XKCD: It's more than a comic

One I've seen a lot (including on here) is music; often it's the right decade but a few years too early. Also incorrect transport; somebody going from one street to an unconnected street, or getting a train/bus along a nonexistent route; that's most common from people who live in the place where it's set.

As much as I don't find these 'goofs' interesting or concerning, if a work is trying to be set in the real world and the inaccuracy isn't a significant part of the plot of the work, it is technically still an inaccuracy.

I think the incorrect streets and buildings thing is also coming from people who like seeing the setting of their favorite movie in real life (especially when they live there anyway), and finding out for themselves that movies take liberties with city geography for the sake of expedience.

And yes, when the movie purports to portray a real locale, they are technically inaccuracies. We have several tropes for those, too.

The problem with things like Writers Cannot Do Math is that it often seems to be a case of things that no normal person would do maths for anyway. And not the sort of lack-of-numeracy thing that is either outright incorrect, or the more locally-bound variant of Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale.

Hello. I'm trying to find a strip to show it to a friend. The strip is a lecture of sorts that claims that it takes X years to master a craft, so each time you change a craft, it's like you are living a new life, so it claims you can live up to Y lifetimes (forgot the number).

There is also a chance this is a SMBC strip instead of XKCD,but I'm almost sure it's the later.

Anyone remember what strip that is and can help me find it, please?

I'm fairly sure that isn't xkcd.

It doesn't ring a bell, though it is the sort of observation Randall could well have made.

You're looking for this SMBC strip. It's 11 opportunities.

Edited by FuzzyBoots on May 24th 2022 at 9:03:11 AM

Voyager Wires

That Alt Text paints quite the mental picture.

Someone in the Twitter replies observed that this copper wire would have billions of ohms of resistance, requiring billions of volts to force any signal through.

Edited by Fighteer on May 25th 2022 at 1:55:14 PM

So how much energy output would we need for that? Do we need to bump up our civilization tier for that?

So basically it would be less efficient at transferring signals than using radio waves? I specifically mean signal, not power.

The wire would melt long before sufficient signal strength could be reached, and it would also snap due to tidal forces. It turns out that the physics of sending a signal 130 AU doesn't let you "cheat" like this, regardless of whether you use radio, lasers, or wires.

It depends on what you mean by efficient. The reason to use a wire would be to improve data rate, which could also be achieved with laser transmission. But putting a sufficiently powerful laser on the Voyager probes would be impossible, and none of these solutions can improve the latency, which for Voyager 2 is currently just under 18 hours.

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

Edited by Fighteer on May 25th 2022 at 4:31:37 AM

#2625: Field Topology

Ah yes, this one is kind of esoteric and could be confusing to people who don't understand topology, which appears to include most of the Twitter replies.

It has something to do with how many vertical playing elements each game has, yes? One net or bar for the second set, two goals or bars for the third, many diving platforms for swimming. But that's not a complete understanding, because tetherball has a pole, and soccer and croquet are both ground-bound.

Topology — in this case, two-dimensional topology — maps the playing field as a continuous surface and any area that cannot be physically entered by players as a gap in that surface. Physical obstructions would include the net in volleyball, the goals in hockey and soccer/international football (I suppose this would also include the goalposts in American football, although those aren't technically part of the playing field), the hoops or wickets in croquet, etc.

Topologists tend to concern themselves with the general properties of these surfaces and not the actual sizes of each region relative to the whole.

Edited by Fighteer on May 27th 2022 at 10:43:53 AM

So it's the lane dividers that make the gaps in the swimming field. Not sure then what makes soccer different from American football in this case, yeah. Players can enter the goal net in soccer, and football's goal posts are structured to hang over the playing field rather than obstruct the ground, as you say. So are basketball's, for that matter, though a player can't accompany the ball through the hoop (Flubber notwithstanding) as they can with a soccer net.

The goal nets in soccer are obstructions since players cannot freely move through those spaces. Ergo, the field is not topologically contiguous at those surfaces. And yes, the lanes are what create the gaps in swimming, although I'm not sure why the pool would be represented as an overall contiguous surface since you cannot cross a lane into another lane by "going around". You can by swimming under, but that's not legal, plus it requires moving in three dimensions.

Edited by Fighteer on May 27th 2022 at 10:54:47 AM

Technically, in soccer, the goal is outside the playing area. In contrast, say, hockey, where it's legal for the ball to move behind the goal.

In the comic soccer doesn't have obstructions, while American football does, is my point. And tetherball still has a pole, though players aren't expected to avoid it as an obstruction since they don't move in the first place.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on May 27th 2022 at 11:00:05 AM

Yeah, right, I misread it.

Oh, right. Sorry, I didn't see that. In that case I don't get why American football is represented with two discontinuities since the goalposts are not part of the playing field and the crossbar is higher than any player is tall. It's possible that the comic is referring to college football, in which the goalposts do intrude into the field.

Edited by Fighteer on May 27th 2022 at 11:01:09 AM

I disagree on soccer because the height of the goal is also important. You don't score a goal if the ball goes over the net. You don't technically need the netting (although it's very handy to avoid having to chase down the ball), but the outline is important (and yes, more informal games of soccer are often played with cones and rules that either the ball must pass through on the ground, or below a certain height). American football, on the other hand, can be built entirely without holes as, like the tetherball, they're just one piece extruded from the field.

I’m very confused by this.

The point here is that these are discontinuities in a two-dimensional surface representing the playing field. If players cannot physically move through a part of the field, it is a topological gap, no matter how large or small that may be or whether the players would ever be expected to try to move in that manner.

Applying scientific fields in a way that is confusing or irrelevant is a long-running xkcd joke.

Edited by Fighteer on May 27th 2022 at 12:29:44 PM

I suppose it's differences in topology definition. I'm used to the discontinuities being enclosed holes and the shapes being 3-dimensional. So soccer and basketball both require two "hoops" attached to the field to determine valid scoring. American football does not. Croquet again requires hoops, much as Olympic swimming requires lane ropes.