0482: "Height"

[dune]

Edit: Add:

Add this to the "List of Things Randall Didn't Include"

I'd be remiss if I didn't put in a plug for Rukbat.

Also, the galactic center should be shown to be exploding.

Ooh! And there should be a black hole full of lost socks. If the WMD's are out there, then so are all those dang socks.

The comic was intended to make you aware of all the things Randall, in his infinite wisdom, did not include. Like the Book of the Damned.

[mikekearn]

This comic puts mankind, space flight, and NASA in perspective. Unless and until we are able to travel at 10 x C or more we are wasting our time looking beyond earth for a better future. Mankind needs to focus its efforts on preserving the earth and improving its educational and economic systems to something that can stand the test of time until our intelligence and science is capable of giving more than joy rides to just a handful of individuals.

Oh pish tosh. Humanity's best bet is to proliferate to as many planets as humanly possible. Which is a terrible pun I will not apologize for. This planet is already beyond its capability to support as many humans as we keep trying to fit on it; to space and all that glorious room demonstrated in the comic is where we should go. If we can achieve that, then actually rescuing humanity from itself won't matter; people who aren't Neanderthal-ish in mind can unite on their own planet, and let those who can't tell a blackboard from a black hole destroy themselves somewhere else.*

_{*(This comment may or may not have been an excuse to use the phrase "pish tosh")}

[Myrddin]

Ooh! And there should be a black hole full of lost socks. If the WMD's are out there, then so are all those dang socks.

Odd socks don't end up in space; they crawl into wardrobes and, after a short pupal stage, emerge as fully-formed wire coat-hangers.

[Angua]

Ooh! And there should be a black hole full of lost socks. If the WMD's are out there, then so are all those dang socks.

Odd socks don't end up in space; they crawl into wardrobes and, after a short pupal stage, emerge as fully-formed wire coat-hangers.

Actually, they are eaten by the Eater of Socks which is a sort of anteater shaped creature (so to better suck up the sock) and lives in the laundry room.

[Jack21222]

You put Venus and Mars on epicycles, didn't you?

[tedit]

As a CMB scientist, I'm deeply hurt by the omission of the Cosmic Microwave Background. It really belongs at the top.

[BwaHaHa]

Ooh! And there should be a black hole full of lost socks. If the WMD's are out there, then so are all those dang socks.

Odd socks don't end up in space; they crawl into wardrobes and, after a short pupal stage, emerge as fully-formed wire coat-hangers.

Actually, they are eaten by the Eater of Socks which is a sort of anteater shaped creature (so to better suck up the sock) and lives in the laundry room.

Actually, They decorate themselves and run away to join the puppet theatre.

[lmclapp68]

Ooh! And there should be a black hole full of lost socks. If the WMD's are out there, then so are all those dang socks.

Odd socks don't end up in space; they crawl into wardrobes and, after a short pupal stage, emerge as fully-formed wire coat-hangers.

Actually, they are eaten by the Eater of Socks which is a sort of anteater shaped creature (so to better suck up the sock) and lives in the laundry room.

Actually, They decorate themselves and run away to join the puppet theatre.

Now you're just being silly.

[Doodle77]

I want to drop kittens 46 billion light years

[Commodore]

Wow, that was awesome, enough to make me delurk. Kudos.

Just a question, isn't Uranus' ring normally shown 90 degrees offset from the others' rings?

[keybored]

i demand a poster of not only this comic but all comics before it in descending sequential order.

[phydeaux]

Comet that will destroy the Earth in 2063?

Does he mean the asteroid Apophis that may smack in 2036?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

[ThemePark]

Is that the Existentialist in the oak tree?

I liked the Asteriods.

When I saw the point of the comic, I was kind of hoping to see "God's Eye" and "Mote" (or maybe just a Crazy Eddie probe), or possibly Trantor. Ah well.

Nope, that's a partridge in a pear tree.

I want to drop kittens 46 billion light years

Even with 46 billion light years, the cat will STILL land on its feet. So will buttered toast (yes, buttered toast has feet). A cat with buttered toast (butter facing away from cat) tied to its back travelling 46 billion light years will turn into a black hole. Which coincidentally is CERN's next big project.

[Hammer]

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index.htm

[DrakeSD]

"Each step up is double the height" should be "Each step up is 10 times the height," Correct?

Depends what you call a "step"... Going up about 1cm will double the height, going up about 3-4cm will be 10 times the height.

I'm confused. Someone please explain?

Also, why does this comic not show up on the search function?

[Glenn Magus Harvey]

I object to the intentional jab about Pluto not being a planet.

In fact, I already retconned Pluto's demotion out of my canon of the Solar System. Take that.

[DragonHawk]

"Each step up is double the height" should be "Each step up is 10 times the height," Correct?

Depends what you call a "step"... Going up about 1cm will double the height, going up about 3-4cm will be 10 times the height.

I'm confused. Someone please explain?

I'm not sure where "1cm" comes from... I guess the DPI of philip's screen.

The scale I see on this comic is similar to what I've seen described as a "logarithmic scale" before. I ain't no math guy, so I dunno if that's proper terminology. (Randall gets math, though, so I would expect him to get it right.)

Anywho, compare apparent vertical distances (e.g., measure it on your screen with a ruler). Start by measuring from the bottom to the 100 m mark. Then compare the distance between the 100 m mark and the 200 m mark. Should be roughly half the distance. (It is on my screen, as measured by my Mark I Mod 0 Eyeball.) Likewise, the apparent distance between the 200 and 400 marks is half the distance for the 100 and 200 marks.

By the time we get to the 1000 meter mark, the marks are so close together it's really impossible for us to see (let alone for Randall to draw). But if they continued in that fashion, you'd see the distance having for each mark ("step").

The remaining height notations are not the same scale markings. They're just signposts. (Heightposts?)

Also, why does this comic not show up on the search function?

To quote the search engine link, "OhNoRobot is a free search engine service for webcomics ... readers aid you in the task of transcription". I'm guessing because "Startled" has no dialog (aside from "Boo!"), nobody has bothered to submit a transcription. There is also http://xkcd.com/archive/ (an index of titles).

[jakerman999]

thanks allot for that "whole bottle"reference[/sarcasm]. now I can't for the life of me sing the damn song to remember how it's supposed to be...

and onto the comic.

I've found 3 starcraft references in this one, anyone found more than that? I really laughed at Arcturus(mengsk) even though the last name wasn't written. it probably references something else, but I don't care. and I don't normally read the forums past the first page so don't even bother correcting me.

this comic really made my day

[phlip]

Depends what you call a "step"... Going up about 1cm will double the height, going up about 3-4cm will be 10 times the height.

I'm confused. Someone please explain?

A logarithmic scale means that a constant distance in the vertical direction in the chart, rather than representing a constant distance IRL, actually represents a constant multiplication of the height.

So, for instance, if an object at 200m is shown, say, 1cm above an object at 100m (which it's close to, depending on your monitor's resolution), then an object at 400m will be 1cm above an object at 200m... an object at 10 light years will be 1cm above one at 5 light years... the same distance on the chart everywhere means a doubling.
Now, there's nothing special about doubling... if 1cm means the height is doubled, then 2cm means the height is multiplied by 4 (that is, doubled twice)... and about 3.3cm would mean the height is multiplied by 10 (3.3 = log₂ 10). The distances between the 1 billion light years line, the 1 million light years line, the 1 thousand light year mark (which is unlabeled, but it's between Rigel at 800ly and the Horsehead Nebula at 1500ly) and the 1 light year line, are all the same distance, which represents a multiplication by 1000.

I'd recommend ignoring the actual scale on the right from 100m to 1km... it's badly misaligned.

[cheesefreeak]

INPUT "do you even reference these things or is this just stuff from the top of your head?"; ANS
IF ANS = "YES" THEN PRINT "Holy crap, are you a friggin savant?"
IF ANS = "NO" THEN PRINT "That's still pretty genius. I'd get bored half way through."

[The Red Gem]

The Eris reference made me love Randall just a bit more than I already did. I don't know anyone else who'd even heard of Discordianism... and hitchhiker's guide references always make me laugh.

[Enleth]

Hey, how's that possible that there's just a normal high-altitude balloon here? What about the weather baloons?

[20tauri]

Hey guys,

I'm curious why the number '46 billion light years' was used. The universe only goes up about 14 billion light years. Is there a joke I'm missing?

thanks.

[sxiz]

Hahaha Ford Prefect. I want this on a giant poster.

[fransisco4]

Hey guys,

I'm curious why the number '46 billion light years' was used. The universe only goes up about 14 billion light years. Is there a joke I'm missing?

thanks.

This

[Gelsamel]

INPUT "do you even reference these things or is this just stuff from the top of your head?"; ANS
IF ANS = "YES" THEN PRINT "Holy crap, are you a friggin savant?"
IF ANS = "NO" THEN PRINT "That's still pretty genius. I'd get bored half way through."

You're giving the answers "Yes" or "No" to an "OR" question........Things like that make me sick.

[Eugo]

Is there a point to the "I accidentally the whole thing," besides sheer inanity?

It's clearly a prank, involving a reference to the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" /b/ prank... but I have no idea if there was a point to it or not.

Honestly though, I found it just as funny as the comic itself. Maybe because I'm so used to seeing forum posts and such where people the verb like that. Not on purpose of course, but... just, how do you the most important word in a sentence!?

Simple, as in the quick question, "what is faster, or a dog?"

[wizzard]

check this

[Alpha Omicron]

The Eris reference made me love Randall just a bit more than I already did. I don't know anyone else who'd even heard of Discordianism... and hitchhiker's guide references always make me laugh.

There's a thread on it somewhere.
Remember - don't mess with St. Gulik.

[jjane]

Woah, this is pretty awesome. I demand this in poster size.

i totally and utterly agree. this was possibly designed to become a poster.

wait a minute.

was it designed with the thought that it would become a poster?
or is that its DESTINY?


PS. Eris, Ford Prefect and the Parsec measurement were possibly my favorites. And the kite.

[cwDeici]

You're forgetting the Yellowcake.
While intel efforts were largely a failure (and an excuse (the Casus Belli of the old UN resolution being vague and in the grey area)) the ambition and foundation was there. The same people who wished to avoid war also wished to lift the successful sanctions.

Iraq was, sans evil theocracy, on the same path as Iran. It was after all, a fairly ambitious dictatorship.

I wonder if Saddam's cruel or inept sons would have managed to keep control of the Baath party or whether they would have institutionalized to some extent... the foundations were rotten, but so was China.

[jjane]

The Eris reference made me love Randall just a bit more than I already did. I don't know anyone else who'd even heard of Discordianism... and hitchhiker's guide references always make me laugh.

And here I was thinking I was the only one!

[Rory]

For those who want a poster but don't have the time/money/goodwill to order one from Randall by clicking on the comic, I vectorized this comic using Vector Magic desktop. Attached is a PDF version of this comic. I made some small fixes to the lettering, but I know there are still plenty of small vectorization mistakes everywhere – I don't have the time to fix it all, and it doesn't hurt the result too much anyway. It's not paginated, so if you want to make a poster out of it by piecing together multiple pages, you'll have to find some way to split it yourself. I also made an SVG version, so if somebody can make a poster out of an SVG but not a PDF, I can upload that too.

[The Cat]

I really don't think the cat cares for the game. However, it doesn't seem as though he has much choice. Does anyone really enjoy spending this much time at the computer? I like the Ben Frankiln quote and war games pic. Its a nice day here, I'm heading outside. Thoughts and best wishes to many of you. I Hope to hear from you.

[lmclapp68]

Thoughts and best wishes to many of you. I Hope to hear from you.

Obviously not a real cat. I call fowl.

[Jebobek]

This comic puts mankind, space flight, and NASA in perspective. Unless and until we are able to travel at 10 x C or more we are wasting our time looking beyond earth for a better future. Mankind needs to focus its efforts on preserving the earth and improving its educational and economic systems to something that can stand the test of time until our intelligence and science is capable of giving more than joy rides to just a handful of individuals.

Oh pish tosh. Humanity's best bet is to proliferate to as many planets as humanly possible. Which is a terrible pun I will not apologize for. This planet is already beyond its capability to support as many humans as we keep trying to fit on it; to space and all that glorious room demonstrated in the comic is where we should go. If we can achieve that, then actually rescuing humanity from itself won't matter; people who aren't Neanderthal-ish in mind can unite on their own planet, and let those who can't tell a blackboard from a black hole destroy themselves somewhere else.*

*(This comment may or may not have been an excuse to use the phrase "pish tosh")

While I'm all for dropping some energy into space exploration, I'm not a fan of completely ingnoring the self-destruction of other entities, be it another state, nation, continent, or planet. It almost always comes around to bite you back.

[The Cat]

Its been a while since I've been to the HHS. I'm new to computer games. How long have you been playing? Do you know all the characters yet? With my very limited knowlege, I have found it difficult to compete with the ones who wrote the game. They don't seem to play by the same rules as the rest of us.

[Various Varieties]

I've found 3 starcraft references in this one, anyone found more than that? I really laughed at Arcturus(mengsk) even though the last name wasn't written. it probably references something else, but I don't care.

The character was named after the star.

Whether it was included in this strip panel because it's one of the brightest stars in the sky, or as a reference to one of these pop-cultural items, I don't know.

and I don't normally read the forums past the first page so don't even bother correcting me.

D'oh!

[Tailypoe]

I Think That it would be cool if we could all pitch in with 20-30 Dollars to keep a girl in afghanistan educated for a year.
And Have a Nice eternity. Also, The bowl of Salt thing could be interpreted as a reference to pink chickens by patrick alexander.

[cwDeici]

I think I forgot to mention the Yellowcake Uranium in my last post, like 55 metric tons or something. Just the remains of Saddam's nuclear program.