imgs.xkcd.com

quink , to xkcd in xkcd #2932: Driving PSA

That, to me, looks like an intersection I would never want to turn left on in the first place in anything but the most deserted area.

Lesrid ,

Which is the delusion that the US's traffic engineers based all of their decisions on 60 years ago.

"This'll be fine hardly anybody lives out here"

ilinamorato ,

It's compounded by the delusion that the US's traffic engineers base all of their decisions on now.

"It'll be fine, it's been here for 60 years."

marcos ,

It doesn't work when nobody lives around either.

The only way this can work is if both all cars are from the 30s, only able to move at 50 km/h, and nobody lives around.

TexasDrunk ,

Yep, same. I'll bust a right and flip around a street up the road.

meowMix2525 ,

Yeah this is the only legal way to turn left in a road with a median like this in michigan. You have to turn right to turn left.

lugal , to xkcd in xkcd #2898: Orbital Argument

Sometimes, both can be wrong. Both orbit the moon

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

...whoosh.
In no logical sense does the sun orbit our moon. The earth does however indeed orbit the moon (or technically they both orbit a common centre between the earth and the moon).

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Are you saying that in no way shape or form, does the moon and its affect on the earth and earth-moon barycenter not influence the solar barycenter?

Id accept no way worth caring about, but as an absolute?

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

You seem to be saying that the earth-moon barycente can be logically referred to as just 'the moon' ?

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

The earth does however indeed orbit the moon (or technically they both orbit a common centre between the earth and the moon).

Heres you referring to the Earth moon barycenter as just ‘the moon’

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

You've got me there, but by logical extension you are now saying the celestial body the ISS orbits is ...the moon?

lugal ,

I've talked to the man in the moon and he said the sun rises and sets on the moon like it would if the sun orbits the moon. Same for the earth. Both orbit the moon. Face it.

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

The Earth–Moon–Sun three body problem is apparently something that has been studied quite a bit in physics.

lugal ,

And of cause there are 3 camps and alot of disagreements but essentially, the majority of scientists argue, like me, that it is the moon which is the center. You can always cite some fringe scientists arguing otherwise, that doesn't change the general consensus.

gandalf_der_12te ,

you are the barycenter of your own opinion

yo opinion so massive she needs a crane to get out of bed.

lugal ,

I'm not sure about that but for sure I am the center of my personal narrow Overton Window

kn0wmad1c , to xkcd in xkcd #2893: Sphere Tastiness
@kn0wmad1c@programming.dev avatar

How do we know the moon isn't tasty? Isn't it made of cheese?

blackluster117 ,
@blackluster117@possumpat.io avatar
Sotuanduso ,
@Sotuanduso@lemm.ee avatar

If so, it's a very sharp cheese. Do not eat, you'll cut your tongue.

huquad , to xkcd in xkcd #2881: Bug Thread

Fixed it! Thanks guys!

never heard from again

NeighborOfTheBeast ,
EmoDuck ,

I found a solution. This should work: dead link

anarchy79 ,
@anarchy79@lemmy.world avatar

I find people are actually pretty good about this online, i come across a ton of 2 comment posts consisting of user asking for help with a problem answering themselves with the solution they found while waiting. It's become better.

DirkMcCallahan , to Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics. in temperature timeline

This image never fails to depress. I wonder what an updated version would look like?

BluesF , (edited )

Not much different, we aren't very far ahead. The trajectory remains more or less the same. Global anomaly was 1.2°C in 2023.

Deconceptualist , to xkcd in xkcd #2907: Schwa
@Deconceptualist@lemm.ee avatar

I bet these sentences sound super weird if you try to pronounce them without using any schwas.

teft ,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

You would probably just sound like a non-native speaker. I assume it would be similar to weak forms and how weak forms are usually absent from non-native english speech.

NoRodent ,
@NoRodent@lemmy.world avatar

As a non-native speaker, I was kinda confused at first by this comic because in my head the vowels definitely didn't sound all the same. But I personally consider pronunciation of vowels in English to be one of the greatest mysteries in the universe, so no wonder.

Catoblepas ,

As a native English speaker and Spanish learner, consistent vowel pronunciation is so incredible. 🥺 Just looking at a word and knowing how to pronounce it… amazing stuff. Kind of wild that in some languages you don’t have the ‘curse of the self educated’ (randomly mispronouncing words you’ve only read, not heard spoken).

WoahWoah ,

Yeah that blew my mind about Spanish. I was like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL THESE VOWELS ALWAYS HAVE THE SAME SOUND??? YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO THAT!??"

Then I started trying to learn to conjugate verbs and I was like ohhhhh, ok, so fuck me.

watersnipje ,

I was BAFFLED to learn at 35 that “awry” does not rhyme with “glory”.

WoahWoah ,

Non-native to where? These aren't all schwa in all English-speaking nations. They're not even all schwa in all US dialects.

Language is crazy.

bstix , (edited )

Great.. now it reads like Apu from Simpsons.

NoIWontPickAName ,

Do you mean Apu?

Abu was the monkey in Aladdin

bstix ,

Yes.

KSPAtlas ,
@KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz avatar

Sounds like you're still learning english

Puttaneska , (edited ) to xkcd in xkcd #2943: Unsolved Chemistry Problems

They told me at school that ‘p’ meant ‘negative log’. So ‘pH’ means ‘the negative log of the concentration of Hydrogen ions in moles/litre’.

pH 1 is 1 x 10^-1^ (strong acid)

pH 7 is 1 x 10^-7^ (neutral)

pH 14 is 1 x 10^-14^ (alkaline)

(Chemistry was a long time ago, though)

Speculater , (edited )
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

The xkcd breaks it down for us, basically we don't know because the person who coined the term never specified what it was. It's either: puissance, potens, or potenz. Which means potency in French, Dutch Danish and German, the three languages the scientists published in.

Dagwood222 ,

I was taught it meant 'potential' but that was 6th Grade in the US, so I guess it was all a lie.

Bumblefumble ,

Dutch and Danish are not the same language. So yeah, the Danish scientist published in Danish, not Dutch.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

Oh shit, my bad lol.

nodiet ,

Can the term potency also be used to refer to the exponent in English? Because that is what is meant by the terms in the other languages and I haven't come across that usage of the word potency in English

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

I think that's accurate, the exponent is what it's referring to, but the pedantic types are worried about what the p literally means.

Puttaneska ,

Thank you. I think the decades-old chemistry-class flashback distracted me from thoroughly absorbing the full post!

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

You're missing a 4 in the alkaline line

Puttaneska ,

Thank you (4 now added!)

Sam_Bass , to xkcd in xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

I get as far as the third panel. Anything beyond that is drunk speak

Zagorath ,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

I thought the same at first, but then I tried actually saying it out loud. "Yeah, I'm just gonna go to the shops". And I actually think Munroe has it right here, at least for my accent. If I had been asked to say it and carefully analyse it myself, I probably wouldn't have noticed at all that I was eliding more than "going to" to "gonna". And if I had noticed, I still probably would have analysed it as (and I'm using Hangul here because frankly I don't know how to spell out the vowel in the Latin alphabet in a way that actually makes sense) 근 (basically "gun", but with a lazier vowel). But it's definitely been elided down to a single syllable.

The key thing is that this only happens when putting it into the middle of a full sentence. If it's the only word I say, it stays "gonna".

edit: wait 🤦‍♂️. I can use IPA. I'd have analysed it as /gən/ But realistically, Munroe's /gә̃/ is probably more accurate.

grue ,

I can only get to /gә̃/ if I make an effort to say it faster than I ever actually talk. Otherwise, it definitely always has that "n" sound in there.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

Yeah, “gon’” seems about the most efficient form of “going to” that would be recognizable.

Going to > gonna > gon’

I guess if you’ve lived anywhere where speech has drifted a little hillbilly this version is just daily speech rather than any need for speed.

megane_kun , to xkcd in xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

I didn't get it until I started trying to say "hot potato" in the middle of a sentence, like "Look out! Hot potato incoming!"

The 't' in "hot" became more and more like a glottal stop as my tongue started to touch the gums of my top front teeth less and less.

neo ,

Still, I don't think I could uncover that alien impersonator.

"I'm goa have some hot potato."

Too me the "t" (at most) emphasises the hotness. Am I wrong?

ChexMax ,

Are you the alien? Nobody calls a potato for eating hot potato... If you're eating a potato it's going to be hot. Hot potato is referring to the game where you pass something along very quickly. It's saying you're all passing something along that no one wants to get caught with or stuck with, and it's almost never literally, it's usually taking about a responsibility being passed or something like that.

neo ,

No, fellow human. Of course I am not the alien. Ha, ha, ha. You are funny and I would be pleased to talk with you another time in the future. Ha, ha, ha. Good bye.

ZDL ,

If you’re eating a potato it’s going to be hot.

Potato salad has entered the chat.

megane_kun ,
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

The alien impersonator was me all along!‌ HAHAHA!!!

I mean, seriously, I am not a native English speaker, but even with my weird English accent, it only became weirder if I try to speak fast while keeping the emphasis on that 't' at the end of "hot". My native accent also probably lends to that glottal stop taking over the 't' and merging it with the upcoming 'p' sound. It also helps that the two sounds (glottal stop and the bilabial 'p') are on opposite sides of my mouth, so I‌ can quickly sound them in succession. The end result sounded to me like an exaggerated "posh British" rendition, as if the alien watched way too much‌ BBC before invading Earth.

It just sounded way weirder than I otherwise would be. I can't really describe it.

psud , to xkcd in xkcd #2909: Moon Landing Mission Profiles

The current Artemis 4 plan

Gateway

  • Two modules launched together to lunar near rectilinear halo orbit (NHRO)

Lander

  1. Starship lander launches to LEO
  2. Some large number of starship tankers (or few tankers doing many flights) refuel the lander
  3. Lander flies to NRHO, docks with gateway

Transport

  1. Crew launch and fly to NHRO in Orion
  2. Orion rendezvous with gateway
  3. Crew land using the lander, do stuff
  4. Crew ascend to NHRO in lander
  5. Lander rendezvous with gateway
  6. Crew return to Earth in Orion
echodot ,

But I think Artemis 3 is slated to be the first human mission to the moon that actually lands, and that will be pre gateway station so presumably they don't actually need the space station presumably they can just dock directly to the lander which makes you wonder why they're even building the station.

The plan has come under a fair amount of criticism for being overly complicated while at the same time not really having any extra operational capacitys over Apollo. Mostly this seems to be a cluge for the fact that starship (the lander is basically just starship with mods) isn't human rated and obviously NASA has no information on the timeline as to when that will happen, assuming it happens at all. Combined with the fact that Congress insisted that NASA reuse the shuttle engines presumably because they mistakenly assumed that would save money or something. So now they need to build a launcher.

Oh, and they only have enough shuttle engines for three or four SLS rockets anyway so the whole thing isn't even particularly long lived.

The whole plan is just weird.

psud ,

Yeah, I think when they decided they needed gateway station they thought they would be using a much smaller lander

LazaroFilm , to xkcd in xkcd #2909: Moon Landing Mission Profiles
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

For option 4, they could have used a rope and just pulled it closer.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar
topinambour_rex ,
@topinambour_rex@lemmy.world avatar

I love how they describe the impact it has, the day after in the news.

gandalf_der_12te , to xkcd in xkcd #2898: Orbital Argument

Is this... an introductory course in relativity, disguised as a joke?

Am I accidentally learning something here?

Guys?

moosetwin ,
@moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

xkcd

yes it is

jungle ,

Not really, relativity plays no role here. It's classical Newtonian physics.

moosetwin ,
@moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I was more referring to the fact that xkcd's comics have a lot of science in them, rather than the specific type of science

netvor ,
@netvor@lemmy.world avatar

relativity plays no role here

I still count that as learning.

JasonDJ ,

Relatively speaking, though…

kurosawaa ,

XKCD is basically all math jokes.

Leviathan , to xkcd in xkcd #2932: Driving PSA

Yup. Be predictable, not courteous. You'll save lives.

I'm fine with moving forward and using his car as my new stop line until the lane is clear. He's the asshole for assuming everyone waiting behind him wants to be as courteous and patient.

scrubbles ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Thank you!

You're not being kind by doing this! You're being kind to the one person you see but being an asshole to everyone behind you! Follow the rules of the road and everyone will get on better.

ameancow ,

Nothing like getting to a 4-way stop and the cycle is going smoothly then some dipshit starts waving cars and throws everything out of whack and next thing you know everyone is inching forward at the same time.

Equally bad, the entry drives into shopping centers are often made to not stop when entering the lot, this way during busy shopping times traffic won't back up out into the street. This is a normal, common thing, usually plastered with signs "INCOMING TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP" and you still get people stopping and waving cars through, thinking they're doing anyone a favor, when instead it's confusing everyone as to what the rules are at the intersection. Then cars start driving around each other and you get to hear that sickening "scrrrunch-POP" as the other lane started moving without noticing the rules had changed.

I have a feeling these are the same people who push a full cart into the self-checkout having never used a self-checkout in their lives.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

People always complain about Altimas because they're unpredictable, but the absolute worst offenders I see are Honda CRV drivers specifically because they're trying to be polite on the road. I'd take some busted Altima weaving through traffic over a CRV who decides to be nice and stop at the end of the onramp so they don't cut anyone off.

vk6flab , to xkcd in xkcd #2932: Driving PSA
@vk6flab@lemmy.radio avatar

Watching a couple of Dashcam videos is the perfect way to explore this phenomenon in full HD colour and often colourful sound.

randomaccount43543 OP , to xkcd in xkcd #2922: Pub Trivia
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