_Scale&diff=194421Talk:2329: Universal Rating Scale2020-07-07T20:43:01Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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There are several things that UNC might stand for, but to me none of them suggests a rating scale. Open to suggestions, of course. [[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 00:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
: I think the most likely candidate from {{w|UNC|w:UNC}} is the numismatic code for an {{w|uncirculated coin}}. —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 00:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Unified National Coarse is the name of a scale (not a rating on it) for thread sizes (for screws, nuts, bolts, etc.)[[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.187|172.69.68.187]] 02:12, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I don’t think A/AA/AAA are battery sizes, but rather [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating credit rating]. That is also consistent with their positions in the upper half of the scale.--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.235.142|172.69.235.142]] 00:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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A+ reminded me of {{w|European Union energy label}} ratings - but it is also in the credit rating list -- [[User:Bmwiedemann|Bmwiedemann]] ([[User talk:Bmwiedemann|talk]]) 01:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Does anyone know what "S" is a rating for? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.206|172.69.34.206]] 01:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Satisfactory, top marks on USA elementary school report cards (or at least it was in the 1980s) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.124|162.158.63.124]] 02:40, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I think the faces are supposed to correspond to a face-based pain scale, which is supported by the fact that they occur at similar places to the pain scale and that the frowny face looks more like the frowny face from one of these charts than any traditional sad face emoji. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.250.44|172.69.250.44]] 02:45, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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This listed F as standing for Fine under the coin grading scale. However, the coin grading scale runs from 0-70, and ordered Poor (P, or About Good, AG, depending on personal preference), Good (G), Very Good (VG), Fine (F), Very Fine (VF), Etremely Fine (XF), About Uncirculated (AU), and Uncirculated (UNC or MS, for Mint State, depending on personal preference). Because Fine is better than Good and Very Good on the coin grading scale, but F is worse than G and VG on Randall's Universal Rating Scale, F probably refers to the letter grade for schoolwork, rather than the coin grade of Fine, so I removed F from the coin grade section. The G might also stand for a movie rating, but whether it is a movie rating or a coin grade, it's position would remain the same, so it's a moot point which it is. [[User:NErDysprosium|NErDysprosium]] ([[User talk:NErDysprosium|talk]]) 05:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I know some video games and fantasy stories contain things that have a letter rating, typically starting a few letters into the alphabet and increasing as it gets closer to A, often with an S above that, but sometimes another rating above S labeled "EX" for "extra". These scales sometimes have additional ratings with a + or - attached, or increasing by repeating the letter 2 or 3 times in a row before going up to the next letter. Thus the same system might have both "AAA" and "S", but normally unlike this chart the S would be higher. In some cases it might end up topping out with something like "SSS+". This sort of thing is particularly common in stories originating in Japan which involve some sort of other world that contain some sort of features similar to a video game with some sort of "Adventurer's Guild" which would often have such a system. In particular there are quite a lot of Japanese novels that are like this, many of which containing strange or unique twists on otherwise common formulaic settings. Some of these both have official English translations or were later adapted into manga or anime, or oddly enough in quite a few cases were a self published thing posted online as a hobbyist before later being picked up by a publisher and being somewhat changed and re-written as a proper book. Many also have people making and posting online fan translations of them.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.35|162.158.74.35]] 06:40, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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9 was possibly omitted, because 7 8 9 (seven ate nine) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.11|162.158.111.11]] 08:11, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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: I'd say you are making up your own jokes - however - :-) Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.71|162.158.154.71]] 14:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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: neglected again https://xkcd.com/1103/ [[User:Norgaladir|Norgaladir]] ([[User talk:Norgaladir|talk]]) 16:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Some comics seems like Randall makes them purely for this website, or in general to make people guess what each of the things mean. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 09:27, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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When I saw "Category 5" I thought he meant {{w|Category_5_cable}}... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.105|162.158.158.105]] 15:46, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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The explanation had A+ listed as a credit rating, but it's in the wrong spot to be the A+ credit rating, and likely refers to the A+ grade instead. Should I remove it from the credit rating section? Credit scores aren't exactly my area of expertise, unlike coins. [[User:NErDysprosium|NErDysprosium]] ([[User talk:NErDysprosium|talk]]) 16:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Can someone please explain what the "curve" in the title text is? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.211|141.101.69.211]] 17:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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: That's how in some school courses they "grade on a curve" where if no one can get a perfect score on a test, they change the score so the highest existing score is changed to 100, and all the other people who took the test also have the same amount added to their score (or at least that's the way I'm most familiar with, it might be possible to do so with a somewhat different method). Thus they can have an unreasonably difficult test without causing abnormally low scores that will cause tons of students to get failing grades.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.134|162.158.75.134]] 17:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I rate this comic perfect 5/7. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.159|141.101.69.159]] 19:08, 7 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I thought that the F was a reference to "pay respects", indicating embarrassing failure</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2274:_Stargazing_3&diff=194209Talk:2274: Stargazing 32020-07-02T15:59:56Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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I think the "you can't turn them off by throwing rocks at them like the old ones" is a reference to a reddit comment in a thread about older generations refusing to learn new technology, or something to that extent. One comment detailed a humorous story wherein they had been helping a village install electricity/light bulbs, and this grandmother of the household kept shattering all the bulbs by throwing rocks at them to turn them off, refusing to learn how to use them correctly. I'm trying to search for this, but no luck so far. If this was not a reference to that thread but merely a coincidence, my apologies for making you read all of this. [[User:Wigglebeans|Wigglebeans]] ([[User talk:Wigglebeans|talk]]) 20:55, 28 February 2020 (UTC)wigglebeans<br />
: I remember that comment as well. I feel like it was in ask reddit, but I can't seem to find it either. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.128|172.68.174.128]] 23:15, 28 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
::ExplainXKCD is the strangest, most extreme example of absurd apophenia, with people regularly picking out some overly specific and unlikely parallel from their own person experience, and claiming that's the clear origin of a given comic. « [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 21:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Can someone make a category for the Stargazing series? [[1644: Stargazing]], [[2017: Stargazing 2]], and this one. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.238|172.69.34.238]] 23:29, 28 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:Oh, nevermind, it already exists: [[:Category:Stargazing]] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.238|172.69.34.238]] 23:31, 28 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Actually, "no new stars being created" is not just not obvious, it would need grant, research and citation. I mean, sure, actually new star (and not just star which started to be more luminous like nova) don't appear that often, and one visible by naked eye even less so, but it still CAN happen - and can easily be overlooked. The estimate is that [https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/milkyway_seven.html seven new stars are formed in our galaxy every year]. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:36, 28 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Astronomy crossbows are real things. They are used to measure the angular distance between stars. Here's a fancy one (used) for sale for $700, [https://astromart.com/classifieds/astromart-classifieds/misc-other-astronomy/show/crossbow-eqt-200-equatorial-platform] and here is a simple one that is simply a yardstick pulled back into a curve and stuck on the end of a stick [http://sonic.net/~rknop/php/astronomy/classes/a103/sum2006/info/angdist.shtml]. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 23:51, 28 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I've got one of those expensive crossbows from Gregg Blandin. It's an equatorial platform that allows a simple dobsonian telescope to track the stars. It has nothing to do with measuring angular distances. So I changed the link to the astronomy course that uses the simple type to measure angular distances. [[User:Johnrb|Johnrb]] ([[User talk:Johnrb|talk]]) 04:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I wonder if the title text is a Shrek reference? It follows the same basic structure of the [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/some-of-you-may-die some of you may die meme]. [[User:Moosenonny10|Moosenonny10]] ([[User talk:Moosenonny10|talk]]) 14:39, 29 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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At the moment (or at least over the last several nights, right now the biggest illumination in the sky for me is the overcast but daylight sky itself) the most obviously brightest 'star' in the sky is Venus, fairly close to the (even more bright, far less apparently star-like) crescent Moon. As our guide to the stars does not mention Venus, this does not in any way invalidate the brightness statement; even without taking true-stellarity of a "Fool's Star" into account. And, for all we know the presentation is being given at a local time when Moon+Venus are not visible above the horizon anyway. But worth noting, perhaps. As is that neither rocks nor crossbow are likely going to be trivially useful in extinguishing daylight, moonlight or Venus (nb: these three not necessaily listed in order of difficulty, in the event you wish to try to!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.222|162.158.34.222]] 17:25, 29 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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The title text is not saying that new comers would be created; I believe that's an inference someone made. It just discussed the risk of SEEING more comets. [[User:Momerath|Momerath]] ([[User talk:Momerath|talk]]) 11:44, 1 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:I think it's a probable inference, though. Reverse-Astrology: What happens on Earth changes the progresson of the heavens. Well, apart from yelling - and so far there's no indication that it either discourages them ''nor'' attracts them, though every time you see a new one you have to wonder if they've come to see what the fuss is all about... <br />
::Reverse Astrology would be made easy with a Nicoll-Dyson beam and a few mirrors. Just move the stars / planets into the correct position... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.132|162.158.106.132]] 19:04, 2 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 17:33, 1 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:(Additional: It is of course well known that yelling at the winter-solstice Sun is a reliable way of making sure it gets over its disinclination and starts rising higher again for the next part of the year. Hasn't failed yet! (And wouldn't be necessary to repeat if it weren't for Aussie yellers, I'm sure.) I didn't actually yell at the eclipsing Sun the handful of times I've seen that happening, but I've seen on TV that others did it for me (fortunately), just as I'll gladly help you out at midwinter.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 17:44, 1 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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The joke appears to be someone confusing seeing more comets (which already exist) with believing more comets exist now because they can see them. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.124|172.68.38.124]] 17:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)wigglebeans<br />
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"They're too blue" line needs to be properly explained. From looking at Wikipedia, many LEDs are blue, and blue light affects light pollution higher than the warmer colors, for essentially the same reasons that the sky itself is blue (blue light scatters easily by the atmosphere). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.244.234|172.68.244.234]] 14:18, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:It's not just the disserpation of the blue light, that makes for worse lights than some traditional street-lighting. "White" LEDs are either Red+Green(/YellowGreen)+Blue (made possible since the development of a bright-enough Blue LED to make this easy enough) that when all displayed come through our visual system as high-temperature whiteness, ''or'' they are monochromatic (maybe blue, maybe UV) but housed upon a phosphor (the often-yellow sliver(s), larger than than the obvious electronic elements, that can be seen when examining an inactived unit).<br />
:The trichromatic method (useful in 'tunable' lights, that can be cycled through hues) has sharp spikes of colour, so some optical astronomy that is interested in spectral areas outside of those bands might still be conducted by filtering the annoyance. The smeared-spectrum of the phosphorised light (when you don't care about anything other than the white light being on or off) is more of a problem.<br />
:And also LED streetlights tend to be perceptually (if not actually) brighter than their pre-LED versions. They're often made to shine downwards into a smaller footprint(though this concentration and contrast creates noticably darker areas between the bright focii of the row of lamps, in my experience) but of course the lit ground/etc then 'shines' upwards again.<br />
:About the best you can say is that they aren't actually primarily aimed upwards and outwards like your average Batsignal/Luxor searchlight, but it seems to me that any hint of cloud over/near a modern city is now even more awkward when it comes to searching for stars than it was when it only precipitated an amber glow through which a given degree of stellar pinprickery could still sometimes be observed. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 20:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
The description states that Megan is a TV host, which is clearly incorrect. She is hosting a physical meeting of stargazers. TV hosts do not have their audience standing around them, cannot hand out crossbows to their audience and cannot physically accompany their audience to attack light pollution sources. Nowhere in the comic does it suggest that we are seeing a TV production. Megan is not welding a microphone. Another thing: there is no suggestion that Megan thinks there will be more comets if there is less light pollution, and suggestions that the creation of comets is implied, make no sense. What is said, and so what most likely is intended, is only that more will be seen, and that is bad because comets are annoying distractions that are not stars. 15:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2327:_Oily_House_Index&diff=194198Talk:2327: Oily House Index2020-07-02T09:31:59Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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Dangit Randall, this was my retirement plan & now everybody's gonna want to try it! <br />
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 00:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Negative Equity (owing more than the house is worth) ''shouldn't'' be an immediate problem under most circumstances. If the householder isn't actually wanting to move and can still afford the asked-for repayments then it doesn't change the physical situation at all. The bank has no problems so long as the household has no problems, as they ride over (temporary) pricing crashes and emerge the other side. It's when banks get nervous that the home'owners' ''might'' default and thus put pressures on them (e.g. 'negotiating' for unsustainably greater repayments or 'immediate settlement' of the unforeseen temporary deficit) that they could tip their so-called customer over the edge. And an increase of defaulting further suppresses house-prices (general availability of sell-quick homes by owners/bank and/or the reduced neighbourhood value around abandoned properties not sold ''nor'' (officially) lived in) to draw more agreements into the self-creating danger-zone. Of course it aint as simple as all that. And permanently being underwater due to coastal flooding, ''probably'' won't sit well with the actuaries behind your continuing loan if your property isn't in Innsmouth... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 09:31, 2 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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;Maths<br />
Can someone figure out where I went wrong here?<br><br />
>The comic then applies dimensional analysis to this index: dividing $/sqft by $/bbl yields a result whose dimension is a linear measurement, which can be called length. 1 barrel is 5.6 cubic feet. The average price per square foot of a new single-family dwelling in the USA in 2019 was about 119 $/sqft, while the price of oil in mid 2019 was about $60/BBL or $337/cubic foot. Dividing gives 60/337 feet-1 or about 5.61 feet. (This doesn't match the value shown on the chart of around 15, so we have done something wrong here. :))<br><br />
Thanks. [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 00:54, 2 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:Since barrels are in the denominator, you have to divide by 5.6 to get the price per cubic foot. [[User:LegionMammal978|LegionMammal978]] ([[User talk:LegionMammal978|talk]]) 01:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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;Units<br />
Shouldn't area divided by volume be height, not length? It would also fit better with the graph. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.173|162.158.123.173]] 03:41, 2 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
:For dimensional analysis, you don't care about the physical context of the units, just about the dimension they are associated with. Height is horizontal length, so it has the dimension of length. In the context of the comic this length can be interpreted as a height, but in another context, it could be a length in a different orientation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.78|162.158.88.78]] 04:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC)<br />
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;Category<br />
Should we start a category of dimensional analysis comics: e.g. [[687]], [[1707]], [[2312]] --[[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 07:41, 2 July 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2308:_Mount_St._Helens&diff=192238Talk:2308: Mount St. Helens2020-05-19T11:22:12Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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I suspect the wiggles in all the hand-drawn lines are actually more than the changes in height of the various mountains, and almost certainly not correlated to the actual changes in height, since this is all unknown. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)<br />
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This comic needs to be translated to non-retard units [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.212|162.158.155.212]] 07:41, 19 May 2020 (UTC)<br />
:It's pretty common to measure things in years. And while measuring in 20 year gaps isn't normal, I wouldn't call it retarded, especially when they're probably chosen for a good visual spacing. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 08:54, 19 May 2020 (UTC)<br />
::Maybe he meant feet, which is not a SI unit. I guess the user got the wrong feet out of bed this morning? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)<br />
:All twentyish attoparsecs, you mean? (Yanks like using measures that give them bigger numbers. Feet instead of metres, inches instead of metres (or feet-and-inches), pounds instead of kilos (or stones-and-kilos), US gallons instead of UK ones, the wrong sort of billion/etc. :P ) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 11:22, 19 May 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2275:_Coronavirus_Name&diff=188055Talk:2275: Coronavirus Name2020-03-03T13:40:05Z<p>162.158.159.76: Covid-19 has a lot of places it hapn't got to yet. Yet.</p>
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Covid-19 is more dangerous than the flu and has already killed more people. And any death rate that starts with 0.00 and then has a number other than zero can only be called "basically zero" if you value human life very little. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.132|162.158.94.132]] 21:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:addendum: this seems to depend on what source you use for the chinese yearly flu death rate. number of deaths is either much higher or somewhat lower.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.123|162.158.91.123]] 21:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:It's Trump taking point that the coronavirus is a hoax and no worse than the flu. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.213|162.158.74.213]] 22:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:At the very least, the fact the virus has over 90,000 confirmed cases makes it a significant disease. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.246|172.69.34.246]] 22:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:It doesn't seem like the point of the comic is to comment on the severity of the virus. Seems more on-topic to say things that are objectively true, like "Many people are concerned about the virus" rather than discussing disputed stats.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.132|162.158.106.132]] 22:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC) Patb<br />
::I agree, and suggest we remove the line with stats entirely. It isn't relevant to the comic, and having it refer to "current estimates" means someone will have to keep updating it when new estimates are made. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.57|172.69.54.57]] 08:17, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:::A running total here wouldn't be necessary, there is at least one web site especially for that (or a page for Covid-19 on a general disease outbreak tracking site). To me it looks like this virus is about equally dangerous as flu, except that this virus is only in about 70 countries and counting, so if it isn't in yours yet (as far as you know) then you are not yet in danger (as far as you know). Also, flu kills a lot of people, numerically, every year, and if this virus kills an equal number of people, every year, there are twice as many people dead, total. (ish) So it's worth trying to stop this virus from existing, while we might still do that. Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 13:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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If the Godzilla movies have taught me anything, it's that giant insects aren't a problem biologists can solve anyways. That's more of a "nuclear paleontology" sort of job. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 01:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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It is legitimately difficult to tell if Ponytail's use of the word 'catchy' as a descriptor for 'coronavirus' is an intentional or unintentional pun. Either way, it's very opportune. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.239|108.162.221.239]] 03:55, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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The current chapter of Wilde Life (a totally unrelated webcomic) as a giant spider interacting with two of the main characters, starting [https://www.wildelifecomic.com/comic/710/ here]. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 05:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I think they missed a trick with the naming. CORVID-19 would have reminded everyone of H5N1 'bird flu', and we could just blame the crows. Kill a magpie to avoid infection!<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 10:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
:What? How is CORVID-19 supposed to remind anyone of H5N1 or bird flu? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:20, 3 March 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Yeah really dodged a bullet on those rhinoviri. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.44|172.69.22.44]] 11:36, 3 March 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2272:_Ringtone_Timeline&diff=187753Talk:2272: Ringtone Timeline2020-02-25T15:09:03Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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Doing the Title Text. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 18:07, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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What about the era of "I would love to set my phone to a traditional ringing sound but this weird space garbage is the closest my phone will get"? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.61|173.245.54.61]] 18:53, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: What kind of phone is this? circa 2000s flip phone? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 08:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I've got my smartphone set to the classic monophoncic Nokia 3310 tune. You can easily tell the >25y from the <25y generation apart from their reaction. [[User:Gir|-- //gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 19:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I wonder if Randal actually found some data to support his timeline or if it's more of a general observation made by him. In my subjective experience, the trend towards having the phone on vibrate all the time has been going on since at least 2017-2018 rather than the future/present time indicated in his timeline. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 19:41, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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: And I've not even noticed the change. I still hear ringtones going off when people get calls. I'm not even sure how it would work, since surely you'd at least need it to ring while charging or when you don't have pockets (like a lot of dressier women's clothing). And then there's the trend I have noticed of people actually playing their music out loud without headphones, which makes me think that people are not becoming more concerned about their phones making noise. [[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 10:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Early ringers were hand-cranked generators (or perhaps magnetos), so you might be able to tell who was calling by how fast they cranked.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.22|172.68.206.22]] 19:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:No, in that period it was mostly still operators. I suppose you would know which operator was on duty, if your area was small enough. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 22:07, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Party lines shared the signal and differentiated the callee by ring. I grew up on 19-ring-12, i.e. line 19 (on the manual switchboard in the village) ringing one long and two short. There was a magneto, but you used it to request the operator to give you a line for an outgoing call; it signaled the switchboard, not another party.<br />
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I remember around 1982 staying over at a friend's house and hearing the electronic tweedling of their new landline phone and not knowing what it was. Prior to that all the phones I'd heard at homes, businesses, school, etc. were all normal ringers. So the cool space beeps starting around 1996 seems skewed to the right by about a decade. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.124|172.68.38.124]] 20:21, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Pat<br />
: There's obviously plenty of overlap, and I think the boxes represent when a particular style was prevalent, not the entire duration. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: In the UK, the so-called trimphone was introduced in the sixties with a warbling ringtone instead of the traditional bell sound. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.12|162.158.159.12]] 23:12, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: The initial tones for tweedling or beeping phones were often pure sine wave tones, which are difficult for the human ear to locate. If you had five phones (not uncommon in some offices) you would need to pick up each in succession to find the one that was ringing. [[User:Snezzy|Snezzy]] ([[User talk:Snezzy|talk]]) 10:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: I also remember being told (in the era of mostly electromechanical bells, but echoed by the occasionally extant trimphone) that the time signature of the ringing was something weird, like 13/8 (or 8/13 - I'm not musical enough to know what the difference is, and it's probably not those numbers exactly anyway), on the basis that you couldn't subvert the rhythm into a pleasant tune (real or imagined) and so *had* to respond to it, like you possibly could with 2/4-time. And I've seen the mechanism at the (automatic, but largely mechanical) exchange that continually rotates with variously spotted electrical contacts on its axle that produce the required dialling/ringing/busy/etc signals to get 'tapped' for all currently relevent subscriber circuits (meaning that every phone in a street, neighbourhood or even whole town would be exactly in synch with any other phone also producing the same sound on either ringer or ear-speaker, notwithstanding speed-of-sound delays between the locales and audibility of each). A remarkable clockworkpunk solution to simplifying the otherwise quite complex array of Subscriber Trunk Dialling/etc mechanisms. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 15:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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Interesting contrast to [https://xkcd.com/479/ xkcd 479].<br />
[[User:LHN|LHN]]<br />
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I would like to point out that "a phone on vibrate sitting on a hard surface" may not have been receiving a call at the time of the audio recording so technically Randall's ringtone could be utter silence (or a very low coil whine). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.46|172.68.226.46]] 00:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I can't stand people who use the old fashioned 1950s bell ringtone. It's not cute anymore, it's just boring and overused. Almost as bad as the many "default" ringtones that people are too lazy to change. These are smartphones! You can easily use just about any song or sound imaginable! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 08:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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I will definitely not switch to vibration any time soon. I hate vibration in phones so much that I have installed multiple apps and mods to get rid of every single variant of vibration on my phone (which is surprisingly difficult), at least as long as the system is running. After shutdown it sadly still vibrates. Maybe I should screw off the vibration motor one day. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 09:54, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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1820s to 1870s: {{w|Steamship|whistle at end of long tube}}; (me, turn of the millenium: much abbreviated monophonic '[https://nokia.fandom.com/wiki/Composer Composer]' version of a complex polyphonic MIDI file of a {{w|In_the_Hall_of_the_Mountain_King|classical tune I quite liked}}); Mid 23rdC: {{w|USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701)|electronic version of a whistle through a long tube}}; Mid 24thC {{w|USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-D)|beeps}} [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 15:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)</div>162.158.159.76https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2272:_Ringtone_Timeline&diff=187752Talk:2272: Ringtone Timeline2020-02-25T14:50:14Z<p>162.158.159.76: </p>
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Doing the Title Text. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 18:07, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What about the era of "I would love to set my phone to a traditional ringing sound but this weird space garbage is the closest my phone will get"? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.61|173.245.54.61]] 18:53, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: What kind of phone is this? circa 2000s flip phone? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 08:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I've got my smartphone set to the classic monophoncic Nokia 3310 tune. You can easily tell the >25y from the <25y generation apart from their reaction. [[User:Gir|-- //gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 19:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I wonder if Randal actually found some data to support his timeline or if it's more of a general observation made by him. In my subjective experience, the trend towards having the phone on vibrate all the time has been going on since at least 2017-2018 rather than the future/present time indicated in his timeline. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 19:41, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
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: And I've not even noticed the change. I still hear ringtones going off when people get calls. I'm not even sure how it would work, since surely you'd at least need it to ring while charging or when you don't have pockets (like a lot of dressier women's clothing). And then there's the trend I have noticed of people actually playing their music out loud without headphones, which makes me think that people are not becoming more concerned about their phones making noise. [[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 10:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Early ringers were hand-cranked generators (or perhaps magnetos), so you might be able to tell who was calling by how fast they cranked.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.22|172.68.206.22]] 19:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:No, in that period it was mostly still operators. I suppose you would know which operator was on duty, if your area was small enough. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 22:07, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Party lines shared the signal and differentiated the callee by ring. I grew up on 19-ring-12, i.e. line 19 (on the manual switchboard in the village) ringing one long and two short. There was a magneto, but you used it to request the operator to give you a line for an outgoing call; it signaled the switchboard, not another party.<br />
<br />
I remember around 1982 staying over at a friend's house and hearing the electronic tweedling of their new landline phone and not knowing what it was. Prior to that all the phones I'd heard at homes, businesses, school, etc. were all normal ringers. So the cool space beeps starting around 1996 seems skewed to the right by about a decade. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.124|172.68.38.124]] 20:21, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Pat<br />
: There's obviously plenty of overlap, and I think the boxes represent when a particular style was prevalent, not the entire duration. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: In the UK, the so-called trimphone was introduced in the sixties with a warbling ringtone instead of the traditional bell sound. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.12|162.158.159.12]] 23:12, 24 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
: The initial tones for tweedling or beeping phones were often pure sine wave tones, which are difficult for the human ear to locate. If you had five phones (not uncommon in some offices) you would need to pick up each in succession to find the one that was ringing. [[User:Snezzy|Snezzy]] ([[User talk:Snezzy|talk]]) 10:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Interesting contrast to [https://xkcd.com/479/ xkcd 479].<br />
[[User:LHN|LHN]]<br />
<br />
I would like to point out that "a phone on vibrate sitting on a hard surface" may not have been receiving a call at the time of the audio recording so technically Randall's ringtone could be utter silence (or a very low coil whine). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.46|172.68.226.46]] 00:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I can't stand people who use the old fashioned 1950s bell ringtone. It's not cute anymore, it's just boring and overused. Almost as bad as the many "default" ringtones that people are too lazy to change. These are smartphones! You can easily use just about any song or sound imaginable! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 08:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I will definitely not switch to vibration any time soon. I hate vibration in phones so much that I have installed multiple apps and mods to get rid of every single variant of vibration on my phone (which is surprisingly difficult), at least as long as the system is running. After shutdown it sadly still vibrates. Maybe I should screw off the vibration motor one day. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 09:54, 25 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
1820s to 1870s: {{w|Steamship|whistle at end of long tube}}; (me, turn of the millenium: much abbreviated monophonic '[https://nokia.fandom.com/wiki/Composer Composer]' version of a complex polyphonic MIDI file of a {{w|In_the_Hall_of_the_Mountain_King|classical tune I quite liked}}); Mid 23rdC: {{w|USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701)|electronic version of a whistle through a long tube}}; Mid 24thC {{w|USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-D)|beeps}}</div>162.158.159.76