# ­xkcd thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-strips\ **Created:** [May 28, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574 "2020-05-28T00:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/381 "2021-01-01T15:39:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’d honestly forgotten until I read that comic that this is when works start entering the public domain again. When did they stop? ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/382 "2021-01-01T16:40:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’d honestly forgotten until I read that comic that this is when works start entering the public domain again. I thought it was more about support for Flash ending on 12/31… ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/383 "2021-01-01T16:44:03Z")
Both. That’s the point of the joke. You can put works into the public domain. But if you do so in Flash form, it’ll last approximately zero seconds before it won’t work any more. Congress giveth and Adobe taketh away. Recall that that xkcd character is always doing complicated but ineffectual things with his mad bad IT skillz. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/384 "2021-01-01T16:58:20Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > When did they stop? They stopped (to an extent) when the US Government kept extending… and extending… and extending… the length of copyright. No doubt the publishing industry gained considerable financial benefits, and probably so did certain congressmen. > **[The Reason Why The Great Gatsby Isn’t In the Public Domain (Yet)](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/595567/why-the-great-gatsby-isnt-public-domain)** > > Copyright laws in America are complicated, especially for books. Though F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Great Gatsby' was published in 1925, it won’t enter the public domain until 2021. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/385 "2021-01-01T17:55:08Z")
IIRC, works re-started entering the public domain a couple years ago. Those published in 1923 entered at the beginning of 2019. Before that, there was a hiatus of a number of years due to the extending of the length of copyright. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/386 "2021-01-02T00:50:46Z")
> **[Viral Vector Immunity](https://xkcd.com/2406/)** > > We've secretly replaced this customer's instant coffee with our patented substitute. Let's see what she ... uh oh, I think she spotted us through the window. Now she's getting something from the closet ... oh jeez, she has a sword! Run!! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/387 "2021-01-02T00:55:39Z")
OK, so I totally don’t get this one. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/388 "2021-01-02T01:07:01Z")
There’s a vaccine method where you use a harmless virus (called the vector) to carry in non-active fragments of the target virus (the one you want to protect against) into the cell, so the cell can learn about the target virus without ever being exposed to the active target virus. This fails if the human happens to already have immunity to the vector. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/389 "2021-01-02T01:09:18Z")
They aren’t letting the horse in, because they have prior bad associations with horses. Therefore they will not learn how to fight the warriors hidden inside the horse. ===== The way a viral vector vaccine works is by modifying a harmless virus to tell your cells to make a desired antigen, as well as whatever the virus ordinarily does. So the adenovirus sneaks into your cells, as adenoviruses do, but it not only programs them to make more adenovirus, it also programs them to make coronavirus spike protein. Then your immune system learns to attack the spike protein. But if you have prior experience to THAT adenovirus, and are immune to it, your immune system destroys it before it gets into many cells, and therefore before it prompts you to make spike protein. So you may end up with a more robust immunity to that adenovirus, but you don’t develop any immunity to the coronavirus spike protein. And it fails as a coronavirus vaccine. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/390 "2021-01-02T01:09:48Z")
Ninja’d ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/391 "2021-01-02T01:16:34Z")
But the hover-over is gibberish to me. I recognize the “secret swap” technique used on cheezy commercials since the 50s, and I recognize the idea of the “victim” character breaking character & getting pissed at the folks who pulled the swap. Sure, the viral vector is another form of switcheroo. But the whole thing feels real tenuous and forced. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/392 "2021-01-02T01:22:36Z")
I think the idea is that if someone saw you secretly messing with your coffee, they wouldn’t assume it was a harmless Folgers’ test - they’d assume it was an attempt at murder, and come at you with a sword. This (I suppose) is related to the idea of a vaccine failure due to the body interpreting the innocent outside as a threat. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/393 "2021-01-02T01:43:39Z")
Possibly done in reference to the Astra Zeneca COVID vaccine using an adenovirus vector? Thought is the lower initial dose worked better because with the higher dose the body learned to recognize the adenovirus well enough for it to not get in the cells as effectively. It better learned to recognize the (horse) carrier as something to attack before it could deliver what was hidden inside. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/394 "2021-01-02T01:50:20Z")
Yeah, the adenovirus thing is a pretty obvious current event topic. Funny, but I wonder if Randall lurks here. We have a current thread about adulterated coffee. Did Randall pick coffee as the thing to switch in his comic because of that? > [@Anyone remember this episode of (I think) "Roger Ramjet"?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-remember-this-episode-of-i-think-roger-ramjet/929131): > > It’s the 1960s. An American couple is seen waking up to breakfast. When the husband tastes the coffee his wife has prepared, he recoils, claiming it tastes like glue. She belts him (with a rolling pin?) and the scene ends. This starts happening all over America, reaching crisis levels. It is eventually learned that the bad guys were putting a chemical in coffee which caused trading stamps (which at the time some coffee companies were including as premiums, in the coffee cans) to dissolve into … ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/395 "2021-01-02T03:09:42Z")
Fo r those who haven’t seen it, this website has a brilliant scale-model of the solar system. [[If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A tediously accurate map of the solar system](https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html)] Don’t forget to try out the 'Speed of Light option on the bottom right. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/396 "2021-01-02T03:40:11Z")
That explanation helps … but surely, the people inside the city walls in the comic are doing exactly what the Trojans SHOULD have done, so I’m not sure where the failure is? Or am I being way too literal? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/397 "2021-01-02T11:32:23Z")
Well, yes, the Trojans would have been better off leaving the horse outside. But for the adenovirus vaccine, the “Trojans” i.e. the injectee, would do better to let the “horse” (adenovirus) in and have the “soldiers” (SARS-nCov-2 RNA snips) run rampant inside the “city” (injectee’s body). So the joke is the ancient Trojans did the wrong thing for them, and now the body, by doing the opposite of the Trojans, is doing the wrong thing now. Or at least _might_ do the wrong thing; nobody yet knows how much vector immunity will be a problem with the new vax. But we’re all about to find out. In that sense the xkcd is a cautionary tale or whistling past a graveyard. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/398 "2021-01-02T13:56:45Z")
OK, I didn’t know that one of the COVID vaccines uses another virus as a vector-- I think that’s the missing piece to make the comic make sense. And that seems like it’d be a pretty significant failure mode-- Is there any way to know if a given patient will be strongly resistant to the vector virus (so you know to give that patient a different sort of vaccine)? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/399 "2021-01-05T04:54:12Z")
> **[Depth and Breadth](https://xkcd.com/2407/)** > > A death-first search is when you lose your keys and travel to the depths of hell to find them, and then if they're not there you start checking your coat pockets. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/400 "2021-01-05T14:14:21Z")
The brepth-first search there looks systematic, and like it might be a real thing, a method that will exhaustively reach eventually every possibility, even when breadth and depth can both be infinite. Is the deadth-first method also a real thing? From the limited example given, it’s hard to tell whether it’s completely systematic, or what its system is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=21)