# ­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:** 234
**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:** [July 11, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4663 "2025-07-11T22:54:38Z")
That made me laugh out loud in the airport. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4664 "2025-07-13T21:28:45Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The big mystery of course is how you can have a mass without a visible object. Dark matter is one of the big mysteries today, no invisible moon required. ---
**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:** [July 13, 2025, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4665 "2025-07-13T21:40:37Z")
In fairness, @Dr.Strangelove’s comment was in the context of the initial discovery of gravity and planets and basic stuff like that. So rather more primitive science than we enjoy today. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4666 "2025-07-13T21:58:42Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Once it coalesced into something vaguely spherical? No one is quite sure about that, but probably a few degrees across (compared to the current 0.5 degrees). Kurzgesagt has an animated [entire history of the earth in an hour](https://youtu.be/S7TUe5w6RHo) (1.5 million years per second). The collision with Theia and the resulting incandescent blob is at about 40 seconds in. Dunno how accurate the width is. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4667 "2025-07-13T22:03:05Z")
There’s a long history in science of finding various anomalies and realizing that there’s been something there all along. Neutrinos would be another example. I do wonder if a black moon would have actually _accelerated_ science, being an anomaly that you can’t explain without some pretty advanced physics. I could argue it both ways, though. There’s no shortage of mysterious stuff that people just threw their hands up at. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2025, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4668 "2025-07-15T06:25:12Z")
> **[Unsolved Physics Problems](https://xkcd.com/3115/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/unsolved_physics_problems.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/unsolved_physics_problems.png) “‘Tin pest’ makes more sense to me. Tin just doesn’t want to be locked down in a shape like that. I get it. But why would any metal want to grow hair??” ---
**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:** [July 16, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4669 "2025-07-16T20:41:25Z")
Googling “tin pest”, it looks like it only happens at low temperatures, so frequent contact with boiling water would probably prevent it. That’s good. You wouldn’t want tin pest in a teapot. ---
**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:** [July 16, 2025, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4670 "2025-07-16T21:08:24Z")
If you got it though, it’d be no big deal. Well played Good Sir! ---
**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:** [July 16, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4671 "2025-07-16T22:26:30Z")
> **[Echo Chamber](https://xkcd.com/3116/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/echo_chamber.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/echo_chamber.png) This is almost as bad as the time I signed up for a purely partisan fishing expedition. Took me a bit to realize that “mittens” doesn’t mean “fingerless gloves”, here. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4672 "2025-07-16T23:14:53Z")
“Echo Chamber” really is one of those phrases you forget actually mean something beyond a metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4673 "2025-07-16T23:30:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This is almost as bad as the time I signed up for a purely partisan fishing expedition. > > Took me a bit to realize that “mittens” doesn’t mean “fingerless gloves”, here. Sorry, I’m going to have to have that one explained to me. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4674 "2025-07-16T23:37:07Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Took me a bit to realize that “mittens” doesn’t mean “fingerless gloves”, here. > > Sorry, I’m going to have to have that one explained to me. I think that “Mittens” is the name of a cat; i.e. the social media they’re watching has a lot of cat videos. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4675 "2025-07-16T23:40:08Z")
And a fishing expedition is a metaphor for a non-specific search for damaging information about someone (like a politician). Or… an actual fishing trip. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4676 "2025-07-17T00:37:51Z")
I’d rather go cherry-picking. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4677 "2025-07-17T00:42:03Z")
More pleasant than nit-picking, that’s for sure. Especially if you eat the results. ---
**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:** [July 17, 2025, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4678 "2025-07-17T10:39:42Z")
Wasn’t “Mittens” a slur / pejorative nickname for Mitt Romney? Him falling in a laundry hamper would be loud. And make a suitable second line connected to the political meaning of “fishing expedition” in the first line. ---
**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:** [July 17, 2025, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4679 "2025-07-17T13:39:44Z")
I think it has to be a cat. The whole point of the joke is that Munroe’s social media feed is entirely apolitical (consisting of things like cute cats falling over), and so a “social media echo chamber” must, perforce, have a different meaning for him. ---
**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:** [July 17, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4680 "2025-07-17T19:42:47Z")
Of course it’s a cat. Nothing else even occurred to me as a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4681 "2025-07-18T04:06:28Z")
Same here. Aided by the fact that my school’s “Early Reader” _(“See Jane. See Jane run!”)_ books starred a puppy named Tip and a kitten named Mitten. > **[Tip and Mitten (Reading For Meaning)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21552312-tip-and-mitten)** > > Vintage children's book ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4682 "2025-07-19T03:14:38Z")
> **[Replication Crisis](https://xkcd.com/3117/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/replication_crisis.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/replication_crisis.png) “Maybe encouraging the publication of null results isn’t enough–maybe we need a journal devoted to publishing results the study authors find personally annoying.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=233) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=235)