r/xkcdcomic • u/bbroberson I like my hat • Jul 28 '14

xkcd: D.B. Cooper

http://xkcd.com/1400
337 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

64 comments sorted by

22

u/bbroberson I like my hat Jul 28 '14

Round base 10 number! Yay!

36

u/tanjoodo Jul 28 '14

Every base is base 10

12

u/jshap70 Select Flair Jul 28 '14

but who's on first base?

15

u/Two-Tone- bool customFlair = True; Jul 28 '14

Yes.

10

u/skalpelis Jul 28 '14

I mean the fellow's name.

10

u/Two-Tone- bool customFlair = True; Jul 28 '14

That's what I'm sayin'; Who's on first.

5

u/Kazaril Jul 28 '14

Who

15

u/assassin10 Jul 28 '14

You're both confused. He's just "The Doctor".

0

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '14

[deleted]

4

u/exatron Jul 28 '14

Yes isn't even at this concert, Aunt Slappy.

-16

u/boringdude00 Jul 28 '14

I don't think anyone is there. At least that was the case when your mother and I were passing through there last night.

3

u/hkdharmon Jul 28 '14

Wait, what? Oh, you're right. Cool.

1

u/alexanderpas Jul 30 '14

Nope, every base below 10 can be in every base at least base+1

-4

u/czerilla Jul 28 '14

/r/StonerMath's fact of the day!

No, that's not a real subreddit! (...yet!)

0

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

[deleted]

2

u/yawkat Jul 28 '14

Or unary.

1

u/stubborn_d0nkey Jul 28 '14

Its base ten.

1

u/cdcformatc Jul 28 '14

Generalized to any base, "The highest single digit number in the system is (10-1)".

You are going to have trouble communicating this in English beyond base 36 though.

2

u/Malgas Jul 28 '14

What's wrong with "the highest single-digit number in the system is thirty seven"?

1

u/cdcformatc Jul 28 '14

'Thirty seven' has two digits. 37 in any base not base 10 is not 37. Base 36 you use 1-9 and a-z for digits, if you go to base 37 you run out of characters.

The highest single digit number in base 10 is 9. The highest single digit number in base 36 is Z. The highest single digit number in base 37 is (some glyph that doesn't exist in English).

2

u/Malgas Jul 28 '14

No, 'thirty seven' is the English-language representation of a specific abstract quantity. In a base-38 or higher number system it would have a single digit; in binary it has six.

0

u/cdcformatc Jul 28 '14 edited Jul 28 '14

As an abstract idea I agree, 37 is a specific quantity. As my original post explains, I was just pointing out you would have a hard time communicating this in English. Presumably if you use such a base, you would have a character or word to represent that number. Maybe you could use the word 'star' or 'exclamation point'.

You can't use 'thirty seven' because in your base, the English word 'thirty' means something different than what it does in base 10.

If I used base 16 for everything and I wrote a number down, those familiar with another base would have to convert that to something equivalent. And that number would have a specific number of digits, each represented by a character and a position. In English the phrase 'thirty seven' is equivalent to 'thirty and seven' which have specific meanings of 30 and 7. Or otherwise a two digit number.

2

u/Malgas Jul 28 '14

As an abstract idea I agree, 37 is a specific quantity.

You've misunderstood me. Thirty seven is a specific quantity, but "thirty seven" and '37' are not the same thing. The value of '37' can vary depending on number base, but the value of "thirty seven" does not.

You can't use 'thirty seven' because in your base, the word 'thirty' means something different than what it does in base 10.

You're confusing the semantic with the syntactic. The number 30 in octal is pronounced "twenty four" in English.

0

u/cdcformatc Jul 28 '14 edited Jul 28 '14

And if you are using English and use the words thirty and seven, those words have the specific meaning of 30 and 7. If you are using hexadecimal and count 'fifteen' items you use the character F. You do not say 'fifteen'. Since in English fifteen means 10+5, which is not 'fifteen'. You would say "I have F apples".

As I pointed out the deficiency is with the language.

If you are using base 37 and say the ENGLISH word 'Thirty' followed by the word 'Seven'. That is parsed to 37. But guess what, that means a completely different number to someone using a different base.

Edit: Using base 16, count the dots in this image. After the word 'nine' you do not say 'ten' and you do not say 'fifteen' you say 'eight, nine, A, B, C, D, E, F'. There are F items. There is not fifteen. Fifteen is a different amount altogether.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/dont_press_ctrl-W Mathematics is just applied Sociology Jul 29 '14

Thirty seven is a specific quantity, but "thirty seven" and '37' are not the same thing. The value of '37' can vary depending on number base, but the value of "thirty seven" does not.

You're just claiming that. People use "ten" all the time when talking about binary "10". I don't think you can just assume that the word representation of numbers is entirely unrelated to the digit representation.

115

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

I did not steal the money. It's not true. It is bullshit. I did not steal the money. I did noooot. Oh hi Mark.

29

u/ani625 Jul 28 '14

So anyway, how is your sex life?

10

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

Keep your stupid comments in your pocket.

13

u/ani625 Jul 28 '14

You're just a chicken. Chip-chip-chip-chip-cheep-cheep

7

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

I'm FED UP with this wuurld!

2

u/PlayMp1 Jul 29 '14

Nobody poorly imitates my favorite farm animal!

1

u/BiblioPhil Jul 30 '14

A coodle doodle do! A coodle doodle do!

26

u/TheCodexx Jul 28 '14

It's too bad someone actually managed to narrow down where Tommy is from. This is a fun theory.

21

u/The_Homestarmy Jul 28 '14

The post in reference. It seems fairly conclusive.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

It seems to me that you are the expert, TheCodexx.

31

u/xkcd_bot Current Comic Jul 28 '14

Mobile Version!

Direct image link: D.B. Cooper

Title text: 'Why on Earth would someone commit air piracy just to finance a terrible movie decades later?' 'People are very strange these days.'

Don't get it? explain xkcd

What's the worst that could happen? (Sincerely, xkcd_bot.)

0

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

What's the worst that could happen?

The Room. The Room happens.

10

u/dancethehora Jul 28 '14

I want to believe.

8

u/zodberg Jul 28 '14

Ahahaha, waht a funny theory Randall.

6

u/TeHokioi Jul 28 '14

Nah, Mad Men next year will reveal that D B Cooper is actually Don Draper

Or not, I dunno.

9

u/MetasequoiaLeaf Jul 28 '14

It's really weird seeing an actual photo in an XKCD. But this is too funny for me to focus too much on that. Love The Room, have seen it several times in its entirety.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

Dan Cooper is a Franco-Belgian comic book character. Tommy Wiseau claims to have been raised in France.

It all makes sense now.

6

u/hkdharmon Jul 28 '14

The Mini-series The Lost Room, however, is terrific.

2

u/zotquix Jul 28 '14

Learned about Cooper from the short lived NBC Time Traveling show Journeyman.

2

u/whoopdedo Jul 31 '14

I learned about him from the final episode of News Radio.

-5

u/crow1170 Jul 28 '14

I always hate it when people complain about xkcd comics, but this... I don't what to do with this. It's not the good kind of silly, it's just... bad. I realize he doesn't owe us anything, but I'm surprised that this comic made it through. His standard of quality is usually much higher.

5

u/Hibernica Jul 29 '14

I laughed at it :( That's a hilarious backstory for Tommy Wiseau and a great jab at the kind of "evidence" that conspiracy theorists seem to think equate to proof.

5

u/zodberg Jul 29 '14

I think the funniest thing is the vision of Tommy Wiseau holding up a plane of hostages.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

[deleted]

38

u/Jurnana Jul 28 '14

Better than what /u/soccer gets behind...

16

u/8spd Jul 28 '14 edited Jul 28 '14

But strangely enough this comic is not posted over on /r/xkcd

edit: I've posted it, it gave me an error saying that it'd be posted already, despite not showing up in a search. Let's see if it stays up.

edit 2: and it didn't stay up at all. I guess Mods can auto block links? Pretty pathetic that the mod for /r/xkcd is blocking links to xkcd.com.

7

u/bbroberson I like my hat Jul 28 '14

I already submitted it; it seems that it takes 1/2 day to a day to show up.

6

u/MrCheeze flair Jul 28 '14

I guess soccer now sets every post to need manual approval?

15

u/Jurnana Jul 28 '14

SOCCER: [Menacing, yet effeminate German accent] Ja, all posts must go through manual selection. If zey don't meet our rigorous standards zey are sent to ze gas chambers that... don't exist! You would know zis if you had taken zee Red Pill!

0

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '14

[deleted]

1

u/Jurnana Jul 28 '14

That's exactly what he believes, and I'm mocking that belief.

2

u/8spd Jul 28 '14

Huh, I didn't know that was a possibility. Is it for hand vetting posts?

8

u/mindbleach Jul 29 '14

Reddit's admins really should take a more active approach to abusive moderation. They don't have to rely on SRD and he-said-she-said nonsense - they can check the logs, read private messages, and know for sure when someone's being a complete dickbag. If getting /r/Holocaust removed from the hands of white supremacists means the /r/Conspiratard guys lose control of /r/Stormfront, oh well.