1. Find the Foxtrot comic for today (4.19) (youll know when you find it)
2. Decode it and post it here.
3. First one done Ill take for ice cream (after I verify it). (Theres been a request for a drink, Ill go drinking with you as well).


So wishing xkcd would do something like this...

PS foxtrot.com doesnt have it as of this post, nor does gocomics.com

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 12:39 AM. Reason : 1]

4/19/2009 12:37:36 AM

scan it in or something, i can't find it anywhere, and i doubt the sunday paper has been delivered to stores yet

4/19/2009 12:53:05 AM

Thats half the fun, is finding it first. Its online. Just not easily found (yet).

4/19/2009 12:56:04 AM

Paige Fox is bad at Math.

4/19/2009 1:05:26 AM

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 1:14 AM. Reason : .]

4/19/2009 1:13:45 AM

so someone actually got paid to write that comic?

4/19/2009 1:21:21 AM

paige fox is bad at math

you have to be a math nerd to be able to do something like that? what is the world coming to?


[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 4:53 AM. Reason : p.s. why is this in tech talk? study hall, lounge, and chit chat are a lot more appropriate]

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 5:00 AM. Reason : p.p.s do i need to show my steps to get full marks? ]

4/19/2009 4:46:25 AM

He meant to post it in chit-chat, but failed on that account.

4/19/2009 5:08:41 AM

lol, you kinda got beat to the punch.

4/19/2009 5:31:43 AM

4/19/2009 6:46:24 AM

none of the letters you actually need are really hard math problems

4/19/2009 8:17:05 AM

yeah. it's kind of a strange lookup - it's all backwards.

first, I did an alphabet substation for the numbers at the top, then solved the equations for the letters in the table to get another set of numbers, then did another alphabet substation, forwards and backwards, but it was just gibberish.
Then i decided to solve all the equations, but wondered if that would work because there are several repeat numbers, but in the end, the repeated numbers are never used.

4/19/2009 8:28:06 AM

Nitro wins.

4/19/2009 9:41:38 AM

all of those math problems were really easy.... I don't get it. Are there people out there who would have a hard time with them?

4/19/2009 10:11:32 AM

It's a comic, guys.


Remember when you were 6-10 years old and you would read the paper on sunday just for the comics?



This comic wasn't made for people our age to postulate over why the math problems were so easy.

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 10:18 AM. Reason : They're just challenging enough for that age group]

4/19/2009 10:18:12 AM

Fair enough. But can I still act like a douche-bag math elitist in this thread?

4/19/2009 10:19:56 AM

Only if 7 year olds post here asking for help



[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 10:27 AM. Reason : .]

4/19/2009 10:27:28 AM

Yea I think thats who started the thread.... Something about how his mom would buy us all ice cream or something if we could help him figure it out.

4/19/2009 10:29:52 AM

4/19/2009 10:35:07 AM

not that it matters for the answer, but I think you guys need to check over your solutions to Q

4/19/2009 11:20:35 AM

i haven't done integrals in 8 years....

that's what I get for getting an engineering job that doesn't require much actual engineering, i guess

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 11:28 AM. Reason : .]

4/19/2009 11:28:15 AM

wouldn't Q be {9*(2)^2} - {9*(0)^2} or 36 - 0?

4/19/2009 12:12:47 PM

the integral of 9x^2 is 3x^3.

3*(2^2) = 12
3*(e^2) = 22.17 -or- 3*(0^2) = 0 (i can't tell if the lower limit is an e or a 0)

which would give -10.17 or 12, respectively.

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 12:24 PM. Reason : 0 (therefore 12) makes more sense given the context, though ]

4/19/2009 12:22:11 PM

3*(2^3) - 3*(0^3) = 24

4/19/2009 12:34:20 PM

i was about to say. i havent done math in a long while, but i got 24

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 2:40 PM. Reason : ,]

4/19/2009 2:38:34 PM

B-E S-U-R-E T-O D-R-I-N-K Y-O-U-R O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E

4/19/2009 3:13:15 PM

oh goddamnit

i fail at life

4/19/2009 4:57:55 PM

Quote :

"Then i decided to solve all the equations, but wondered if that would work because there are several repeat numbers, but in the end, the repeated numbers are never used."

There are not any repeat numbers. You messed up.

4/19/2009 5:10:26 PM

oh, right.... i guess it was just the 9 that was repeated, which we've already discussed I f'ed up the math for Q. and 24 is the only number missing from my list.

4/19/2009 5:16:59 PM

k, sry

4/19/2009 6:26:02 PM

Solinari, If you noticed it was 1230 at night, I had had one, and most ppl if you arnt an engineer know how to do an integral. And yes you can be badd-ass about it.

4/19/2009 6:34:26 PM

Quote :

"most ppl if you arnt an engineer know how to do an integral"

i'm not an engineer but i can do integrals (despite what this thread would lead you to believe, haha)

i'd also venture a guess that anyone who has taken calculus can still compute a simple integral if they think about it long enough

4/19/2009 7:44:26 PM

evan you do enough damn work to be an engineer. and you do programming type stuff/com sci stuff which is close enough

4/19/2009 8:55:03 PM

90% of programming will never require even thinking about integrals

4/19/2009 10:21:48 PM

Quote :

"90% of programming will never require even thinking about integrals"

99.999% of programming that is not in maple/mathematica/MATLAB/etc. will never require even thinking about integrals

4/19/2009 10:27:23 PM

you could do what i did, and skip it, because you never learned forgot how to take integrals. then just infer what the letter was.

4/20/2009 12:17:28 AM

or you could do what I did, which is the most efficient solution of them all: wait 2 seconds for someone else to solve it and post the answer.

4/20/2009 12:24:43 AM

^ that's how they invented outsourcing

4/20/2009 1:01:50 AM

Duncan FTW

4/20/2009 7:25:55 AM

it's not really "nerdy" to know how to do the problems, but rather it is nerdy to take the time to do them.

4/20/2009 12:13:26 PM

Had to refresh my trig, but the rest were easy. Glad I still remember integrals

4/23/2009 10:12:28 AM