# ­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:** 57
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1122 "2021-12-05T01:44:35Z")
@Chronos. Huh. I thought the implication was that, since there were only that many numbers, that the world was going to end before we made it to Christmas (likely due to a meteor or something). I’m glad it’s less dark than that. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2021, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1123 "2021-12-05T02:20:51Z")
Ah, and one more detail: Looking it up, it’s launching on the 22nd. So that’s when Christmas falls this year for astronomers. Assuming it doesn’t blow up. That’d be why the numbers start at 5, instead of 1, so they could get to 22. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1124 "2021-12-05T06:22:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Presumably, the sub-mirrors are numbered as in the picture. Nope. There are only 18 segments, so that numbering scheme does not work. It’s all in the date. However, a successful launch is not going to be a signal for astronomers to relax. True, it’s a very critical part of the project, but there are others just as critical. It’s not going to stay in Earth orbit, but will move out to the Sun-Earth L2 position and orbit around that. And while it’s doing so, it’s going to be unfolding the heat shield and moving those 18 segments into place. The thing is like ten Rube Goldberg devices rolled into one. There’s all kinds of single step failures that could ruin it. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1125 "2021-12-05T06:23:39Z")
The difference between the 5th and 22nd of December (inclusive) is 18, which is the number of mirror segments in the James Webb Space Telescope main mirror. > **[2550: Webb - explain xkcd](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2550:_Webb)** > > Explain xkcd is a wiki dedicated to explaining the webcomic xkcd. Go figure. > [@](#): > > This particular calendar features 18 hexagonal features, intended to be sequentially accessed over several days, deliberately similar to the 18 gold-beryllium mirror segments designed to fold out to form the JWST’s primary mirror. The first door is on the 5th, two days after this comic’s publication date, while the last is the 22nd, marking ‘The Big Day’. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1126 "2021-12-07T20:08:51Z")
> **[Debunking](https://xkcd.com/2551/)** > > Mark Zuckerberg has only neutral feelings toward Peppa Pig, who he understands is a fictional character, and he blames the coronavirus pandemic on other factors. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1127 "2021-12-09T07:09:30Z")
> **[The Last Molecule](https://xkcd.com/2552/)** > > Biology is really struggling; they're barely at 93% and they keep finding more ants. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2021, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1128 "2021-12-11T03:54:56Z")
> **[Incident Report](https://xkcd.com/2553/)** > > Increasing-precision timestamps are the Jaws theme of incident reports. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1129 "2021-12-14T17:07:55Z")
> **[Gift Exchange](https://xkcd.com/2554/)** > > In addition to having all their budgets in a spreadsheet with consistent formatting, they just love expressing preferences on a well-calibrated numerical scale. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1130 "2021-12-16T06:51:29Z")
> **[Notifications](https://xkcd.com/2555/)** > > It's 10:34 PM for this user. They really need to get going, they have a thing early tomorrow. Are you sure you want to notify? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2021, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1131 "2021-12-18T01:30:00Z")
> **[Turing Complete](https://xkcd.com/2556/)** > > Thanks to the ForcedEntry exploit, your company's entire tech stack can now be hosted out of a PDF you texted to someone. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2021, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1132 "2021-12-21T04:08:23Z")
> **[Immunity](https://xkcd.com/2557/)** > > This plan may sound appealing to people who know a little about the immune system, but the drawbacks are clear to people who know a lot about the immune system and also to people who don't know anything about it. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2021, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1133 "2021-12-21T04:25:37Z")
He’s got his work cut out to top “I Just Don’t Trust Them”. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2021, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1134 "2021-12-22T19:48:01Z")
> **[Rapid Test Results](https://xkcd.com/2558/)** > > A solid red area with two white lines means that you have been infected with the anti-coronavirus, COVID+19, which will cure anyone you have close contact with. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1135 "2021-12-25T20:18:41Z")
> **[December 25th Launch](https://xkcd.com/2559/)** > > Update: Santa has been destroyed by the range safety officer. Should never have appointed someone named Ebenezer Grinch as RSO… ---
**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:** [December 25, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1136 "2021-12-25T21:30:47Z")
👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻 ---
**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:** [December 27, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1137 "2021-12-27T17:11:15Z")
> **[Confounding Variables](https://xkcd.com/2560/)** > > You can find a perfect correlation if you just control for the residual. Real-life example of this: At one time, there was a planned space mission called LISA, that would have been a space-based gravitational wave detector. One of the difficulties with it was that it would have heard every gravitational wave source in the appropriate frequency, including things like white dwarf binaries, of which we expect there to be hundreds in our Galaxy. So the data analysis had to be able to pick out all of these large numbers of sources. Scientists would generate mock data sets of many plausible and not-so-plausible sources, and send them to each other, to see if they could unravel them. The team at my school started off by trying to fit all the signal they could with white dwarf binaries, because we expect there to be a lot of those, and then see what’s left. They were embarrassed to discover that any signal could be entirely fitted by the appropriate set of white dwarf binaries, so if you ever wanted any chance of finding anything else at all, you needed a different strategy. ---
**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:** [December 27, 2021, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1138 "2021-12-27T18:03:26Z")
Sounds like you accidentally reinvented Fourier analysis 🤣 ---
**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:** [December 27, 2021, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1139 "2021-12-27T18:36:35Z")
Not me; my friends. And it’s not quite Fourier analysis, but it’s very similar: They referred to it as “the white dwarf transform”. ---
**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:** [December 27, 2021, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1140 "2021-12-27T19:37:27Z")
Sorry about misattributing the issue to you. “White dwarf transform” is a great term. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/1141 "2021-12-28T00:02:31Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > “White dwarf transform” is a great term. Transform, that was White Dwarf’s big hit on their second album, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=56) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=58)