xkcd

by **vviipp** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:52 am UTC

Oh, wow. It's also pretty coincidential I just wrote my Grade 9 math exam over a week ago, and extrapolation was part of our curriculum as part of our data management units. And that's the smallest scatter plot I've ever seen.

But shouldn't the zero be on the axis?

by **bobp** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:53 am UTC

hi- long time lurker. made an account some time ago but this is the first time iv got round to using it
@manauser do we know she has a net gain of zero husbands- the rest of the comic seems quire happy with polygamy.
seemingly (with no polygamy) and husbands rounded to the nearest integer then an exponential curve would fit better- and that is worrying.

by **guyy** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:12 am UTC

I guess the obvious question is, did she have negative husbands before yesterday? And if so, what the hell does that mean?

by **HalfWayDownTheStairs** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:15 am UTC

Today's alt-text will effectivly ensure that I NEVER EVER have children.

*shudder*

by **mambak** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:23 am UTC

fbs801 wrote:The comic reminds of the data that the environmentalists use to prove that global warming exists...

Exactly what i was thinking when i saw this.

by **Deus** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:24 am UTC

OH HI!

So....there wont be any Eurabia?!

by **Deus** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:27 am UTC

mambak wrote:
fbs801 wrote:The comic reminds of the data that the environmentalists use to prove that global warming exists...

Exactly what i was thinking when i saw this.

I dont know about enviromentalist but the scientist atleast explains the trends, and extrapolate out of the evidence, i'm sure they dont rely on extrapolating statistical data.

You also got the "great global warming swindle" that made up its statistics.

by **Deus** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:41 am UTC

guyy wrote:I guess the obvious question is, did she have negative husbands before yesterday? And if so, what the hell does that mean?

She becomae a serial murdere, killing other peoples husbands....or potential husbands for her

by **Lima** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:45 am UTC

Hah amazing.

One of the political parties in my country uses arguments like that.

"By year 2030, 45% of the population will be foreign immigrants! Vote for us and we'll kick them out!"

:roll:

by **SD-Knex** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:02 pm UTC

According to Random House the hyphenation is yes-ter-day; or am I missing something?

by **aterimperator** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:42 pm UTC

Ronfar wrote:Obviously, the problem is that the extrapolation has left out many data points: all the between yesterday and the bride's date of birth in which the bride also had zero husbands. After a number of years equal to her current age, she'll have husband number #2.

Err, yes if it's linear, however maybe it's exponential.

by **bob k. mando** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:48 pm UTC

only 400 babies?

PowerThirst is as nothing before a Nutrigrain bar:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/279513/nu ... aaaaaahhh/

by **Baza210** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:54 pm UTC

the comic wrote:<counting in base 12>

The hell? Stop trolling /g/, Randall.

by **Storm** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:55 pm UTC

Speaking of global warming and graphs, this is the first thing I was reminded of this: Pirates vs Global Warming. Got to love statistics.

by **aterimperator** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:05 pm UTC

Eternal Density wrote:*considers the extrapolation involved in radiometric dating, which has a tendency to fail on rocks of known age*

Err, could you please cite your source? I'm curious about this. The only people who ever seem to claim this are young earth creationists who tend to point to the papers found in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbvMB57evy4

by **Mighty Jalapeno** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:10 pm UTC

Lima wrote:Hah amazing.

One of the political parties in my country uses arguments like that.

"By year 2030, 45% of the population will be foreign immigrants! Vote for us and we'll kick them out!"

After they immigrate, doesn't that pronunciation change slightly to 'citizens'?

bob k. mando wrote:PowerThirst is as nothing before a Nutrigrain bar:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/279513/nu ... aaaaaahhh/

That used to be my avatar.

by **Niall** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:45 pm UTC

My favourite thing to extrapolate are microwave times.
If the lasagne takes 4 minutes to cook at 800W and 5 Minutes to cook at 600W then it'll take 0 minutes at 1850W and 37 minutes at 0W.

by **lnthomp** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:00 pm UTC

Lima wrote:Hah amazing.

One of the political parties in my country uses arguments like that.

"By year 2030, 45% of the population will be foreign immigrants! Vote for us and we'll kick them out!"

There is a vast difference between "foreign immigrants" and "illegal immigrants" which one party in my country refuses to recognize.

Mighty Jalapeno wrote:After they immigrate, doesn't that pronunciation change slightly to 'citizens'?

If that were the case, few people would have a problem with it.

by **Kadzar** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:02 pm UTC

there is no zero wrote:
lingomaniac88 wrote:Reminds me of what Steven Wright once said:

When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six I'll be ninety.

But 32 ≠ 90.

Well, he was only two at the time.

by **Squid Tamer** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:18 pm UTC

I (over) extrapolate all the time to annoy people...

But the real question is: How does he draw these graphs?

I guess he has a big whiteboard in his house somewhere.
Now I feel the need to cover one or all of my walls with a huge whiteboard.

by **Mighty Jalapeno** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:25 pm UTC

lnthomp wrote:
Mighty Jalapeno wrote:After they immigrate, doesn't that pronunciation change slightly to 'citizens'?
If that were the case, few people would have a problem with it.

Then why immigrate to a country if they don't let you become citizens?

by **xkiQ** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:33 pm UTC

So, does the line imply interpolation? Did she have half a husband at any point? Is a fiance half a husband? Was her boyfriend not quite a man? I guess since it goes "yesterday" and "today" there may not be any actual room for interpolation, unless there's some instant between the two. Perhaps over the course of the day, she went from 0 to 1.

Good comic, Randall.

by **MartianInvader** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 4:24 pm UTC

The forum is doomed. If current trends continue, in a month there will be ninety topics discussing this one comic, and each one will average over 3,000 posts.

by **mynameinc** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:05 pm UTC

sin(x)^2 is the most logical. You could say, after they started dating, they became closer and closer to marrying, and as the marriage wears on, they become
closer and closer to death/divorce.

by **Technical Ben** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:06 pm UTC

Hmmm. Does this apply to the "by the end of the month we will have X-thousands of swine flue cases"?
I think it does. It was stated at half a million new cases each day by next month here. That's the entire country (uk) having swine flue in 120 days (if we do not extrapolate further

).

by **starjpk** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:26 pm UTC

I also love the bride's contemplative look. It reminds me of one of my other all-time favorites:
http://xkcd.com/501/

by **TurtleMidget** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:37 pm UTC

Now, and I mean this in all seriousness, I thought this comic was terribly unfunny.

I am still busy appreciating Qwertial Aphasia, though.

by **Rufaellie** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 6:59 pm UTC

Just think of the possibilities.

by **quadripedman** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:43 pm UTC

guyy wrote:I guess the obvious question is, did she have negative husbands before yesterday? And if so, what the hell does that mean?

hrm...no, she couldnt have, because wouldnt that mean that she would be getting more negative husbands instead of positive husbands?

by **SunDawg** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:00 pm UTC

I like how much expression Randall can make a stick-figure have, and you can always tell which way they are facing.

by **Lima** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:05 pm UTC

Mighty Jalapeno wrote:After they immigrate, doesn't that pronunciation change slightly to 'citizens'?

lnthomp wrote:There is a vast difference between "foreign immigrants" and "illegal immigrants" which one party in my country refuses to recognize.
If that were the case, few people would have a problem with it.

Yes, there's a difference but not to this particular party. They hate them all.

by **Faranya** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:41 pm UTC

guyy wrote:I guess the obvious question is, did she have negative husbands before yesterday? And if so, what the hell does that mean?

She had a wife? However, that would extrpolate back to the beginning of time where she would have an infinte number of wives...

But at the end of time she will have infinite husbands...

by **compro01** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 1:39 am UTC

Mighty Jalapeno wrote:After they immigrate, doesn't that pronunciation change slightly to 'citizens'?

No, immigrants don't automatically become citizens when they immigrate, even when they're legal immigrants. In Canada, you need to be a permanent resident for 3 years before you can apply for citizenship and IIRC, it's 5 years in the US.

by **sourmìlk** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:05 am UTC

I totally did this once.

I started a religion, and on the home page of the website for that religion, I stated that 1 member was joining every millisecond. Of course, that study was conducted during the millisecond our only member (me) joined.

by **RoadieRich** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:12 am UTC

Just think, within a year, there will be over 26 280 posts on this comic. At around 300 bytes per post (assuming ascii, and this post being average), that's almost 8MB of space. Extend that over all 605 comics for one forum, multiply by 30 to include all the forums, that's over 300 GB. Let's hope Randall has a large database allowance.

by **phillipsjk** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:22 am UTC

Niall wrote:My favourite thing to extrapolate are microwave times.
If the lasagne takes 4 minutes to cook at 800W and 5 Minutes to cook at 600W then it'll take 0 minutes at 1850W and 37 minutes at 0W.

I use a 1100W microwave, so normally I "compensate" by using the closest power level 800W -> 770W (70%) 600W -> 550W (50%)

What I think matters most is the total energy put into the food. So I did a quick pair of calculations:
4min x 800W/(60min/hour)= 53.3W.hours
5min x 600W/(60min/hour)= 50.0W.hours

That is not much of a difference: it can be explained by the ambient room temperature aiding the thawing process. I then began to think: you graph the suggested cooking times for your meals?

So, I graphed it. Using your numbers, linear extrapolation results in 0 cooking time at 1600W and 8 minute cooking time sitting on the counter. The actual graph (for zapping the food with 50Wh of energy) is actually closer to 1/x. That is, 1 min 37 seconds at 1850W, and 1 hour at 50W.

So, the question then becomes: am I feeding a troll? The person I am responding to only has 5 post using the avatar in question; including this one:

Niall wrote:I was at a party the other day and this girl said "it's likely that two people in here have the same birthday"
I called her a moron and walked awa, there were only 22 people at that party.

- Forum: Mathematics; Topic: Math Canon in Funny Places

I can't even sign this long thoroughly researched rebuttal "Summer Glau" because I wouldn't want to tarnish her good name feeding trolls.

by **KingMonkey** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:32 am UTC

Won't the uncertainty be 100%?.....that's never good

by **Kaijyuu** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 4:38 am UTC

Obviously, the percentage increase in husbands from before the marriage to after is infinite. 1 (current) divided by 0 (previous) = undefined. Therefore, the percentage of husband increase is infinity.

Today she has 1. Tomorrow she will have wed every sentient (and non-sentient) object in the universe.

by **sakeniwefu** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 11:48 am UTC

BTW for her to have hundreds of babies inside by the third trimester she would have to be pregnant of at least 3 by now.
A joke about perimarital sex, hahaha how fun.

by **lnthomp** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 1:24 pm UTC

Lima wrote:
Mighty Jalapeno wrote:After they immigrate, doesn't that pronunciation change slightly to 'citizens'?

lnthomp wrote:There is a vast difference between "foreign immigrants" and "illegal immigrants" which one party in my country refuses to recognize.
If that were the case, few people would have a problem with it.

Yes, there's a difference but not to this particular party. They hate them all.

No-one that I know, or know of, or hear about in the news, or hear on the radio (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc.) hates people who legally enter the country (whether or not the immigrants choose to become citizens.

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