explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:126: Red Spiders Cometh

2023-03-04T12:40:35Z

162.158.30.86: Added pun.

Does anyone else think that the red spiders are supposed to be revealed as unexpectedly huge in this entry of the Red Spiders series, and that's to what the "Uh-oh" in the title text refers? That is, the humans in "[[Counter-Red_Spiders|Counter-Red Spiders]]" thought they could fight the red spiders, but the perspective in "Red Spiders Cometh" reveals the red spiders to be building-sized rather than person-sized? ...Or am I probably just over-thinking this, and the spiders' blocks are curving down from the viewer toward the city, resulting in a false apparent size, and the "Uh-oh" just refers to their arrival? Because it really seems to me that 1: the spiders are on a much larger scale than humans, and 2: this is a troubling revelation as of "Red Spiders Cometh". [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 07:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

: I imagined them to be human sized. Still scary and formidable prompting the same title response. I would love to see the author do another Red Spiders comic. I want to see the fight between them.[[Special:Contributions/72.193.184.110|72.193.184.110]] 07:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

:there's no way to tell what the size of the spiders is. the perspective has the spiders closer to the observer (us) than the buildings, so they might actually be any size (depending on how close they are). {{unsigned ip|108.162.254.85}}
:The comic "Bad Timing" indicates their bodies are about the size of a human head. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.177|108.162.238.177]] 14:39, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
::From which we should be able to figure out how close they are. [[User:Richmond tudor|Richmond tudor]] ([[User talk:Richmond tudor|talk]]) 05:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

: Personally, I think if them as all being in the micro scale - the city & people too, which would explain how people can make such a tall human ladder in the counter red spiders comic. Maybe small enough to float down on the blocks (because air is a proportionally more viscous fluid at that scale iirc)? Them again I imagine them being inspired by clover mites, which is probably totally unfounded
09:10, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Guys? Anyone feel that the grammar error (unless I'm to be a silhouette on someone's desk soon) is worth mention? "Cometh" is third person ''singular'' ("he cometh", but "they come") after all... Unless I'm wrong.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.225.92|108.162.225.92]] 14:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

:I think it is probably a pun on "comets", which the spiders are kind of falling down along with. 02:18, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
They're mites, dammit.—[[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 01:45, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

One of the interesting things about this strip is that top and bottom work at ANY scale. Are the mites small and in the foreground, traveling away from us and approaching the city (this is the interpretation that puts them the right size for #427)? Midground, building-sized spiders, hovering above the city as the article claims? Or far distance, city-sized spiders, approaching the city from space, not following the curve of the Earth? Is the city a microcity? --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.95|172.69.71.95]] 15:01, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Look, he's crawling up my wall,
Black and hairy, very small,
Now he's up above my head,
Hanging by a little thread,

Boris the Red Spider!
Boris the Red Spider!

With apologies to The Who.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.30.86|162.158.30.86]] 12:40, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Talk:239: Blagofaire

2023-01-24T03:42:21Z

162.158.30.86: Added signature

Offline would mean dead.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.47|173.245.54.47]] 13:35, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

;Structuring and levels?

I still don't understand the title text. Structuring, levels? Can it be explained more thoroughly?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.220|141.101.81.220]] 15:52, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I can't figure out how to word well enough to add it in, but my interpretation is that's it's a joke about the way that we organize time, with the Structuring and the Levels being like the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Someone living through both wouldn't notice a sudden difference between them, while someone looking at them as past events can think of things in terms of decades and centuries, and choose a point at the start, middle or end of the gradual changes which brought about the later time period. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.209|108.162.246.209]] 22:16, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

:I have no other explanation, yet I wonder if there was a time before people tended to simplify past events or things in general. The title text sounds like a reminescence, maybe of how Munroe perceived the early internet. {{unsigned ip|141.101.105.42}}

No-one else thought that Structuring and Levels referred to some kind of event that restructured the internet of the future? I mean, the future cosplayer speaks of the modern internet as some wild and adventurous place, free of rules and responsibility. The future internet could be strictly regulated, where bloggers can only speak to bloggers of their "level" and a talk thread digressing out of it's place in the Structure would be ruthlessly persecuted!

Or something like that. In fact, the "wizard" explanation is dumb, so I'm gonna change it. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.221|162.158.2.221]] 03:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Levels would be the amount companies are going to force people to pay to keep the same Internet that they have now with the end of Net Neutrality and the ability to go to any website without restriction because it does not help pad the pockets of today Government/Corporate overlords[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 11:20, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

i think the struckiring and lvls is 1 a refrence 2 video game levels and the sturcking like capcha but more

Randall also seems to have likened Internet trolls to fantasy ones in this comic: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/591:_Troll_Slayer[[Special:Contributions/162.158.30.86|162.158.30.86]] 03:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:474: Turn-On

2023-01-24T03:41:15Z

162.158.30.86: Pointed out remark

All six flavors of quark are mentioned in the last panel [[Special:Contributions/140.247.0.14|140.247.0.14]] 22:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)AMP

I thought that I got this one, turns out I didn't have a clue. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 00:27, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I suspect the title text is a reference to the Futurama episode {{w|That's Lobstertainment!}}, in which Humorbot 5.0 tells a similar supercollider joke. [[User:Pelosujamo|Pelosujamo]] ([[User talk:Pelosujamo|talk]]) 17:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
:This doesn't explain the comic itself, but this could belong to a trivia section. Let me know if you do need help on this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:35, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The title "Turn-On" also seems to be a pun. Turning on the LHC (as mentioned in the first panel) and Megan getting turned on by the mentioning of the quark flavors --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.98|108.162.254.98]] 14:05, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Would havenneen even funnier had he mentioned some squarks. He first says sup, heh. "I didn't tell you to stop" and things like that. I guess you can also say they lepton the bed, and Cueball had a huge hadron. Also particle physicists don't use strap ons. They use gluons! Oh and I'm sure Cueball will send a shower of particles in a burst of energy. But lol I'm pretty sure the joke here is unambiguously that she's "turned on" by the LHC turn on. Heck had I been my current age at that time, I certainly would be. Science is fucking sexy. Oh come on, I can't be the only one that gets off to pure science? XD [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 01:25, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

And I guess Beret Guy is just... there. Never knew he got a job as a bartender. Good for him. I mean, he could've used his "magical powers" to cure cancer or help people, but sure. Bartender's fine. -- [[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]])

I removed a paragraph about their being "another joke hidden in the identity of the bartender" and some sexual innuendo left to "the reader's imagination". That's not how Explain XKCD works, in my experience. Either come up with a justification/explanation for it or don't post it! [[User:AmbroseChapel|AmbroseChapel]] ([[User talk:AmbroseChapel|talk]]) 04:55, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Top and bottom are also terms used by gay men to indicate which role each will play in a sexual encounter. [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 10:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Cueball's "This could be our last night on Earth" remark seems to imply that having sex with each other would be a worthwhile way to spend the night.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.30.86|162.158.30.86]] 03:41, 24 January 2023 (UTC)