Talk:3064: Lungfish

Huh, first time I've seen a comic the literal minute it was posted. Weird seeing a completely empty explainxkcd page. Beanie ^talk 16:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Got the basics of a transcript going. --DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 16:21, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

People often talk about DNA being the program that builds life, but it seems to me more as if its the static-data used by the program that builds life 172.70.90.236 16:24, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd say RNA sequences seem more like the program that builds life, to me?

ProphetZarquon (talk) 15:02, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Von Neumann architecture makes clear distinction between program and data. Biological organism don't. Sure, by 3056: RNA it would seem DNA being mostly static data makes more sense, but the distinction is just not clear. -- Hkmaly (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

In one of my own constructed (virtually emulated) programming environments, I ensured that there was no differentiation between opcodes, parameters or data. Any particular quarter-byte/half-nibble that the program pointer pointed at could be read as a valid instruction. The requisite parameters to that code was what immediately followed, being pointers (anywhere in the array of quarter-bytes, inclusive of over the current opcode or its parameters), to the data that the operation operated upon.

(A useful debugging method (assuming you were trying to hand-craft something that worked just right, without (overly) corrupting its own code), or just entertainment (using deliberately bad code, or even starting with just random noise and seeing whether some consistent abstract form emerged from successive iterations), was to give bits that got prodded as instruction a red hue, bits that was prodded as param would gain green and bits accessed as data got the blue colour component. Which would mix into a useful matrix of all eight '3-bit colours', from black (never used) to white (fulfilled all three roles). Or, with a 'colour-decay' process (e.g. 24-bit colour, prodding gives the given colour channel the value 255, each n-ticks all the non-zero colour-bytes are decremented by one), a dynamic ongoing process could be observed. Though not necessarily understood, admitedly!)

It was not lost on me that D(/R)NA is also essentially quarter-byte per base-pair (though, of course, it actually does most of its more obvious work grouped in codons, i.e. 6-bit before you add in other biological complexities), nor that I was indeed folding this 'toy' environment into some of my slightly less serious attempts at 'genetic programming' (additive reproduction/recombination really had to be externally mediated to make it 'useful', along the lines of the more advanced forms of Darwinian Poetry in all respects but the fitness-evaluation). I really should revisit this whole project, now that you remind me. I can probably do more with it than I was able to 30 years ago. As well as learning a few more biology/coding tips and tricks, in passing, since then. 172.69.43.240 12:08, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Anyone know how to add categories? If so, I can handle those. --DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 16:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking of creating the category Genetics as a subcategory to biology, if it hasn't already been done. --DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 16:29, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi chat, we got a new undiscovered xkcd page to talk about: Dot. Any info would be helpful. Caliban (talk) 16:52, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

It's a flashing dot.172.71.178.157 10:08, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

"a common issue when coding" or it could be just editing a doc, a picture, a video, etc.172.71.151.21 17:09, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE, OKAY??? -- DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 17:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Somewhat related, is is quite common for someone to have filenames like "Thesis (final)", "Thesis (really final)", "Thesis (really really final)" (instead of "Thesis" it might be "Presentation"). I have just checked the RCS log of my MSc Thesis: the 2.16 version was the final, but then there were the 3.1 and 3.2, which were the correction of two typos. Rps (talk) 18:48, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Using words like "Final" is optimism. So is "Newest". Version numbers and dates are the correct way to name things. -- Hkmaly (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

But remember, then, that you're only freely allowed to fork off new branches when you get to certain version numbers and can properly justify changing the version digits. 172.69.195.179 11:16, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Anybody else notice that the science in this one is completely incorrect? I added a note, but I'm curious why the comic doesn't instead mention something like Trichomonas or rice/cotton/bread wheat, which actually *do* feature widespread gene duplication User:tofudragon7

I think the incorrectness of the science is the basis of the joke 172.70.206.39 14:10, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

"append "Copy of" to the start of the filename" Append comes after. I think the word we want is "prepend". Not as familliar as append, but Google reports wide and serious usage. A further note: MS's hack ruins the idea of alphabetized filenames, all the "Copy of" in one place. --PRR (talk) 21:24, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I think the word we actually want is 'add', since 'prepend to the start' would be tautological.141.101.99.4 10:30, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

The older and still probably more common meaning of "append" is just "attach", with no particular implication of where (e.g. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/append#English). The narrower sense of "add at the end", and the back-formation "prepend" for "add at the beginning", are relatively recent, and mostly computing jargon. Apparently, there's also occasional use of "postpend" as the complement of "prepend", but I don't think I've ever come across it in the wild.

So, either "append to the start" or "prepend" is fine, I think.

Or go for maximum redundancy: "prepend a prefix to the start before the existing text" :P - IMSoP (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

'add to the start' is still better from a Plain English/Thing Explainer perspective, though.172.71.241.51 16:17, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Anecdotes: I've got both "5etools (3).json (16)" & "5etools (9).json" on my phone right now. ProphetZarquon (talk) 15:07, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

April fool's comic is coming soon and I simply can't wait. DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 19:16, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

It may be a coincidence, but just recently genetically modified wolly mice were born, and now Randal writes a comic about genetic manipulation. Is there a connection between these two? F beer (talk) 07:51, 19 March 2025 (UTC)