explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:272: Linux User at Best Buy

2016-10-18T21:12:51Z

108.162.246.108:

Not that Macs or Linux are invulnerable to malware. (Anyone else remember the {{w|Morris worm|Internet Worm}}, which would surely have ripped through Linux machines if not encountered on Unix, already, in pre-Linux days. Other exploits ''have'' been discovered, and had to be fixed.) Having said that, both types of machine ''tend'' to be safer from an OS security model point of view, from being a minority target that is largely overlooked ''and'' from the end-users being generally more savvy against liveware component attacks. However with the targetted growing flood of new users, that may well be changing. The latter two points, at least, although I'm sure ''some'' of the distros "boot as root" as well.

The speed of Linux also tends to be more from being more finely-honed by the last generation or two of geeks. Less clutter (at least with the distros ''I'' like, YMMV with some of the more "user friendly" ones) and the somewhat intimate knowledge of the system that the user tends to get and is able to act upon if anything displeases them (although, again, that may be changing). These days (and those days, I'm pretty sure) you ''can'' get mainstream AV programs for Linux (and Mac) and while I'm not going to say they're ''necessary'' for Linux, they're available and primed to help you out of various messes you ''could'' encounter. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 08:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

:Approximately 15 ago I did deactivate the firewall at my main (Linux) internet gateway for some tests only for a few minutes. I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN! I only remember the root access was done by a user name r00t and my log files at "/var/log" had been deleted. When I did figure out that attack I immediately disconnected it from the internet, but I also had to do a complete new install to that system. Linux is only secure when you know how to secure it.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:01, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Most linux virus scanners are to scan e-mails for windoze viruses. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 04:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Is the motorbike backflip and speedaway a reference to something? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.133|141.101.98.133]] 14:03, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

What Linux distros do you guys use (if you do use one)? #ubuntuforlife #makingalinuxOSmyself :D --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 16:36, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Whooooo! good job, Randall![[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.108|108.162.246.108]] 21:12, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

623: Oregon

2016-09-30T18:51:13Z

108.162.246.108:

{{comic
| number = 623
| date = August 14, 2009
| title = Oregon
| image = oregon.png
| titletext = A century later, the harrowing flight of the survivors from Oregon was dramatized in a popular video game.
}}

==Explanation==

''{{w|The Oregon Trail (video game)|The Oregon Trail}}'' was an early educational video game that was designed to teach children about the trials and hardships faced by pioneering settlers. The actual {{w|Oregon Trail}} was an overland track leading from Missouri to Oregon, and in the video game, the player started his or her journey in 1848.

Most players were grade-school students. The game was very popular, and thousands of players played it monthly. In their youthful wisdom, most players brought the minimum amount of food and planned to hunt for their meals. Large animals (bison, bears, etc.) were very easy and rewarding targets, while smaller prey (rabbits, squirrels, etc.) were harder to obtain and provided less food.

The comic tries to document, as though in a historical fashion, what would have been the result if all the players had been real settlers who really had prepared for their journey on the Oregon Trail in that way. With an unbelievably large influx of people all arriving in exactly the same year, and all with no other supplies or sources of food, the land would soon have been stripped bare, all large game slaughtered for meat, with hunger, starvation and disease soon to follow. {{w|Dysentery}} in particular was very common in the original game and perhaps the most infamous way to die, hence its listing as the most prominent epidemic.

The title text makes things rather recursive. In this alternate reality, thousands upon thousands of people fleeing ''from'' the overpopulated, devastated Oregon becomes the focus of another video game, much like ''The Oregon Trail'' in our universe.

I'm from Oregon, and it's 2016. HAHAHA.

==Transcript==
:History of 19th-century Oregon

:[Timeline, with relevant images next to various dates.]

:1805
::[Two men stand at the edge of a cliff. One has a walking staff.]
::Arrival of Lewis & Clark

:1825
::Early settlers arrive

:1841
::Oregon Trail established

:1843
::Larger western migration begins

:1848
::[A horse is pulling a covered wagon. A gun peeks out the back.]
::Huge wave of 500,000+ settlers arrives from Missouri. Largely children and adolescents, most bring nothing but cartloads of bullets for hunting.

:1849
::[Cueball and Megan with rifles aim at something.]
::Overhunting begins to devastate ecosystem
::Dysentery epidemic.

:1850
::[Tombstones and bodies.]
::Shooting deaths skyrocket
::Typhoid epidemic
::Measles epidemic
::Cholera epidemic

:1851
::All mammals larger than squirrels wiped out by overhunting
::Massive famine

:1852
::[Sun low over a land, devoid of life. Scattered remains of corpses and skeletons.]
::Last survivors flee
::Oregon territory abandoned

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:625: Collections

2016-09-20T21:21:18Z

108.162.246.108:

I can probably help Cueball (or whoever it is) out in his title-text musings, with an entire bookshelf (floor to ceiling) dedicated to Pratchett books in both Hardback and Paperback versions and related works by him and his collaborators. Apart, that is, from the totally separate bookshelf space reserved for the unabridged audio books of same - these mostly in cassette format, with just a couple of Audio CDs (a purchase error, at the time) and a couple of the newest in MP3-on-CD format (my reluctant nod towards progress). Now talk to me about how long magnetic and optical media can last, in relation to paper. Assuming I don't get hit by a house-fire, flooding, supervolcano, coronal mass ejection, etc. Hmmm... I wonder if I can get them carved onto stone tablets in a reinforced vault? [[Special:Contributions/178.99.247.73|178.99.247.73]] 21:26, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
:Microfilm is all you need. --[[User:Qwach|Qwach]] ([[User talk:Qwach|talk]]) 16:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

::Digital data can be copied. Use it. Best way to protect information is having it stored at two different continents and periodically check that copies at both are readable. Wait. Actually, best way to protect information is to get it into some popular piece of software people are going to download in millions ... speaking about which, I wonder how many copies of fortune database of Terry Pratchett's Discworld related quotes is installed globally ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Surely the title text is not just "musing about the shelf space" but wondering how many more Pratchett books will be written; #625 is from August 2009, and Pratchett announced that he had Alzheimer's in 2007/8, and on 2nd August 2009 stated that he intended to commit suicide before his disease "reached a critical point". Which would also suggest that he wasn't "gleefully" considering it, either. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.241}}
:The problem with dementia is that you keep forgetting ... to.. ermmm..
:The problem with dementia is ...that you... keep forgetting ... to.. ermmm..

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 01:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

"For instance this is the case amongst many religious people who believe the universe is created by a supreme being who cares for us humans" This seems like a misinterpretation of abrahamic and other monotheistic theologies. Many theologies in Christianity and Judaism do not propose that the universe cares anything for humans, rather that the universe is something created by God without a conscious (and therefore no will, so they actually believe that the universe is not uncaring but is infact "acaring" without the capacity to care) and is apart from God himself. So it is not the universe itself that cares but the being that created the universe. So the question they propose is not whether or not you believe the universe cares for you but whether or not you believe the greatest unequivocal being cares for you. The thought is still, however, just as if not more astounding so it remains your choice whether you believe this or not.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.101|108.162.219.101]] 19:10, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Discworld is Fun![[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.108|108.162.246.108]] 21:21, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Talk:75: Curse Levels

2016-09-15T00:23:08Z

108.162.246.108:

I'm sorry that I don't know who to attribute this to, but I once heard a comedian refer to someone as a "mother-effin' fucker". - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.10|108.162.242.10]] 22:32, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
It should be noted (or I feel compelled to point out) that the word "cunt" is not seen as all that bad in Great Britain. It's something closer to damn or even just a term that's used in the U.S. like "douche" or others. "Stop being such a cunt, Gary." It's not really all that bad.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.108|108.162.246.108]] 00:23, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

1663: Garden

2016-04-04T18:12:49Z

108.162.246.108:

{{comic
| number = 1663
| date = April 4, 2016
| title = Garden
| image = garden.png 
| titletext = Relax.
}}
*'''Note''' this is an interactive comic. Go to xkcd to try it out.
*'''Post new images''' etc. in this page [[1663: Garden/Images]]!

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|And will be so for a long time...}}
This is this year's [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] in celebration of {{w|April Fools' Day}}. Due to technical problems (or to make fools of his fans?) the comic did not go live until Sunday evening (after midnight) so there was no Friday release, and this may be the Monday release instead of the planned comic (as to not take attention from this.) So in this way there were only two comics last week, the first time since xkcd went live on xkcd.com.

If you leave the lights on and wait (or relax) then the plants in your '''garden''' start to grow slowly. The plants appear one at a time slowly, but only a few of them actually grow. There is a large tree that does, but most other plants just appear. Some of the plants sway in the breeze.

Also animals and characters including [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]] and [[Cueball]] may appear. See examples here [[1663: Garden/Images]].

Every so often the image will refresh. You can change the number of lights, their position, direction, beam width and the color temperature from red to yellow to white to blue. How much this affects the growth is hard to say, but there seems to be some correlation.

If this comic is scientifically accurate, that correlation will be based on {{w|photosynthetically active radiation}}
===Functionality===
*The lamp(s)
**It can be moved and turned.
**The light's color can be changed from yellow to red and back to blue.
**The light's focus can be altered to a narrow beam by dragging the triangle away from the bulb,
*The icons:
**By clicking the icon with a lamp and a + in the top right corner a new lamp is added.
***Up to two more lamps can be added for three in total.
***When there are three the icon becomes faded out.
**By clicking the large X icon something may be deleted
***When anything is selected the X becomes red. For instance when a lamp is selected.
***By clicking the icon the selected lamp can be deleted.
***The same can be done for any item appearing (growing or otherwise) by selecting the item and clicking the X.
****An item selected gets a red circle around it
***The X has the same effect as pushing the delete button on the keyboard.
***Some items (the large tree) can be deleted in minor parts taking a branch or a section with leaves off without deleting the entire tree.
*Saving images.
**The image as seen with the light, but without the lamps themselves and the two icons can be saved by right clicking in the image.
***At least for Edge, Firefox and Chrome, but not for all IE versions.
**There doesn't seem to be any [[1350#Permalink|permalink]] options like there were for the last two years' April Fools' Day comics.

==Transcript==
:[There is a web applet with up to three adjustable lights over a patch of dirt. Two buttons in the top right corner let you add another light, or remove objects. If you wait, something (a plant, an animal, ...) will grow.]

==Trivia==
On Friday, April 1st, 2015, the website [http://web.archive.org/web/20160401204749/https://xkcd.com/ began displaying] a message where "XKCD updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday" usually is:

The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical
difficulties.
Please stand by!

The next day, the following message [http://web.archive.org/web/20160402144823/http://xkcd.com was displayed]:

The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical
difficulties.
Status update: Please stand by.
Status update: This is fine. Everything is fine.
Status update: Everything is on fire.
Status update: Searching for calendar systems in which Saturday is April 1st.

On April 3rd, the message [http://web.archive.org/web/20160403234504/https://xkcd.com/ changed] to:

The Friday xkcd comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties
[Editor's note: Everything is on fire] and has been delayed until
Sunday night.

On April 4th, the message changes to:
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]