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| | {{comic | | {{comic |
| − | | number = 1606 | + | | number = 772 |
| − | | date = November 20, 2015 | + | | date = July 28, 2010 |
| − | | title = FDF | + | | title = Frogger |
| − | | image = five_day_forecast.png | + | | image = frogger.png |
| − | | titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years. | + | | titletext = I understand you and your team worked hard on this, but when we said to make it more realistic, we meant the graphics. |
| | }} | | }} |
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| | ==Explanation== | | ==Explanation== |
| − | {{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w|Meteorology#Meteorologists|meteorologists}} provide us with only a five-day forecast. | + | {{w|Frogger}} is a classic video game introduced in 1981. The aim of the game is to safely get a frog across a busy road and a river to a lily pad at the top of the screen. |
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| − | In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a '''Five-Day Forecast''' and then progressing to five-month, year, million, billion and finally trillion-year forecasts, leading to {{tvtropes|WeirdWeather|weather patterns that we don't regularly see.}}
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| − | Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we can assume it indicates the weather today and not tomorrow, in a trillion years, etc. It is only in the second panel of each row that time has passed per the row's label. Consequently, the last column gives the predictions for four days, four months, ..., four trillion years from today.
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| − | When moving past the five-day prediction, the forecast is just a qualified guess based on the time of year. In a month it is Christmas as shown in the second panel of the second row. Then it is January and February so snow is likely, but certainly not something that happens on all days of a winter month.
| + | The title text reveals that a team of programmers misinterpreted a task to make the game "more realistic", i.e. with better graphics, and instead made the trucks swerve to avoid the car-sized frog, causing another vehicle to crash into the truck resulting in a serious road accident. This is instead of the traffic just inexorably moving at a constant rate in their assigned lanes and disregarding the movements of the frog (as in typical Frogger gameplay), who is normally the only one who ever needs to take evasive action or suffer the consequences. |
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| − | Looking at the five-year forecast, guesses are made as to what the weather will be like at the same time of year. For these first three predictions the weather symbols are all of the same three types: Sun, clouds and some kind of {{w|precipitation}}, rain or snow, with the temperature ranging from 21 to 44 °F (-6.1 to 6.6 °C) - winter temperatures.
| + | The game continues to introduce increasing drama with the reactions of off-panel bystanders. |
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| − | Then we go into the far future, jumping a million years from panel to panel. But still the weather symbols stay the same. In 3 million years, however, aliens (or advanced humans) attack with energy beams from {{w|flying saucers}}. They are gone a million years later. The temperature range remains the same across the panels except that it rises to 52 °F (11 °C), a possible reference to global warming, in one panel, and while the attack is going on it rises to 275 °F (135 °C).
| + | This is similar to the idea behind the modification of the game in [[873: FPS Mod]], in which realism makes a video game much less enjoyable. |
| − | | |
| − | Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather", because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in its {{w|Sun#Main sequence|main sequence|}}), it will grow in diameter as it begins to exhaust its supply of fuel. The core will contract to increase the temperature, and the outer layer will then compensate by expanding slightly. This is what is indicated in panels two and three, where the color of the Sun changes towards red as the surface becomes cooler as it expands away from the center of the Sun. The temperature will rise on Earth as indicated in the panels (105 °F = 40.5 °C and 371 °F = 188 °C). The temperature will get hot enough in about [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html a billion years] that the Earth's oceans will boil away.
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| − | Once it {{w|Sun#After core hydrogen exhaustion|no longer has enough hydrogen}}, the Sun will expand into a {{w|red giant}}. This should not happen until around {{w|Sun#Composition|five billion years from now}}, but in the forecast it is indicated to happen in only three. Maybe this is Randall taking liberties to show what happens during this phase, which would not fit into a four-billion-year forecast. Alternatively it just indicates how uncertain these kinds of forecasts are, or a statement that we may not know for certain that it will take five not three billion years.
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| − | In any case, the fourth panel shows the temperature at Earth's position inside the red giant Sun. The color of the panel indicates that we are inside the Sun. The temperature is 71,488,106 degrees Fahrenheit (39,715,597 degrees Celsius). The current temperature of the center of the Sun is "only" 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius), and although that may rise by a factor of ten during {{w|Stellar nucleosynthesis|helium fusion}}, that will only be at the very core and not out in the solar atmosphere reaching out to Earth. Here the temperature would only be of the order of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, since the Sun's outer temperature decreases as it increases its diameter. So this panel's temperature also makes little sense. It may involve some ambiguities regarding what the forecast means; the edge of the red giant Sun is predicted to be somewhere near the current orbit of Earth, but the position of the Earth could change. The most likely prediction at the moment is for Earth to move outward, but if the planet is engulfed by the Sun, it would spiral inward, and at some point fall apart. So in some sense "here" for the forecast could become a position deep inside the Sun, where core temperatures could reach 100 million Kelvin. The temperatures shown are unreasonably precise; they probably should have only two or at most three significant figures.
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| − | The red giant phase lasts only half a million years, so a billion years after the Sun has been a red giant its outer atmosphere will definitely have disappeared, leaving only a dim, cool {{w|white dwarf}} to cool down. Given Randall's version of this time schedule, then it will have had about a billion years to cool down, but would still likely be the brightest object in the sky as seen from where the Earth once was. It is not shown in the last panel, where we just see other stars of the Galaxy. The temperature is down to that of the {{w|Cosmic microwave background|background radiation}}. Today this radiation has a temperature of 2.72548 kelvin = -270.4245 °C = -454.7641 °F. That is a few degrees F colder than what is shown in the comic, which states the temperature is -452 °F = 4.26 kelvin. This higher temperature may have been chosen to reflect that even the light from other stars would increase the actual temperature.
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| − | In the last panel with trillions of years, we jump right past the Sun's red giant phase to a panel looking much like the one after five billion years with only other stars. Over the next three trillion years the stars become fewer and fewer and dimmer and dimmer as they run out of fuel and fewer new stars form. After four trillion years the background temperature decreases one degree to -453 °F as the universe keeps expanding and the wavelength of the radiation does the same, thus decreasing its temperature.
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| − | The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip, "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes."
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| − | A ten-day forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]]. In [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]], Randall looked at the weather over long periods of time as well. in [[1643: Degrees]] he addressed Celsius vs. Fahrenheit for measuring temperature.
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| − | ===Image using Celsius===
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| − | There is a different user-made version for the picture, using [[3001|Celsius]] instead of Fahrenheit, [[:File:five_day_forecast_Celsius.png|in this image link]].
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| | ==Transcript== | | ==Transcript== |
| − | :[A grid with six rows of five columns, where each row is labeled to the left. For each of the 30 squares a temperature is given in Fahrenheit at the top left. The rest of the square represents the weather as in a weather forecast (or some other relevant items for the comic), mainly in bright colors. Below are the six labels given above each of their five weather symbols with temperature given below these symbols description.] | + | :[The dark green frog, Frogger, is standing in the middle of the panel on the green grass by the side of a light gray road with at least four tracks divided by black midlines. The last track being mainly outside the top frame of the panel. It is looking out into the traffic, which includes three trucks (two in the nearest lane one in the third) with different color of the cabin (one blue and two dark gray) and white behind the cabin. There is also a red car in the second lane. All four vehicles are driving towards left.] |
| − | | |
| − | :'''Your 5-day forecast'''
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| − | :[A bright yellow sun.]
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| − | :38°F
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| − | :[A grey cloud.]
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| − | :41°F
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| − | :[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
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| − | :36°F
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| − | :[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
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| − | :40°F
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| − | :[Same as Today]
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| − | :44°F
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| − | :'''Your 5-month forecast'''
| + | :[Lines behind the frog and sound indicates that Frogger hops, and it moves out right in front of the right truck which is now close to it. The left truck is partly outside the panel, and the other two have moved further left and a new gray car has entered from the right in the second lane.] |
| − | :[Same as Today] | + | :''Hop'' |
| − | :38°F
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| − | :[A green Christmas tree with red presents beneath it.]
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| − | :29°F
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| − | :[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
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| − | :21°F | |
| − | :[Same as Next 2 Months]
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| − | :24°F
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| − | :[Same as Tomorrow]
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| − | :35°F
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| | | | |
| − | :'''Your 5-year forecast'''
| + | :[The truck in the inner lane swerves into the second lane to avoid Frogger, which takes the truck out in front of the gray car. The other truck in the inner lane has exited the panel and the red car only shows the rear part. ] |
| − | :[Same as Today] | |
| − | :38°F
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| − | :[Same as Tomorrow]
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| − | :25°F
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| − | :[Same as Today]
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| − | :36°F
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| − | :[Same as Next 2 Days]
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| − | :37°F
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| − | :[Same as Today]
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| − | :41°F
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| | | | |
| − | :'''Your 5-million-year forecast'''
| + | :[The truck and the car collide with a great noise displayed with shaky letters above them. The car and the cabin of the truck both crumples. Behind the car is two lines of skid marks. Frogger is left unharmed in the inner lane. The red car is gone and the third lane truck is leaving the panel to the left, the cabin just outside the frame.] |
| − | :[Same as Today] | + | :<big>''Boom''</big> |
| − | :38°F
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| − | :[Same as Today]
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| − | :52°F
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| − | :[Same as Tomorrow]
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| − | :40°F
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| − | :[Two red flying saucers (with bright domes) are shooting energy beams downwards. One of the beams seems to impact with something at the bottom of the panel, which then explodes. Two plumes of smoke rises up from below, drifting to the right.]
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| − | :275°F | |
| − | :[Same as Next 3 Days]
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| − | :40°F
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| | | | |
| − | :'''Your 5-billion-year forecast''' | + | :[Only the two crashed vehicles are left on the road with smoke pouring out of their hoods. The trucks rear end also seems to have crumbled more than in the previous image, and strangely enough the skid marks of the car now stretches longer towards the right than before... Frogger turns around and hops back to the side of the road, again indicated with lines and sound. At the bottom of the panel three off-panel voices call out:] |
| − | :[Same as Today] | + | :''Hop'' |
| − | :38°F | + | :Off-panel voice 1: Oh god! |
| − | :[A larger orange sun.] | + | :Off-panel voice 2: Someone call 911! |
| − | :105°F | + | :Off-panel voice 3: Mom! |
| − | :[A very large red sun.] | |
| − | :371°F | |
| − | :[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.] | |
| − | :71,488,106°F | |
| − | :[A night sky with many bright stars.]
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| − | :-452°F
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| | | | |
| − | :'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast'''
| + | ==Trivia== |
| − | :[Same as Today]
| + | Randall made a mistake in the last panel, where the skid marks of the car stretches longer towards the right than in the panel before, even though the car and truck did not move (and the view has also stayed the same through out the comic.) However, this could just be smoke plumes. |
| − | :38°F
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| − | :[Same as Next 4 Billion Years]
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| − | :-452°F
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| − | :[A night sky with many stars.]
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| − | :-452°F
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| − | :[A night sky with fewer not so bright stars.]
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| − | :-452°F
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| − | :[A night sky with few dim stars.]
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| − | :-453°F
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| | {{comic discussion}} | | {{comic discussion}} |
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| − | [[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
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| | [[Category:Comics with color]] | | [[Category:Comics with color]] |
| − | [[Category:Science]] | + | [[Category:Video games]] |
| − | [[Category:Space]] | + | [[Category:Animals]] |
| − | [[Category:Astronomy]]
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| − | [[Category:Weather]]
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| − | [[Category:Aliens]]
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| Frogger |
|
Title text: I understand you and your team worked hard on this, but when we said to make it more realistic, we meant the graphics. |
|
|
Explanation
Frogger is a classic video game introduced in 1981. The aim of the game is to safely get a frog across a busy road and a river to a lily pad at the top of the screen.
The title text reveals that a team of programmers misinterpreted a task to make the game "more realistic", i.e. with better graphics, and instead made the trucks swerve to avoid the car-sized frog, causing another vehicle to crash into the truck resulting in a serious road accident. This is instead of the traffic just inexorably moving at a constant rate in their assigned lanes and disregarding the movements of the frog (as in typical Frogger gameplay), who is normally the only one who ever needs to take evasive action or suffer the consequences.
The game continues to introduce increasing drama with the reactions of off-panel bystanders.
This is similar to the idea behind the modification of the game in 873: FPS Mod, in which realism makes a video game much less enjoyable.
Transcript
- [The dark green frog, Frogger, is standing in the middle of the panel on the green grass by the side of a light gray road with at least four tracks divided by black midlines. The last track being mainly outside the top frame of the panel. It is looking out into the traffic, which includes three trucks (two in the nearest lane one in the third) with different color of the cabin (one blue and two dark gray) and white behind the cabin. There is also a red car in the second lane. All four vehicles are driving towards left.]
- [Lines behind the frog and sound indicates that Frogger hops, and it moves out right in front of the right truck which is now close to it. The left truck is partly outside the panel, and the other two have moved further left and a new gray car has entered from the right in the second lane.]
- Hop
- [The truck in the inner lane swerves into the second lane to avoid Frogger, which takes the truck out in front of the gray car. The other truck in the inner lane has exited the panel and the red car only shows the rear part. ]
- [The truck and the car collide with a great noise displayed with shaky letters above them. The car and the cabin of the truck both crumples. Behind the car is two lines of skid marks. Frogger is left unharmed in the inner lane. The red car is gone and the third lane truck is leaving the panel to the left, the cabin just outside the frame.]
- Boom
- [Only the two crashed vehicles are left on the road with smoke pouring out of their hoods. The trucks rear end also seems to have crumbled more than in the previous image, and strangely enough the skid marks of the car now stretches longer towards the right than before... Frogger turns around and hops back to the side of the road, again indicated with lines and sound. At the bottom of the panel three off-panel voices call out:]
- Hop
- Off-panel voice 1: Oh god!
- Off-panel voice 2: Someone call 911!
- Off-panel voice 3: Mom!
Trivia
Randall made a mistake in the last panel, where the skid marks of the car stretches longer towards the right than in the panel before, even though the car and truck did not move (and the view has also stayed the same through out the comic.) However, this could just be smoke plumes.
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There's actually a video of this already, made by Robot Chicken. It doesn't have the innocent bystanders, though, and it doesn't have the title text either. Davidy22(talk) 10:00, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
- In other words, it in no way has anything even faintly resembling the same joke or premise, except that it involved frogger and a crash. — Kazvorpal (talk) 17:23, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Honestly, most frogs attempting to cross the road would go unnoticed, whether missed or flattened. But if you saw a frog the size of an Izeta in the road, you probably would swerve to miss, if you thought no one was in the next lane. Nyperold (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
somebody actually made this game XD https://shadowsora211.itch.io/bad-luck-cat my highscore is 3550. New editor (talk) 06:58, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
xkcd Game Jam version: https://technostalgic.itch.io/frogger-xkcd-style - Mike Rosoft (talk) 22:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
- there was an xkcd game jam? --162.158.74.49 08:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
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