Difference between revisions of "Talk:1556: The Sky"

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This could be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_the_Sky [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.131|173.245.56.131]] 04:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 
This could be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_the_Sky [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.131|173.245.56.131]] 04:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
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I'm not so sure that the sky being one of Megan's favourite halves is either tautological or an oxymoron. It could simply mean that, of any given pair that can be described as two halves, she always has a preference for one over the other. Thus, of "earth / sky", "sky" is her favourite half, whereas perhaps of "Bonnie / Clyde", "Bonnie" might be her favourite half. In this way one could have many favourite halves. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.162|141.101.98.162]] 08:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Revision as of 08:02, 28 July 2015

Typical, I think nobody's actually going to try to explain this, and I get Save Conflicted. My (wordier) version. In case any of it is useful.

The sky is ever changing, and can often give interesting views such as that illustrated in the comic. Cueball and Megan seem to be agreeing about this, and its pleasing nature.
As (ignoring particularly unusual viewpoints, severe topography and obscuring vegetation/architecture) the sky is pretty much the upper hemisphere of any external view, it is inded a "half". It would seem to be redundant to say it is "one of my favourite halves", as that indicates both a list of at least two items to choose from and more than one 'favourite'. Being in 'the top two of a list of two' actually means nothing. But the other half could be the ground or the sea, or a composite of the two, so conceivably there might be more than two 'halves' to choose from in this case. Not that the statement makes much more sense.
The title-text acknowledges the fact that the other half can have snakes (the land), shipwrecks (the sea) and rocks (either), in a manner that sounds like justifications for any non-sky 'halves' being interesting too, to the kind of people Cueball and Megan seem to be. But it also suggests that by removing all of these you'd be seeing sky, below, that people on the other side of the 'rocks' (the whole Earth) had been seeing as their own 'sky above'. At least until the effects of entirely removing the substance of the planet start to show, of course.

...for what it's worth. 141.101.98.168 11:57, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe the comic is a slight refference to the recent observetory of plutos athmosphere. ẞ qwertz (talk) 12:55, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe this comic is related to comic 1368? Gartenzaun (talk) 13:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Or this 1524: Dimensions. Regarding the favourite of a small set.-Kynde (talk) 13:52, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't defend this position properly (other than by appealing to shipwrecks) but I'm pretty sure "the other half" is the ocean (or water in general) and that this is a callback to something in early XKCD (the halves thing.) I don't care enough to find the reference though, so FFTI. 141.101.88.224 13:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

My read on the "halves" bit is the Biblical Genesis bit where the world was split into sky and sea, "And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." -173.245.56.112 14:36, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, this appears to be a biblical reference - [this version] explains it pretty clearly. 108.162.249.177 14:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Thus taking "halves" as a verb. Nice. 198.41.239.32 23:33, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't tell if the sky is a photograph with a digital filter or a painting. Smperron (talk) 14:49, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's a digital painting. For one thing, there's a little artistic license in the transition from sunset at the left to evening stars at the top right. FourViolas (talk) 14:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't see it -- has the picture changed? Spongebog (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
I didn't notice the stars at the top right until FourViolas pointed it out. Smperron (talk) 16:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it's important that Megan says the sky is ONE of her favorite halves, and that the explanation "at least at their present location...the ground is dark, flat, and otherwise boring" is thus too simplistic. The ground where they are standing is in silhouette (it's presumably sunrise or sunset), but I think the implication is that C. and M. (who are obviously not finding words adequate to express how they feel about what they're seeing), are awed by the beauty of Nature, regardless of whether it's sky, sea (shipwrecks), land (rocks) or living things (snakes).Jv (talk) 15:01, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Is it possible that the meaning of Megan's statement is that there are other binary sets where she prefers one over the other? For example, her favorites might include (in addition to sky) female, light, and loud. Smperron (talk) 16:43, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps Megan is a reporter https://xkcd.com/1368/ Xquestion (talk) 16:51, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

What i understand under "favorite halves" is not about the mentioned tautology but about other things you can differentiate two halves and you like one more than the other. My personal favorite halves in this sense would be; Sky(vs Earth), women(vs men), low alcohol drinks(vs liquors), etc 17:11, 27 July 2015 (UTC)141.101.103.202 Bkack

There are multiple ways to split the earth into halves, so I don't think having one favorite way makes any tautology. For example, you can split North/South, East/West, sky/earth, water/earth, day/night. DMiller 173.245.50.150 18:28, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is a "tautology": a trivially true fact, eg "all red shoes are red". If anything it is an oxymoron (as it implies both halves are favourite, and so neither is). Zeimusu (talk) 18:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Am I the only one who sees a possible (additional) visual joke in the second panel? (The drawing is divided along the diagonal: One half is mainly cloudy, another mostly clear sky.) 162.158.92.44 19:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

In terms of two halves, should we mention https://xkcd.com/731/ "Desert Island?" It seems to be relevant in this situation, but I want someone else's opinion first. Also, mobile sucks for that kind of stuff, so... 108.162.216.110 20:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

"Mathematically, stating one of my favorites it must imply that there must be at least one other favorite" - Not mathematically, but intuitively (unless you can prove the implication). Mathematically, this just says that "Sky" is a member of the set "Favorite Halves", which may or may not include more elements. Intuitively, we don't talk like that unless there is another favorite.-173.245.50.91 21:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

This could be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_the_Sky 173.245.56.131 04:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that the sky being one of Megan's favourite halves is either tautological or an oxymoron. It could simply mean that, of any given pair that can be described as two halves, she always has a preference for one over the other. Thus, of "earth / sky", "sky" is her favourite half, whereas perhaps of "Bonnie / Clyde", "Bonnie" might be her favourite half. In this way one could have many favourite halves. --141.101.98.162 08:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)