Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Title text: 'Smilodon fatalis' narrowly edged out 'Tyrannosaurus rex' to win this year's Most Badass Latin Names competition, after edging out 'Dracorex hogwartsia' and 'Stygimoloch spinifer' (meaning 'horned dragon from the river of death') in the semifinals.
This comic is three parted (or four if you count the Latin name portion).
First, the names are sorted up by genuses (a genus (plural: genera) is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms) from bottom to top of which animals would win in a fight.
Secondly, the names within the genus are then sorted by coolness of name from left to right.
Thirdly, in red you can see the direction that Apple has taken with naming their OS X Operating Systems. They started at Cheetah and have moved through genuses from there in no order that this chart can make out.
Fourthly, Bobcats are an in joke of the comic in that they appear in the strangest places.
And lastly, despite it being disturbingly close to "Hogwarts," which is the magical school from the Harry Potter series of books and movies, Dracorex hogwartsia is real.
- Well-known felines:
- [A graph organizing various feline species labeled with common names ordered by Genera(in order of which would win in a fight) on the y axis, and coolness of name on the x axis]
- Smilodon (extinct): "Saber-toothed cat (scientific name: Smilodon fatalis)
- Panthera: "Jaguar", "Leopard", "Snow Leopard", "Tiger", "Lion"
- Puma: "Cougar", "Puma", "Panther", "Mountain Lion"
- Other felidae: "Ocelot", "Cheetah"
- Felis & Lynx: "Housecat", "Bobcat", "Wildcat", "Lynx"
- [Some elements are further connected using an unbranched acyclic digraph. The elements are connected thus: "Cheetah" -> "Puma" -> "Jaguar" -> "Panther" -> "Tiger" -> "Leopard" -> "Snow Leopard" -> "Lion" -> "Mountain Lion"]
- The OS X Problem
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I'm pretty sure there's the saber-toothed tiger in the smilodon category too. That's gonna be faaar to the right. Davidy22[talk] 10:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
- @davidy: saber-toothed tiger == saber-toothed cat. Same animal, different name. 184.108.40.206 21:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
If I'm not mistaken, Dracorex hogwartsia was specifically named for Hogwarts, so the name isn't disturbingly similar.Kdesltd (talk) 06:13, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
- this page is useless without a table of cat names to osx versions
cause where else am i going to go for that information?
obviously [explain]xkcd. 220.127.116.11 22:43, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
Here! Dawfedora (talk) 18:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I see your sarcasm and raise you one wikitable. 18.104.22.168 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
No one addresses what the Ox problem is - I believe that he could be referring to the fact that all the cool names are taken. Although it could be the strange order? Seems like the mountain lion version wasn't even out? Did he know that this was the name or did he guess? No matter what he did spot a problem since they did stop using cat names. Kynde (talk) 16:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
The version Mountain Lion had been announced in (I believe) February of that year, so he would have known about the name. 22.214.171.124 03:40, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
- I personally interpreted "the OSX problem" as them increasingly struggling to find cat names for their releases which top the previous names in some way. The first three releases were clearly moving up the scale of "which would win in a fight". The fourth takes a step backwards in "would win in a fight" but moves forward in "coolness of name". Then we see a step up in both scales. Then a double step back in coolness of name. Then further progress on coolness of name before finally taking steps backwards in BOTH "coolness of name" and "would win in a fight". -- plugwash
One other problem: cheetahs are the fastest animal on earth. 10.0 Cheetah was SLOW.126.96.36.199 18:15, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
The next versions of the OS X were named "Mavericks", "Yosemite" and "El Capitan". No more cats indeed. :-( 188.8.131.52 09:42, 9 January 2016 (UTC)