# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
# 
# Usage:
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users              View list of users and latest twt date.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt                View all twts.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri  View all mentions for uri.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash         View all twts for a conversation subject.
# 
# Options:
#     uri     Filter to show a specific users twts.
#     offset  Start index for quey.
#     limit   Count of items to return (going back in time).
# 
# twt range = 1 745
# self = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://feeds.twtxt.net/xkcd/twtxt.txt&offset=745
# prev = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://feeds.twtxt.net/xkcd/twtxt.txt&offset=645
Orogeny
Most properties can only boast INDOOR heated floors. ⌘ Read more
Terror Bird
There has long been debate about Big Bird's species, with some experts claiming he was a canary, but recent genetic analysis places him firmly in Cariamiformes. ⌘ Read more
Rock Identification
'Is it worth anything?' 'I dunno, is the answer to that question worth another $5?' ⌘ Read more
SawStart
Unfortunately, SawStart is one-use-only. Once started, the blade cannot be stopped, and must be replaced with a fresh blade while the running one is carefully disposed of. ⌘ Read more
Cosmic Distance Calibration
This is the biggest breakthrough since astronomers noticed that the little crosshairs around red giant stars starting to burn helium are all the same size. ⌘ Read more
Square Units
The biggest I've seen in a published source in the wild is an 80-fold error in a reported distance, which I think came from a series of at least three unit conversions and area/length misinterpretations. ⌘ Read more
Lungfish
I know having so many base pairs makes rebasing complicated, but you're in Bilateria, so shouldn't you at LEAST be better at using git head? ⌘ Read more
Planet Definitions
Under the 'has cleared its orbital neighborhood' and 'fuses hydrogen into helium' definitions, thanks to human activities Earth technically no longer qualifies as a planet but DOES count as a star. ⌘ Read more
Off By One
It does come at the small cost of a LOT more off-by-40-or-50 errors. ⌘ Read more
Water Balloons
Update: The physics department has recruited an astronomer who studies meteor fireballs. ⌘ Read more
Omniroll
It seems wrong that Fruit by the Foot is only sold by weight or by number of rolls. ⌘ Read more
Water Damage
Your homeowner's insurance might cover it, but be sure to check the subductible. ⌘ Read more
Tall Structures
Briefly set a new record for tallest human-made structure by getting my knit sweater snagged on the skydiving plane door as I jumped and not noticing until I'd landed. ⌘ Read more
Excusing Yourself
The most awkward part is when you have to pause to put on your shoes before you continue rolling out the door. ⌘ Read more
RNA
2040s: RNA formed the basis for life each of the five known times it arose on the early Earth. ⌘ Read more
Giants
I can't get over the suspicion that all those viral pictures are photoshopped and 'Flemish' belongs in the lower right circle. ⌘ Read more
Scream Cipher
AAAAAA A ÃA̧AȂA̦ ǍÅÂÃĀÁȂ AAAAAAA! ⌘ Read more
KM3NeT
Unfortunately, KM3NeT led to the discovery of the Pauli anglerfish, which emits Cherenkov radiation to prey on neutrino researchers. ⌘ Read more
Archive Request
![They just want researchers in the enclosure to feel enriched and stimulated. ('The Enclosure' is what archivists call the shadowy world outside their archives in which so many people are trapped.)](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/archive_request.png) ⌘ Read more
Hardwood
They may technically have been softwoods at some point, but they definitely aren't now. ⌘ Read more
Atom
What's weirder is that muons turned out to be INCREDIBLY cute. ⌘ Read more
Incoming Asteroid
The bottom ones are also potentially bad news for any other planets in our solar system that have been counting on Earth having a stable orbit. ⌘ Read more
Suspension Bridge
As a first step, they can put in a secondary deck, to help drivers try it out and find out how fun the jumps are. After a while no one will use the old flat deck and they can remove it. ⌘ Read more
Rotary Tool
It was great until my thumb slipped and I accidentally launched my telescope into the air at Mach 8. ⌘ Read more
Stromatolites
If only my ancestors had been fortunate enough to marry into the branch of the bacteria family that could photosynthesize, like all my little green cousins here. ⌘ Read more
AlphaMove
It struggles a little with complex positions, like when there are an even number of moves and it has to round down, but when run against itself it's capable of finding some novelties. At one point I saw six knights on the board at once; Stockfish rarely exceeds four. ⌘ Read more
Humidifier Review
They should add a little sticker that certifies that the humidifier supports water conservation, but in the sense of energy conservation or momentum conservation. ⌘ Read more
Muons
Update: I've been banned from the physics department for the way I pronounce "Doppler effect." ⌘ Read more
T. Rex Evolution
Unfortunately, body size and bite force continue to increase. ⌘ Read more
Unit Circle
They're continuing to search for a square with the same area as the circle, as efforts to construct one have run into difficulties. ⌘ Read more
Chemical Formulas
Can you pass the nackle? ⌘ Read more
Human Altitude
![I wonder what surviving human held the record before balloons (excluding edge cases like jumping gaps on a mountain bridge). Probably it was someone falling from a cliff into snow or water, but maybe it involved something weird like a gunpowder explosion or volcano.](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/human_altitude.png) ⌘ Read more
Uncanceled Units
Speed limit c arcminutes^2 per steradian ⌘ Read more
Radon
A good ²³⁸Umbrella policy should cover it. ⌘ Read more
Chess Zoo
The zoo takes special care to keep kings separated from opposite-color pieces as part of their conservation program to prevent mating in captivity. ⌘ Read more
Trimix
You don't want the nitrogen percentage to be too high or you run the risk of eutrophication. ⌘ Read more
Features of Adulthood
I don't dig pit traps and cover them with sticks and a thin layer of leaves nearly as much as I expected; I find a chance to do it barely once a month. ⌘ Read more
Origami Black Hole
You may notice the first half of these instructions are similar to the instructions for a working nuclear fusion device. After the first few dozen steps, be sure to press down firmly and fold quickly to overcome fusion pressure. ⌘ Read more
Skew-T Log-P
The most important quantity for meteorologists is of course the product of latent pressure and temperostrophic enthalpy, though 'how nice the weather is' is a close second. ⌘ Read more
Time Capsule Instructions
Inside is a third box, labeled DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE TIME ZONE WHERE YOU OPENED BOTH PREVIOUS BOXES. ⌘ Read more
Lasering Incidents
I still don't know how the police found my compound where I ran an illegal searchlight depot/covert blimp airfield/fireworks testing range. ⌘ Read more
Sun Avoidance
C'mon, ESA Solar Orbiter team, just give the Parker probe a LITTLE nudge at aphelion. Crash it into the sun. Fulfill the dream of Icarus. It is your destiny. ⌘ Read more
D Roll
Under some circumstances, if you throw a D8 and then a D12 at an enemy, thanks to the D8's greater pointiness you actually have to roll a D12 and D8 respectively to determine damage. ⌘ Read more
Exclusion Principle
Fermions are weird about each other in a standoffish way. Integer-spin particles are weird about each other in a 'stand uncomfortably close while talking' kind of way. ⌘ Read more
Linear Sort
![The best case is O(n), and the worst case is that someone checks why.](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/linear_sort.png) ⌘ Read more
Phase Change
Even when you try to make nice, smooth ice cubes in a freezer, sometimes one of them will shoot out a random ice spike, which physicists ascribe to kiki conservation. ⌘ Read more
METAR
In the aviation world, they don't use AM/PM times. Instead, all times are assumed to be AM unless they're labeled NOTAM. ⌘ Read more
The Maritime Approximation
![It works because a nautical mile is based on a degree of latitude, and the Earth (e) is a circle.](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_maritime_approximation.png) ⌘ Read more
Making Tea
No, of course we don't microwave the mug WITH the teabag in it. We microwave the teabag separately. ⌘ Read more
Seismologists
And even when they're not distracted, they usually get kicked out for illegal under-the-net 'subduction spikes'. ⌘ Read more
Infinite Armada Chess
Stockfish 16 suggests the unconventional opening 1. RuntimeError: Out of bounds memory access ⌘ Read more
Advent Calendar Advent Calendar
The growth rate of items per day may may seem absurd, but it's actually much less than the acceleration in the 12 Days of Christmas song. ⌘ Read more
Second Stage
Hmm, they won't do in-flight delivery, so let's order a new first and second stage to our emergency landing site and then try to touch down on top of them to save time. ⌘ Read more
Neutrino Modem
Our sysadmin accidentally won a Nobel Prize while trying to debug neutrino oscillation error correction. ⌘ Read more
Cold Air
We also should really have checked that the old water tower was disconnected from the water system before we started filling it with compressed air. ⌘ Read more
D Combinatorics
Look, you can't complain about this after giving us so many scenarios involving N locked chests and M unlabeled keys. ⌘ Read more
Arizona Chess
Sometimes, you have to sacrifice pieces to gain the advantage. Sometimes, to advance ... you have to fall back. ⌘ Read more
Kedging Cannon
The real key was inventing the windmill-powered winch. ⌘ Read more
The Future of Orion
Dinosaur Cosmics ⌘ Read more
Europa Clipper
They had BETTER make this a sample return mission. ⌘ Read more
Geometriphylogenetics
There's a maximum likelihood that I'm doing phylogenetics wrong. ⌘ Read more
Number Shortage
"10 minutes ago we were down to only 2 0s!" "How many do we have now?" "I ... don't know!!" ⌘ Read more
Proterozoic Rocks
These rocks are from a time before eyes, brains, and bones, pieces of a land warmed by an unseen sun. ⌘ Read more
Probabilistic Uncertainty
"One popular strategy is to enter an emotional spiral. Could that be the right approach? We contacted several researchers who are experts in emotional spirals to ask them, but none of them were in a state to speak with us." ⌘ Read more
Demons
Though they do appreciate how much he improved the heating system for the flame pit. ⌘ Read more
Disposal
We were disappointed that the rocket didn't make a THOOOONK noise when it went into the tube, but we're setting up big loudspeakers for future launches to add the sound effect. ⌘ Read more
Wells
You do have to be careful, though--sometimes, instead of water, you hit this free fuel that you can sell for a lot of money instead. ⌘ Read more
Sandwich Helix
The number one rule of string manipulation is that you’ve got to specify your encodings. ⌘ Read more
RNAWorld
Disney lore: Canonically, because of how Elsa's abiogenesis powers work, Olaf is an RNA-only organism. ⌘ Read more
Temperature Scales
In my new scale, °X, 0 is Earths' record lowest surface temperature, 50 is the global average, and 100 is the record highest, with a linear scale between each point and adjustment every year as needed. ⌘ Read more
Experimental Astrophysics
Our experiment will be expensive, but we believe it will produce important spin-offs, especially if we manage to hit the sun from the right angle. ⌘ Read more
Bad Map Projection: The United Stralia
This projection distorts both area and direction, but preserves Melbourne. ⌘ Read more
Ravioli-Shaped Objects
It's a real accomplishment to mess up a ravioli recipe badly enough that the resulting incident touches all four quadrants of the NFPA hazard diamond. ⌘ Read more
Solar Protons
If any of you want to meet some cool local oxygen atoms, I can introduce you! ⌘ Read more
CIDABM
There's a heated debate over whether the big island of Tierra del Fuego should qualify for membership. ⌘ Read more
University Commas
The distinctive 'UCLA comma' and 'Michigan comma' are a long string of commas at the start and end of the sentence respectively. ⌘ Read more
Númenor Margaritaville
I see white shores, and beyond it, a far green country under a tequila sunrise. ⌘ Read more
Ingredients
Add main-belt asteroids to taste. ⌘ Read more
UK Coal
The Watership Down rabbits removed an additional 0.1 nanometers constructing their warren, although that was mostly soil. British rabbits have historically mined very little coal; the sole rabbit-run coal plant was shut down in the 1990s. ⌘ Read more
Beamsplitters
Under quantum tax law, photons sent through a beamsplitter don't actually choose which path they took, or incur a tax burden, until their wavefunction collapses when the power is sold. ⌘ Read more
Late Cenozoic
Our nucleic acid recovery techinques found a great deal of homo sapiens DNA incorporated into the fossils, particularly the ones containing high levels of resin, leading to the theory that these dinosaurs preyed on the once-dominant primates. ⌘ Read more
Physics Lab Thermostat
Hopefully the HVAC people set it to only affect the AIR in the room. ⌘ Read more
Maslow's Pyramid
The local police, building inspector, and fire marshal are all contesting my 'safety' assertion, or would be if they could reach me past all the traps. ⌘ Read more
Tectonic Surfing
The worst is when you wipe out in the barrel and you're trapped for several million years until erosion frees you. ⌘ Read more
Every Scientific Field
Conveniently for everyone, it turns out that dark energy is produced by subterranean parasitoid wasps. ⌘ Read more
Craters
It's annoying that the Nastapoka Arc isn't a meteor impact crater, but I truly believe that--with enough time, effort, and determination--we could make it one. ⌘ Read more
Asteroid News
Their calculations show it will 'pass within the distance of the moon' but that it 'will not hit the moon, so what's the point?' ⌘ Read more
Monocaster
My competitors say the tiny single tiny caster is unsafe, unstable, and offers no advantages over traditional designs, to which I say: wow, why are you guys so mean? I thought we were friends! ⌘ Read more
Water Filtration
You'd think the most expensive part would be the quark-gluon plasma chamber, but it's actually usually the tube to the top of the atmosphere to carry the cosmic rays down. ⌘ Read more
Slingshots
In my reboot, Dennis the Menace was just trying to send Mr. Wilson a nice comet, but accidentally wiped out his dinosaur garden. ⌘ Read more
Lava Lakes
Hey, golf balls float on lava, so this should make recovering them from the hazards easier. ⌘ Read more
Sky Alarm
During the day it also activates for neat clouds and pretty sunsets. ⌘ Read more
Stranded
At least they're not alone down there. ⌘ Read more
Three Kinds of Research
The secret fourth kind is 'we applied a standard theory to their map of every tree and got some suspicious results.' ⌘ Read more
Time Traveler Causes of Death
Many a hungry time traveler has Googled 'trilobites shellfish allergy' only to find their carrier had no coverage in the Ordovician. ⌘ Read more
Classical Periodic Table
Personally I think mercury is more of a 'wet earth' hybrid element. ⌘ Read more
Storage Tanks
We're considering installing a pressurization system to keep the tanks at constant pressure solely to deter them. ⌘ Read more
Ferris Wheels
They left the belt drive in place but switched which wheel was powered, so people could choose between a regular ride, a long ride, and a REALLY long ride. ⌘ Read more
Helium Synthesis
Our lawyers were worried because it turns out the company inherits its debt from the parent universe, but luckily cosmic inflation reduced it to nearly zero. ⌘ Read more
Celestial Event
If we can get a brood of 13-year cicadas going, we might have a chance at making this happen before the oceans evaporate under the expanding sun. ⌘ Read more