Talk:806: Tech Support

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Actually, a shibboleth's meaning is more complex. It's actually a phrase or principle that distinguishes a group of people and can be used to identify people foreign to said group. For example, in WWII, words with lots of L's were used as a shibboleth to identify Japanese spies, as many Japanese pronounce their L's as R's. 67.85.230.8 04:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)Liz

As such, the term has been modernized to have the meaning of "password". 194.106.220.85 13:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The "bearded dude with swords" is probably Richard Stallman. See 225 and 344. 84.137.219.112 22:39, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

This comic perfectly illustrates why I prefer nightmares over dreams in which things are better than in real life. Truthfully! -- 108.28.72.186 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

There is a company in UK that has XKCD/806 comppliance: http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/10/xkcd806-compliance.html 108.162.219.41 18:33, 7 November 2013 (UTC) The ravk link is broken. It can now be found at https://www.revk.uk/2010/10/xkcd806-compliance.html

Cueball asking if anyone has a subway map in their cubicle is likely a reference to Subways (http://xkcd.com/1196/) which is clever cross-marketing as the Subways poster is available for purchase (http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/subways). Lakeside (talk) 16:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, Randall planned in 2010 a reference to a former (oh, future) comic from 2013? It's BS, I'm sorry. Please do more advertisements for Randall, he uses this shop for his own income and all the payment he has to do for the xkcd web site!.--Dgbrt (talk) 20:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the "bearded dude with swords" = Stallman is a huge stretch. It makes much more sense, and is the simpler of the two explanations, that she would simply be a fantasy fan and have a poster of someone from say LOTR or a sword-and-sorcery book/film/game. AmbroseChapel (talk) 06:43, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

You can think that and be entirely wrong. 172.68.94.124 16:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Interestingly, I just used 'shibboleet' as a shibboleth to identify friends who do not read xkcd. Better unfriend them. Just kidding. 172.69.186.4 12:10, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

So I’m guessing this has been taken out in the clean up (which I’m sad about, there were some extremely funny dogmatic opinions expressed) - changing “leth” to “leet” was discussed? It’s a reference in the strip that amused me, but no comment on it here. Rereading xkcd (talk) 23:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I always thought a shibboleth was a spell from DnD; never actually knew what it meant --Wielder of the Staple Gun (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)