2685: 2045

Not to be confused with 2045: Social Media Announcement.

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2045

Title text: "Sorry, doctor, I'm going to have to come in on a different day--I have another appointment that would be really hard to move, in terms of the kinetic energy requirements."

Explanation

The characters are talking about upcoming total solar eclipses. Partial solar eclipses are fairly frequent (2–5 per year), but total eclipses are less frequent (about every 18 months), and most of them will not be in convenient locations for a particular set of people. Cueball seems to be talking about total eclipses visible in much of North America: April 8, 2024 and August 12, 2045. (There was also an annular eclipse on October 14, 2023.) Making plans for eclipses is awkward given the uncertainty present for anything else far in the future, such as whether the attendees will have children by then, and whether the technology they are using to keep track of their appointments (Google Calendar in this case) will even still exist over 22 years in the future.

Black Hat claims he can't make it, as he vaguely and obscurely claims he already knows he has "a thing" on August 12, 2045. People do not usually have events scheduled for precise dates that far in the future in their personal calendars and, combined with the fact that Black Hat remembers this date without checking (but also without specifying what he'll be doing then), implies that this could be another of his grand and sinister plans... or he just doesn't want to go. This might also be a reference to an old Soviet joke.

The title text is someone asking to reschedule a medical appointment to see the eclipse. The eclipse is hard to move because that would require hastening or delaying it by moving the Earth, Moon or Sun, any of which would require vast amounts of energy.

This was published a year before the next such eclipse in America; so, if you're someone who plans things a year in advance, this serves as a reminder to put it on your calendar.

Transcript

[Cueball, a friend also drawn as Cueball, Danish, and Black Hat are standing together. Danish is looking at her phone.]

Cueball: ...And then after the one in 2024, there's another on August 12, 2045.

Friend: We're in! We can invite our kids, assuming we have any.

Danish: I'll create an event. Do you think we'll still be using Google Calendar in 2045?

Black Hat: Sorry, I'd love to make it, but I have a thing that day.

[Caption below the panel:]

It's weird making plans for eclipses.

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Discussion

I've add a CITATION NEEDED for the medical appointment because in many countries and in the past Soviet Statesit took that long and so is a questionable claim I've been waiting for Randall to do a comic related to the DART mission. I think I'm going to have to be satisfied with the title text being inspired by it -- altering the orbits of the earth and/or moon would be infinitely harder. Barmar (talk) 16:56, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Whatever the old soviet joke is (probably related to the American myth that Canadian medical care takes longer?) it's behind a paywall, so no one can read it anyhow. 172.68.66.45 19:58, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

It's probably the one about the Soviet citizen finally getting permission to obtain a washing machine/fridge/car/whatever, but being told that it would take five/ten/fifteen years to be delivered, or so. "AM or PM?", he asks. Because, as he explains, he has the plumber/electrician/decorator/... due to start work that particular morning. (It's probably on this page, or a close version of it, but that's a read and a half and I think I'll go through it later.) 172.70.162.155 20:34, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

From the article:

Mr. Reagan then told his current favorite [joke], about a Russian who wants to buy a car. A Matter of Delivery

The man goes to the official agency, puts down his money and is told that he can take delivery of his automobile in exactly 10 years.

"Morning or afternoon?" the purchaser asks. "Ten years from now, what difference does it make?" replies the clerk.

"Well," says the car-buyer, "the plumber's coming in the morning." 172.70.174.41 23:08, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

though it says Black Hat is rejecting the invitation sarcastically, considering Black Hat it's also possible he's planning something else for the total eclipse, such as playing a prank on people who don't know it's coming, or messing with the meeting under discussion. 108.162.241.51 17:31, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Or planning to be actively messing with the eclipse... 172.70.85.97 18:59, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

That reminds me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLW7r4o2_Ow 162.158.239.32 19:33, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Here’s a source for moving the Earth or the Sun requiring vast amounts of energy: https://qntm.org/moving. It doesn’t really cover moving the Moon though. 172.69.33.133 02:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Alternatively, just use 6 cells over 111 generations: [1] 172.71.94.135 07:10, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

And with that breaks the 104-comic streak where we never saw Black Hat. I'm pretty sure that's the longest ever. ISaveXKCDpapers (talk) 03:52, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Is this Megan or Danish? 172.69.33.117 05:28, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Can somebody please calculate the minimum needed energy amount, if you start now? --172.70.242.157 11:09, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

And how many probe impacts that would require. 172.71.178.5 08:41, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

pretty sure the explanation needs to be sanitized of invisible control characters or zero-width whitespace - there were several edits that added thousands of characters but did not result in a visually different page, and those edits were never reverted --172.70.115.30 12:43, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

edit: just now did it, lmk if i missed anything--162.158.63.8 12:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

unedit: just now undid it, lmk if i missed anything

cheeky bastard 💀

Corrected date of annular eclipse to Oct 14 2023 link https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/ Peter 15:13, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Somebody should add one of those links that redirects to comic no. 2045 to avoid confusion (I'm not super familiar with Mediawiki) Mushrooms (talk) 09:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Not as important, because just trying "2045" sends you there (where there is the {{distinguish}} template pointing you here), yet you have to actually try a bit to land here instead of your true intent to go there. But I just now put one here that tells you about that one, anyway.

Not sure how many other comics using a {{distinguish|...the other comic...}} are similarly reciprocated on their 'less favoured sibling' without checking. Could be inconsistently done, if I recall correctly how it was recently set up as a kind of disambiguation measure. 172.71.178.17 10:21, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

It claims that 'The moon being hard to move' needs a citation. I know it's a joke, but I have wanted to do the kinetic energy calculations since I saw this, so I give you this: You want a citation? I'll give you a citation! SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 15:58, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

This comic should be a grand example of classical classholeism on black hats part. plattermonkey

Reminder that dates after 2038 are blacklisted by Google apps thanks to a certain bug... --172.71.182.245 20:51, 27 January 2024 (UTC)