# ­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:** 241
**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:** [August 7, 2025, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4803 "2025-08-07T05:08:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And a willingness to have some very high speed accidents at ground level during development. There was [a fatal crash at Bonneville](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/racer-dies-trying-set-land-speed-record-utah-salt-flats-rcna223010) a couple days ago. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2025, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4804 "2025-08-07T05:25:11Z")
Huh. I’ll have to ask my dad if he knew the guy. He used to race at Bonneville and it’s a pretty small community. That damn salt gets everywhere. Even after three washings, salt deposits were coming out from between my car’s body panels. I was once there in the line, close to the front and waiting for my dad to race. Racing was paused due to high winds. Suddenly, a Port-a-Potty passed by laterally at about 40 mph, sliding easily across the wet salt. About 10 seconds later, a pickup passed by, chasing it down. I never did find out what happened or what they planned on doing when they caught it. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2025, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4805 "2025-08-07T05:56:39Z")
Kinda like a dog after a car. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4806 "2025-08-07T11:46:56Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Suddenly, a Port-a-Potty passed by laterally at about 40 mph, sliding easily across the wet salt. Sometimes when you got to go, you _really_ got to go. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4807 "2025-08-07T13:10:22Z")
May be it was occupied… ---
**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:** [August 7, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4808 "2025-08-07T13:24:11Z")
If ever there were a time to sarcastically quip “Well, it didn’t go past me…” ---
**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:** [August 7, 2025, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4809 "2025-08-07T13:35:48Z")
_Nothing_ gets past our @Dr.Strangelove! ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4810 "2025-08-07T14:12:51Z")
This is one of those problems that you’d naively think a computer could do an exhaustive search. After all, for an N-dimensional hypercube, there’s only N2^{N-1} edges, each of which is either occupied or not, giving 2^{N2^{N-1}} possible states. How fast can that grow? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4811 "2025-08-07T16:49:16Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Psychologists have been putting cute animals in boxes for ages. Oh sure, they call it an “operant conditioning chamber” or something in public, but when you aren’t around it’s just a Skinner box. And they don’t mess around with _thought_ experiments. Aren’t all psychological experiments technically “thought” experiments? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4812 "2025-08-07T17:06:43Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > Aren’t all psychological experiments technically “thought” experiments?   [![](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/far-side-august-26-1986-an-amoeba-wife-yells-at-her-husband-that-he-never-thinks.jpg) ](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/far-side-august-26-1986-an-amoeba-wife-yells-at-her-husband-that-he-never-thinks.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4813 "2025-08-08T20:05:27Z")
> **[Disclaimer](https://xkcd.com/3126/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/disclaimer.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/disclaimer.png) “You say no human would reply to a forum thread about Tom Bombadil by writing and editing hundreds of words of text, complete with formatting, fancy punctuation, and two separate uses of the word ‘delve’. Unfortunately for both of us, you are wrong.” ---
**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:** [August 8, 2025, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4814 "2025-08-08T20:29:08Z")
I’ve always used a lot of em-dashes and am disappointed that ChatGPT is sort of ruining them. I downloaded my SDMB user archive the other day and found that my posts contain 7,761 em-dashes. I’m mildly surprised it’s not more. Sometimes I’ll find that every sentence in a paragraph contains one. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2025, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4815 "2025-08-08T22:59:17Z")
Not all that long ago I _started_ using em-dashes because the Alt-code is reasonably easy to remember (150) and I just took it into my head that it’s useful to distinguish dashes from hyphens. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2025, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4816 "2025-08-08T23:17:37Z")
I just use a pair of hyphens. Most computer contexts nowadays automatically turn that into an em-dash, anyway. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2025, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4817 "2025-08-08T23:32:48Z")
Yes. And actually I found that I have more than 14,000 em-dashes in my archive if I search for both dashes and double-hyphens. Some double-hyphens got converted and some didn’t. And actually it looks like a portion are en-dashes, too, which can be hard to distinguish (and it’s not always clear if the double-hyphen gets converted to one or the other). ---
**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:** [August 9, 2025, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4818 "2025-08-09T00:06:57Z")
I’m more concerned that Randall has obviously been lurking here to get inspiration for this comic and a few other recent ones. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4819 "2025-08-09T01:01:01Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Randall has obviously been lurking here I think not. He’s obviously been _delving_ here. ---
**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:** [August 9, 2025, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4820 "2025-08-09T01:10:25Z")
But he delved too deep. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4821 "2025-08-09T02:13:27Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I’m more concerned that Randall has obviously been lurking here to get inspiration for this comic and a few other recent ones. That was my first thought, too—especially considering the time and effort I’ve spent carefully writing and editing some of my posts. (Hey look—an em-dash! 😉 And another one snuck in too!) ---
**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:** [August 9, 2025, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4822 "2025-08-09T02:25:12Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > “You say no human would reply to a forum thread about Tom Bombadil by writing and editing hundreds of words of text, complete with formatting, fancy punctuation, and two separate uses of the word ‘delve’. Unfortunately for both of us, you are wrong.” Some years ago a first time poster asked a question about elves in a Tolkien thread. Our favorite JRR-scholar, **QtM** answered with three long paragraphs then blithely finished with, “I’m at work now. When I get home I’ll have my references available and can answer deeper.” The question-asker responded with, Oh My God. I posted, “A little bit frightening, isn’t he.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=240) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=242)