https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=173.245.52.138&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T15:23:56ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:452:_Mission&diff=93123Talk:452: Mission2015-05-12T00:11:59Z<p>173.245.52.138: </p>
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<div>maybe it got something to do with the saying, "oh this (heist/mission) will be a piece of cake. one could easily misunderstand that<br />
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so "highly likely" means "1 time out of 6" for some people :D [[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.215|141.101.97.215]] 12:27, 13 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
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Nope, highly likely means (about) two out of three for these people. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.92.221|141.101.92.221]] 11:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
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The title text could also potentially count as a sort of NetHack reference. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.138|173.245.52.138]] 00:11, 12 May 2015 (UTC)</div>173.245.52.138https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=63:_Valentine_-_Heart&diff=8373363: Valentine - Heart2015-01-29T15:37:26Z<p>173.245.52.138: +Category:Romance</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 63<br />
| date = February 13, 2006<br />
| title = Valentine - Heart<br />
| image = valentine.jpg<br />
| titletext = Just pretend you're kidding.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
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The comic shows a Valentines card that starts off nicely, but then quite fast becomes very unromantic and probably very honest, that the only purpose of this card is getting the receiver into bed. It says that if this is not the case, if she (or he) doesn't want to go naked after receiving this card, then it is not really meant (i.e. their heart is not in it). <br />
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The title text implies that this is being offered as a Valentine that someone might give and then "pretend" that they were kidding. Which seems to imply that they would not, in fact, be kidding, that this represents their real feelings. <br />
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A funny thing is also that the text on the card implies that if the card indeed does get the receiver naked, that the action of giving it was truly meant. In that case, the giver would always deny that it was not meant and claim he/she is truly in love. Of course this cannot be true, since getting laid was the main motivation of appreciating the 'loved' one.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:I want to wish you a '''''Happy Valentine's Day''''' but unless this card is going to finally get you naked, I have to admit my heart's not really in it.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Valentines]]<br />
[[Category:Romance]]</div>173.245.52.138https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1471:_Gut_Fauna&diff=82368Talk:1471: Gut Fauna2015-01-09T16:33:25Z<p>173.245.52.138: /* Is a citation really needed? */</p>
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<div>I think this comic also contains a pun on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet macrobiotics]. Esp. the wording "out of balance" seems to be a reference to esoteric speech. [[User:Knob creek|Knob creek]] ([[User talk:Knob creek|talk]]) 09:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)<br />
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In fairy tales (most notably in little red riding hood), the wolf swallows whole its (human) victims. The comic depics an inversion of roles. Do you think it's worth adding this observation in the explanation?<br />
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:That's what I took it to mean too, the two options being he swallows the wolf or the wolf swallows him. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.159|141.101.98.159]] 12:35, 9 January 2015 (UTC)<br />
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Another pun might be on the name of a restaurant in Seattle: [[http://www.ethanstowellrestaurants.com/locations/how-to-cook-a-wolf/ How to Cook a Wolf]] [[User:Araucaria|Araucaria]] ([[User talk:Araucaria|talk]]) 15:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== Is a citation really needed? ==<br />
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I think that requiring a citation for the lethality of administering a wolf via the mouth or rectum may be going just a bit too far? Reference in the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1471:_Gut_Fauna&diff=82345&oldid=82344 Change history] [[User:Pmw57|Pmw57]] ([[User talk:Pmw57|talk]]) 10:25, 9 January 2015 (UTC)<br />
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: I assume that this is a humorous comment, similar to the citation needed tags in the What-if articles. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.237|141.101.98.237]] 12:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::Good point, could be a joking reference to [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=285 xkcd #285]<br />
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I know an old lady who swallowed a... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.237|108.162.249.237]] 13:45, 9 January 2015 (UTC)</div>173.245.52.138https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1342:_Ancient_Stars&diff=780271342: Ancient Stars2014-10-29T15:46:13Z<p>173.245.52.138: minor grammar edit /* Trivia */</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1342<br />
| date = March 14, 2014<br />
| title = Ancient Stars<br />
| image = ancient_stars.png<br />
| titletext = 'The light from those millions of stars you see is probably many thousands of years old' is a rare example of laypeople substantially OVERestimating astronomical numbers.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
[[Cueball]] makes the common observation that many of the visible stars in the sky are so distant that it takes thousands of years for light from that star to reach Earth. However, the brightest star {{W|Sirius}} is one of the nearest at a mere 8.6 {{W|Light-year|light-years}} distance. In other words, the light that was arriving from Sirius in March 2014, when the comic was posted, was emitted some time around August 2005. The previous US president, {{W|George W. Bush}}, was in office from 2001 to 2009 and [[Megan]] notes that this isn't a terribly impressive observation.<br />
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The title text references the fact that most normal people have a hard time imagining the large scale of astronomical numbers. For example, the distance between astronomical bodies or the size of the Sun are hard to imagine; they typically underestimate them by many orders of magnitude and think they are much smaller than they actually are. See the TV Tropes article [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale "Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale"] for more detail.<br />
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In this case, however, people instead overestimate both the number of visible stars and their distance by quite a bit. It's frequently cited that about 5,000 to 10,000 stars are visible in the sky by the naked eye. The {{W|Bright Star Catalogue}} is a star catalogue that lists all stars of {{W|apparent magnitude}} 6.5 or brighter, which is roughly every star visible to the naked eye from Earth. The catalog contains 9,110 objects, of which 9,096 are stars, ten are {{w|Nova|novae}} or {{w|supernovae}}, and four objects outside of our Milky Way (two {{w|globular cluster}}s and two {{w|open cluster}}s). To see most of these you need good eyes and a very dark night, and at any point you will only be able to see fewer than half of these as the rest are blocked by the Earth.<br />
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This list shows the {{W|Visible stars|91 brightest stars}}. Of these 59 are more than 100 light years away and only 6 are more than 1,000 light years away. The farthest on this list, {{W|Eta Canis Majoris|Aludra}}, is "only" 3,200 light years away. Our entire {{w|Milky Way}} contains up to 400 billion (400x10⁹) stars and has a diameter of 100,000 light years.<br />
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There are visible objects much farther away, like the {{w|Andromeda Galaxy}} which is 2.5 million light years away and made up of billions of stars. And a gamma ray burst {{w|GRB 080319B}} would have been briefly visible to the naked eye, despite being 7.5 billion light years distant.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:All of the panels of this comic are white-on-black.<br />
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:[Megan and Cueball stand facing each other, looking up at the sky.]<br />
:Cueball: Just think - the light from that start was emitted thousands of years ago. It could be long gone.<br />
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:[Cueball looks at Megan, who is still looking up.]<br />
:Megan: That's Sirius. It's eight light-years away.<br />
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:[Cueball looks up again.]<br />
:Cueball: Oh.<br />
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:[Both look at one another.]<br />
:Cueball: Just think - the light from that star was emitted in the previous presidential administration.<br />
:Megan: Hmm, doesn't pack quite the punch.<br />
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==Trivia==<br />
*The star {{W|List of stars in Cassiopeia|V762 Cas}} in the {{W|Cassiopeia (constellation)|Cassiopeia constellation}} is listed as being 14818 light years away and still having an {{W|apparent magnitude}} of 5.87 - thus being within the visible 6.5 limit. If Cueball had been able to point this star out, he would have been correct. But it is only visible under perfect conditions.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]</div>173.245.52.138