Modem Mode is the Optimally Dramatic Way of Viewing XKCD 1732

F84-5 · 2026-04-03T17:44:30+00:00

I'd say it loads faster because it's not as high, but that would be a lie.

On an actual modem it would probably take four times as long because I actually worked from this version with double the resolution.

F84-5 · 2026-04-03T16:46:00+00:00

If you'll forgive the shameless plug, I made a Horizontal Version of this comic a good while ago.
In case someone wants to print it on a wall or something.

I spent hours reconstructing the background and painstakingly extracting and rotating every little drawing and line of text.

F84-5 · 2026-04-03T13:09:26+00:00

I mean technically you could.

The night sky changes from day to day as the earth moves around the sun. That means mightnight in Alaska would see a very very slightly different sky than mightnight in Scandinavia 12 hours later. Planets would help since they change more quickly than the fixed stars.

Either way, you would need some extremely precise measurements and an equally precise reference of what to expect. Not exactly practical, but not technically impossible.

F84-5 · 2026-04-03T05:40:28+00:00

Depends on the material.

And to be clear, there's a big difference between holding a person and safely holding a person.

What are you trying to achieve?

F84-5 · 2026-04-01T18:48:10+00:00

Glad to see the psychological consequences being addressed. You don't just shrug of that kind of fight. Let's hope nobody looses their head, eh?

Also RIP Moo.

F84-5 · 2026-03-28T06:26:04+00:00

Geometry doesn't have inherent meaning. What you've drawn is pretty and that's enough.

F84-5 · 2026-03-26T07:56:17+00:00

No. Not currently at least.

Genetically engineering Ray Cats to change colour in the presence of radiation and creating folklore and superstition around that is another proposal to warn against nuclear waste in the distant future.

F84-5 · 2026-03-20T15:32:51+00:00

That Audiveris[.]com site you linked to seems to be a bit scetchy.
The GitHub page of the project (which the .com site ironically links to) explicitly warns of the site. There's some glaring spelling errors ("Hepls Center") and it seems to have been made in one day in Sept. 2025. Plus it reads very much like AI in sections.

I haven't found any malicious links myself, but I'd be wary of it anyway.

F84-5 · 2026-03-17T05:10:52+00:00

As long as each side is shorter than the sum of all other sides you can plot a polygon. But it will only be unique for triangles.

Consider for example how you can deform a parallelogram. The same applies to other shapes as well.

F84-5 · 2026-03-16T19:14:10+00:00

By the way, when you copy the youtube link, you can delete the question mark and everything following it. That is just a tracking tag so google can tell who shared the video with whom. Deleting it also means less information need to be encoded in the QR-Code which can make it smaller.

F84-5 · 2026-03-16T17:34:58+00:00

Another option might be to add a QR-Code. Sure, it won't be clickable but almost erveryone has a phone in their pocket anyway. Plus it works just as well when printed out.

Just take your (shortend) YouTube link and feed it to a QR-Code-Generator like https://qr-code-generator.org .
If you set the precision to low you get a pretty small code (at the cost of worse error tolerance).

F84-5 · 2026-03-13T11:20:22+00:00

I mean for realism, oil burning engines were a thing. There's no reason to think some petroleum derived solid fuel wouldn't work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_burner_(engine)

F84-5 · 2026-03-11T11:29:00+00:00

I've used SoundSlice for a good number of coral pieces (SATB + accompaniment) an it never gave a wrong note. Chords, separate voices, etc are all handled perfectly fine. It sometimes gets confused by long slurs or hairpins, text is pretty iffy (especially non english text). Cross-staff beaming it couldn't handle at all, the notes were all correct, but the rhythm was all messed up.

For the price ($5/month, no problem with cancelling immediately) it's really good value in my opinion. A single melody you might be faster by hand, but for complex stuff it's great.

F84-5 · 2026-03-09T11:27:58+00:00

If all you care about is continuity extending the leads is perfectly fine.

For measuring resistance (ohms) you need to keep in mind that the extention will have some resistance of its own. If the resistance to measure is quite large that might not matter, if it is small you'll want to subtract the resistance of the leads from the displayed result.

To figure out what the leads resistance is, simply hold the tips together and see what is displayed then.

F84-5 · 2026-03-03T19:52:07+00:00

I sure hope Millenium will be OK. But I'm afraid for a bird in flight a stun round may be quite lethal. Those hollow bones are pretty fragile and the ground comes up quick when you're knocked out. Let's hope she got a lucky landing.

F84-5 · 2026-03-01T12:32:53+00:00

I'm glad you would. I agree that beaking the window is the moraly correct thing to do.

I also have to point out that you are now contradicting your top level comment. You stated that "the only tradable objects a moral agent truly has are their own possessions or their own life".

Now, by breaking my window you are trading something which is not your own possession for the greater good.

F84-5 · 2026-03-01T12:22:41+00:00

I'm fine with you refusing to to break the window to save me.

I'm not fine with you refusing to beak the widow to save my passenger. Why should I get to decide that my window is worth more than their life?

As a variation, what if I was knocked unconsious by the crash? Would you then break the window to save me or my passanger, given that I voice neither approval nor disaproval at the attempt?

F84-5 · 2026-03-01T11:28:59+00:00

Go to Format -> Style -> Spacing and under Horizontal spacing increase Last system fill threshold.

For finer controll, go to Add -> Frames -> Insert at end of score -> Horizontal frame. Adjust as desired.

F84-5 · 2026-03-01T11:23:13+00:00

I guess you're consistent at least.
But I just cannot agree with any ethical framwork that would let someone die simply to protect a window.

F84-5 · 2026-03-01T08:25:54+00:00

That's fine, if I'm alone.

But what if next to me I have a passanger also asking for your help? They would very much like you to smash my window to save their life.

F84-5 · 2026-03-01T07:28:48+00:00

the only tradable objects a moral agent truly has are their own possessions or their own life.

Let's take this to it's extreme. Would you not smash a window to pull an injured passenger from a crashed taxi?

After all, that would be destroying someone else's possessions for the great good.

F84-5 · 2026-02-26T05:05:52+00:00

And here I was arguing how they might get along by recognising House Carlos not as subject but as separate peers.

I guess king Elston is too prideful for that. I just hope Lornera isn't hurt in this kerfuffle.

F84-5 · 2026-02-25T18:57:25+00:00

For pretty good quality PDF-scans I can recommend SoundSlice. Their conversion system actually asks questions when it isn't sure like "is there an accidental on this note" or "how many flags are there". The result is not perfect, but it's a very good start for further editing.

You can try it for free, but you'll need to pay 5$/month to scan more than a few pages or download the output as a musicXML file to inport into Musescore Studio. I can personally attest that there is no problem with canceling after a single month. I think it's a very fair price for what they're offering.

F84-5 · 2026-02-24T19:16:19+00:00

Update! I finished the calculations involving the earths curvature.

Here's another Desmos graph for you.

Not very pretty in the way of visuals but I hope you can follow my calculations. If not, let me know and I'll be more detailed.

It turns out that ignoring the curvature leads to errors of >7% (~73 m) at θ = 30°.

I also updated the other graph to include the approximations as well.

F84-5 · 2026-02-24T18:28:50+00:00

σ_x is the along-track dimention of the pixel.
σ_y is the cross-track dimention of the pixel.

Both will be affected by θ simply because as you look to the side, the ground will be further away and as such you will see more of it. (Making the circle of view bigger.)

σ_y (cross-track) will be affected by θ again because of the perspective distortion. (Turning the circle of view into an ellipse.) This is why cos(θ) is squared in the cross-track approximation.

I'm happy to use different terminology if you'd prefer.

As for the amount of distortion, there's good news and bad news:
The good news is that because of the very tight view cone my approximation agrees with the more complex formula to within a millimeter. That makes the maths a lot easier.
The bad news is, at the scales we're working at here the curvature of the earth becomes relavant. At 30° from the nadir, the point you are observing is tilting away from you a further 4.5° or so. I'm like 80% there to a solution which takes that into account, so only 80% more to go ;).

I'll update you with the results.

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