# ­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:** 272
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5423 "2026-01-17T13:25:11Z")
The idea is that the reference to “space” was originally supposed to just be an instruction to include a space separating the words International and Station, but instead was included as the second word. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5424 "2026-01-17T18:35:03Z")
Groan, and these extra words to keep discord 😁 ---
**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:** [January 17, 2026, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5425 "2026-01-17T18:46:46Z")
Cf. “Flight of the Conchords”: > PRODUCER: That’s “Martin\_Clark@aol.com.” > > JERMAINE: “Underscore” is your middle name? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5426 "2026-01-17T19:07:16Z")
It would have been clearer if ponytail had actually said “International Station!”, including the exclamation point. ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5427 "2026-01-17T19:12:17Z")
And the alt-text shouldn’t have its own exclamation point. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5428 "2026-01-17T19:24:44Z")
Yeah, that too. ---
**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:** [January 17, 2026, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5429 "2026-01-17T19:41:28Z")
Could be worse, the “The Quote Literally International Space Station Exclamation Point End Quote”. ---
**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:** [January 17, 2026, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5430 "2026-01-17T21:00:27Z")
“The Quote Literally International Space Station Exclamation Point End Quote and Underline Literally I Don’t Know Why This Is So Hard.” ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5431 "2026-01-17T21:31:06Z")
Reminds me of one of my favorite smbc comics: [![](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1542039316-20181112.png) ](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1542039316-20181112.png) ---
**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 17, 2026, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5432 "2026-01-17T23:30:37Z")
Or, from one of Hofstadter’s books, “This sentence is difficult to translate into French”. ---
**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 17, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5433 "2026-01-17T23:49:13Z")
[The World Wonders!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_world_wonders) ---
**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 20, 2026, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5434 "2026-01-20T02:43:37Z")
> **[Aurora Coolness](https://xkcd.com/3196/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/aurora_coolness.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/aurora_coolness.png) > [@](#): > > I've had countless nights where the line never left the bottom zone of the graph, but the few moments where it's climbed all the way to the top have made up for them all. From my experience seeing them on (I think) 8 different occasions, he’s very much not wrong. Every time was different, and the best ones morphed between different kinds. And yes, those beautiful photographs you see? It sometimes really does actually look like that. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5435 "2026-01-20T02:47:16Z")
In your opinion, how does the aurora compare to total solar eclipse? I have seen the latter but never the northern lights (not for want of trying). ---
**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 20, 2026, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5436 "2026-01-20T02:59:41Z")
I’ve been able to see solar eclipses during the day, when it wasn’t really cold out. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5437 "2026-01-20T04:07:12Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > In your opinion, how does the aurora compare to total solar eclipse? Solar eclipse is more spectacular. ---
**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 20, 2026, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5438 "2026-01-20T04:44:21Z")
They are very different. A solar eclipse is a bizarre event, that triggers a primal reaction. I’ve seen the northern lights three times. Once in Canada, in the woods. Once on an airplane. And once in Germany in a town. The first time was in Canada. And there were brilliant lines on the sky. In fact, i thought someone must be advertising with giant search lights. (Something a company did when i was a kid.) But they didn’t go all the way to the ground, and sometimes changed where they were “from”. And we were too far away from any urban areas for that to make sense. It took me a while to realize it was the northern lights. The second time was on an airplane, and it was hard to see, but kind of cool. The third time it was so faint that i wouldn’t have believed i saw it at all, except i was there with an astronomer, who pointed out that the sky was a little lighter than it ought to be, and suggested trying to photograph it with a long exposure. The photograph clearly showed colorful northern lights. Only the first came close to an eclipse. It was, in some ways, showier. But it didn’t trigger that primal “something’s wrong” that the eclipse did. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5439 "2026-01-20T09:18:35Z")
It seems I missed them again tonight. As always. ---
**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 20, 2026, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5440 "2026-01-20T11:50:06Z")
Yeah, I think I’d agree with @puzzlegal (and @Northern_Piper , in less detail). Weird lights in the sky are beautiful, but there are enough different phenomena that fit into that category (rainbows, halos, sun dogs, iridescent clouds, etc.) that we’re sort of conditioned to expect weird lights in the sky as being something normal. An eclipse, though, is nothing like anything you’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5441 "2026-01-20T13:15:43Z")
Plus, I’ve seen northern lights all my life. They’re not extraordinary events, unlike a total solar eclipse, which I’ve only seen once. ---
**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:** [January 20, 2026, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5442 "2026-01-20T16:36:19Z")
Never seen northern lights or the Milky Way; city dweller with lots of light pollution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=271) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=273)