explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3097: Bridge Types

2025-06-03T16:11:50Z

172.69.79.165:

For budget overrun, see olympic stadium of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.202|162.158.126.202]] 01:23, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Very disappointed there's no bridge card game reference, but I guess that's not one of Randall's types of nerdiness :( [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.203|172.71.254.203]] 01:45, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I would like to note that cable stayed bridges, budget overrun here, are much cheaper than equivalent suspension bridges. It because they use less materials and can be built faster meaning less labor. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.51|172.69.58.51]] 01:50, 3 June 2025‎
:Tru dat in general, but I think that this is a reference to the {{w|Leonard_P._Zakim_Bunker_Hill_Memorial_Bridge|Zakim Bridge}} in downtown Boston, part of the {{w|Big_Dig|"Big Dig"}} project that became notorious for its budget overruns and related shenanigans. Given that Randall M. lives in Boston, that makes this panel something of an inside joke. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.224|172.71.147.224]] 03:15, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The [[wikipedia:St. Louis Arch|St. Louis Arch]] is a repurposed-elevator-suspended-arch-but-without-the-base-and-wires bridge if you squint hard enough. The elevator is also fun. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.67.214|172.69.67.214]] 01:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Nothing about a a [[wikipedia:Bridge circuit|bridge circuit]] or these [[Wikipedia:Bridges (disambiguation)|many]] [[wikipedia:other|other]] bridges either. Sigh. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.67.214|172.69.67.214]] 01:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
:And where, oh where, are Lloyd, Beau, Jeff, and Jordan? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.84|162.158.41.84]] 03:19, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The L'Engle is a take off on a Wrinkle in time? But this one is in space? -- [[User:162.158.91.124|162.158.91.124]] ([[User talk:162.158.91.124|talk]]) 02:26, 3 June 2025‎ ''(please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~</nowiki>~~)''
:There's some space-warping in L'Engle's books. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.63|162.158.174.63]] 02:44, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The "budget overrun" bridge doesn't really look like the Zakim bridge to me. It looks a lot like the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin. I don't know what the budget of that bridge was, but according to wiki it cost 60 million euros, which sounds like a lot given that the bridge isn't all that long or wide. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 03:24, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
: Perhaps if Randall M. drew too close a likeness to the Zakim Bridge, he feared a visit from officials with lawyers and/or cement shoes. ("Only the paranoid survive ...") It seems, from a quick tour of the Internet, that words like "grandiose and overblown" are easily applied to cable-stayed bridge designs/aesthetics. I wasn't easily able to find information on budget overruns for these bridges, and see the commentator above who pointed out the lower costs overall of cable-stayed ''vs'' suspension bridges. But as a former resident of Greater Boston, I can report the pervasiveness of the Big Dig and its challenges, budgetary and otherwise, in local life and lore. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.108|172.68.22.108]] 04:32, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
::The cable-stayed bridge is the current darling of artists that accidentally went to engineering school, who are notorious for running over budget and behind schedule. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 04:40, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
: I can see the suggestion of the Beckett bridge, but in my eyes the obvious template would be [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmusbrug Rotterdam's Erasmus Bridge] [[User:Nachtvogel|Nachtvogel]] ([[User talk:Nachtvogel|talk]]) 06:00, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I think the repurposed elevator should be considered a dig at Elon Musks The Boring Company, even though they tunnel rather then bridge
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.182.138|162.158.182.138]] 04:37, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Added a bunch of explanations [[Special:Contributions/162.158.8.132|162.158.8.132]] 07:31, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The Repurposed Elevator is actually a real thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmid_Peoplemover It's not as strange as you think. It's a space effective, but too expensive solution to the problem of not making cramped railway crossroads more cramped. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.172.112|162.158.172.112]] 07:39, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
: I've added it to the list. Feel free to do such changes yourself if you know something that can contribute. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.183.12|172.71.183.12]] 08:07, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

For the "Google Earth Bridge" remark, [https://www.fastcompany.com/90186315/the-strange-art-of-the-melting-bridges-of-google-earth this article] might work as a citation. [[User:Conster|Conster]] ([[User talk:Conster|talk]]) 07:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

There seem to be stick figures on each bridge, except for the Arch. Is that on phone? Maybe he's saying nobody uses arch (Linux)? Or does anyone has any other idea as to why? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.128.184|172.69.128.184]] 08:21, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Is there a reason for the trestle bridge to have a raised deck? They were iconically used for railways, where that would not work. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.59|162.158.110.59]] 09:56, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The jump in particular feels a lot like polybridge and I love it [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.160|172.71.167.160]] 11:27, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Alas, no love (or even any acknowlegement) for the {{w|Transporter bridge}}, it seams... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 16:11, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

== Suspended arch - tied-arch vs. through arch ==

The "suspended arch" bridge may or may not be a tied-arch bridge. Something has to stop the ends of the arch sliding outwards when there's a large load in the middle, but you can't tell what that something is from the image.

If that something is the bridge deck, being connected to the ends of the arch and under tension, than it's a tied-arch bridge (the deck ties the ends of the arch together). If that something is the arch foundations, and the deck is not under tension, then it's not a tied-arch bridge; it's just a simple through-arch bridge.

For more info on (real) bridges, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_zkaK5PaI| Practical Engineering] --DW [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.69|162.158.187.69]] 13:24, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

'Drawbridge' to me means a defensive bridge that crosses the moat of a castle, and can be pulled up when defending it. See, eg., my favourite castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodiam_Castle [[Special:Contributions/172.69.224.115|172.69.224.115]] 15:05, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
:Agreed. What they have there is a lift bridge. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 15:55, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

1066: Laundry

2025-04-21T22:50:56Z

172.69.79.165: Undo revision 374101 by 162.158.193.117 (talk) Nope.

{{comic
| number = 1066
| date = June 8, 2012
| title = Laundry
| image = laundry.png
| titletext = During the second semester, the path is briefly routed through the dishwasher.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is all about college laundry habits and how as time goes by, you end up just throwing clothes on the floor and then wearing them again.

In the first week, the student undertakes a proper laundry routine. However, due to increasing laziness/workload, by the second week they have abandoned folding their clothes, and by the third week no longer bother hanging them in the closet. By the second month dirty clothes are no longer stored in a laundry hamper and are just dumped on the floor, and by the end of the semester clothes are not washed at all instead rotating between the floor and the students body.

The title text seems to indicate that the student has a brainwave, some time later, to wash their clothes in the dishwasher along with the dishes. Presumably as a timesaver. The experiment was brief because dishwashers aren't actually any good at washing clothes[[[2420:_Appliances|1]]] as they wouldn't move the clothes about.

==Transcript==
:'''College Laundry Habits'''

:[Panel labeled "First Week". 5 ovals arranged in a rough circle, with a clockwise path connecting them: "Dresser & Closet", "On Body", "Hamper", "Washer & Dryer", "Folding Area" (and back to the first). The area outside the ovals is labeled "Floor."]

:[Panel labeled "Second Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Folding Area" - only through the other 4 ovals.]

:[Panel labeled "Third Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Dresser & Closet". Only "On Body", "Hamper", and "Washer & Dryer" remain.]

:[Panel labeled "Second Month". The path no longer passes through "Hamper" - only "On Body" and "Washer & Dryer".]

:[Panel labeled "End of Semester". The path no longer goes to "Washer & Dryer", instead just looping back around from "On Body" to "On Body" again after passing through the "Floor."]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Flowcharts]]

Talk:3075: Anachronym Challenge

2025-04-14T23:21:14Z

172.69.79.165:

Shouldn't "Anachronym" be "Anachronism"? The listed items aren't archaic acronyms. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.83|162.158.63.83]] 17:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
:No, "-nym" means name, so this is names that are outdated [[Special:Contributions/104.23.190.60|104.23.190.60]] 17:36, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
:: (The OP) Ah, I see now. An anachronym is a term used in an anachronistic way (like tin foil which isn't made of tin anymore), where an anacronym is an word that started as an acronym but is now treated as a word (people no longer think of it as an acronym). Neither term being in common parlance, and being only one letter different, my search for a definition got them confused.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.94|172.70.35.94]] 00:20, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure why he should be paying with paper money. He can easily pay by credit card ... using virtual debit card on his phone. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 17:46, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
: Paper money might not be made from paper anymore - at least, it isn't in NZ, where I live. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.0.130|172.69.0.130]] 17:53, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

::I think “paper money” is about paper no longer being made from papyrus. US bank notes are printed on rag paper, which is indeed a kind of paper despite containing little or no wood pulp.--[[User:Seakingsoyuz|Seakingsoyuz]] ([[User talk:Seakingsoyuz|talk]]) 18:20, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Agreed. Rag paper is not just "a kind of paper", it's the original kind of paper (papyrus is not paper in any usual sense, because it is not made from pulped fibers). When paper was invented in China, it was made from rag fibers, and it was still made like that when it was first produced in Europe.

:: I don't think 'paper money' should be designated as being made of paper here. Everyone knows that paper money doesn't feel or act like paper. It's incredibly hard to rip. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 18:27, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

::: Being Canadian, I thought the reference here was to what's described at Wikipedia as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote Polymer banknotes]. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.127.25|162.158.127.25]] 18:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:The "card" in credit card seems to come from Latin and Greek for a piece of paper or papyrus. So a credit card, now made of plastic, metal, semiconductors, etc. might be considered an anachronym. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.95|162.158.41.95]] 19:20, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:I don't think anybody's made sense of or convincingly explained the title text. Paper money actually is basically made of paper. Maybe that's the joke and why it's in the title text. Is there anywhere teaching that paper money isn't made of paper? Maybe it used to be made of the same paper we use for writing on, like IOUs. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.93|162.158.158.93]] 21:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think I figured it out. The article focuses heavily on actual production, but Randall doesn't mean that the original products no longer exist, he means that they aren't what stores are selling. Thinking on this I realized that paper money is like that too -- it's no longer backed by gold or silver. I added a sentence to the article to say this using the concept "fake" like "imitation porcelain". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.135|162.158.159.135]] 21:36, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
:The same person (me) wrote both of these posts but the IP addresses are changed by the server. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.16|162.158.158.16]] 21:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
::It's not the server, it's the Cloudflare gateway. Don't worry about it. Even if it wasn't the Cloudflare gateway's IP that you were getting, there's a good chance that your ''actual'' IP, via your actual ISP, is not static enough to be guaranteed the same from one post to another. If you want to state your continuation (and not get a named account to do so...) just say "Hi, it's IP <1.2.3.4> again..." or whatever you need to do. But (as with me) you seem not to have a driving wish for continuity of self so... don't worry about it. Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 23:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
:After thinking on this further I am no longer convinced by this explanation either. It's possible. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.16|162.158.158.16]] 21:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Adults who "enjoy" rubber ducks include programmers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging [[Special:Contributions/172.71.95.27|172.71.95.27]] 18:40, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

The word money came from words that meant coin. The word coin evidently came from wedge shaped. Not quite anachronym, though somewhat anachronism. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.95|162.158.41.95]] 19:11, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Surprised "lead pencil" didn't make the list [[Special:Contributions/172.68.12.109|172.68.12.109]] 19:13, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
:Not quite the same category. The core of wooden pencils never contained lead, that was always a misnomer by people who didn't know it was actually carbon. [[User:ChaoticNeutralCzech|ChaoticNeutralCzech]] ([[User talk:ChaoticNeutralCzech|talk]]) 08:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
::I thought soft metals like lead did work for writing with though, functioning similarly to the graphite in a pencil but possibly needing a rougher surface like chalk does. I'm surprised the name isn't from actual use as I had informally learned it was. I think I tested it by writing with lead solder. In ancient Rome people would write on rougher slate, not sure what they used to write on the slate with though. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.36|162.158.159.36]] 21:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Duck Tape is no longer made from ducks! [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 19:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:It Actually got its name from being made from "duck fabric," a kind of heavy very tightly woven cotton fabric. Then there was confusion by a brand putting a picture of a duck on the label, and people using it to join segments of heating ducts together, making people falsely think it was originally called "duct tape," with duck being a fanciful brand name. Originally though it was developed for the military in WW1 to seal ammunition boxes in a waterproof way, but due to widespread improvised uses by soldiers, post war they decided to market it to civilians.--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.102|172.71.255.102]] 17:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
::What your thinking about is "fabric tape" or "gaffer's tape". What people call "duck tape" is actually called "duct tape," as in the tape you would use on air ducting. Many people misheard and dropped the final "t", and of course the Duck brand didn't help. --[[User:Mblumber|Mblumber]] ([[User talk:Mblumber|talk]]) 21:32, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
:::With both terms "duck tape" and "duct tape", there's valid (if false) etymologies. Being somewhat waterproof (the fabric being at least water-resistant and the adhesive being good even on damp surfaces) it being a "duck" material is fairly relatable. With it having a degree of air-tightness and some degree of heat-resistance, it's also trivially useful for sealing ambient-temperature ducting gaps (though you really need the metal-foil types for ducts with high or variable temperature airflows passing through them). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 23:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

"digital money" shouldn't be listed as what "paper money" is actually made out of. Nobody would say "I'm paying with paper money" if they are paying with some digital currency. The anachronism is "paper money" being actually made of linen or whatever hi-tech fibers. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.211|172.70.254.211]] 19:49, 11 April 2025 (UTC) anonymous user
:Not even ''fibers''. Sheet-polymers (with loads of complex embedded and pressed-in features) are becoming the new go-to for banknotes, in a number of countries. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.135|172.68.205.135]] 23:24, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

My wife suggests that this is much easier if you are tech shopping: Apple, Mouse, Spam, Phish, Cookies.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.225|162.158.78.225]] 20:03, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
:"Click mouse to accept cookie" meme - featuring rodent and confection. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/e6/7d/06e67d6ee5a2afa112bf548463e97125.jpg [[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.94|172.70.35.94]] 00:20, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
:That's not in the same category since computer mice were never ''made of'' actual mice. Anyway, I'm sure there are some examples in tech: '''compressed air''' (gas duster) cans do not actually contain nitrogen or oxygen but a mixture of hydrocarbon gases that can be liquified at pressures obtainable in a cheap can to drastically increase the volume ratio, but I can imagine people might have used actual pressurized air containers for dusting at some point (though likely not commercially). [[User:ChaoticNeutralCzech|ChaoticNeutralCzech]] ([[User talk:ChaoticNeutralCzech|talk]]) 08:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Not sure why "sidewalk chalk" on there and who decides that calcium carbonate is allowed to be called chalk, but calcium sulphate is not. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.196|108.162.216.196]] 05:25, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
:I came here wondering why it was on the list, but for a different reason: It's never been made from sidewalks. Yes, I actually needed to read the list to clear up the misconception. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.127.25|162.158.127.25]] 18:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
::Because, other than the use we give it as "thing you write on blackboards with", chalk is originally a stone made of relatively loose calciulm carbonate (limestone mostly made from foraminifers), which is what was used to write on slate blackboards before we started making them out of pressed gypsum. --[[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.130|172.64.238.130]]

You can still buy solid cast-iron irons. Although I doubt anyone actually uses them for smoothing clothes, more for decoration. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 16:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
: If you can still buy _new_ ones update the article! People likely use the old ones in traditional communities though. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.36|162.158.159.36]] 21:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

== Steel ==

{{w|Stainless steel}} ''does'' contain Fe, so "iron" ain't ''that'' "wrong". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.95|172.70.35.95]] 05:48, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
:We have long made a distinction between "iron" and "steel", not to mention that, while stainless steel has about 1% carbon by weight (give or take: sometime more, sometimes less), since carbon is over 4 times lighter than iron, that makes about 4% (and up to 10%) of the atoms carbon, not to mention that, to be stainless, it has to either have a by weight composition of either over 10% chromium or over 8% nickel, which are almost the same weight as iron (a difference of around 5%, lower for chromium, higher for nickel). Given that the average stainless steel has a 18% by weight of chromium, adding that with the carbon means that only 3 out of 4 atoms are iron, and if you have copper and tin or copper and tin in that same ratio, it would long have surpassed the line to be called "bronze" or "brass", respectively. "Having iron atoms" is not the same as "made of iron", mainly when it originally was indeed made out of (wrought) iron. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.245|188.114.111.245]]
::99% is a way higher percentage than say, the amount of nickel in nickels ($0.05 coins): 25% ({{w|Nickel (United States coin)|US}}) or 2% ({{w|Nickel (Canadian coin)|Canadian}}). The latter might qualify for this list because it actually used to be made of near-pure nickel, while the US coin's composition never changed since the first (1866) version that became known as the "nickel". [[User:ChaoticNeutralCzech|ChaoticNeutralCzech]] ([[User talk:ChaoticNeutralCzech|talk]]) 11:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Steel (stainless or otherwise) does not occur naturally. It has to be made. By humans. Out of iron. So in this case 'having iron atoms' DOES mean 'made of (as a synonym of 'from') iron'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 04:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::Bronze contains mostly copper. So I assume you would call it copper, too. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.67|162.158.130.67]] 11:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

"Cutlery" specifically refers to metallic implements with a cutting edge. Knives, scissors, and swords are cutlery; Spoons and forks are not cutlery. Table knives, forks, and spoons, collectively are "flatware". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.164.155|162.158.164.155]] 10:01, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
:I was really hoping to re-edit that element, anyway. The comic says "silverware" which can relate to cutlery/other food-implements or to the plates or candlesticks or even ''trophies''. Someone assumed that meant cutlery(+dining implements in general). As well as other improvable writing about the assumption they went with. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.49|172.70.58.49]] 22:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I assume the confusion comes from the respecive British and American terms for a collection of forks, knives, and spoons. British English calls these things "cutlery" even if they don't have a cutting edge. American English commonly refers to these as "silverware," especially when made with stainless steel, although I have also heard the term "plastic silverware" or "wooden silverware" when "flatware" would probably have been a more accurate generic term. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.35|172.70.163.35]] 18:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC) (an American expat)

== Paper ==

I just want to point out that paper made from cotton fibers instead of wood pulp ''is still paper''. You can buy it in the store. There are non-paper banknotes now, but not in the U.S., and I'd be surprised if polymer banknotes were ever called "paper money". [[User:LtPowers|LtPowers]] ([[User talk:LtPowers|talk]]) 12:35, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
:Be surprised. That's what they're usually called in Canada. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.127.164|162.158.127.164]] 18:29, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
::And anywhere with polymer bills. "Paper money" = bills. Still, it's true that cotton-linen paper is still paper, so is hemp paper and any other paper made from cellulose fibers (paper can be categorized by cellulose source, average fiber length, thickness, impurities and papermaking method). You can even make paper out of old clothes made from vegetable textiles (like blue jeans, cotton T-shirts or hemp pants). As a weird side note, there are non-cellulose papers, like silk paper, but they are made in the same way as regular paper (which is not how plymer bills are made, to my understanding)--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.245|188.114.111.245]]
:::Yeah, I've always heard of it as "paper money" --[[User:Xnerkcd|xnerkcd]] ([[User talk:Xnerkcd|talk]]) 07:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

== silverware made of silver ==

When I typed started typing "silverware made" into Google, it suggested "silverware real silver", which brought up a very ad-heavy results page. A few of them were re-selling vintage silverware, but most seemed to be offering "new" designs. I had to scroll down several pages before I found stuff that looked even like a catalog, rather than an ad for one particular possible purchase.

But since it seems like a competitive market, and I wasn't patient enough to look for an informational marketing page, I don't feel comfortable picking one (or several) particular ads as the citation.

Perhaps someone else does. Or perhaps a screenshot archived somewhere. [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 18:09, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:Since when are ads considered reliable sources? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 19:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3069: Terror Bird

2025-03-31T05:02:22Z

172.69.79.165: All birds are dinosaurs and all good dogs go to heaven

Oh, wow, never seen a blank explanation before! [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 02:48, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Jill is a pretty rare character (only 59 appearances). Cool to see a rare character.
:[[Jill]] is at 40 at the moment (41 as long as this comic is on the front page, but then back to the real 40). Not sure how you got the 59? Originally she was called Science Girl, and I'm not at all in favor of the name change... Not sure who thought that was a good idea? She is a generic girl interested in science. And in one comic she's a young adult and in one she is looking different. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:41, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

this seems to be a play on dinosaurs in media to look more accurate by having feathers, which some view as making them less scary. this comic is a reversal, where the bird is supposedly more accurate and scarier. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.28|108.162.242.28]] 04:17, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
:hmm maybe [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 16:09, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
::No it is about a specific bird type from long after the dinosaurs died out, and it is mentioned both in the comic title and in the title text. Nothing to do with dinosaurs. Have also removed that category as though birds evolved from dinosaurs they are no longer that! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:49, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Considering there are childs show with Barney the purple dinosaur, and that's supposed to be tyrannosaurus-rex, apex predator, and is STILL not scary, making Big Bird scary is not related to what species it might be at all. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 16:58, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I suspect Randall just received the latest edition of Scientific American. It summarizes recent discovery of a thick keratin sheath over the already known bony weapons in some dino species, making the nasty parts even nastier: bigger, heavier, and more resistant to damage. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.191.130|172.71.191.130]] 22:59, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
:But this is not a dinosaur! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:49, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
::All birds are dinosaurs, cladistically. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 05:02, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

'''Bird Height''' It looks like the bird is around 12 feet / 3.5 m tall (in comparison with the humans), but the Wikipedia article indicated that terror birds reached at max 10 feet / 3 meters. Is anyone eyeballing the situation differently? Is that noteworthy? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.229|172.71.182.229]] 01:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
:Jill's a child. 'Hairy' could be a non-adult Hairy (just older/taller than Jill). Have you tried instead assuming that the comic Bird is 10' high and working out if Jill/Hairy are reasonable (maybe both adolescent) sizes in comparison? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.253|162.158.33.253]] 01:36, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
::I get the bird to be 8/3 the height of Hairy. Thus Hairy should be 1,12 m for it to be only 3 m tall. That is like a 5 year old... And Jill is considerably shorter and girls at that age it not shorter than boys, and since they are in a museum with scary animals I would assume 3-5 year old kids would not run around alone. I would agree that Hairy could represent a kid, but he is tall enough compared to Jill that he could be the adult Hairy. That would make the skeleton more than 4 m tall. There could be some issue with perspective. Maybe they are further away that the skeleton. Most likely Randall did not put too many thoughts into this and just wanted the skeleton to tower over the humans. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:49, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
::: Me again. Thanks! "'' just wanted the skeleton to tower over the humans''" just seems ... [(*)], I guess. If that were true, he may as well have shown a disproportionately large cat or cockroach or amoeba. They would be just as scary. The difference is that readers would be less likely to take it seriously with a familiar. Ah, well. Thanks! (* I removed something critical / judgemental I'd feel guilty about posting about a comic I love.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.27|172.70.46.27]] 23:55, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Kamala Harris

2025-03-14T23:14:12Z

172.69.79.165: ..but that superlative ''does'' now get repeated, in quick succession, so don't need the ((()))s. If we ever did...

{{Infobox character
| image = Kamala Harris.jpeg
| imagesize = 300px
| caption = '
| first_appearance = [[2962|2962: Presidential Venn Diagram]]
}}

<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Kamala Harris|Comics featuring Kamala Harris]].''</noinclude>

'''{{w}}''' is a politician who served as {{w|Vice President of the United States}} under [[Joe Biden]]. She made history as the first ever female Vice President, and by that the highest ranking female in US History. A member of the {{w|Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party}}, she previously served as the 27th DA of San Francisco from 2004 to 2001, the 32nd AG of California from 2011 to 2017, and in the US Senate, representing California from 2017 to 2021. In 2024, she was the Democratic candidate for the 2024 Presidential race, but she lost the 2024 presidential race to Donald Trump. She is married to {{w|Doug Emhoff}}.

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Real people]]
[[Category:Politicians]]

Kamala Harris

2025-03-14T23:12:46Z

172.69.79.165: Just "served under" is ambiguous, and though the detail of being the first ever female VP comes later, this is then a more specific superlative of the basline VOTUS position, so doesn't create a strict repetition.

{{Infobox character
| image = Kamala Harris.jpeg
| imagesize = 300px
| caption = '
| first_appearance = [[2962|2962: Presidential Venn Diagram]]
}}

<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Kamala Harris|Comics featuring Kamala Harris]].''</noinclude>

'''{{w}}''' is an (((American))) politician who served as {{w|Vice President of the United States}} under [[Joe Biden]]. She made history as the first ever female Vice President, and by that the highest ranking female in US History. A member of the {{w|Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party}}, she previously served as the 27th DA of San Francisco from 2004 to 2001, the 32nd AG of California from 2011 to 2017, and in the US Senate, representing California from 2017 to 2021. In 2024, she was the Democratic candidate for the 2024 Presidential race, but she lost the 2024 presidential race to Donald Trump. She is married to {{w|Doug Emhoff}}.

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Real people]]
[[Category:Politicians]]

472: House of Pancakes

2025-03-08T18:28:44Z

172.69.79.165: From the format looks like an attempt at a Transcript. Which we already have. With effectively no differences, I'm removing it.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:472: House of Pancakes}}
{{comic
| number = 472
| date = September 5, 2008
| title = House of Pancakes
| image = house_of_pancakes.png
| titletext = Fuck it, I'm just going to Waffle House.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] is parodying Mark Z. Danielewski's novel ''{{w|House of Leaves}}'' by renaming it ''House of Pancakes'' (after the American fast food franchise {{w|International House of Pancakes}}). ''House of Leaves'' has an unconventional page layout and style, including the colouring of every instance of the word "house" in blue, as is done on the menu. It includes footnotes within footnotes like Randall did here.

In ''House of Leaves'', protagonist Johnny Truant (whose meta-narration is marked by Courier font as mimicked in the comic) discovers a book called ''The Navidson Record'' (represented here by the pancake menu), which in turn details a film of the same name, which in turn details a horror story of a family living in a sentient house. Truant, who is clearly intelligent and cultured, probes deeper into notating ''The Navidson Record''—and into insomnia—until ''The Navidson Record'' consumes his mind horrifically, the same way the film in the novel consumed the author of ''The Navidson Record'', the same way the house in the novel consumed part of the family.

''House of Leaves'' lends itself to many interpretations, but has been called a "satire of academic criticism," which makes this comic essentially a satire of a satire. Since part of the appeal of ''House of Leaves'' is that it takes itself extremely seriously with its intricacy, multitude of both real and made-up references to academic and popular culture, and layered emotional conflict, Randall's reduction of the ''House of Leaves'' to the (International) House of Pancakes cuts a humorous edge to a dark story. The tone of the comic parodies the tone of ''House of Leaves'': lonely, fear-inducing, and increasingly insane, but using pancakes instead of darkness.

Additionally, the mysterious "Mohawk Girl" referred to in the comic may be a nod to the ''House of Leaves'' character Delial, or to [[147: A Way So Familiar]].

The word "house" is in blue in every instance, which is a stylistic attribute of Mark Z. Danielewski's novel. Every Minotaur reference is marked out in red ink, and every use of "house" or a foreign language's equivalent, such as 'Haus' and 'maison' is in blue. This is not a reference to hyperlinks. It is often thought that the house is printed in blue because houses have 'blueprints.'

The censored portion of the Big Steak Omelette is "...fresh green peppers, onions, mushrooms,..." per IHOP's website for the Big Steak Omelette: "Tender and tasty strips of steak, hash browns, fresh green peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and Cheddar cheese." Also, Omelette is misspelled, but that's probably just a typo.

The title text refers to the {{w|Waffle House}}, another US restaurant chain. The joke is that the protagonist has decided that maybe all this angst isn't worth it, and he'll just go to a different restaurant.

Clicking on the original comic links to the amazon.com page for House of Leaves.

From ''[[xkcd: volume 0]]'':
{{quote|This is a parody of the fascinating book ''House of Leaves''.}}

==Transcript==
:[All instances of the word "House" are in blue. Text is a mix of 'Printed' (hi-res serifed proportional font), 'Typed' (more crude-looking non-proportional serifed font) and 'Written' (freetext, in standard xkcd AllCaps style, having the occasional decoration and emphasis added).]
:[Above the 'frame' is Typed text:] Every day a new city, a new IHOP. And yet every night the dreams get worse. I ply the highways, a nervous eye on the rear-view mirror, the back seat piled with stolen menus. Their doors are opened 24 hours, but forever closed to my soul. This is what my life has become. This is my hell.
:[A bordered frame, in the style of an (illustrated and annotated) menu. We see two columns of product descriptions, three full ones and in each column and a hint of a fourth going beyond the bottom of the frame.]
:[Each clear description generally start with a product name, in bold, and a product description, all in Printed text. To the left of these are an illustrative image which has a barely legible caption seemingly identical to the product namr header, and a stylistic 'angled shadow' set subtly behind it. In each description text there may be at least one footnote-number in superscript and square-brackets. Below each are Typed footnote paragraphs (mostly) relating to the footnote numbers in the above description. Additional scribbles are Written around and alongside the above, as text, doodles and other marks of one type or another.]
:[Menu header:]
::[Sidenote left, Written:] International
::[Printed header:] House of Pancakes
::[Scribbled-out sidenote, Written to the right:] BLOGSPOT

:[Item subheader, top of first column:] Strawberry Banana Pancakes
::[Item description:] Four pancakes filled with sliced fresh banana and crowned with cool strawberry topping, more [17] bananas and [23] whipped topping.
::[Footnote 17, with three smudged fingerprints over parts of this and the top of the next item down (a fourth, perhaps, far to the bottom of the framed area):] Driven by a nameless fear, a whisper in the dark behind me, I flee ahead of I know not what. Whenver I turn, there's nobody behind me. And yet someone is clearly stealing the ketchup. WHY?
::[Footnote 23, sandwiched incongruously and sideways from low to high, mostly between the images of the Stuffed French Toast and Ham and Egg Melt items, to the right:] My life is feeding, fleeing, fighting, and forgetting.

:[Item subheader, second down on left column:] Rooty Jr.
::[Item description, a splash of red (ketchup/blood) within it, further (secondary?) spatters and red marks, possibly including an attempt to create mostly unintelligable letters, spread on or around lower passages:] A kids only [19] version of our house signature Rooty Tooty. One scrambled egg, one strip of bacon, one pork sausage link and one fruit-topped buttermilk pancake.
::[Footnote 19:] The decision not to hyphenate "kids only" is likely connected to the omission of the serial comma. I wonder if the author is British. I wonder if he sleeps at night.

:[Item subheader, third down on left:] Rise 'N Shine
::[Item description:] Two eggs, toast and hash browns served with your choice [21] of two strips of bacon or two pork sausage links.
::[Footnote 21, starting with an small word (possibly (I") made illegible by one of the spatters of red:] rent a storage unit. Sleep there. Fill it with pancakes. Leave.

:[Item subheader, top of right column:] Stuffed French Toast
::[Item description:] Cinnamon raisin French [18] toast stuffed with sweet cream cheese filling, topped with cool strawberry or your choice of fruit compote and whipped topping.
::[Footnote 18:] Nightmares again. I wake up covered in sweat, and what appears to be a thin sheen of maple syrup

:[Inserted text, Written with emphasis and underlined:] WHO IS MOHAWK GIRL?

:[Item header, second down at right, which is sideways (low to high) in the general position that the horizontal text would normally be, next to the normally-set product image:] Ham & Egg Melt
::[Item description, also sideways and consistently 'below' (to the right of) its header:] Grilled sourdough bread stuffed with ham, scrambled eggs, Swiss and American cheeses. [20]
::[Footnote 20, normally orientated and positioned:] Ordered this in at an IHOP in Rochester, New York. There was blood on the floor. Some of it was mine.

:[Small drawn doodle, inserted, of three instances of a Cueball, the middle one holding out an item (gun?) to the right, followed by a ground feature (pool of liquid?)]
::[Written above the second (and third) Cueball:] Enough with your pancakes.
::[Written above the 'pool', two words heavily bolded:] Enough with your GOD DAMN pancakes.

:[Item header, third on the right:] The Big Steak Omlette
::[Item description, a few words of text has been censored by a black strip:] Tender strips of steak, hash browns, [censorship strip, long enough to obscure perhaps 4-6 typical words] tomatoes and Cheddar cheese. Served [22] with house salsa.
::[Footnote 22:] Woke up in Las Vegas. They're closing the Star Trek Experience today. The IHOP up the strip had pancake platters named after various states. None of them sounded like home.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]
[[Category:Footnotes]]

750: Book Burning

2025-03-02T13:27:20Z

172.69.79.165: ...I don't actually see the funny, but I shall at least put it in correctly.

{{comic
| number = 750
| date = June 7, 2010
| title = Book Burning
| image = book_burning.png
| titletext = Of course, since their cautionary tale was reported in a print newspaper, no one read it.
}}

==Explanation==
A group of people wanting to hold a {{w|book burning}} find themselves in a conundrum when they only have one book. Going to an online retailer reveals that the {{w|Amazon Kindle|Kindle}} edition of the book is considerably less expensive than the hardcover edition. Unfortunately for the book-burners, the burning of a Kindle proves fatal because of the toxic fumes from the burning of its plastic shell, internal electronics, and/or the lithium polymer battery that powers it.

One purpose of book burning is to destroy heretical material and thus prevent the spread of those ideas. In this case, where a Kindle version downloaded and the device is burned, no heretical material is destroyed as the electronic version is still available for distribution. Those who survived the incident will then find that their actions did not prevent the spread of the heretical ideas, they have lost dear friends,{{Citation needed}} and have to purchase new electronic devices.

Another purpose for a book burning is to have a public demonstration in protest of the ideas presented in the book. This may have been the purpose of the book burning mentioned in the comic, but this plan failed, as indicated by the title text, because it was reported in the newspaper, which no one reads.

In the past there were many {{w|List of book-burning incidents|book-burning incidents}}.

There is also a subtle pun in that "{{w|Firelighting|kindle}}" means "to start a fire".

The title text further drives home the point that electronic media is becoming the norm, while print is being supplanted by inventions like the Kindle.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holds a book aloft, displaying it to his two friends.]
:Cueball: This book is full of heresy!
:Friend: Let's hold a book burning!
:[They confer more, then one friend runs off.]
:Cueball: I only have one copy.
:Friend #1: I guess we could buy more.
:Friend #2: I'll look online.
:[A screenshot from an online retailer's page displays pricing for the hardcover ($17.99) and Kindle ($9.99) editions of the mentioned book.]

:[The front page of a newspaper, titled "News", is shown above the fold. The first article's headline reads "Eight dead from toxic fume inhalation" and a picture is shown depicting three bodies strewn around a massive plume of tar-black smoke.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

3033: Origami Black Hole

2025-01-03T21:46:04Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3033
| date = January 3, 2025
| title = Origami Black Hole
| image = origami_black_hole_2x.png
| imagesize = 272x480px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 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.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PLANET-SIZED SWARM OF SELF-REPLICATING NUCLEAR POWERED PAPER COMPRESSION ROBOTS - Please change this comment when editing this page. It needs an explanation for the title text. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows what at first appears to be an actual page of {{w|origami}} directions, like [https://origami.me/crane/ this one] or [https://origami.guide/origami-animals/origami-rabbits/origami-sleeping-rabbit/ this one], except labeled "How to fold a real origami black hole". However, it quickly devolves into nothing other than repeating folds in half. This wouldn't really create a black hole,{{citation needed}} but it would get very difficult, nearly impossible, long before the 190 folds in half that the instructions require.

The {{w|mathematics of paper folding}} were augmented with [https://web.archive.org/web/20051102085038/http://pomonahistorical.org/12times.htm work by a California high school student in 2001] who wrote equations that [https://web.archive.org/web/20211116013626/http://teachersofindia.org/sites/default/files/folding_paper_in_half.pdf related the size of paper to the maximum number of folds it could make], which has not yet exceeded the low teens in human competition. This could be exceeded by scoring the paper to cut and flatten the outer layers of the folds, but its thickness would immediately surpass its length, and compressing it beyond the size of its fibers would require some way to hold it together.

This comic is likely a reference to the {{w|Schwarzschild radius}} of a piece of paper. The Schwarzchild radius is a characteristic of every object that depends on the object's mass. If an object is compressed into the volume of a sphere with its characteristic Schwarzschild radius, then that object will become a black hole. (More specifically, it will become a {{w|Schwarzschild metric|Schwarzschild black hole}}.) As such, if a piece of paper were folded sufficiently many times so as to fit within its own Schwarzschild radius, it would become a black hole. However, this would require compressing the paper into a flat sheet at every step, otherwise the paper would have a thickness greatly exceeding its Schwarzschild radius.

If we assume standard kami {{w|origami paper}} with a side length of 15cm and a weight of 70 grams per square meter, we get a Schwarzschild radius of 2.339×10^-30 meters corresponding to a mass of 1.575 grams. It follows that, ignoring the paper's thickness, we would need to halve each side length -log_2((2×2.339×10^-30)/0.15)=94.69 times to fit each side length within the "Schwarzschild diameter" of the paper. Using the square folding technique in the comic, this would take approximately 95*2=190 steps to complete, the exact number given in the comic.

In actual fact, it's not possible to fold a piece of paper this many times, because you can't compress it enough. For an ordinary letter-sized sheet (A4 or 8.5x11) the maximum number of folds is 7. The world record for the total number of folds is 12, done with a length of tissue paper 3/4 mile long. A group of MIT students demonstrated 13 folds using multiple miles of paper, but had to lay separate pieces together as it made them too thick to tape them. Materials other than paper, such as thin foil, can be folded more times. Not only that but, as the title text alludes to, prior to reaching any creation of a black hole, the pressures generated by the resulting {{w|Nuclear fusion#Confinement in thermonuclear fusion|fusion of its atoms}} must be overcome.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:How to fold a '''''real''''' origami black hole:

:Step 1.
:[A square sheet of paper shown folded in half, with a dashed line going across the middle, and an arrow pointing from one half to the other.]

:[In each step from Step 2. to Step 9., the paper is shown folded in half again]
:Step 2.
:Step 3.
:Step 4.
:Step 5.
:Step 6.
:Step 7.
:Step 8.
:Step 9.

:Steps 10-189.
:[Text shown between tall square brackets:]
:Fold paper in half another 180 or so times.

:Step 190.
:[A labeled arrow points to a dot]
:Black hole!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:Main Page

2024-12-15T23:53:04Z

172.69.79.165: /* Header message */

{{TOC}}{{notice|This page is for discussion of the [[Main Page]] itself. For discussion of the latest comic, see [[{{LATESTCOMIC}}#Discussion|its discussion section]]. Other issues probably belong at the [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]].}}

==New discussion page==
As a new user, I think the first page is very important. So I thought why not begin a discussion here what to have on the first page every user visits.--[[User:Relic|Relic]] ([[User talk:Relic|talk]]) 05:59, 1 August 2012 (EDT) Re-signed here - b/c I broke the comment in two when I added the "List of comics" header. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 23:01, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Can someone get this to display the redirected page instead of the original? For example, I just moved the page [[2865: the Wrong Stuff]] to [[2865: The Wrong Stuff]], but it still shows the origional (wrong) page. Can someone change that? [[User:B for brain|B for brain]] ([[User talk:B for brain|talk]]) 19:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
:The problem seemds to have been (and was proven to be solved through) the way the template for the "newest comic" (re)redirects through the [[2865]] page, which was still pointing at the original place. Maybe there's a "two redirection limit", or a lower limit on top of the one(s) the wikicode already knew that it would (ordinarily) have to deal with to make the transclusion end up at the right place... I haven't delved too far into the mechanics, as I rarely visit the Main Page off my own back, so would never have noticed without your informative bugrep.
:Also, the 2865 redirect page probably needed changing, anyway, to keep track with everything else. I then made [[the Wrong Stuff]] redirect to the new name, too. And, just checking, it looks like someone (who has page-creation priviliges) needs to make a duplicate redirection page/valid target for [[The Wrong Stuff]], which right now will be a red-link. Or rename the "the" version to "The", but it depends upon how/if you want to cover all the bases for potentially valid (FCVO 'valid') searchig options. Wouldn't suggest wrong-case copies of anything else, but future searching using (external) historical data certainly could get caught up in this slight muddle... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 20:20, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

==List of comics==
I was thinking of having a quick link to the list of comics that is explained. Right know, it took me a while to even see any of them. Eventually I found the "List All Pages" (found it in Special pages) where I could find the comics that have been explained. What do you think?
:A category tag will do that for you automatically. Having a list of comics indexed by its number would be a little different.--[[User:Relic|Relic]] ([[User talk:Relic|talk]]) 05:59, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::Sounds like a great list - I ''think'' it'd have to be manually maintained until/unless we get someone who knows how to make a bot update it. Categories will be useful, but they only work if someone added the category to the page in the first place. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 07:21, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::A (somewhat) related question - should [[:Category:Comics]] be sorted alphabetically or by comic number? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 07:43, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::I think [[:Category:Comics]] should be sorted by comic number. If you are looking for a specific comic, you will use the search field. Is there a way to make that happen? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 08:11, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::They are two different functions. For the former, instead of adding <nowiki>[[Category:Comics]]</nowiki>, add, say, <nowiki>[[Category:Comics|1]]</nowiki>. For the second, we can create redirects. Normally, I'd say just make sure the search term was in the article text, but since numbers are going to be use for other purposes than just comic titles, it may be better to create [[1]] and [[Comic 1]] as redirects to the relevant articles right off the bat. --08:24, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::We could also have a comic-list template on the Main Page, I suppose, or perhaps two - one for number and one for name? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:54, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::::Here's what I was thinking of for that: {{tl|Comics navbox}} Thoughts? ''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]]
:(outdent) It's ugly, but a sortable wikitable [[User:SurturZ/sandbox|(click here for example)]] could be used as a checklist to see what has been uploaded and what hasn't. What's the project namespace here, anyway (analogue of "WP:")? --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 03:04, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:OK, I've found a way to get all the titles of the comics, so I was confident enough to create <big>[[Explain XKCD:Checklist]]</big> which can be used to fill in the gaps. --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 03:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::I'm liking the checklist! That should do quite nicely as a "tool for editors". (I'm linking to it at the Community Portal). We still need the "template for readers." Did you think {{tl|Comics navbox}} was on the right track or should we do something else for that? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:09, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::Better idea - I'm throwing it directly onto the Main Page. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:10, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

==Admin list==
You can find a system-accurate list of admins [{{canonicalurl:Special:ListUsers|group=sysop}} here], so that might good to share, along with the manual list. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 07:13, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:Added to page. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:10, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::That's exactly what I wanted, but couldn't find the auto page for it. I knew it was somewhere. I don't see any reason to keep the link to the manual page. Do you? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 08:11, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Not unless you want it. I'll remove it. Should I add the similar link for 'crats or is that unnecessary at this point? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:25, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::To be honest, I have no idea what the Burecrats role does. Might be unnecessary now but helpful in the future? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 11:16, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::Bureaucrats can turn other users into administrators (or indeed, other bureaucrats). That privilege isn't available to ordinary administrators. I'd keep it to yourself for the time being. :-) --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 17:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::You can actually see a technical list of which rights each group confers at [[Special:ListGroupRights]]. As the wiki grows, you might want to spin off a few, such as the ability to grant rollbacker and autopatrolled, to admins as some other wikis have. But for the time being, at least, there's really no reason for the wiki to have more than one 'crat. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 17:07, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

== Community portal ==

I've created the [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]] as a tools/help page. If that's not what you want, feel free to change/move/whatever it, but I thought it'd be nice to save this page for discussion of the Main Page and discuss the wiki as a whole/ask for help there. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:36, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

== Direct link to latest comic ==

There should be a direct link to the latest comic at the top of the Main page. A nice thing about going to explainxkcd.com was that the latest comic is right there at the top. For those changing their default link to the wiki, there should be an easy "Latest Comic" link that quickly takes them there. I'm sure some folks actually skip xkcd.com and come directly here instead to read the latest offering from Randall. They shouldn't have to search for it.
[[User:Christopher Foxx|- CFoxx]] ([[User talk:Christopher Foxx|talk]]) 11:59, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

: Maybe the page [[latest]] should redirect to the most recent comic? Could that be taken care of by some sort of script/template so it doesn't have to be manually updated? Should each explination page also have "next", "previous", "random", "first" and "latest" links, possibly also generated automatically via scripts/templates? Additionally, shouldn't the number page be the canonical one? It seems like [[Internal monologue]] should redirect to [[1089]] rather than the other way around - certainly it would make a bunch of scripting types of things a lot easier. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:02, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::If you wanted, we could even use wiki-magic to show the title of the page as the Comic name, but the URL as the number - in order to parallel the actual XKCD website. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 17:09, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Shouldn't there be a way to programmatically find the comic with the highest number that has a page with content? That would work as long as no one puts future comic pages up. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 20:25, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::It's all sounding like folks are over-complicating something quite easy. All I'm suggesting is a prominent link to http://www.xkcd.com/. No need, I think, to list which number the latest is, or include the next/last/random buttons, etc. [[User:Christopher Foxx|- CFoxx]] ([[User talk:Christopher Foxx|talk]]) 11:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::::Oh. We've got that, now, in the sidebar - labeled as "XKCD." I do think that having an internal link to the latest (explained) comic would be a great thing, though. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 16:36, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

You can transclude the latest comic on the main page like this: <nowiki>{{:pagename}} e.g. {{:Internal_monologue}} </nowiki>--[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 00:25, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
: I've started with just a manual link to the latest comic. Ideally it will be automatic, but a manual link will work for now as I've had quite a few people ask for it. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 21:09, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Transclusion of the latest comic is great. Someone with the right permissions should add (for instance on the top-right corner of the grey transclusion area) a link to edit the corresponding wiki page, so that people seeing something they could add would feel invited to do so (wiki style). In my opinion this would be a good way to improve the quality of the user-generated explanations.
Also, all the "XKCD"s in the "New here?" section should be converted to the lowercase "xkcd"...
[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 14:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
:Good points. I've done both. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 15:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Call me dumb, but... You've got a link called "prev" that goes to the explaination for the previous comic. Then a link called "comic #42" but that goes to xkcd. And then a smaller, less prominent link called "go to this comic" that doesn't go to the comic but to its explaination. Anyone else think that's a little back-to-front? [[User:Zootle|Zootle]] ([[User talk:Zootle|talk]]) 17:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
:OK, you're dumb :-). The standard template for an explanation page includes the header with "Prev", "Comic # (date)", and "Next" links. If we don't have explanation pages for the previous or next comic, we don't show the respective link. I hadn't noticed that the "Comic # (date)" bit was a link to the xkcd site before, but in context it makes sense to me. Including a link to the Explain page for the comic who's explain page you are already looking at doesn't make sense.
:The explanation page for the latest comic is "transcluded" in the main page pretty much as-is, so we get the header, the comic, the explanation, etc. We don't get the discussion, which is visible at the bottom of the Explain page. Because there is never an explanation for a comic that hasn't been released yet, there is never a "Next" link on the main page's transcluded header. So you get "Prev" and "Comic" links. The "Go to this comic" link is added by the main page above the transcluded explain page.
:I can see how the "Go to this comic" link might be poorly worded especially as it's placement seems to be within the explanation it's linking to. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
::Rather than "Go to this comic" maybe it could be "Go to full explanation" ? Something else? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
::There was [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#.22Edit_this_explanation.22_link_on_main_page a discussion at one point] about a wittier/more descriptive link - but no one came up with anything. I do like "Go to Full Explanation" better, for what it's worth. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 15:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
:::My problem with that suggestion is that it implies that the main page explanation is not full. As of right now, the full explanation is transcluded on the main page. There's nothing more to see by clicking that link (explanation wise) Perhaps "Go to full explanation page" but that doesn't quite sound right to me... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
::::How about "Go to this Comic Explanation Page"? One nice thing about the specific page rather than the [[Main_Page]] transcoding is that it nicely includes the discussion as well. I have a bookmark to the [[Main_Page]] that I look at every day, but I want to easily read the discussions, not only the explanation. Humm, maybe we could have a page [[most recent comic]] that automagically redirects to the most recent comic? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 12:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::I tried to get [[most recent comic]] to redirect to LATESTCOMIC, but can't get the syntax working - it is possible? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::Apparently it isn't. I would have tried <code><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[{{LATESTCOMIC}}]]</nowiki></code> like you did, but since that doesn't work, I'll delete the page for now. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

== Discussion of latest comic ==
Perhaps include the discussions of the latest comic here? I almost missed there was a discussion field a few times because I would only read about the latest comic on the main page. [[User:Carewolf|Carewolf]] ([[User talk:Carewolf|talk]]) 14:54, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

This comics's explanation is complete bollocks, I think. Of course it is NOT a "fact that such a room exists". This comics parodies trope often used in cop movies - an elderly cop goes to work for the last time before his retirement, packs things, plans fishing the next day ... only to be called to one more case (possibly with a new, young and brash partner). And despites his efforts not to screw anything and stay clear of danger, he is either mortally wounded or screws big time and is degraded. So much clichè, that if someone says "It's my last day or service", you might be sure one of the two options above happens. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony [[User:edheldil|Edheldil]] 10:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe this link maybe relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics {{unsigned|Rhudi}}

I went ahead and filled out the bracket from today's (see edit date) comic: http://m.imgur.com/gallery/WyPkHx2 {{unsigned|Glaucon81}}

*rise

Btw, why wouldn't I just enter "ipconfig free" if I didn't want my IP address showing? {{unsigned ip|172.68.65.48}}

== The comic explanation count is wrong ==

The adjustment is currently 3, but there are now 6 subcategories and one list making the current correct adjustment 7.
If the wiki was upgraded to version 1.20, a form exists to automatically exclude subcategories.
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 09:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

:Looks like another week of the wiki going down then.
:But seriously, I've been noticing this too. Didn't know what was causing it, but it's going to have to be fixed sometime.[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 10:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

::The text reads <pre><nowiki>We already have [[:Category:Comics|'''{{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-3}}''' comic explanations]]!</nowiki></pre> The -3 is to account for the subcategories and non-explanation pages in the category. There apparently used to be three such pages, and now there are seven. I would fix this myself, but the page is protected. If the wiki where upgraded to version 1.20, the categories could be explicitly excluded, but the [[List of all comics]] would still be in the category. (Note that the -3 actually appears twice.) --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 05:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

:::Mediawiki 1.20 fixes this issue, although it'd be nice if this could be fixed in the meantime via the hack reccommended by divad. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 06:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

:Looks like Waldir updated the "Comic Correction Count" to "10" (as of 20 November 2012):
<nowiki> We already have [[:Category:Comics|'''{{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-10}}''' comic explanations]]!</big>
Note: the -10 in the calculation above is to discount subcategories (there are 7 of them as of 20 November 2012),
non-comic pages (2 as of same date: [[List of all comics]] and [[Exoplanet]])
and the comic 404, which was deliberately not posted. Thus 7 + 2 + 1 = 10
(But there are still {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-10)}} to go. Come and [[List of all comics|add yours]]!)</nowiki>
:Could we possibly make this more dynamic by creating a "IGNORE_IN_COUNT" category or something? and then using something like: <nowiki>{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-{{PAGESINCAT:IGNORE_IN_COUNT}}}</nowiki>? Then any additional entries to the "Comics" category (that are 'special' entries) could just have the special category added and no main page editing would be necessary? --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 07:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

==Make Jeff stop apologizing==
The apology for server downtime has been around for a while now. Can we take it down? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 04:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

== Spambots ==

I think someone should install [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter AbuseFilter]. --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 10:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

== Purge ==

We should regularly purge the server's cache for the main page using http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=purge to keep the explanation up to date. --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 02:28, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Now that we've been hacked, that doesn't seem like a very good idea. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.209|172.71.167.209]] 02:55, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
:We've really [[932: CIA|not been hacked]], and even I can undo the vandalism (though there are other ways to proof us from a recurrance of this latest laughable attempt, that proper admins might use). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.80|172.70.90.80]] 07:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

== Updating the Rules ==

I've been having a lovely discussion with someone who apparently thought the "edit anything you want" rule applied to the Talk pages. As we don't have any codified rules for ''here'' and can only point to "well the canonical way this is done on Wikipedia is..." I think that there are a few things we need to put into the list of Rules on the front page, and then have a link to a more in-depth talk about why the rules exist and what-not.

Specifically, I'm talking about writing "Feel free to edit any page on the wiki to be better. But, treat talk pages like you would blog comments: comments by other people ''cannot be changed by you'', you can only respond to them." as a new rule to be plastered on the front page, as there seems to be an increasing number social neophytes that seem to think that editing words that are attributed as being said by another person is perfectly legitimate and non-controversial.

Shall we discuss? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 01:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

:We could add the etiquette rules as an addendum to the signature reminder at the top of the page. Just an extra note below the alert box asking people to not edit other people's comments. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 06:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

::It really should be right down with the "edited mercilessly" description, because this is an exception to that statement. Shouldn't have two sets of contradictory instructions in different places. When I made my improper edit, I had a semi-conscious moment of doubt about whether changing the other guy's comment was ok, even though this is a wiki (and even though it wasn't really clear to me that this "discussion" box held something totally separate from the page content), but that statement at the bottom put all such doubts to rest. I read it multiple times to be sure. But I did not notice that line at the top about the four tildes until ''much'' later. It's somewhat lost, visually, in the header line, when you're not looking directly at it.[[Special:Contributions/50.0.38.245|50.0.38.245]] 18:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

:::There's discussion to replace that message with a more noticeable alert box. The message at the bottom of the page appears for all pages, including talk pages, so a talk-page specific message there would not entirely fit. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 00:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

::::If that text at the bottom is in fact alterable, it should be written to take every case into account. It's an extremely poor user interface that has instructions appearing on a page stating rules that are the exact opposite of reality. And note that the altert box on the top looks a lot like a banner add, when you don't focus on it and read it. People will tend to habitually filter out anything written there from their perception. Also, it can easily be scrolled off the top of the screen when the discussion starts to get long, and they have a preview displayed.
::::So I think after the "...then do not submit it here.", it should add, "'''Exception''': others' comments in Discussion pages are not to be altered. See full rules at <<link to appropriate wikipedia page>>."[[Special:Contributions/50.0.38.245|50.0.38.245]] 15:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

== Update after changes ==

The front page explanation hasn't been updated at all day to match changes in the explanation on the comic's page. This is a major problem i think, as it is the front page explanation people visitors will most often read. --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 20:43, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
: It might be a caching issue. Appending <code>&action=purge</code> to the URL will probably fix it. Can you confirm it looks good to you now? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 00:29, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
::Yep, now it updates instantly! Well done, whatever you did! :) --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 16:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

:::I've also added a link underneath the comic box that has the action embedded, so no one has to do any manual URL hacking. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

::::Just wanted to check in on this - are there issues with automated systems or spammers following this link? I know it can affect performance - caching is important on a busy site! --[[User:Overand|Overand]] ([[User talk:Overand|talk]]) 22:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

== Suggestion: Change "Go to this comic" to "Go to this entry" ==

Just a small suggestion. For the Main Page, I suggest changing "Go to this comic" to say "Go to this ''entry''" instead to remove any confusion for new and regular viewers. It certainly took me a while to figure how to go to each featured comic's entry from the main page.

[[Special:Contributions/69.43.114.2|69.43.114.2]] 17:04, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

:How about if it reads "Go to this comic explanation"? Would that be less confusing? I only quibble because the explanations aren't really entries, in wiki parlance each page is usually called an article, but that doesn't seem to fit here as we really have explanation pages. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:41, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

::Agreed. [[User:Ctxppc|Randy Marsh]] ([[User talk:Ctxppc|talk]]) 22:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

== Explain the Unreleased Comic? ==
:I wonder if [[http://i56.tinypic.com/a9ton8.png this comic]] is permitted to be explained, despite the double issue of Randall pulling the comic plus me finding the pulled comic through "xkcd overrated"... [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 18:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)



== Comic Links ==

Some of the links seem to be confusing, as they're titled in a weird way. The link/button 'go to this comic', I'd expect would go to the actual comic on XKCD's page. Yet it goes to the comic's wiki page. And clicking on the comic # and date directs you to the XKCD page, yet I really feel that link should go to the wiki page, as it's right at the top center there, and has the date and everything, sort of indicating that it's a wiki page, yet it's not. And the prev and next buttons next to it don't go to the xkcd page, they go to the wiki pages. Which is really messed up, I think. Because of my confusion, every single time I visit here, I clicked on the wrong link, though now I've gotten used to it. I suggest rewording the links as 'XKCD Comic # and date' and 'go to this comic's wiki page'. And possibly switching the links' positions so that the wiki links could be in that navigation bar and the XKCD links could be off to the side. After all, we are a wiki, so putting our wiki links to the comic off to the side and the direct xkcd link in the center seems odd. Anyway, has anyone had the same thoughts and/or agree with me on this?--[[Special:Contributions/69.119.250.251|69.119.250.251]] 18:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

== Unexplained comics ==

The template that starts each explanation page should be edited to have the next and previous buttons automatically skip over pages that don't exist, rather than simply not being there if comic n+1 or n-1 doesn't exist. Preferably it would append a notice to the next page (like the redirect notices commonly found on mediawiki) telling you how many comics have been skipped. I'm not sure how feasible this would be to script, however. [[Special:Contributions/130.160.145.185|130.160.145.185]] 23:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

== Percentage of remaining comics calculation is off... ==

Okay, I hate to be "that pedantic math guy", but... Today the main page reads "We have collaboratively explained 936 xkcd comics, and only 252 (27%) remain." While I agree that 252/936 is roughly 27%, I believe we should really be calculating the percentage as "the number left to explain" divided by "the total number of comics that exist", not divided by "the number we have finished". That is (today), 252/1188=21%. Think about it. If we had completed 594 comics today, with 594 remaining, what should the percentage be? 594/594=100%? That's not right... 594/1188=50%? That's what we really want to say.

The page is protected, which makes sense. So I'll make my suggestion here.

Change this:

<pre>
and only {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)}}
({{#expr: ({{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)) / ({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9) * 100 round 0}}%)
remain.
</pre>
To this:
<pre>
and only {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)}}
({{#expr: ({{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)) / {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}}} * 100 round 0}}%)
remain.
</pre>
[[User:Imperpay|Imperpay]] ([[User talk:Imperpay|talk]]) 15:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

:Done and done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:37, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

:Thanks for the heads-up! However, notice that the #expr: around LATESTCOMIC was unnecessary. I've removed it. [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:30, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

::Waldir, you have exposed me as a charlatan and a fool! (I just copied, pasted, and tinkered until I made something that worked. I don't actually understand it. No formal training, you see. It's what we used to call "hacking" back in the dawn of the digital era, before the word took on connotations of vandalism, trespassing, and fraud. Have you kids come up with another word for it?) [[User:Imperpay|Imperpay]] ([[User talk:Imperpay|talk]]) 13:59, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

::: Joke's on me then, 'cause you sure fooled me – I readily assumed you knew your way around those parser functions. Nice job hacking the code, it was a nearly perfect crime ;) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 03:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

:::I've heard the cool kids call that the "Maker Mentality", usually with a reference to [http://makezine.com/ Make magazine] and [http://makerfaire.com/ Maker Faire]. But I think there's also a movement to resurrect the original meaning of hacker. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 04:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


== Expression error on Main Page ==

Please use <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCAT:...|R}}</nowiki></code> instead of <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCAT:...}}</nowiki></code> to correct these errors :) --[[Special:Contributions/110.168.83.62|110.168.83.62]] 10:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
:Dun diddly done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

== Compile a list of non-technical comics to non-technical readers? ==

I'm a long-time reader and fan of >< |< C |}, but my normal approach is useless when I introduce this provocative comic series to my less technical friends. They stay at the apparent level of many comics. They don't bother reading the explanations, but they would say, "it's hard to make sense". Imagine an average non-technical (and non-arts) major guy/girl, can we compile a list of state-of-the-art but less-technical, easy-to-comprehend but "ah ha!!" strips that is suitable for them? --[[User:FrenzY|W shll nvr flly xpln xkcd!]] ([[User talk:FrenzY|talk]]) 12:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
:Oh my god that signature.
:Gaah, derailment. Uh, pretty much anything that isn't tagged with the physics or math categories are easy enough to understand for the average English speaker, so just check the categories at the bottom of the page for that. Also, avoid comics with the incomplete tag, and that oughta be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


== List of incomplete comics ==
We need a link to the "Incomplete articles" at the main page below the "Missing link". Most pages are created but many are incomplete.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

== Header message ==

'''Please don't take this seriously unless you actually think it's a good idea:'''

I think the header should be changed from "explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb." to "explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb... or still have some hope that comic [[1190]] will end." or something similar. [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 14:53, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

::Nope! This page is trying to explain more than 1222 comics, not only [[1190: Time]]. The header just states the truth.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:49, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd vote for a change. People have started coming over to discuss the comic even when they've 'gotten' it. That, and the fact that this is one step ahead of Googling the references yourself. So.. maybe, "it's because you're dumb..and lazy."[[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 02:26, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
:I honestly don't think it either. This is the most comprehensive comic-by-comic Wiki. People don't come here because they're dumb ''or'' lazy. That's like saying I'm dumb for reading a review of an episode after I've watched it - I'm interested in seeing what other people up with or caught that I didn't. It denigrates the idea of aggregating information, which is a very un-XKCD idea.

As a regular reader of explainxkcd (who was to lazy to cotribute anything until now), I'd like to support the proposed edit. (... and lazy) It really fits to the tone of our favourite waste of otherwise productive time (which is xkcd for myself). Best wishes from Heidelberg, Germany. --[[Special:Contributions/147.142.13.86|147.142.13.86]] 14:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

A friend that happens to be blind hates this site because of the "It's cause you're dumb" tagline. If he wants a transcript of the comic on xkcd, his option is to come here and have his screen reader program telling him that he is dumb every single time.

How about, "explain xkcd: because sometimes we all need a little help."? -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.65|173.245.54.65]] 02:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:Oh, hadn't thought about that. There's been recurring complaints about this over the years, though the tagline's been around since before we were a wiki. I'll write something up and put this to a vote. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

It's been 12.5 years now since Randall advised us to stop making fun of people who aren't in the loop: [[1053: Ten Thousand]]. For an inside joke, we could change it to "explain xkcd: now you're one of today's ten thousand." Alternatively, I like the semi-honest/semi-self-deprecating "explain xkcd: because jokes are always funnier with an explanation." -- [[Special:Contributions/103.111.183.139|103.111.183.139]] 19:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I go with the notion that there's nothing at all wrong with starting off less informed. It makes it easier to learn something new. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 23:53, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

== A point of confusion ==

Why is 'Apatosaurus' a category but 'Internet Argument' no longer a category? [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:53, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
:Cuz people hit the random button, see an Apatosaurus feature in three comics and figure it must be a recurring theme. Same as the internet argument thing. Will get round to a category purge after we've cleared out all the incomplete tags. I think there's one for ferrets hidden away somewhere in the dark recesses of our catalog of categories. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:45, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
::On the subject, can I suggest a "Barred from Conferences" category, or similar? That's definitely a recurring theme (for a long, long time), and thus should be justified enough. I'd be happy to add various qualifying articles as I scroll through again, if I can, but first I'll leave it up to someone else to solidify the actual name. (In case it turns out not to be just conferences, for example.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:27, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

== Incomplete comics statement ==

I suggest the minor change: "We have an explanation for all x xkcd comics, and only y (y/x %) are '''marked as''' incomplete." –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:07, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

== 1262 is out ==

So what are you waiting for? [[Special:Contributions/75.60.27.102|75.60.27.102]] 06:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
:<nowiki>(diff | hist) . . N 1262: Unquote‎; 06:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC) . . (+322)‎ . . ‎Davidy22 (Talk | contribs | block)‎ (Created page with "{{comic | number = 1262 | date = September 9, 2013 | title = Unquote | image = unquote.png | titletext = I guess it's a saying from the Old Country. }} ==Expl...")</nowiki>
:Examine the time stamps. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

== Adverts ==

I am not going to disable my adblock, I hate ads. If you accept bitcoin I can make a donation though. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 05:24, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
:Our ads are always easy-to-load images as opposed to flash ads, they're always pointing to some valuable product of some form and we've looked at and approved all of them. They also occupy space that would otherwise have been empty, as our one ad is bound strictly to the sidebar. We used to have a paypal donation button, but it was pitifully tended to and a much less reliable source of income than ads. Ads are the only reliable business model for small sites like this one; unless our readers suddenly become willing to pay all our server costs for us, we can't feasibly afford a better hosting plan without ads. We legally aren't allowed to open a merch store, because that infringes on Randall's shop, and we haven't had a single generous benefactor yet. If you want to stop seeing our server error messages, loosening up adblock for us and contributing to our impressions count will help us massively. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:00, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't care about your server message, I wanted to make a donation. Sooo, you don't want any bitcoins? [[Special:Contributions/37.221.161.235|37.221.161.235]] 07:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
:This took a bit of digging. We're fine with bitcoin donations, it's just that at the rate donations came in, they were just not enough to pay for anything. [https://coinbase.com/checkouts/b19f921822ac962807a8f72d51509e59] '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:34, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Donation made! [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 23:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
:Thanks! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:27, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I hope you kept your Bitcoins ;) --[[User:192·168·0·1|192·168·0·1]] ([[User talk:192·168·0·1|talk]]) 21:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Am I the only one that feels it is "wrong" that the explainxkcd site has ads and the real xkcd doesn't have any? It feels like someone is profiting off of Randall's work. Does he officially endorse this website? Do any proceeds help go to support his ongoing publication of an awesome comic? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.19|173.245.54.19]] 16:01, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

:An admin will be able to give you more detail than me, but explainxkcd has a significant number of visitors (and thus hosting costs), and no way to generate income other than donations and ads. In contrast, Randall makes money from his comics by way of books and merchandise (and possibly public speaking), some of which will pay for his hosting. He could choose to have ads on his site to generate additional income, its his choice not to. I have no knowledge of the finances of explainxkcd, however I doubt there is much/any surplus ad revenue being pocketed by the owners/admin. As far as the site being officially endorsed, not as far as I'm aware, no.
:Also, for more discussion on adverts/income, see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Sidebar_ads here].--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 16:21, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

== /wiki is returning a 403 ==

Hello, 
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ is returning a 403 now. In my eyes you should redirect it to the main-page instead :-). --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
:We have a new, hopefully better, server. The problem is already reported to [[User_talk:Jeff#Forbidden]] --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

== Explain Explain XKCD / Explain^2 XKCD ==

This particular comic explanation requires explanation. Way too many potential cross references with each conjecture requiring its own explanation page. Dial it back a little. {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.11}}
:Uh, sorry, could you clarify that a little? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

::He is talking about the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/] issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
:::Well if it's that, that's an intentional permissions setting on a URL that no-one is feasibly going to type. Unless you can come up with a better use for that URL, with a reason? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
::::A symlink to "index.php" at the root folder would solve the problem.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 09:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
:::::I cannot believe how many weeks that took to fix. Amazing. No one was going to type it, but everyone was going to get redirected to it from the home page! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.227|108.162.222.227]] 11:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is still not solved. [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/] gives still a 403 error because "index.php" is not included in the http server configuration as a default index page. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
:: I've fixed this. Sorry about the delay. Was super busy! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:02, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
:::Thanks Jeff, it's working. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

== Webmaster: Obtrusive video ad on your site ==

In the ad section I saw a box sticking out and blocking out the explanation. This was therefore a very obtrusive botched video ad. Please remove this ad from your site. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 22:29, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

EDIT: It's now sticking out and preventing me from clicking on the "Save page" button. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 22:29, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
:We only accept GIFs for moving ads. Ads should also be contained within the sidebar as they're techonogically restricted to standard-sized PNGs and GIFs, so an extruding ad would be a CSS error on the site end/browser error. In addition, we run ads from lots of advertisers, and "this ad" is not specific enough to tell us which ad you want us to remove. Could you provide a screenshot/link/more information? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:54, 6 June 2014 (UTC)


== This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: link ==

This has been bothering me for a while now. Why does the link in the info box for the main page link to editing the main page? It needs to link to the editing of the page which the comic's explanation is on. When I would like to edit the latest XKCD explanation, I click that thinking I am going to edit the explanation, but instead I am led to editing the main page. [[User:Auraxangelic|Auraxangelic]] ([[User talk:Auraxangelic|talk]]) 15:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
:Ooooooh, nice catch. I've actually never noticed that before, and it's definitely not intentional. It happens because the text of the explanation page is folded into the main page before mediawiki parses links and syntax, and the "Edit this page" button links to the page that the link is on. I have an idea for how to fix it though, so I'll get on that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:49, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


==Cueball/Rob merge==

It seems to me from a general reading of the comics that Randall has always intended for the character we here call "Cueball" to have the name "Rob". Much as "Cutie" was renamed "Megan" when we learned her name, and now she is identified as "Megan" even in comics where her name is not explicitly mentioned, I think we should consider merging the "Cueball" and "Rob" articles. I know there's a lot of inertia here, but it seems to me that this is Randall's intention for the character's name. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
: Alternatively, we should un-merge [[Megan]] and [[Cutie]] for consistency. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 14:50, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
: I'm pretty sure this is an augmentation of the author's internal characters, including the one he has developed involuntarily as to the nature of his love. His memory of his love is not his love, yet it is what he has to love. Randall seems the type to delve into this, and thus I am in support of keeping the character names as they stand. /eof [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.185|173.245.56.185]] 05:43, 25 March 2015 (UTC)


== Broken Date Box on comics ==

The "Comic #1511 (April 13, 2015)" textbox that appears on top of each comic breaks if you shrink the screen. I think the space after the comma needs to be replaced with a non breaking space.{{unsigned ip|108.162.238.144}}

:Is it fixed now? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:59, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

::It looks like it. I had pointed it out once before and it was fixed. I guess somebody reverted that change or something... --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.202|173.245.56.202]] 13:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

== 1515? ==

Is it correct that we have 1515 comics, as of April 15, 2015? --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.122|173.245.48.122]] 05:20, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:It's not, but some people insist on making comic pages for things that aren't comics. I'll fix that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

== 972 is broken ==

Look, I'm not going to make an account here or anything, but I just wanted to point out that trying to access the page for comic #972 leads to a database error, and maybe someone should check on that. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.102|173.245.48.102]] 07:45, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually a lot of other pages lead to that same error as well... Even the 'Technical Diskussions' sub-page is broken. Seems to my, like some swap-spac needs cleaning up? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.230.83|108.162.230.83]] 10:32, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
:Yep. It's a symptom of another problem, but the errors should be cleared up now. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
::No dice. [[997]] is still broken. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.119|198.41.235.119]] 00:27, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

:::Looks like they're working now. 21:01, 2016-11-27 {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.163}}


== URL ==

I notice that whenever you add "explain" to an xkcd url, it takes you here! neat! [[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.233|198.41.235.233]] 23:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
:Someone noticed! Finally! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

== Should we really be using CC-BY-SA? ==

Don't get me wrong, CC-BY-SA is my favorite creative commons license. The problem is, are we really allowed? The reason I'm worried is that I'm not sure if what we are doing really counts as "fair use" with respect to XKCD. It would probably be better to do CC-NC-BY-SA, to respect XKCD, or at least put a note that CC-BY-SA only covers the wiki portion (since it's probably too late to do CC-BY-SA anyway).
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.37|173.245.54.37]] 23:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
:This is a tough one. Mediawiki sites generally use CC-BY-SA, even if the content they're based off is copyrighted (Wikia sites for various topics do this). The license only does apply to content ''created'' here. What should probably be done, if it isn't already, is some specification on pages in the <code>File:</code> namespace indicating that they are owned by someone other than the owners of this site. [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 19:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

== #1663: Garden not yet added? ==

For me it's 4:30 AM, 4/4/16 - I have a sleep schedule just like [https://xkcd.com/361/], so I've been first on quite a few xkcd explanations immediately. when they came out.
I notice that usually, immediately once a new xkcd comic is released, a bot generates a corresponding bare-bones page on this wiki. However, this new comic "1663: Garden" doesn't yet have an automatically-generated page. Maybe it's because of the strange user-session hash key that appears in the URL bar when the "comic" is interacted with? Maybe this sort of interactive thing messes with the bot?
Am I just being impatient? Do I have to wait a few minutes? (I'm going to bed, and this probably won't be seen until tomorrow, but I am at least interested in knowing how the bot system works.) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.21|173.245.54.21]] 09:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

== Skins broken ==

It seems both the Classic and Monobook skins are very very broken. Only Vector seems to be laid out normally. [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 19:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
: Yes, for me too. Let me see what can be done. [[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 20:10, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
::All calls to /load.php seem to fail, which results in the broken look. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.167|162.158.86.167]] 11:02, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
:::Oh wow, I thought I was the only one. [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 15:57, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
::::Should be fixed now. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


== Random Button ==
The actual xkcd site has one and adding one would make it closer to the actual site and make discovering random comics and their explanations easier. It could go next to the comic # button.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.69|173.245.52.69]] 01:03, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
:There is a random page button on the left. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:36, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
::Oh. Didn't see that. Sorry.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.69|173.245.52.69]] 20:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
:I think that a random button next to the XKCD button would make sense too, but also with the link on the sidebar. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.78|172.71.151.78]] 22:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


== Chatroom Idea... What do you guys think? ==
I have an idea. What if there was a discussion board for the wiki? (And no, I don't mean boards like this or the "comment section" of comic explanations. I mean a live chatroom plugin of sorts. We could add it to the website and enable it so we can talk to each other in real-time and make live edits with each other. This way, we can also let each other know of edits we've made, make new pages altogether, or just talk. What do you guys think? -- [[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 9:10, 13 September 2016
:The [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RecentChanges recent changes] log already notifies all users on the site of new pages and edits. User talk pages and the community portals exist for coordination. Also, avoid creating new comment topics in the middle of a talk page in the future, comments are supposed to follow a chronological order. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
::Sorry. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 13:59, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

== Copying versus embedding ==

Hi, I'm new here and I'm trying not to be an asshole. However, I just noticed that this site uses its own archive of copied xkcd comics, rather than using the image URL provided for hotlinking and embedding. I can understand this website will want to have its own archive in case xkcd.org ever goes offline, but until then, why not just embed the images instead of copying?

The reason I'm asking: I just realised I hardly ever go to xkcd.org anymore ever since my browser put explainxkcd above xkcd.org. Explanations get updated, so sometimes I check back later, which rarely happens with the comics. It makes perfect sense. But if more people experience this issue, xkcd.org is getting fewer unique visitors because of it, and this could be fixed by fetching the image directly from there, while still making and storing a copy in case it is needed in the future. Thoughts, anyone? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.33|141.101.104.33]] 17:08, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
:So, we can't do this for every comic, like [[1190]] or other april fools comics. Also, xkcd's revenue comes from merchandise sales, not ad revenue, so I believe it's not actually negatively impacting them that we're serving the images ourselves rather than making the main site serve them for us. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

:Embedding images is generally known as "stealing bandwidth", since it uses resources of the original site's server (may be limited) without bringing it any actual visitors (they won't see anything else of the website, like announcements, shop, other sections, ...). Also, depending on how unique visitors are counted, "visitors" through embedding might be invisible (client's side scripts won't be loaded). So no image embedding without the original site's owner express permission. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.106|141.101.88.106]] 12:51, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

== Other Languages ==
Are there translations of pages anywhere. It has been mentioned that they are on subdomains of this site, or a sub-page, as Main_Page/es for spanish. I can't seem to find them there. [[User:The Muffin Man|The Muffin Man]] ([[User talk:The Muffin Man|talk]]) 14:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
:It's a work in progress, long delayed but I really do want to get to it eventually. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:58, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

== Why are there male/female symbols in some of the entries? ==

Those symbols are not in the comic, but they're in the table. I think a vandal put them there. Can someone remove them from the Lavaball, Bladeball, Eggspotting, Merfishing, Consequence Golf and Heck Escape? (now don't act like someone who criticizes "politically correct leftist "libt++d" SJW snowflakes" just because I said "heck" or censored the derogatory term for "liberal" or not even trying to say these uncensored) -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.106|108.162.221.106]] 12:36, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

== How quaint ==

From the Main Page:

Explain xkcd: '''It's 'cause you're dumb.'''

From the Rules section:

'''Don't be a jerk. '''

(Emphasis mine)

How very ,very quaint. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.100|162.158.126.100]] 21:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

== HTTPS? ==

Hi,
With the general trend towards HTTPS being favoured over HTTP for security and speed reasons, would it be possible to force the use of HTTPS and secure the mixed content please?

Please see [https://www.whynopadlock.com/results/7e707bfd-cd71-4b00-b95e-be226fb10fb6 Why no Padlock?] for more details.

Thanks,
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.179.202|162.158.179.202]] 10:32, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

:Browsing using HTTPS seems to just work. There's even a signed certificate.
:https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1946

:I really don't get why people are so convinced that browsing using HTTPS is so much more "secure". You even seem to claim that it's faster?
:If you love it so much, install a browser extension like https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere.

:With the exception of the login / register page, I really don't see the point for enforcing this for the whole site. I am no admin though.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.93|172.69.54.93]] 22:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

We are already in 2018 and this website still does not even redirect automatically to HTTPS ([https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170536-How-do-I-redirect-all-visitors-to-HTTPS-SSL- you can do it so easily with Cloudflare...]) nor enforce HTTPS with {{w|HSTS}}... I don't know, just check [https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#strict-transport-security on Scott Helme's site] why it's important. Having to rely on the user installing an extension for doing the sysadmin work is a bad joke, really. And it does not fix some issues with mixed content of course. With Let's Encrypt and Cloudflare providing certificates for free and the plethora of tutorials online on securing a website (not limited to HTTPS), there is no excuse to not do it. -- [[User:guest|guest]] ([[User talk:guest|talk]]) 11:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

== "It's 'cause you're dumb" ==
I see that there was some talk about this a while ago, in which people seemed to agree that the "It's 'cause you're dumb" tagline is unnecessarily mean and should be changed... and yet, it's still here. I'd like to add some more fuel to the fire with several reasons why I really hate this tagline:

* The tagline doesn't fit the tone of XKCD. Randall celebrates knowledge. Even Black Hat wouldn't just outright say "You're dumb", because he's a classhole who can insult way better than that.
* Many of the people who contribute to this wiki are very smart. They're not dumb.
* They're also quite amicable from what I've seen. If they wouldn't insult someone, why is the website doing so?
* Not knowing something is not the same as being dumb. Even the smartest people don't know everything.
* Having a desire to learn is smart, not dumb.
* The tagline's logic is flawed. Just because you learn a new thing, doesn't mean you were dumb to begin with.

Anyone with me on this?

[[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 14:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

: The first line of the "Rules" section is "Don't be a jerk" at the time of writing. The first thing this wobsite does is to break that rule. I'm not sure what else is to be said here. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 16:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

:I always thought that was weird too. But it's still there... I'll tell the admins about it, and hopefully it will be changed. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 13:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Explanation: ''This'' is a joke... Missing the punchline? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:15, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I'm fine with the current tagline. I consider it a joke and don't feel offended. However, if there is consensus a) that and b) to what it should be changed, I'm ok with changing it. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 16:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm wondering, would it be possible to temporarily (a week or so?) stop new ads from appearing in the sidebar and replace it with a poll concerning this issue? Right now it's just showing what appeared in the banners in [[1965: Background Apps]], and not a real ad. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.81|162.158.58.81]] 10:12, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
:The advertisement is used to pay the fees needed to run this site. Right now this wiki get's an upgrade but when it's done this discussion will get a proper placement here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:37, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

The first time I encountered this tagline I thought it was pretty funny. Satire can be hard to detect online but this one seems clear enough. --[[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 20:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
:What is it satirizing? I'm serious; I genuinely don't know. It could well be that I just don't get the joke. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 13:39, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

At first I liked the joke, but now it's either annoying or I ignore it. Personally I don't feel it needs to be changed, as it's in the satirical spirit of xkcd, but I wouldn't care too much. [[User:Nyx goddess|Nyx goddess]] ([[User talk:Nyx goddess|talk]]) 22:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

It's satire, if it gets removed that's exactly the kind of overzealous political correctness that MAGA chuds are talking about when they accuse us of being snowflakes, howabout let's not give them ammo. - 02:03, 22 December 2018 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.94}}
:As above: what it is satirizing? Also, for my part, it's not about political correctness at all; it's that the tagline doesn't match my personal positive image of XKCD, nor of this wiki, and it just feels unfitting to me, for all the reasons that I laid out. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 13:39, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm in favor of a change. Let's drop the "dumb". Or at least modify it. I propose a "strikethrough" of dumb, then add any one of a list of possible words: confused, ignorant, curious, wondering, befuddled... (Oooh, could it randomly change each time the page is loaded? Code wizards, advance!) [[User:Imperpay|Imperpay]] ([[User talk:Imperpay|talk]]) 22:25, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
:A complete list of all synonyms of dumb, including dumb and all synonyms of those synonyms, according to thesaurus.com. One randomly loads each time you load the page via rng, or on a once a day system, like the incomplete page of the day. That would actually probably make it more mean on average, but more clearly a joke. Wouldn’t be impossible to code either.[[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 15:18, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

The reason I come to Explain XKCD is because I'm excited to see what other people have said about it. I agree with the above - it doesn't fit the spirit of xkcd's joy for knowledge and it really just isn't why people come here. Furthermore, it skirts demeaning people with disabilities. Please remove it. [[User:Jachra|Jachra]] ([[User talk:Jachra|talk]]) 07:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I also agree with Hawthorn. This tagline always was very strange for me. No, this is nothing about political correctness. I don't mind being insulted, if there is a joke, or something ironical or satirical behind it. But there just isn't. It's just not funny at all.
A random selection on every page load from a long list of completely absurd reasons would be more the XKCDs way. You could even try to create one or more "''It's because ...''" explanations for every comic and randomly display one out of those. 2206: "''... you don't know how to type capital numbers.''", 2205: "''... you don't assume Pi is one.''", 2204: "''... you didn't give us a moon.''", 2203: "''... there wasn't a really big meteor impact for a while.''" and so on. Pretty straight forward. The more frequent visitors of XKCD would probably even get many of the references and remember the corresponding comic. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.221|162.158.91.221]] 17:39, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
:I did recently raise the issue again on the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Is_the_.22It.27s_.27cause_you.27re_dumb.22_tagline_a_relic_of_the_past.3F Community Portal], explaining my case in more detail, although it seems to have garnered little interest. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 12:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
:2865: "... you built a spaceship out of bricks" [[User:B for brain|B for brain]] ([[User talk:B for brain|talk]]) 12:56, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

What instead, then? It's poor form to suggest half a change; if not "it's cause you're dumb," what should the tagline be? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.85|173.245.52.85]] 16:37, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

There seems a pretty clear consensus to get rid of the jarring insult, with no apparent objections. Has been for years now. What do we need to do to delete it? What's the blocker, here?
"first we need a consensus on replacement" isn't an answer. It sets too high a bar for something which is trivial, and anyway replacement is a separate task which can be performed later. Deletion is step 1, so what needs to be done to perform step 1, since none of us seems to have access to do so?
Personally, I'd argue for making it publicly editable, which then magically also resolves step 2, replacement. Any tagline that stayed for any amount of time would then only remain because it was widely considered worthy by site members. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.143|172.69.71.143]] 16:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
:I like that idea, it efficiently gets rid of the years-old issue, and any further issues would have their own discussion page, plus any change that's problematic, obscene or spam could easily be reversed. I can imagine that at first there would be many changes, but after a few weeks/ months it should stabilize itself. [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 14:19, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion it is not an issue of political correctness, or any related flavour of woke nonsense. It is much simpler. Problem is, ''"It's 'cause you're dumb"'' is extremely pretentious and high-horsed, while simultaneously having absolutely no business being so. It feels like it is said by someone who unironically refers to him/herself in third person. Someone whose professional CV includes the fact that he/she used to be a class leader in second grade of primary school. Someone who used to remind a teacher about homework that the teacher was supposed to check, but forgot. Someone who still asks his/her mom to cut the crust off his/her sandwiches. I am not offended nor insulted by this line, I am just cringing because of that line's author being too socially inept to realize that he/she is not in the place to judge and attempt insulting readers' intellectual capabilities. Understanding Munroe's poorly drawn stick figures, diatribes, and diagrams originating from his neurotic turmoil does not come with an added bonus of entering the supposed high echelons of intelligence, and certainly not comedy nor humour. Munroe's "humour" actually requires only the superficial sliver of knowledge from any given domain to understand and thus does not really come with too many prerequisites, while at the same time it succeeds in making readers feel rare and exceptional as a result of being able to understand said "humour", and makes them feel much smarter than they actually are. That's why those comics were able to find quite a large audience within their niche. It is quite smart in itself, actually: while Munroe may be poor quality comedian, he seems to be self-aware enough to realize the existence of his own shortcomings, and compensate by "bribing" his readers via appeasing their egos. In return, the readers are willing to overlook poor comedic value of virtually all Munroe's content, as long as they are being deluded to feel exceptionally intelligent and sophisticated for understanding the comics' supposedly hyperintellectual subtle references. Meanwhile, doing what this website does: insulting that audience is basically, in principle, going in the completely opposite direction to what actually made Munroe's content successful in the first place, and hence is quite self-destructive from this website's point of view. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.207|172.70.242.207]] 00:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes you're dumb, sometimes it's the joke that's dumb.

It's been 12.5 years now since Randall advised us to stop making fun of people who aren't in the loop: [[1053: Ten Thousand]]. For an inside joke, we could change it to "explain xkcd: now you're one of today's ten thousand." Alternatively, I propose the semi-honest/semi-self-deprecating "explain xkcd: because jokes are always funnier with an explanation." Or we could just get rid of it altogether. It's long overdue. -- [[Special:Contributions/103.111.183.139|103.111.183.139]] 19:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

== Editor FAQ ==
Eventually we may need that banner at the top for something else, like the incomplete explanation spotlight, or when the wiki was being upgraded, so I think we should add the Editor FAQ in the New Here? section. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 11:21, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
:It's a first draft and I'm just waiting to be convinced that it's NOT incomplete. And be sure I haven't written it without a plan how to present it on the proper places. Furthermore this "Sitenotice" on the top is only "dissmissable" for valid users, every visitor not logged in does see this always. Thanks for your participation and I'm grateful about any help. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:30, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

== Categories on Main Page ==

[[MediaWiki:Common.css]] has the following entry:
<pre>
.page-Main_Page div#catlinks ul li {
border-left: none;
position: absolute;
left: 70px;
bottom: 6px;
}
</pre>
The <code>70px</code> cause an overlap for me in Firefox, and much too small a gap in Chrome. I suggest to actually remove that line completely, just compare it with categories on other pages: The gap is quite large. In Firefox, also the <code>6px</code> are too much, but in Chrome they are required. But it might be worth to try whether setting vertical align to something else can achieve a more consistent display. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.230|162.158.88.230]] 10:22, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
:And the comment above that says: "Dirty hack to hide the categories of the current comic from main page. ...". I'm aware of this but there is much more, especially for a mobile version I'm looking forward to. Only in this case I see three problems: The component is rendered as a list (ul,li) by hiding the bullets. This then empty space is always rendered different in different browsers. Using "position: absolute" tries to circumvent this but absolute positioning is bad layout and never should be used. Furthermore mixing the units ''px'' and ''em'' in many places is also a problem when comparing it at different browsers. I'm working on this with the final goal also having a proper mobile version, not only for Firefox, Chrome, Edge,... on a desktop. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

== Bookmark ==

I think we should add this book mark I made to automatically transfer anything from xkcd to its explainxkcd page (I was frustrated, ok?):

javascript:x=window.location.href;x = x.replace(/\D/g,'');t=document.title.substring(5).replace(/ /g,"_");window.location.href="https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/"+x+":"+t;

I know the code could be more compact, but using this, you can just press a button and it will take you to the explain page {{unsigned ip|172.68.47.84}}
:Just changing the URL from <code>xkcd.com/2115/</code> to <code>explainxkcd.com/2115/</code> (putting the word explain to the beginning) does the same. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:41, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
:Collecting these [[Browser helpers|here]]. – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 04:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

== Non-comic explanations? ==

So I was looking at xkcd and I noticed a little jokey line near the bottom of the page in very small print that reads <pre> <nowiki> "xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing." </nowiki> </pre>
Now, I know enough to understand the joke, but it would be nice to have a page for this. Do we have one? Am I just blind? Either way, I would like to know. Thanks! [[User:Nyx goddess|Nyx goddess]] ([[User talk:Nyx goddess|talk]]) 23:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
:Nevermind, I just found it. Sorry! [[User:Nyx goddess|Nyx goddess]] ([[User talk:Nyx goddess|talk]]) 23:40, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
::Where? [[User:B_for_brain|B for brain]] ([[User_talk:B_for_brain|talk]]) ([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4bo-hj-mDyOOUp_Yp0pug youtube channel] [https://bforbrain.weebly.com/ wobsite (supposed to be a blag)] 21:47, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
:::Whether or not it's the only place, you'll see this dealt with in the current [[Footnote]] page. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.6|172.70.86.6]] 00:37, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

== Latest comic released. ==

I don't know where to post this, but the bots haven't created the page yet.
[[User:HelloWorld|HelloWorld]] ([[User talk:HelloWorld|talk]]) 19:24, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

: Probably infected by COVID-19. That's why you should wash your keyboards after visiting other websites. Until then, feel free to create the page manually (if possible). --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.19|108.162.242.19]] 21:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

== Minor edit proposal ==

Line 19 of the main page includes this sentence:
<pre>Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=newbie just joined].</pre>
That right there is not a wikilink. Could we change it to:
<pre>Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have [{{fullurl:Special:Contributions|contribs=newbie}} just joined].</pre>
Both render as follows:
{|class="wikitable"
|Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have [{{fullurl:Special:Contributions|contribs=newbie}} just joined].
|}
And I think my way is cleaner. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 14:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

==1000: 1000 Comics/1000 characters update==
I've completed the blank explanations for all the remaining characters in [[1000: 1000 Comics/1000 characters]]; however, it could really use some work in terms of verification. I offer the sweet incentive of being able to get rid of a page's 'incomplete' label as reward for people to double check my, and [[User:Kynde|Kynde's]] work on the project. [[User:BlackHat|Your favourite sociopath]] ([[User talk:BlackHat|(the one who leaves all the parentheses open]] 07:58, 25 October 2020 (UTC

==2021-02 updates to top of page==
I don't really like the changed first few lines - I think it takes up too much room and the previous info was better. I look at the main page daily, and want to see the comic and explination not all this stuff that I think would be better down below the daily comic display. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 17:50, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

: I agree, and it drives me crazy that {{tl|Welcome}} is designed for talk pages, so there is a red link to [[User:Main Page]]! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.213|172.68.142.213]] 15:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

: Since Jeff is much more involved in all this sort of stuff than myself, I would tend to defer to his judgement, but I also agree that the "Main Page" red link is pretty ugly. I will "be bold" and revert the change and then drop it if he really wants it. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 18:54, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
::I guess I cannot revert things as there are no "edit" buttons I can view for the Main Page [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 19:01, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
:::You need administrator privileges to edit the main page. This was done to reduce spam, which is basically non-existent now. I made the {{tl|Welcome}} template, and I certainly did not make it for it to be displayed in the main page! I made it to welcome new users to the site. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 13:16, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
::::I see on [User:Jeff|Jeff]]'s talk page that Sqrt-1 has made a comment about this so maybe it will be taken care of. I am guessing that some automatic bot-like thing might have made an error. Today I got the {{tl|Welcome}} template added to my user page by Sqrt-1. It does seem like a useful template for user pages - less so for the Main page. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:28, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
:It looks like [[User:Jeff|Jeff]] has reverted it - Thanks! [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 11:51, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

== Overuse/misuse of incomplete template ==

Instead of having information on why the comic is incomplete or being removed once the explanation is finished, the incomplete template is being treated as a place to put witty comments. This overcrowds the category, making it more difficult to see articles in need of actual help or know why they need help. I have gone through the incomplete articles and posted new topics on ones with incomplete tags that do not provide information on why the template is there, asking to know why the comic is incomplete and, failing that, to have the template removed. For the full details, please see [[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|my user page]].

I would like to request that either a less obtrusive solution or compromise be found or the error of my (relatively new user) ways be explained to me by someone more experienced.

Sincerely, <s>[[406:_Venting|Summer Glau]]</s> [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]]

P.S. Maybe an "incomplete incomplete template" template? I don't know.

P.P.S. I can kill you with my brain.

I don't know. I re-signed and edited so many times, March 2021 (UTC)
: In some cases, the "incomplete" tag is left on for a long time, when nobody takes the trouble to remove it from a page that has migrated out of people's attention. Sometimes, people remove it inappropriately, while a page is still actively under revision. In many cases, it's hard for anyone to say what's "incomplete" about a page because there's relevant stuff to add that isn't obvious until someone adds it. The question is more: at what point can a page be reasonably assumed to be "complete"? A week after the most recent edit to it? Some pages undergo revision for quite a while after they're first posted; other pages remain stable after only a few days. It annoys me when someone edits a page and removes its "incomplete" tag at the same time, which gives me the impression of "now that I have made my change, the page is in its final form, and nobody else should touch it!" [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:55, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
::Proposal: The default text of the incomplete template could be modified to include <code><nowiki>[[Category: Incomplete Incomplete (or something similar)]]</nowiki></code>. If the text is modified, the page should be removed from the category. This new category would be easily accessible from the main page, and anyone visiting it should see information about the category's meaning and how to help make said templates more informative. Possible ways to go about this:
::* Line 315 of the bot script would be changed to read: <code><nowiki>{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.[[Category: Whatever The Name Ends Up Being]]}}</nowiki></code>.
::* The main page banner would be changed to read: <code><nowiki>''Welcome to the '''explain [[xkcd]]''' wiki!'' 
We have an explanation for all [[:Category:All comics|'''{{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:All comics|R}}-1}}''' xkcd comics]],

and only {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}}
({{#expr: {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 0}}%) [[:Category:Incomplete explanations|are incomplete]]. Help us finish them! If you're looking for something easier, you could also edit one of the {{PAGESINCAT:Whatever The Name Ends Up Being|R}} pages with [[:Category:Whatever The Name Ends Up Being|incomplete explanations]], which would help other editors.</nowiki></code>.

::* The new category would read: <code><nowiki>This is the category page for incomplete pages that have no explanation for why they are incomplete in the incomplete tag. Do not add pages to this category. See also: [[:Category:Incomplete pages]] and [[:Category:Incomplete transcripts]]</nowiki></code>.
::I will not do this without first seeking community approval, because these are huge edits that could majorly change the wiki. Is this a good idea? [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[Special:Contributions/Quillathe_Siannodel|{)|(}]]
::: Feels a great idea. Given the dearth of opinion ventured either way, and given you've given plenty of time for people to declare an opinion, I'd argue to be bold, do it, and see if people squeal. It can always be reverted if required. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.161|172.70.178.161]] 17:02, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

== Add another digit to percentage incomplete count ==

With the large majority of comics gaining explanations, I suggest that the current expression be adjusted to the following, changing "round 0" to "round 1":

<pre>({{#expr: {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 1}}%)</pre>

Resulting in: ({{#expr: {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 1}}%)
[[User:Gamma|Gamma]] ([[User talk:Gamma|talk]])

== Problems creating account ==

I just attempted to create an account, and got the following message:
There are problems with some of your input.

I made an adjustment to the password (which seemed to be the problem), consisting of making one of the letters of my original attempt a capital. This didn't work.

There is no point telling me there are problems with my input and not telling me what the problems are. I can't read your mind at this distance.

Cheers
Copey.


== add non-numbered comics ==

idea: for the "We have an explanation for all [number] xkcd comics..." make the number include the non-numbered comics like five minute comics part 4, Syndication, Blue Eyes, and that one book-publishing-rate one. what do you guys think? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.93|108.162.221.93]] 17:52, 22 October 2021 (UTC)Bumpf

:Good point, also as of right now even only including the numbered comics it's not up-to-date, as the newest comic is 2555 and it says "We have an explanation for all 2554 xkcd comics" -- [[User:256 256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256 256.256.256|talk]]) 09:38, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

:: That is likely due to:
<nowiki></nowiki>
:: -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.65|108.162.237.65]] 17:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
::: Can we remove that? Randall catagorises it as a comic. So we should too. [[User:B_for_brain|B for brain]] ([[User_talk:B_for_brain|talk]]) ([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4bo-hj-mDyOOUp_Yp0pug youtube channel] [https://bforbrain.weebly.com/ wobsite (supposed to be a blag)]) 14:27, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

== fix these articles please! ==

What If chapters should be a redirect, not a mirror of [[What If? chapters]] ! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.10|172.69.71.10]] 17:38, 19 November 2021 (UTC)Bumpf
:Done. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 07:00, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
::The redirect page now deleted --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)


== Top 10 includes no more than 9 people? ==

[[File:Top_10_but_it's_just_nine.png]]

have only nine users edited in the past seven days (unlikely) or does that top ten list really show no more than nine users? [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 09:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
:My guess is that it is because currently place 10 and 11 have a tie with a score of 4 due to 3 edits on 2 pages and the top 10 table can show a maximum of 10 entries and cannot "decide" which one to show as no 10.
:You can view the full list by clicking the "lots of people" below the table. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

::That would make sense, except right now it alternates between ElijaRock and Asdf who both have two edits, two points and two unique pages edited, and pure chance seems to decide which one of the two gets 10th place every time I hit F5 [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 14:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:::PS: The actual 10th place right now is neither Asdf nor ElijaRock, it´s Jack (or at least it should be and sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, it even is) [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 14:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

... maybe it's because everyone else is dumb... ^_^ [[User:20040302|20040302]] ([[User talk:20040302|talk]])

== Countdown Timer? ==

What’s the timer at the top right of the xkcd site counting down to? Apologies if there’s already a page on this; I didn’t look very hard :P {{unsigned|Szeth Pancakes|01:37, 11 January 2022}}
:See https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:2566:_Decorative_Constants -- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.39|172.70.114.39]] 02:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
:Now here: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Countdown_in_header_text. -- {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.57|02:31, 13 January 2022}}

== Set up X-Forwarded-For for correct IP address reporting ==

(I already posted this on David's talk, but I noticed he's no longer active... Hopefully an admin will read this here) This should be done server-side, as right now (and for a very long time) it's been reporting load balancer / cache IP addresses for all the users. With recent vandalism, it'd help. [[User:BytEfLUSh|BytEfLUSh]] ([[User talk:BytEfLUSh|talk]]) 22:27, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

== It says "all 2626 xkcd comics"?? ==

so i get that there are one less than the category, so it should be 2627 (at the time of writing, [[2628]] is the most recent) right? where is the extra one being removed from?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.33|162.158.78.33]] 21:05, 6 June 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
:Backend counting error that'll be refreshed when whichever page is missing from the count is updated '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
:: Still not fixed. [[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 23:32, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

== wait what ==

category:google doesn't exist yet, it links to its preview, but edit box is empty.
:can you fix the issue? thx [[User:An user who has no account yet|An user who has no account yet]] ([[User talk:An user who has no account yet|talk]]) 16:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

== How Long the Bot Takes to Update When New Comics are Released ==

I was wondering how long it takes the bot to scrape new comics from https://xkcd.com.
This is the second time I've seen a brand new comic appear there and it bugs me knowing that the explaination page is yet to be made.
I know it's a silly thing so I feel like maybe, if I know how long the bot takes to update the comic list then I might be able to bring myself to wait.
Thanks, --[[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 03:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

==Escape speed is no longer incomplete==
Can someone delete the text at the top that says ''"We still need to complete some explanations like this one: [[2765: Escape Speed]]. All incomplete explanations are here."''? Escape speed is no longer incomplete, so that is wrong. [[User:B_for_brain|B for brain]] ([[User_talk:B_for_brain|talk]]) ([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4bo-hj-mDyOOUp_Yp0pug youtube channel] [https://bforbrain.weebly.com/ wobsite (supposed to be a blag)] 20:30, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'm also going to raise the question on the community portal. [[User:B_for_brain|B for brain]] ([[User_talk:B_for_brain|talk]]) ([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4bo-hj-mDyOOUp_Yp0pug youtube channel] [https://bforbrain.weebly.com/ wobsite (supposed to be a blag)] 11:59, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

== Is the "incomplete explanations" listing still necessary? ==

The "Incomplete explanations" category used to be used for a lot of past comics that didn't have their explanations fully filled in, and the front page has encouraged people to help out with finishing those past comics. However, as of now, the only explanations marked incomplete are the three most recent comics; the last long-standing "incomplete" label I'm aware of was on [[1547: Solar System Questions]], and [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1547:_Solar_System_Questions&diff=prev&oldid=337545 its incomplete tag was removed about a week ago]. If going forward the only incomplete explanations will be the few most recent ones, it might make sense to finally remove the "incomplete explanations" banner and most of the mentions from the front page. Essentially like taking the beta labels off.

We don't "''need''" "explanations for comics, characters, themes and everything in between" anymore; we ''have'' those explanations. We have explanations for all 2910 xkcd comics; we don't need to say the latest three are incomplete. I'd assume the fact that this is a wiki would still imply contributions are encouraged (and we could keep the incomplete label on the newest comics, as well as the link to the incomplete category in the "New here?" section).

The only main thing I could see against this is when particularly detailed comics come out. For example, April 1 is a week away, and those comics are usually pretty big, so that might still warrant a banner asking for people to fill in the explanations. [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 21:11, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, I was just about to ask the same thing. We could replace the banner with a generic call to action linking to the list of incomplete explanations, but certainly I would say it should not call out [[1547: Solar System Questions]] specifically, because it's not actually incomplete anymore. [[User:Raxod502|Raxod502]] ([[User talk:Raxod502|talk]]) 22:13, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

== What in the world is going on? ==

See title. [[User:DeemDeem52|DeemDeem52]] ([[User talk:DeemDeem52|talk]]) 15:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

== Main Page Deleted ==

The Main Page was deleted at 15:39 by Markhurd. I thought he had passed? Posted an Admin Request to undo this action. Perhaps the account was hacked? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 15:47, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
: why would they delete the main page--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.222|172.69.43.222]] 16:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
:: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don't_delete_the_main_page --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.233|172.70.211.233]] 11:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

== Petition to add comic #404 into equation ==

In the equation at the top of the main page, there is a -1 to discount comic #404, because it's "not really a comic". But it is a comic, even randall calls it that. So, can we add it back in? [[User:B_for_brain|B for brain]] ([[User_talk:B_for_brain|talk]]) ([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4bo-hj-mDyOOUp_Yp0pug youtube channel] [https://bforbrain.weebly.com/ wobsite (supposed to be a blag)]) 10:32, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

== Create my user page ==
User:Hipdict suggested entries
Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page. ???? I want to have my page set up for entry suggestions for hipdict. Got banned from twitter and wikipedia for illicit nationality. Don't ban me. [[User:Hipdict suggested entries|Hipdict suggested entries]] ([[User talk:Hipdict suggested entries|talk]]) 10:13, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
:You're not banned, you've just not yet passed the (astoundingly low) level of interactions that the site asks of you before you get to do more than (the already quite 'dangerous') editing of existing pages.
:But...
:#I have no idea how what you want to do is related to xkcd (and explaining it),
:#If you get banned from ''Twitter'' (as in 'X', these days, under the notoriously "Hey, anyone can say anything, even if it's totally wrong or defaatory!" attitude of Elon Musk) then you're clearly doing something wrong. Forgive me if I consider this an issue that is improbable (or improbable to be trivial).
:Now, I can't create User Pages (I have marginally less influence than you), but ''my'' instinct is that you really haven't proven why someone should help you out here. Even before we start to actively doubt whether someone should. If you're serious, bide your time and just contribute (...sensibly!) and... ...one day you ''shall'' go to the ball, Cinderella! (Not that I have any say in this, but I felt that I should at least comment.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.138|172.69.79.138]] 17:15, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
:If you check [[explain_xkcd:Editor_FAQ#Why_can.27t_I_upload_pictures_or_create_pages.3F|This part of The Editor FAQ]], you'll have a good idea on why. [[User:B for brain|B for brain]] ([[User talk:B for brain|talk]]) 08:55, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
::Total edits by [[User:Hipdict suggested entries]], to date: one. The above edit. I could probably have predicted that, before any further discussion ensued. But it's ''only'' been a couple of weeks. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.179|172.68.205.179]] 09:49, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

== Subtle trolling? ==

I get the impression that over the past months, someone has been intentionally trying to make good explanations more pedantic and far more convoluted than they should be, undermining the basic goal of explaining the comics to those who don't understand them, and requiring in-depth knowlege of the subject matter to even begin to understand our explanations. Does anyone else have that impression? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.33|162.158.186.33]] 17:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
:As a long time reader (and tweaker), I'm not sure I've seen anything particularly like that. Unless it's ''me'' who you're seeing (but then I've not so recently ramped up, and certainly not intentionally more so).
:One person's pedantry is another's [[386: Duty Calls|making sure it's not wrong]], of course. Although I'm more likely to leave it it with good basic links (to avoid the need for prior in-depth prior knowledge), such as when I added a bit that linked to a thermostat's use of the bimetal coil in a recent one (which has now been edited out, courtesy of the supposedly explanatory AI version being splurged over all of it) in case someone ''didn't'' even know what this style of control normally did. Yes, mildly convoluted, but not leaving anybody wondering (if they cared to follow the link).
:What I think is a bad Explanation is one that cold opens with the very first paragraph being something like "The humour of this comic is due to the impracticality of using a Heisenfram terminal to access the upper five bilateral kelilactirals of your typical starship's FTL nanoprocessor", without leading into that sort of thing by introducing the context. (In that case, it would be ST:TNG's episode ''Rascals'', by the way.) Several times recently, I've been writing a lead-in paragraph so that the (original) first paragraph doesn't just hit the unwary reader in the face.
:That adds length, yes, but is surely for a good reason. Similarly I've moved subclauses (or parenethesised text) out of the sentence that has obviously had several points inserted within by several editors. Tried to make the flow work better. And, I would hope, reduces convolution.
:So... I'm no sure if I'm the cause of what you're suggesting, or am I the ''cure'' for it? Maybe a bit of both. But every editor has their own thresholds and ideas. I think the problem is when everyone tweaks things their way (inherent in the whole wiki-documenting process) and it comes out a bit spaghetti-ish. Satisfying nobody. Neither the simplifiers nor those who desire comprehensiveness. It's always going to be a possible problem! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.220|172.70.162.220]] 19:24, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

::I looked at the history of [[2989: Physics Lab Thermostat]], and I think you may be letting yourself go wild a little. I wikilinked the first use of the term "thermostat" there. People can look there if they want to learn how they ordinarily work. But these are things most people use every day. Shoving a bimetal strip in their face before they've gotten to any actual explanation of the comic is going to make them lose interest. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.183|172.70.207.183]] 09:06, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
:::If that was ''my'' edit, that sparked that, I remember shoving the bimetal coil in their face only ''part way down the explanation'', when it seemed to actually made narrative sense to let the reader go into the detail (if they wanted to) about bow this kind of thermostat might (normally) work. (Then someone went and wiped it all out for something else, and I noted even the basic lack of link to 'Thermostat' but... well, editing opinions were still being banded around so I let everyone get on with it...) Always improving, of course. Except when it's completely ruined by someone else who thinks they're improving things. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.151|172.68.205.151]] 12:16, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

:{{w|Hanlon's razor}}. "So fix it." [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.222|172.71.147.222]] 09:00, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

3009: Number Shortage

2024-11-26T10:03:51Z

172.69.79.165:

{{comic
| number = 3009
| date = November 8, 2024
| title = Number Shortage
| image = number_shortage_2x.png
| imagesize = 284x269px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "10 minutes ago we were down to only 2 0s!" "How many do we have now?" "I ... don't know!!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH 11 0S AND 100 1S. NO, WAIT... - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic presents a situation where the ability to use numbers is a limited resource. Even quantifying how many numbers are left uses up some of those numbers when stating the results.

In real life, being able to write or say digits is not a limited resource.{{https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights#:~:text=Article%2019,media%20and%20regardless%20of%20frontiers. Free speech]}} However, the comic does parallel many {{w|Math Blaster Episode I: In Search of Spot|educational video games}} for young children where numbers and mathematical concepts are treated as living people or factory goods, in order to give some sort of story or context to the math-related activities. In addition, the plight faced by the shortage resembles the {{w|look-and-say sequence}} where trying to quantify the list changes it, requiring it to be quantified again (which changes it again, and so on).

The comic conflates numbers with decimal digits. So when [[Blondie]] says "15 2s and 12 3s", that uses up two 2s (one in "2s" and one in "12") and one 3 (in "3s"). She adjusts the counts as she's speaking, so when she says "13 2s", that uses up another 3, leaving only 10 3s as she's completing the sentence.

In the title text, she uses the last two 0s when saying that they had two 0s left, so now they have no more 0s. But she can't use the number 0 to describe this situation because they're now out of them.

Blondie could have taken a different approach by saying "14 2s and 11 3s", which would be accurate once it has been said.

Jokes with a similar theme been made about letters, such as shortages of vowels (and later consonants) in {{w|The Onion}}'s [https://web.archive.org/web/20020124120633/www.theonion.com/onion2816/vowels2816.html "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia"].

===Continuation===

A continuation of the pattern would go:

* "We have only 15 2s and 12 3s left."
* "No, wait, 13 2s and 10 3s."
* "No, wait, 12 2s and 9 3s."
* "No, wait, 10 2s and 8 3s."
* "No, wait, 9 2s and 7 3s."
* "No, wait, 8 2s and 6 3s."
* "No, wait, 7 2s and 5 3s."
* "No, wait, 6 2s and 4 3s."
* "No, wait, 5 2s and 3 3s."
* "No, wait, 4 2s and 1 3."
* "No, wait..."
* "How many more do we have?"
* "I...don't know..."

At that point, having used up the last 3 at the end of the previous line, Blondie would lack the necessary 3s to articulate that there are "3 2s and 0 3s."

==Transcript==
:[Blondie is standing on the left, facing Cueball and Megan on the right.]
:Blondie: The Math Department number shortage is getting worse. We have only 15 2s and 12 3s left.
:Blondie: No, wait, 13 2s and 10 3s.
:Blondie: No, wait...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

Talk:3015: D&D Combinatorics

2024-11-23T14:56:09Z

172.69.79.165:

The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

:The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is "D Combinatorics". I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that <code>title</code> and <code>safe_title</code> differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: <code><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></code>, <code><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></code>, and <code><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></code>! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&D but was supposed to enter D&amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded & normalized D&D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason.

:By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

: There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Clever, but dice rolls in D&D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Arrows are "loosed", even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

== Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice ==

Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.

== Alternative way to calculate the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows ==

I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.

The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.

I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

== My simple-minded approach ==

• Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;

• Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)

• I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-)
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

== The physical difficulties of an M-of-N locking system ==
There seems to be doubt that a "N locks and M keys to unlock them" system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1<M<N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2921: Eclipse Path Maps

2024-11-16T21:37:18Z

172.69.79.165:

Can anyone think of some particularly pathological solar eclipse examples? [[User:Lordpipe|Lordpipe]] ([[User talk:Lordpipe|talk]]) 06:11, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
:The {{w|Solar eclipse of August 12, 2026|2026 eclipse}} will be pretty hard to see. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.193.195|172.68.193.195]] 07:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
::It does travel into Europe in Spain above Portugal, so it could be viewed from there. But could be a lot of people aggregating at the coast line there, as it will be the most scenic place to see it plus the longest totality in Europe will be at that point. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:03, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
:::For the {{w|Solar_eclipse_of_August_2,_2027|2027 eclipse}} the only real good location to watch it from (at least in main land Europe) will be Gibraltar, a very small place for the 40 mill visitors... Most of this Eclipse is over seas and most other land based locations are in Africa and middle East, some places where it might not be the best place to travel to... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:56, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
:During the {{w|Solar_eclipse_of_November_14,_2031|2031 eclipse}}, totality will not be visible from land. At all. And for the {{w|Solar_eclipse_of_April_9,_2043|2043 eclipse}}, the line of totality will be more like a small semicircle.--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.7.118|172.69.7.118]] 14:25, 18 April 2024 (UTC)Anonymous

This fictional map has a passing resemblance to the {{w|Solar_eclipse_of_August_12,_2026|august 12, 2026 solar eclipse}} passing over Greenland, Iceland and the north of Spain.
Calling Iceland the isle of perpetual fog is kind of fitting, but there are hardly any tornados in Africa. [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 08:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
:This is also the next total solar eclipse. These facts about these eclipses should be mentioned in the explanation. From both comments here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:56, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
::Added most of the above to the explanation. [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 21:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Entabled the labels. Saved the need for the original 'ideal place, shame about the crowds' paragraph. Added better possibility of individual analysis for 'unfortunate' locations (do edit, as seems necessary). Was tempted to add in '''"| ''unlabeled stretch of water'' || Water || (Some of this stretch of water be considered risky, or at least unfortunate, due to waterspouts arising from the next zone's weather. The immediate shoreline may be crowded by numerous small tourist boats trying their luck and avoiding the (misty?) northern shoreline.)"''', or something far more trite, betwixt the 'nice place' and 'tornado alley', just to account for an unlabeled zone. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.37|172.70.162.37]] 13:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

For eclipses, I like TimeAndDate.com's info. You can see a list of upcoming total eclipses here: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list-total-solar.html and click one to see and explore basically everything about it, in a way that's super easy to understand. Other types of eclipse are also available. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 16:22, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

He forgot an important region on the map: That small town that gets perfect weather, prefect viewing, where only the residents saw it, and there were no visitors, because it was not convenient or special like that nice, scenic, accessible site with 40,000,000 visitors. That's where I live. Eclipse day was spectacular from my own backyard.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.161|172.70.110.161]] 11:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I added 'for scale' equivalents of 40M visitors and 6sq-miles, in both 'US-customary'(ish) and more internationalised versions, just to disambiguate. (See the edit-comment for less 'Western-centric' non-US possibilities that I considered.) For the benefit of fellow UK readers, of course that should be an area 1/3500th the size of Wales and a population thirteen times the size of Wales (human, that is; for sheep, it'd be less than four). ''Or'', if you find the Wales unweildy, ~2175 football pitches (area) and 1.6million football pitches (population, but only if the two line-officials are counted!)... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.30|172.70.163.30]] 13:52, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The archive says that this a normal Wednesday comic, with the date as 4/17/24, and not a Thursday comic. Compare [[2300: Everyone's an Epidemiologist]], which the archive dates to that Thursday. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.20|162.158.158.20]] 14:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
:Fixed it using the archive date, as we always do --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:14, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
: This looks like an upside-down world map? {{unsigned ip|162.158.178.171|07:57, 16 November 2024}}

2988: Maslow's Pyramid

2024-09-21T17:38:53Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2988
| date = September 20, 2024
| title = Maslow's Pyramid
| image = maslows_pyramid_2x.png
| imagesize = 744x422px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 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.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PHYSICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A METAPHORICAL HEURISTIC MODEL - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Maslow's hierarchy of needs}} is a psychological model of human needs. It posits that human needs are prioritized from basic physiological requirements to more abstract forms of comfort and happiness. The idea is frequently represented by a pyramid-shaped diagram ("Maslow's Pyramid"), with basic foundational needs near the bottom creating the stability to enable {{w|self-actualization}} at the top, at least in the 'simplified' version. (Although the 'pyramid', really a segmented triangle, is often used to represent this model, {{w|Abraham Maslow}} never actually used such a pyramid to illustrate it.)

In this comic, [[Cueball]] has interpreted Maslow's Pyramid too literally, as an actual 3d construction. He attempts to achieve true happiness by physically building a pyramid that resembles this common representation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, instead of actually attempting to meet the needs within the conceptual pyramid. Cueball complains that the pyramid only fulfills one of the five needs listed on its side: literal safety, plus shelter from the elements. The pyramid is useless for his social and emotional needs: everyone, including Cueball, thinks the pyramid was a poor idea.

The title text indicates that the pyramid probably doesn't meet the safety requirements established by local {{w|building codes}}, even though Cueball feels that it provides him with physical safety. This safety is apparently achieved in part by various traps, which are preventing the authorities from getting into the pyramid to verify compliance or serve him with a notice of non-compliance. Of course, having one's home full of traps that provide that level of deterrence is, of itself, likely to be a violation of laws and building codes.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is facing White Hat and Megan and pointing to a giant pyramid modeled after Maslow's hierarchy of needs, with each tier labeled after its need on the pyramid, and a comment next to it in the comic. From top to bottom:]
:Self-actualization: [Red X] Honestly questioning my life choices here
:Esteem: [Red X] People seem less impressed by it than I hoped
:Belonging and Love: [Red X] Friends are worried about me
:Safety: [Green Checkmark] Highly defensible
:Physiological needs: [Red X] Provides basic shelter but no food, water, heat, etc

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I built Maslow's pyramid thing, but it's a total ripoff - it's only providing 20% of my needs.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Psychology]]

2974: Storage Tanks

2024-08-19T20:08:23Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2974
| date = August 19, 2024
| title = Storage Tanks
| image = storage_tanks_2x.png
| imagesize = 321x251px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = We're considering installing a pressurization system to keep the tanks at constant pressure solely to deter them.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A common question in introductory calculus courses asks how long it will take a tank to empty, assuming the rate of flow through a hole at the base is proportional to the pressure at the base of the tank. Assuming the tank is shaped like a prism, as appears to be the case in this comic, the amount of fluid left in the tank will follow an exponential decay, as the rate of pressure decrease will be proportional to the pressure. Variations of this question may consider more complicated tank geometries too, in which case the pressure at the base will not be simply proportional to the volume of fluid remaining in the tank.

The title text jokingly alludes to the fact that by maintaining a constant pressure at the base, the rate of flow would itself become constant, which would simplify the problem greatly and therefore make it much less interesting, or useful, as an example in a calculus course.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

501: Faust 2.0

2024-07-10T08:10:12Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 501
| date = November 7, 2008
| title = Faust 2.0
| image = faust_20.png
| titletext = The only blood these contracts are signed in is from me cutting my hand trying to open the goddamn CD case.
}}

==Explanation==
E.U.L.A. is short for {{w|End-user license agreement}}, a license that software makers often attach to their software but people do not usually read. Agreement to an E.U.L.A. is assumed when a user uses the software or service that the E.U.L.A. is attached to, which has led a case where users have unknowingly [http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2010/04/15/online-shoppers-unknowingly-sold-souls/ actually agreed to give away their immortal souls] because of a clause in an E.U.L.A. However, in the European Union, all provisions of these agreements that aren't already codified in law actually are not legally enforceable, unless they could be read and agreed to before purchase and first use.

A {{w|Faustian deal}} is done by someone who sells his soul to the devil for something desired in this life, a textbook example of wanting instant gratification. The mortal will get the things he wanted, but when he dies, he will have to suffer eternal torment. As the span of a human lifetime is an eye-blink compared to eternity, this is a really stupid thing to do.{{cn}} It is named after the folkloric character {{w|Faust}}, whose story has been the subject of numerous adaptations.

In this comic, [[Cueball]] turns an E.U.L.A. around on {{w|Mephistopheles}}, the demon Faust sells his soul to in the stories, by posting a sign saying that anyone entering the room agrees to turn over their ''own'' immortal soul rather than negotiate with Cueball for his. It is unknown whether this clause applies only to demons or to ''everyone'', which would be quite horrifying.

The title text makes reference to how easy it is to cut open one's own hand while trying to open a newly-bought CD case. Incidentally, a pen works just fine, though the blood is referencing how Satanic contracts are signed in blood. The only blood on the E.U.L.A. contracts that [[Randall]] "signs" by opening a CD is the blood coming from when he cuts himself like this.

A short time later, a similar demon was depicted in a similar fashion in [[533: Laptop Hell]], although with a trident and in Hell. Although not mentioned in the comic, he was also named Mephistopheles in the official transcript.

==Transcript==
:[Over the left side of the main panel, below the middle, is a small panel partly outside the main one. The comic begins inside this panel where a devil drawn like Cueball, but with two small horns on his forehead, is shown from the waist up, raising one hand while moving into the main panel. In the caption below, we learn that the devil is Mephistopheles.]
:Mephistopheles: Mortal! I come offering a deal-

:[In the main panel, with all drawings right of the smaller one, we see the mortal, Cueball, sitting at his desk typing on his laptop. Mephistopheles, now drawn in full figure, has stopped before a sign on a stick in the floor reading it out loud while pointing at it with one hand and holding the other hand in front of his mouth. The text on the sign is visible but unreadable in itself.]
:Cueball: Read the sign.
:Mephistopheles: "By entering this room, you agree to forfeit your own soul rather than negotiate with the mortal residing therein..." 
:Mephistopheles: Wait, you can't-
:Cueball: Too late.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Mephistopheles encounters the E.U.L.A.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Talk:2937: Room Code

2024-05-24T22:58:33Z

172.69.79.165:

Obviously, for many of us it would be more helpful as a mnemonic for a slightly older relative born on May 18, 2002. But since the author is American, it is of course reasonable for him not to have mentioned this. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.235|162.158.134.235]] 20:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
::Do "many" of you use YYMMDD though? YY rather than YYYY? Many, many of us use DDMMYY though. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 20:46, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes, add me to the "2nd of May" club. (Or whatever young relative I can retrospectively induce to join, anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 22:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
::Which brings up https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2562:_Formatting_Meeting (I don't know how to do internal links) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.80|172.71.22.80]] 20:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2936: Exponential Growth

2024-05-24T22:43:56Z

172.69.79.165:

If that's done by each of your moves being to add one (more) grain to the board, the game would last quite a while. Even with reduced time-limits on the game-clock. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.154|172.70.91.154]] 21:27, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm. Interesting. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.203|172.69.58.203]] 21:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

First transcript! Hope it's good.[[User:Danger Kitty|Danger Kitty]] ([[User talk:Danger Kitty|talk]]) 21:36, 22 May 2024‎ (you only <nowiki>~~~</nowiki>ed, it looks like...)

Total of 2^64 - 1 ≈ 1.8 x 10^19 grains of rice. If a grain of rice averages 30 mg, then that's 5.5 x 10^14 kg of rice. That's around the mass of Lake Erie. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.56|172.71.223.56]] 21:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

The legend about the chess board and doubling the grain placed on each square is researched here:
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5992/what-is-the-origin-of-the-wheat-and-chessboard-legend [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.113|172.71.150.113]] 21:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)~

The rice is on the side or the board is turned wrong. {{unsigned ip|172.70.115.17|23:13, 22 May 2024}}
:...not sure what you mean here. (Also, do sign your contributions.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.186|172.70.162.186]]
::The white square always goes on your right corner so this border is sideways (assuming we're looking at it head on, which seems likely) [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 23:35, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
::a1 is a dark square, so wherever the one grain of rice is, it can't be a1. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.35|172.71.102.35]] 08:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Either a8 or h1, which is SO annoying (most likley a mistake on Randall's part tho)[[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 15:35, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
With all those zeros in the values given for row eight i assume we are looking at the limitations of someones calculation skills/calculator... last I checked 5 was not a factor of any 2^n value? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.80.246|172.70.80.246]] 00:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
:I think we don't need this part at all. If we really want to illustrate the numbers we could simply use the illustration from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem#Second_half_of_the_chessboard [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:15, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't look like Hairy in the final panel. Is it a Kasparov caricature? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:12, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
:I agree it is not the standard Hairy. Since this is Kasparovs gambit and Karpov tried to counter it, then it should be Karpov that walks out! Even though it is not Kasparaov but Black Hat that used the gambit. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
:Maybe it's the same Cueball from the first panel, but he's had to wait so long while Black Hat fetched all the rice that his hair grew out.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.249|172.70.160.249]] 13:32, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I have to wonder if this comic is related to the Casablanca Chess Tournament that took place this past week, where 4 top-ranked players competed by playing a series of real historical games starting from the middle of each game. Magnus Carlsen won the tournament, which also included Hikaru Nakamura, Viswanathan Anand, and Bassem Amin. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 04:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Russia pulling out of Black Sea agreement has been labelled "grain gambit" --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.131.158|172.71.131.158]] 06:36, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Trivia: 1. e2–e4 c7–c5 2. Sg1–f3 e7–e6 3. d2–d4 c5xd4 4. Sf3xd4 Sb8–c6 5. Sd4–b5 d7–d6 6. c2–c4 Sg8–f6 7. Sb1–c3 a7–a6 8. Sb5–a3 d6-d5!? is the Kasparov Gambit, see Wiki. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.30|172.71.160.30]] 08:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

This is a completely normal amount of rice. I eat this much grain daily. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 13:21, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Counter with Tree countergambit. plant tree(1) seeds in the first square and tree(2) on the next square then tree(3) in the next square. Nobody has found out what happens afterwards. {{unsigned ip|172.70.131.212|14:25, 23 May 2024}}

So, out of curiosity, how many grains of rice can you actually fit on an average chess board square? Or maybe, how big would a chessboard have to be in order for the rice to fit on top of every square without overflowing? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.91.144|172.69.91.144]] 22:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
:Assuming that its a standard size and it can stack up around 10 cubic inches upwards about 4117267200 grains [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 03:08, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

:Judging by [https://www.instructables.com/Chess-Board-Full-of-Rice-Exponential-Growth/ this], I reckon if you were really, really patient you might just about corral the 2048 on square 12 to stay within the bounds without additional housing, but you'd have no hope with the 13th.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.98|172.70.90.98]] 14:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Also, I noticed everyone here seems to have an ip in the 172.69.0.0 to 172.71.255.255 range, but I just checked and that's not even my ip address at the moment. What's that about? Does the wiki mask our actual ip addresses? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.90.110|172.69.90.110]] 22:29, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
:Not the wiki, but the gateways to the wiki that help with load-balancing and related connection issues. And you'll also see some IPs in the 141.x.y.z range, and others. I ''usually'' am in 171.[69-71].y.z range, but between one contribution another I might be anywhere.
:It's a known thing, for better or worse. Ultimately, there are behind-the-scenes details that would know the 'true' origin of everyone (give or take what load-balancing your own ISP also does at ''your'' side of the connection), but it's left obscured from our more plebian eyes.
:Getting a username will also remove the wider and more general geographic potshots someone can make a out your origin (the gateways seen to be used are likely to reveal ''at least'' your continent, if anyone's bothered), but I never saw the need.
:...now. I wonder under what range will the following put me..? => [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.96|172.69.194.96]] 23:34, 23 May 2024 (UTC) 8) Postscript: I first quickly used Preview, and I actually got the 141.range, then posted for real and got the 172s. About ten seconds between the two 'postings'. Hah! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.129|141.101.98.129]] 23:36, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

"If exponential growth is unrestricted, it will eventually grow beyond the constraints of anything that could plausibly be built to contain it." - Given that the increase in rice grains is, itself, not plausible, I see no reason why the growth in size of rice cookers needs to be plausible either.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.119|141.101.98.119]] 09:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
:I was tempted to add something about square/cube-law (not quite applicable, as there'll be a smidgen of cubing as you raise the square-area of container material, etc, but along tbose lines), but that of course makes the implausibility threshold of the cookers higher than the same threshold of rice (everything else being equal). So then you're on to the heat-penetration abilities (after a while, the outer rice is overcooked, when the innermost rice has barely felt the heat). And that leads me to believe that something like a {{w|rotary kiln}} design might be best adopted (external heat, internalised water delivery, properly tuned, and could even be effectively pressurised with the right cycling addons to either end) to just accept rice in at a constant rate and produce perfectly cooked rice at the commensurate output rate. Of course, exponential increase in feed would then require exponential increase in parallel rotary-cookers to handle it, but starting at an already more efficient/controllable mass-cooking process than merely upscaling a traditional pot-style cooker. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.220|172.71.242.220]] 11:09, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

This is easily defeated. Simply counter by placing one {{w|Fox_games#Fox_and_Geese|goose}} on the 64th square, two geese on the 63rd, and so on. They'll quickly deal with the rice situation.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 13:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
:But then you need to add an increasing number of foxes starting at the first square to deal with the geese.[[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 19:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
::And good luck taking the whole setup across a river with just a small boat! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 22:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

1474: Screws

2024-05-03T15:15:25Z

172.69.79.165: Linked page suggests uranium screws made out of tuballoy, not depleted uranium.

{{comic
| number = 1474
| date = January 16, 2015
| title = Screws
| image = screws.png
| titletext = If you encounter a hex bolt, but you only brought screwdrivers, you can try sandwiching the head of the bolt between two parallel screwdriver shafts, squeezing the screwdrivers together with a hand at either end, then twisting. It doesn't work and it's a great way to hurt yourself, but you can try it!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic uses a similar structure and is based off of the same idea as [[1714: Volcano Types]] and [[1874: Geologic Faults]]. Appliance makers sometimes use {{w|List of screw drives|strange screw heads}} to hinder attempts from users to remove appliance covers. Users usually have handy {{w|screwdrivers}} for the first two screw types drawn, Phillips and Flat. More advanced users usually have some less standard drivers, such as {{w|Torx}} or {{w|Allen key|Allen}}, however appliance makers keep designing increasingly strange {{w|List of screw drives|screw heads}} and users keep acquiring increasingly strange screwdrivers.

The comic is about the frustration a user may feel when faced with a screw for which they have no screwdriver. Usually the user will try to fit one of the drivers they have handy into the strange screw, leading to damaging the screw and/or the driver and/or the person wielding the tool.

The types of screws listed are the following:

{| class="wikitable"
! style="width: 25%"|Screw type
! Description
|-
| Phillips head
| {{w|List of screw drives#Phillips|Phillips screw drive}} and its corresponding screw head is one of the most recognizable types of screw heads that is commonly used in construction. This type of screw head was named after its inventor, a US businessman {{w|Henry F. Phillips}}. Neither the inventor nor his invention have any relationship to the Dutch electronics manufacturing company with similar, but not exactly the same name {{w|Philips}}. Technically speaking, this is not a Phillips, as a Phillips screw head is rounded at the center; it is actually a {{w|List of screw drives#Frearson|Frearson screw drive}}.
|-
| Flat head
| {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Slot|Slot head screws}} are frequently erroneously referred to as flat heads (a flat head screw refers, in fact, to the shape of the screw head, regardless of the shape of the drive socket). The slot head is also commonly used in construction. Although the diagram shows the slot truncated, the slot almost always runs across the entire head of the screw (as in the case of the "uranium screw" below).
|-
| Uh oh. Maybe it's on Amazon? (pentagram-shaped screw)
| Manufacturers sometimes use screws that require special screwdrivers in order to prevent the customer from opening the product. The reference to Amazon is presumably a suggestion to search {{w|Amazon.com}} for the screwdriver. A number of star-shaped screw heads exist, notably the six-pointed {{w|Torx}}, and {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}}'s rounded {{w|Pentalobe screw|pentalobe screw}}, although there is no popular design that uses the 5-pointed star shape depicted in the comic. Torx screws are common in automotive applications — Phillips heads are designed to "{{w|cam out}}" at high {{w|torque}} to protect the screw, whereas Torx do not — and on bicycles where a higher tightening torque is needed than hex screws can support. They are also commonly used on {{w|disk brake}} mounts and in {{w|smartphones}}.

|-
| Cursed −1 Phillips head
| The head of a screw can be stripped by overuse, tightening the screw too much, using the wrong size screwdriver, or other misuse. As the driving surfaces wear away, removing the screw becomes more difficult, and the added pressure needed to drive the screw usually damages it further.

The addition of "cursed" and "−1" in the titles is a reference to various role playing games (e.g. ''{{w|Dungeons and Dragons}}''), where magical "cursed" items appear frequently. This often makes the cursed equipment (in the case of armor or weapons) incredibly difficult to remove, as it will cling to the wielder. Similarly, the cursed Phillips Head screw becomes difficult to remove due to the stripped head. Alternatively, this may imply that the damage to the screw head was caused ''because'' the screw is "cursed" and therefore difficult to remove.

The "−1" refers to the damage of the screw head. In role playing games, items such as weapons and armor may have an "enchantment", with a positive enchantment making the item more effective, and a negative enchantment making the item less effective. Negatively enchanted items are often also cursed, as is the case with this screw head. The "−1" does not appear to be a reference to a {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Phillips|Phillips bit-size number}}, as those are always positive.

|-
| Crap, it's a ''rivet''.
| A {{w|rivet}} is not a screw — it is a permanent fastener which is secured by deforming the body of the fastener. Rivets cannot be removed with a screwdriver, they must be drilled out. Some bolts also have rounded rivet-style heads, though, which need a {{w|collet}}-style tool to grip and remove.
|-
| Phillips head ruiner ''(actually a hex screw)''
| A reference to the fact that {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Hex_socket|hex socket}} screws can, in a pinch, be removed with a Phillips screwdriver (rather than the intended {{w|Allen wrench}}) but this will likely ruin the screwdriver (and damage the screw) in the process.
|-
| Uranium screw
| Uranium screws were [http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/11/10/fat-mans-uranium/ used] in the [http://www.scintillators.ru/booc/criticality/reports/ref_050.pdf construction] of [http://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/769001 nuclear weapons] during the twentieth century. Multiple radially extending short wave-like lines around the screw head symbolize radiant energy output, although real uranium screws were most likely made of unenriched {{w|Natural uranium}}.
|-
| Phillip's head
| This is a morbidly literal interpretation of the misuse of an apostrophe in "Phillip's head". This "screw" is actually a bloody bag containing the severed head of someone named "Phillip" (an all too common modern respelling of the more classic "Philip", perhaps in part influenced by the more typical "Phillips" surname). Intentionally or otherwise, this last punchline could be described as a "{{tvtropes|MindScrew|mind screw}}".
|-
|Hex bolt (title text)
|A {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Hex|hex bolt}} has six external sides, so it could in theory be held by squeezing two screwdriver shafts together with the bolt in-between, as an ersatz pair of {{w|pliers}}. The amount of force on the two screwdriver shafts needed to turn the hex bolt and maintain the 'grip' will probably exceed the strength of human hands — the attempt would most likely only result in causing your hands to cramp or causing the screwdrivers to slip and cause further injury. The title text is making a play on the phrase "you can try", which normally implies something with a reasonable chance of success, but here is only pointing out "just because you ''can'' doesn't mean you should".
It marks a variation on the idea that "{{w|Law of the instrument|when all you have is a hammer}}, everything looks like a nail", as also exemplified by the common tendency for cutting-pliers to be used to grip things or gripping pliers to be used to try to flex-shear objects, just because one tool is more immediately at hand than a more correct one. But, in this case, it seems that multiple screwdrivers are available. Whether or not any of these are strictly suitable for all actually encountered screw-heads (as above), here something that is definitely ''not'' actually a screw-head still "looks like one" and forces a gross improvisation in leiu of any of the more suitable tools that should really be used — including an ''external'' hex socket of a suitable size.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Eight drawings of different types of heads each with a caption:]
:[Plus sign-shaped screw.]
:Phillips head
:[Minus sign-shaped screw.]
:Flat head
:[Star-shaped screw.]
:Uh oh. Maybe it's on Amazon?
:[Plus sign-shaped screw with worn edges.]
:Cursed -1 Phillips head
:[No screw, just a circle.]
:Crap, it's a ''rivet''.
:[Hexagon-shaped screw.]
:Phillips-head ruiner
:[Minus sign-shaped screw going through the whole circle. Also giving off radiation.]
:Uranium screw (a real thing)
:[A sack with blood oozing out of it.]
:Phillip's head

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with blood]]
[[Category:Comics with cursed items]]

504: Legal Hacks

2024-02-20T08:33:20Z

172.69.79.165: /* Transcript */ no full stop in meg's last sentence

{{comic
| number = 504
| date = November 14, 2008
| title = Legal Hacks
| image = legal_hacks.png
| titletext = It's totally a reasonable modern analogue. Jefferson would have been all about crypto.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Megan]] notices that an {{w|Internet Service Provider}} (ISP) is blocking access to some webpages. [[Cueball]] is thankful that cryptography offers a way around such censorship.

Encryption, the study and use of which is known as "cryptography," or "crypto" for short ("crypto" in more recent years has tended to be short for "cryptocurrency", but not in this case), is the art of transmitting messages that can only be read by the intended receiver(s) by using mathematical techniques to conceal ("encrypt") the data in the message. One common and effective way to encrypt messages is the {{w|RSA_(algorithm)|RSA algorithm}}, which is based on the difficulty of {{w|integer factorization}} for products of two prime numbers.

Being able to share unbreakable codes and decrypt other people's codes gives countries a military advantage - for example, in World War II, the Americans and British were often able to figure out where a German attack would be coming and send reinforcements there, because they had cracked the {{w|Enigma_machine|German codes}}. Because of this, the {{w|Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States|United States government initially tried to keep}} the mathematical details of strong encryption algorithms (including RSA) inside the country by classifying the algorithms as a weapon. It is a crime to share certain kinds of weapons technology with other countries without permission. Amateur and professional cryptographers, angry about the attempt to restrict their work, lobbied the government to change the rule and stop treating cryptography as a weapon, in part so that they could continue to collaborate with colleagues overseas, and in part because they wanted the ability to pass secret messages that the government could not easily decrypt. The export restrictions were gradually loosened and would have mostly been lifted by the year 2000.

In the comic, [[Megan]] makes the provocative and counter-intuitive point that perhaps the cryptographic community could have best ensured easy access to the RSA technique by *allowing* the government to treat RSA as a weapon, and then, once everyone is certain that RSA is a weapon, invoking the {{w|Second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, commonly known as the "{{w|Right to keep and bear arms in the United States|right to bear arms}}" amendment (that is, the right to own and use weapons). In other words, if RSA were a weapon, it would be granted constitutional protections.

This interpretation is likely a reference to the very strong social and political movements opposing arms control in the United States. The legal basis for this movement is the position that most or all laws prohibiting private ownership of firearms (and potentially other weapons), violate the Second Amendment. Accordingly, publicly referring to the Second Amendment tends to imply opposition to gun control. Megan's implication is that, by connecting RSA to this debate, crypto enthusiasts would gain a large group of unlikely allies who are strongly committed to keeping weapons legal and unrestricted. They could also invoke the legal cover of the Constitution, allowing them to fight restrictions in court.

[[Cueball]] is surprised and impressed by this point, and pauses to contemplate Megan's strategy.

It should be noted that there are major weaknesses in this argument. The Second Amendment only applies in the United States, meaning that imports and exports of munitions could still be banned. It might provide some protections against the ability of the US government to restrict RSA within US borders, but it could still be restricted in other countries, potentially hampering its use in global communications.

The title text claims that this is a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, because cryptography (a modern weapon) is analogous to muskets and cannons (the weaponry in use in the 1780s, when the Second Amendment was drafted). As evidence for the analogy, the title text points out that Jefferson would have been a big fan of cryptography, which is plausible, because President {{w|Thomas Jefferson}} (the 3rd President of the United States) was an amateur scientist who enjoyed studying a very wide variety of fields (in fact, he invented the {{w|Jefferson disk}}, an encryption device that was quite advanced for its time). The point is somewhat facetious, because it is hard to imagine a modern technique that Jefferson would ''not'' "be totally into." Also, the mere assertion that an early President would have been a fan of a technique is not very good evidence that the technique would be legally permitted by a particular Amendment.

==Transcript==
:[Megan sits at her computer, Cueball standing behind her.]
:Megan: Another ISP's filtering content.
:Cueball: Thank God for Crypto.

:[Cueball stands alone; Megan is presumably off-panel left.]
:Cueball: It wasn't that long ago that RSA was illegal to export. Classified a munition.

:[Megan, sitting in her chair, is looking back towards Cueball, presumably off-panel right.]
:Megan: You know, I think the crypto community took the wrong side in that fight. We should've lobbied to keep it counted as a weapon.
:Cueball: Why?

:[She is now turned around in the chair looking at Cueball, who is in-panel again.]
:Megan: Once they get complacent, we break out the second amendment
:[Cueball has his hand on his chin, contemplatively.]
:Cueball: ...Damn.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]

UniXKCD

2024-02-09T13:42:10Z

172.69.79.165: /* Konami code */

{{TOC}}On April Fools' Day in 2010, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] altered [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] to mimic a {{w|Unix}} command line interface. This interface is still available on [https://uni.xkcd.com uni.xkcd.com] and the source code is [https://github.com/chromakode/xkcdfools available on GitHub]. The comic [[721: Flatland]], which was released on March 31, 2010, was still up on April 1st, 2010, but had in itself nothing to do with the Unix interface. This Unix interface is thus in itself not one of Randall's [[:Category: April fools' comics|April fools' comics]]. The terminal only lists a few available commands, but most commands are undocumented.

==Documented commands==
* <code>next</code> shows the next comic. It shows the error "Time travel mode not enabled" on the last comic (see <code>enable time travel</code>).
* <code>prev</code> shows the previous comic.
* <code>first</code> shows the first comic.
* <code>last</code> shows the last comic.
* <code>display [number]</code> shows the comic with the specified number. (Trying to display comic [[404: Not Found|404]] will result in an endless loading attempt.)
* <code>random</code> shows a random comic.
* <code>ls</code> shows the content of the current directory.
* <code>cat [filename]</code> shows the content of the file, or "You're a kitty!" if [filename] is left blank.
* <code>cd [directory]</code> changes to the specified directory.

==Undocumented commands==
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code> This command, otherwise known as a [https://askubuntu.com/questions/159491/why-did-the-command-make-my-system-lag-so-badly-i-had-to-reboot shell fork bomb] will make the terminal display the <code>[. . .]</code> loading text indefinitely, as though it crashed.
* <code>a/s/l</code> [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=a%2Fs%2Fl A/S/L] is not a Unix command, but an acronym of Age/Sex/Location. The following replies are possible:
** "2/AMD64/Server Rack", answered as if the server replied.
** "328/M/Transylvania", answered by {{w|Dracula}}.
** "6/M/Battle School", answered by {{w|Ender Wiggin}} or another boy from battle school.
** "48/M/The White House", answered by {{w|Barack Obama}} or another male of the same age in the White House.
** "7/F/Rapture", answered by a {{w|Little_Sister_(BioShock)|Little Sister}} from {{w|BioShock}}.
** "Exactly your age/A gender you're attracted to/Far far away.", Requests for a/s/l are often not answered truthfully, but crafted to suit the one asking the question.
** "7,831/F/Lothlórien", answered by {{w|Galadriel}} or another elf.
** "42/M/FBI Field Office", answered by an FBI agent (referencing the old [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet trope] that all girls on the internet are FBI agents impersonating them).
* <code>apt-get</code> replies "This APT has Super Cow Powers.". The <code>apt-get</code> command is part of the Debian package manager {{w|Advanced_Packaging_Tool|APT}}. This reply is one of the built-in Easter eggs.
* <code>apt-get moo</code> replies "Have you mooed today" with an ASCII cow.
* <code>asl</code> same as <code>a/s/l</code>.
* <code>bash</code> replies "You bash your head against the wall. It's not very effective.". {{w|Bash}} is a shell for POSIX-based systems.
* <code>buy stuff</code> same as <code>cd store</code>.
* <code>cat [number]/alt.txt</code> displays the title text of the specified comic.
* <code>cat</code> (without a filename, or an invalid one) will show "You're a kitty!", possibly referencing [[231: Cat Proximity]].
* <code>cheat</code> promotes the [https://store.xkcd.com/ xkcd store].
* <code>clear</code> clears the screen.
* <code>curl</code> creates an iframe to the URL specified
* <code>date</code> replies "March 32nd".
* <code>dir</code> same as <code>ls</code>.
* <code>display title text</code> will print: display: unable to open image "title": No such file or directory. in red text.
* <code>echo</code> replies "Echo ... echo ... echo ...". The {{w|Echo_(command)|echo}} command is used to print text to the terminal.
* <code>ed</code> replies "You are not a diety ''[sic]''.". {{w|Ed_(text_editor)|ed}} is a very simple text editor. It is usually not considered very user-friendly (see also <code>vi</code> and <code>emacs</code>).
* <code>emacs</code> replies "You should use Vim.". References [[378: Real Programmers]].
* <code>enable time travel</code> replies "TARDIS error: Time Lord missing.". A {{w|Doctor Who}} reference. See also the <code>next</code> command.
* <code>exit</code> will end the terminal session.
* <code>find kitten</code> showed the {{w|robotfindskitten}} game (the link to the Flash version no longer works, but an HTML version is available [http://robotfindskitten.org/play/robotfindskitten/ here]).
* <code>find</code> replies "What do you want to find? Kitten would be nice.".
* <code>finger</code> replies "Mmmmmm...". <code>finger USER</code> is used on UNIX-like systems to get information about another USER (here, Randall is taking advantage of its suggestive name... pardon the pun).
* <code>fuck</code> replies "I have a headache.".
* <code>goto [any]</code> shows comic [[292: goto]] and asks if you meant <code>display</code> instead.
* <code>go back</code> replies "You cannot go back."
* <code>go down</code> replies "On our first date?"
* <code>halp</code> same as <code>help</code>.
* <code> Hello Joshua </code> replies "How about a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War?". A reference to the {{w|WarGames}} movie.
* <code>hello</code> replies "Hello.". A second reply "Why hello there!" is coded, but it is never used.
* <code>help</code> says "That would be cheating!".
* <code>hi</code> replies "Hi.".
* <code>hint</code> randomly replies "We offer some nice polos.", "This terminal will remain available at xkcd.com/unixkcd/", "Use the source, Luke!" or "There are cheat codes.".
* <code>i read the source code</code> replies "<3".
* <code>irc [nick]</code> starts an {{w|IRC}} session on the xkcd channel on irc.foonetic.net.
* <code>kill</code> replies "Terminator deployed to 1984.". A reference to the {{w|The_Terminator|Terminator}} movie. In Bash, <code>kill</code> is used to end a process.
* <code>latest</code> displays the latest comic.
* <code>locate [filename]</code> is normally used to locate a file in a directory. It will give humorous results when searching for <code>ninja</code>, <code>keys</code>, <code>joke</code>, <code>problem</code> and <code>raptor</code>.
* <code>logout</code> same as <code>exit</code>.
* <code>lpr</code> replies "PC LOAD LETTER". {{w|Line_Printer_Daemon_protocol|lpr}} is a command to print documents. {{w|PC_LOAD_LETTER}} is a printer error.
* <code>make love</code> replies "I put on my robe and wizard hat.". A reference to this [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/bloodninja roleplay chat transscript] (NSFW), also mentioned in [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]. <code>make love</code> is a standard Unix joke, because the reply is "make: don't know how to make love.".
* <code>make me a sandwich</code> behaves like [[149: Sandwich]].
* <code>man [command]</code> show unhelpful information about the command (only <code>last</code>, <code>help</code>, <code>next</code>, <code>cat</code> or no command are supported).
* <code>moo</code> replies "moo".
* <code>more</code> replies "Oh, yes! More! More!". The {{w|More_(command)|more}} command is used to paginate output.
* <code>nano</code> replies "Seriously? Why don't you just use Notepad.exe? Or MS Paint?". {{w|GNU_nano|Nano}} is another text editor for Unix systems (see <code>vi</code> and <code>emacs</code>).
* <code>ping</code> replies "There is another submarine three miles ahead, bearing 225, forty fathoms down.". The {{w|Ping_(networking_utility)|ping}} command is used to measure round trip times to a destination. The name does indeed originate from {{w|sonar}} technology.
* <code>pwd</code> replies "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.". The {{w|pwd}} command prints the current working directory (see <code>look</code>). The output is a reference to {{w|Colossal Cave Adventure}}.
* <code>poweroff</code> same as <code>shutdown</code>.
* <code>quit</code> same as <code>exit</code>.
* <code> Reddit [number]</code> shows the [https://www.reddit.com/ Reddit] voting bar for the specified comic (or xkcd when no number is specified).
* <code>rm [filename]</code> will "remove" a file, while <code>rm -r</code> will remove a directory. (<code>sudo rm -rf /</code> will break all commands until the page is reloaded.)
* <code>serenity</code> replies "You can't take the sky from me.". This is a line from the Balad of Serenity from the {{w|Firefly_(TV_series)|Firefly}} TV series. Serenity is also the name of an Operating System (that Randall probably wasn't thinking of): [https://www.serenityos.org/ SerenityOS].
* <code>shutdown</code> replies "Must be root.". See also <code>sudo poweroff</code>.
* <code>ssh</code> replies "ssh, this is a library.". {{w|Secure_Shell|ssh}} is the command to start a secure shell, but it also resembles the "{{w|Shh}}" sound.
* <code>su</code> replies "God mode activated. Remember, with great power comes great ... aw, screw it, go have fun.". The {{w|Su_(Unix)|su}} command is used to log in as an upper user, which gives you full and potentially dangerous access to the system. On some systems, "with great power comes great responsibility" is also part of a message that is printed the first time <code>sudo</code> is used.
* <code>sudo [command]</code> executes the command with {{w|Superuser|root}} privileges.
* <code>sudo apt-get dist-upgrade</code> Returns "You are already running [OS].".
* <code>sudo apt-get moo</code> replies "Have you mooed today?" (apt-get Easter egg).
* <code>sudo apt-get update</code> Refreshes the package list so the system knows which updates are available.
* <code>sudo apt-get upgrade</code> shows a link to [http://abetterbrowser.org/ A Better Browser] on Internet Explorer and Firefox (< v3). On all other browsers, it doesn't complain.
* <code>sudo make me a sandwich</code> behave like [[149: Sandwich]].
* <code>sudo !!</code> will sudo the last command.
* <code>sudo poweroff</code> will shutdown the system.
* <code>sudo reboot</code> will restart the system.
* <code>sudo restart</code> same as <code>sudo reboot</code>.
* <code>sudo shutdown</code> same as <code>sudo poweroff</code>.
* <code>sudo sudo</code> will print An internal error occurred: RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded in red text.
* <code>time travel</code> displays [[630: Time Travel]].
* <code>top</code> replies "It's up there --^". The {{w|Top_(software)|top}} command shows a table of processes. Here it is taken literally.
* <code>uname</code> replies "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator". <code>uname</code> on Unix lists system information. The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator is an explosive device created by Marvin the Martian in the {{w|Looney Tunes}} series.
* <code>unixkcd</code> opens a new terminal window.
* <code>use the force luke</code> replies "I believe you mean source.". A reference to the {{w|The_Force_(Star_Wars)|Force}} in the {{w|Star Wars}} franchise.
* <code>use the source luke</code> replies "I'm not luke, you're luke!", an old programmers' joke.
* <code>vi</code> reply "You should use emacs.". References [[378: Real Programmers]].
* <code>vim</code> same as <code>vi</code>.
* <code>wget [url]</code> shows the content of the specified url. The {{w|wget}} command on Unix will download the content and not show it.
* <code>who</code> replies "Doctor Who?". Another {{w|Doctor Who}} reference. The <code>who</code> command on Unix lists the logged-in users.
* <code> Whoami </code> replies "You are Richard Stallman.". The {{w|whoami}} command lists the name of the current user. Richard Stallman is the creator of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.
* <code>write [nick]</code> same as <code>irc</code>.
* <code>xkcd</code> replies "Yes?".
* <code>xyzzy</code> replies "Nothing happens.". {{w|Xyzzy_(computing)|xyzzy}} is a magic word, originally used in the game {{w|Colossal Cave Adventure}}.
* <code>your gay</code> replies "Keep your hands off it!".
* <code>!!</code> reruns the previous command after stating the command.

===Game commands===
* There are also some other commands borrowed from a {{w|Zork}} like {{w|Text-based game|text based adventure game}}.
* <code>look</code> describes your current surroundings.
* <code>go [direction]</code> moves you in the specified direction.
* <code>light lamp</code> lights your lamp.
* <code>sleep [seconds]</code> sleeps for the specified time. Without specifying, the nap is 5 seconds.
* You will be killed by a {{w|Grue (monster)|grue}} if you don't light your lamp when going south. Going West repeatedly will list the refrain from the song {{w|Go West (song)|Go West}}.

===Konami code===
[[File:Konami code.png|300px|thumb|The image used as the background after using the Konami code five times.]]
The terminal also responds to the {{w|Konami code}} Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. Entering this code repeatedly will, in order:
# Transform all characters to uppercase
# Add a greatest shadow
# Add an orange text-shadow
# Shake the screen
# Add a background image of [[Richard Stallman]] from [[345: 1337: Part 5]].

[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Computers]]

UniXKCD

2024-02-09T13:41:15Z

172.69.79.165: /* Game commands */

{{TOC}}On April Fools' Day in 2010, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] altered [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] to mimic a {{w|Unix}} command line interface. This interface is still available on [https://uni.xkcd.com uni.xkcd.com] and the source code is [https://github.com/chromakode/xkcdfools available on GitHub]. The comic [[721: Flatland]], which was released on March 31, 2010, was still up on April 1st, 2010, but had in itself nothing to do with the Unix interface. This Unix interface is thus in itself not one of Randall's [[:Category: April fools' comics|April fools' comics]]. The terminal only lists a few available commands, but most commands are undocumented.

==Documented commands==
* <code>next</code> shows the next comic. It shows the error "Time travel mode not enabled" on the last comic (see <code>enable time travel</code>).
* <code>prev</code> shows the previous comic.
* <code>first</code> shows the first comic.
* <code>last</code> shows the last comic.
* <code>display [number]</code> shows the comic with the specified number. (Trying to display comic [[404: Not Found|404]] will result in an endless loading attempt.)
* <code>random</code> shows a random comic.
* <code>ls</code> shows the content of the current directory.
* <code>cat [filename]</code> shows the content of the file, or "You're a kitty!" if [filename] is left blank.
* <code>cd [directory]</code> changes to the specified directory.

==Undocumented commands==
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code> This command, otherwise known as a [https://askubuntu.com/questions/159491/why-did-the-command-make-my-system-lag-so-badly-i-had-to-reboot shell fork bomb] will make the terminal display the <code>[. . .]</code> loading text indefinitely, as though it crashed.
* <code>a/s/l</code> [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=a%2Fs%2Fl A/S/L] is not a Unix command, but an acronym of Age/Sex/Location. The following replies are possible:
** "2/AMD64/Server Rack", answered as if the server replied.
** "328/M/Transylvania", answered by {{w|Dracula}}.
** "6/M/Battle School", answered by {{w|Ender Wiggin}} or another boy from battle school.
** "48/M/The White House", answered by {{w|Barack Obama}} or another male of the same age in the White House.
** "7/F/Rapture", answered by a {{w|Little_Sister_(BioShock)|Little Sister}} from {{w|BioShock}}.
** "Exactly your age/A gender you're attracted to/Far far away.", Requests for a/s/l are often not answered truthfully, but crafted to suit the one asking the question.
** "7,831/F/Lothlórien", answered by {{w|Galadriel}} or another elf.
** "42/M/FBI Field Office", answered by an FBI agent (referencing the old [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet trope] that all girls on the internet are FBI agents impersonating them).
* <code>apt-get</code> replies "This APT has Super Cow Powers.". The <code>apt-get</code> command is part of the Debian package manager {{w|Advanced_Packaging_Tool|APT}}. This reply is one of the built-in Easter eggs.
* <code>apt-get moo</code> replies "Have you mooed today" with an ASCII cow.
* <code>asl</code> same as <code>a/s/l</code>.
* <code>bash</code> replies "You bash your head against the wall. It's not very effective.". {{w|Bash}} is a shell for POSIX-based systems.
* <code>buy stuff</code> same as <code>cd store</code>.
* <code>cat [number]/alt.txt</code> displays the title text of the specified comic.
* <code>cat</code> (without a filename, or an invalid one) will show "You're a kitty!", possibly referencing [[231: Cat Proximity]].
* <code>cheat</code> promotes the [https://store.xkcd.com/ xkcd store].
* <code>clear</code> clears the screen.
* <code>curl</code> creates an iframe to the URL specified
* <code>date</code> replies "March 32nd".
* <code>dir</code> same as <code>ls</code>.
* <code>display title text</code> will print: display: unable to open image "title": No such file or directory. in red text.
* <code>echo</code> replies "Echo ... echo ... echo ...". The {{w|Echo_(command)|echo}} command is used to print text to the terminal.
* <code>ed</code> replies "You are not a diety ''[sic]''.". {{w|Ed_(text_editor)|ed}} is a very simple text editor. It is usually not considered very user-friendly (see also <code>vi</code> and <code>emacs</code>).
* <code>emacs</code> replies "You should use Vim.". References [[378: Real Programmers]].
* <code>enable time travel</code> replies "TARDIS error: Time Lord missing.". A {{w|Doctor Who}} reference. See also the <code>next</code> command.
* <code>exit</code> will end the terminal session.
* <code>find kitten</code> showed the {{w|robotfindskitten}} game (the link to the Flash version no longer works, but an HTML version is available [http://robotfindskitten.org/play/robotfindskitten/ here]).
* <code>find</code> replies "What do you want to find? Kitten would be nice.".
* <code>finger</code> replies "Mmmmmm...". <code>finger USER</code> is used on UNIX-like systems to get information about another USER (here, Randall is taking advantage of its suggestive name... pardon the pun).
* <code>fuck</code> replies "I have a headache.".
* <code>goto [any]</code> shows comic [[292: goto]] and asks if you meant <code>display</code> instead.
* <code>go back</code> replies "You cannot go back."
* <code>go down</code> replies "On our first date?"
* <code>halp</code> same as <code>help</code>.
* <code> Hello Joshua </code> replies "How about a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War?". A reference to the {{w|WarGames}} movie.
* <code>hello</code> replies "Hello.". A second reply "Why hello there!" is coded, but it is never used.
* <code>help</code> says "That would be cheating!".
* <code>hi</code> replies "Hi.".
* <code>hint</code> randomly replies "We offer some nice polos.", "This terminal will remain available at xkcd.com/unixkcd/", "Use the source, Luke!" or "There are cheat codes.".
* <code>i read the source code</code> replies "<3".
* <code>irc [nick]</code> starts an {{w|IRC}} session on the xkcd channel on irc.foonetic.net.
* <code>kill</code> replies "Terminator deployed to 1984.". A reference to the {{w|The_Terminator|Terminator}} movie. In Bash, <code>kill</code> is used to end a process.
* <code>latest</code> displays the latest comic.
* <code>locate [filename]</code> is normally used to locate a file in a directory. It will give humorous results when searching for <code>ninja</code>, <code>keys</code>, <code>joke</code>, <code>problem</code> and <code>raptor</code>.
* <code>logout</code> same as <code>exit</code>.
* <code>lpr</code> replies "PC LOAD LETTER". {{w|Line_Printer_Daemon_protocol|lpr}} is a command to print documents. {{w|PC_LOAD_LETTER}} is a printer error.
* <code>make love</code> replies "I put on my robe and wizard hat.". A reference to this [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/bloodninja roleplay chat transscript] (NSFW), also mentioned in [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]. <code>make love</code> is a standard Unix joke, because the reply is "make: don't know how to make love.".
* <code>make me a sandwich</code> behaves like [[149: Sandwich]].
* <code>man [command]</code> show unhelpful information about the command (only <code>last</code>, <code>help</code>, <code>next</code>, <code>cat</code> or no command are supported).
* <code>moo</code> replies "moo".
* <code>more</code> replies "Oh, yes! More! More!". The {{w|More_(command)|more}} command is used to paginate output.
* <code>nano</code> replies "Seriously? Why don't you just use Notepad.exe? Or MS Paint?". {{w|GNU_nano|Nano}} is another text editor for Unix systems (see <code>vi</code> and <code>emacs</code>).
* <code>ping</code> replies "There is another submarine three miles ahead, bearing 225, forty fathoms down.". The {{w|Ping_(networking_utility)|ping}} command is used to measure round trip times to a destination. The name does indeed originate from {{w|sonar}} technology.
* <code>pwd</code> replies "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.". The {{w|pwd}} command prints the current working directory (see <code>look</code>). The output is a reference to {{w|Colossal Cave Adventure}}.
* <code>poweroff</code> same as <code>shutdown</code>.
* <code>quit</code> same as <code>exit</code>.
* <code> Reddit [number]</code> shows the [https://www.reddit.com/ Reddit] voting bar for the specified comic (or xkcd when no number is specified).
* <code>rm [filename]</code> will "remove" a file, while <code>rm -r</code> will remove a directory. (<code>sudo rm -rf /</code> will break all commands until the page is reloaded.)
* <code>serenity</code> replies "You can't take the sky from me.". This is a line from the Balad of Serenity from the {{w|Firefly_(TV_series)|Firefly}} TV series. Serenity is also the name of an Operating System (that Randall probably wasn't thinking of): [https://www.serenityos.org/ SerenityOS].
* <code>shutdown</code> replies "Must be root.". See also <code>sudo poweroff</code>.
* <code>ssh</code> replies "ssh, this is a library.". {{w|Secure_Shell|ssh}} is the command to start a secure shell, but it also resembles the "{{w|Shh}}" sound.
* <code>su</code> replies "God mode activated. Remember, with great power comes great ... aw, screw it, go have fun.". The {{w|Su_(Unix)|su}} command is used to log in as an upper user, which gives you full and potentially dangerous access to the system. On some systems, "with great power comes great responsibility" is also part of a message that is printed the first time <code>sudo</code> is used.
* <code>sudo [command]</code> executes the command with {{w|Superuser|root}} privileges.
* <code>sudo apt-get dist-upgrade</code> Returns "You are already running [OS].".
* <code>sudo apt-get moo</code> replies "Have you mooed today?" (apt-get Easter egg).
* <code>sudo apt-get update</code> Refreshes the package list so the system knows which updates are available.
* <code>sudo apt-get upgrade</code> shows a link to [http://abetterbrowser.org/ A Better Browser] on Internet Explorer and Firefox (< v3). On all other browsers, it doesn't complain.
* <code>sudo make me a sandwich</code> behave like [[149: Sandwich]].
* <code>sudo !!</code> will sudo the last command.
* <code>sudo poweroff</code> will shutdown the system.
* <code>sudo reboot</code> will restart the system.
* <code>sudo restart</code> same as <code>sudo reboot</code>.
* <code>sudo shutdown</code> same as <code>sudo poweroff</code>.
* <code>sudo sudo</code> will print An internal error occurred: RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded in red text.
* <code>time travel</code> displays [[630: Time Travel]].
* <code>top</code> replies "It's up there --^". The {{w|Top_(software)|top}} command shows a table of processes. Here it is taken literally.
* <code>uname</code> replies "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator". <code>uname</code> on Unix lists system information. The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator is an explosive device created by Marvin the Martian in the {{w|Looney Tunes}} series.
* <code>unixkcd</code> opens a new terminal window.
* <code>use the force luke</code> replies "I believe you mean source.". A reference to the {{w|The_Force_(Star_Wars)|Force}} in the {{w|Star Wars}} franchise.
* <code>use the source luke</code> replies "I'm not luke, you're luke!", an old programmers' joke.
* <code>vi</code> reply "You should use emacs.". References [[378: Real Programmers]].
* <code>vim</code> same as <code>vi</code>.
* <code>wget [url]</code> shows the content of the specified url. The {{w|wget}} command on Unix will download the content and not show it.
* <code>who</code> replies "Doctor Who?". Another {{w|Doctor Who}} reference. The <code>who</code> command on Unix lists the logged-in users.
* <code> Whoami </code> replies "You are Richard Stallman.". The {{w|whoami}} command lists the name of the current user. Richard Stallman is the creator of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.
* <code>write [nick]</code> same as <code>irc</code>.
* <code>xkcd</code> replies "Yes?".
* <code>xyzzy</code> replies "Nothing happens.". {{w|Xyzzy_(computing)|xyzzy}} is a magic word, originally used in the game {{w|Colossal Cave Adventure}}.
* <code>your gay</code> replies "Keep your hands off it!".
* <code>!!</code> reruns the previous command after stating the command.

===Game commands===
* There are also some other commands borrowed from a {{w|Zork}} like {{w|Text-based game|text based adventure game}}.
* <code>look</code> describes your current surroundings.
* <code>go [direction]</code> moves you in the specified direction.
* <code>light lamp</code> lights your lamp.
* <code>sleep [seconds]</code> sleeps for the specified time. Without specifying, the nap is 5 seconds.
* You will be killed by a {{w|Grue (monster)|grue}} if you don't light your lamp when going south. Going West repeatedly will list the refrain from the song {{w|Go West (song)|Go West}}.

===Konami code===
[[File:Konami code.png|300px|thumb|The image used as the background after using the Konami code five times.]]
The terminal also responds to the {{w|Konami code}} Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. Entering this code repeatedly will, in order:
# Transform all characters to uuppercase# Add a greatest shadow
# Add an orange text-shadow
# Shake the screen
# Add a background image of [[Richard Stallman]] from [[345: 1337: Part 5]].

[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Computers]]

516: Wood Chips

2024-01-29T23:52:25Z

172.69.79.165: Taking the prior editor's opinion at face value (why not? ...seems reasonable), adding appropriate cat.

{{comic
| number = 516
| date = December 12, 2008
| title = Wood Chips
| image = wood_chips.png
| titletext = You didn't run a chemical analysis against the Shroud of Turin? Man, all that work for NOTHING.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has tried to play an elaborate hoax on a woman ([[Hairbun]]) involving wood chips that match the composition of the wood used to build a 19th-century ghost ship called the ''{{w|Mary Celeste}}''. Unfortunately, [[Hairbun]] has done the sensible, reasonable thing and thrown them out instead of checking to see if they belong to a ghost ship, whose wood chips or what-have-you would probably not have found their way to the hallway. This causes Cueball to realize that he needs to rethink the complicated way in which he creates hoaxes, because the people he is trying to trick do not follow through with his elaborate plans.

The title text suggests that he also set up some kind of chemical match with the {{w|Shroud of Turin}}. The Shroud of Turin is a famous artifact bearing a ghostly image of a man's face, said by some to have been used to wrap the body of {{w|Jesus of Nazareth}}.
In 1988, {{w|radiocarbon dating}} determined the shroud's linen was produced between 1260 and 1390. While some defenders of the shroud's authenticity have raised questions about potential contamination or repairs to the original fabric, these theories have been largely refuted by experts. The Catholic Church neither endorses nor rejects the shroud's authenticity.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball leans on desk; Hairbun sits behind desk.]

:Cueball: Did you ever figure out those mysterious woodchips?
:Hairbun: The ones in the hallway? No.
:Cueball: You didn't suspect that they matched the timber used in 1861 to build the "ghost ship" Mary Celeste, prompting you to send them to a lab for analysis, the results of which raised new and stranger questions?
:Hairbun: No, I threw them out. Why?
:[Caption below the panel:]
:My hoaxes need to get a lot less subtle.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]

User talk:Eelitee

2024-01-29T17:13:04Z

172.69.79.165: /* Passing query... */ Whoops...

this is a talk page. [[User:Eelitee|Eelitee]] ([[User talk:Eelitee|talk]]) 23:17, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

== Passing query... ==

Can't actually tell from your comment whether you actually intended to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2885:_Spelling&curid=27174&diff=333704&oldid=333581 remove several contributions]. I get that you did want to sign an unsigned comment (note, best done with <nowiki>{{unsigned up|<their IP>|<the timestampe>}}</nowiki>, copying both from the appropriate Diff-page header element). But you seemed to suggest that you were just not *bothered* about much of the chatter (links to platiarism-related things, included?), but that you'd tolerate it and just personally skip over it, rather than have any good reason to remove several persons' comments. (None of them mine, I'm not being 'precious' about my own contributions.) So, I'm wondering if it's actually an editing error of some kind.

Best guess is that you went back in the History to find the 'missing signing details' and then edited the ''legacy'' incarnation of the page to add your discovered info. But this of course effectively restored the rest of the page to before lots of other changes were made. I'm almost tempted to straight revert your change (but, on top of that, redo your ''unsigned ip'' info as you did it/I would have done it) myself but... letting you sort it out. As the only person who ''knows'' what you think you were doing. Maybe intentional, for some reason? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.139|172.69.79.139]] 17:11, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

2883: Astronaut Guests

2024-01-20T20:13:28Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */ Twice the 'spherical cap' formula of A=2.pi.r²(1-cos(θ)), for unit 'r' and 'θ' being the 90° compliment of the inclinational 'reach'. This is my working out, just in case I messed up by a factor or some (un)necessary inversion.

{{comic
| number = 2883
| date = January 19, 2024
| title = Astronaut Guests
| image = astronaut guests 2x.png
| imagesize = 331x391px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They didn't bring us a gift, but considering the kinetic energy of a bottle of wine at orbital speed, that's probably for the best.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by SIX ASTRONAUTS OVER YOUR HEAD RIGHT NOW - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Cueball]], [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]], and [[Hairbun]] can all be seen eating dinner together. Presumably, Ponytail and Hairbun were invited over for dinner, as, to impress them, [[Cueball]] misleadingly claims that they previously "had six {{w|astronauts}} over for dinner." Normally, this would be interpreted as the astronauts being friends with the hosts (which confers social prestige), going inside their house, and eating. As it turns out, the astronauts actually only briefly passed overhead while in {{w|orbit}}, and, by chance, this happened during dinnertime. This is a pun on the word "over", as the personnel of the {{w|International Space Station}} are overhead when it passes above you— yet they did not go "over ''to'' someone's house" in the sense that English speakers would usually assume.

Cueball may also be considering the property lines to extend up indefinitely (just like in "What If?" article "{{what if|161|Star Ownership}}"), causing the astronauts to technically be at their house despite being hundreds of miles away, vertically. The astronauts in question were presumably occupying the International Space Station, which has an orbital period of between 90 and 93 minutes (depending on its altitude) or 5400 to 5580 seconds.[https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Tools/orbitTutorial.htm] If the astronauts were "over" for 7½ milliseconds, that would be somewhere between 1.34x10⁻⁶ and 1.39x10⁻⁶ of an orbit. Earth's circumference (at the equator) being approximately 40,000 kilometers (24,850 miles), the station was apparently "over" for a ground distance of between 53.9 m and 55.7 m (177 to 183 feet). That would imply quite a large property, but may also take into account the locations of the astronauts within the ISS, which is 109 m (356 feet) long (before consideringthe much smaller [[1276: Angular Size|angular size]] with respect to the ground).

The caption makes Cueball's statement even less impressive, alleging that statements like it are correct in a lot of place. This would make it not even interesting as a {{w|coincidence}}. Though it can only happen for latitudes of less than 51.64° north or south, which is as far as the orbital inclination of the ISS takes it, leaving almost 21.6% of the Earth's surface never directly 'overed'.

The title text suggests that Cueball didn't want a gift (a bottle of wine) from the astronauts. The kinetic energy of a 1.2 kg (full) bottle of wine traveling at the linear velocity of the International Space Station (8000 m/s) is on the order of 40,000 kilojoules (kJ). For comparison, the kinetic energy of a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshinobu_Yamamoto Yamamoto Yoshinobu] fastball is around 0.16 kJ. That bottle would be hard to keep on the table, and would likely do damage to people or things that tried to keep it there.

This comic was posted the same day as the American release of a film set on the ISS (conveniently named ''{{w|I.S.S. (film)|I.S.S.}}'').

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[Cueball, Megan, Ponytail, and Hairbun are eating around a table. Cueball is leaning on the back of his chair and has his palm out.]
:Cueball: We don't have houseguests often, but we once had six astronauts over for dinner.
:Hairbun: Oh, wow!
:Cueball (muttering): ''…for 7½ milliseconds in mid-August 2012.''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:If you spend enough time looking at orbital records and property lines, you can make this claim in a lot of places.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category: Space]]

2878: Supernova

2024-01-09T08:03:55Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2878
| date = January 8, 2024
| title = Supernova
| image = supernova_2x.png
| imagesize = 348x227px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're a little cagey about exactly where the crossover point lies relative to the likelihood of devastating effects on the planet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A CAGEY ASTRONOMER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Supernovae}} are catastrophic events in which a heavy star collapses when its original fuel runs out and it can no longer produce enough energy to fight its own gravity. The collapsing mass leads to a violent explosion, one of the most interesting events for astronomers to observe and one that can be used to glean information about the universe.

This comic shows a graph that displays, in general terms, how happy astronomers would be when they discover a new supernova based on how far away it is from Earth. The further away one is, the less detail can be learned from it, and thus the less happy astronomers are. But a supernova closer than, say, 100 light years might be ''too'' close. Its radiation could destroy life on Earth, or at least significantly harm the biosphere. Astronomers (and many others) would be really unhappy if that happened,{{cn}} as reflected by the sudden drop in happiness to far below the X axis on the graph for a supernova that is too close.

Many astronomers watch and study the stars in the night sky, even the ones that don't change appreciably over human timescales, but observing and recording such a huge event would be interesting for many reasons. Even if not directly involved in the science, humans can observe some supernovae with the naked eye, especially if they occur within {{w|Milky Way|our own galaxy}} and are clearly visible from Earth. A potential supernova in the news lately is {{w|Betelgeuse}}, a {{w|red giant}} star that is the left shoulder in the constellation Orion. About 430 light years from the Sun, it has been pulsating, dimming and brightening over exceedingly short time scales compared to the tens of millions of years such a big star is expected to burn. Though it could yet easily go several thousand years before it goes supernova, it could also already have exploded and we are only waiting for the light from the event to reach Earth. Betelgeuse should be far enough away from Earth that the inevitable explosion would be safe enough for life on Earth (although [https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/earth-danger-betelgeuse-supernova some assessments] are not so sure), but it ''will'' outshine all other stars in the night sky, possibly competing with the Moon, and could even be visible during daytime. This would be a dream come true for many astronomers and something obvious to others interested in the night sky. In the first [[:Category:Stargazing | Stargazing]] comic, [[1644: Stargazing | 1644]], the wish that it goes supernova (in [[Randall|Randall's]] lifetime) is clearly expressed.

Since this ''should'' be safe for us, and since it would be a spectacle not seen for hundreds of years here on Earth, this would make the astronomers very happy, not just from all they could learn, but also from just from all the increased interest in gazing at the sky with the 'new' star (and then seeing what happens to it next).

A distance exists where the astronomers would be the most happy, with anything nearer than that being less good (or very bad). As more distant phenomena only decrease the positive effects (and certainly do not increase the bad ones), the graph beyond the maximum happiness appears to show an asymptotic approach to less and less positive influence on the mood of the astronomers. There are thought to be about three supernovae occuring per century within our own galaxy (most stars of which are far further away from Betelgeuse), and many other nearby and far more distant galaxies within which a supernova explosion can be detected. These remain useful to see, and are often studied as intensively as possible, but have decreasing amounts of thrill to them and are harder to notice/record in the early stages of the explosion (or immediately before, to add even more understanding).

The title text expands upon the latter point of nearness, in that the astronomers themselves are not quite clear/unwilling to admit how close they would like a supernova to be. If it were close enough to destroy Earth or instantly kill of all life on Earth, they would presumably not be happy.{{cn}} But they might actually be willing to accept some trouble for Earth life if they get to the see a supernova comparatively close by. But the chance to witness even a {{what if|73|lethally-close}} supernova might still be an attractive proposition for some inquisitive minds. At least it is expected that they require time to realize they are seeing (or are about to see) a supernova before it kills them, to become ecstatically happy about it!

This is the second comic in a row that mentions exploding stars, after [[2877: Fever]], which like this comic is also a [[:Category:Charts|Charts comic]].

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown where the axes are labeled and arrows are pointing upward above the Y axis label and to the right above the X axis label. There is a single line on the graph that peaks close to the Y axis, where it reaches close to the top of the drawn part of the Y axis. Then the line approaches the X axis asymptotically towards the far right. But closer to the Y axis, the peak line goes almost vertically down, and continues far below the "bottom of the chart", outside of the boundary of the graph that was only supposed to be above the X axis.]
:Y axis: How happy astronomers are
:X axis: How far away the new supernova is

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

2876: Range Safety

2024-01-09T08:03:04Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2876
| date = January 3, 2024
| title = Range Safety
| image = range_safety_2x.png
| imagesize = 565x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The Range Mischief Officer has modified the trajectory to add a single random spin somewhere in the flight, but won't tell us where.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RANGE EXPLOSION OFFICER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A {{w|Range Safety}} Officer is responsible for ensuring the safety of the flight of a missile or launch vehicle – such as the rocket in the comic. This involves tasks like creating a launch corridor clear of any aircraft or ships, as well as ensuring that atmospheric conditions are favorable for a launch.

In this comic, the RSO has noticed reports of thunderstorms downrange, and has ordered a hold as conditions are no longer favorable.

[[Randall]] continues on by imagining the opposite position, a "Range Danger Officer," responsible for ensuring that the flight of the vehicle is dangerous. Flying into the biggest thunderstorm may qualify as dangerous - in 1987 an ATLAS rocket launched into thunderstorm conditions by NASA was destroyed by lightning strikes that caused electrical malfunction.

Finally, someone on the staff justifiably{{cn}} wonders what reason there is for that position to exist.

The title text imagines a Range Mischief Officer, responsible for mischief – generally defined as minor/playful annoyance. Introducing a random unknown spin may qualify, since the spin shouldn't affect the flight too much, but would make all the flight engineers nervous about the flight as they seek to understand why telemetry is inverted (or why it is not!), as they work out the cause and whether it is symptomatic of bigger underlying issues or just a technical change of reference to an otherwise correct flight trajectory. Whether the spin is purely axial or end-over-end would probably matter greatly!

The Range Danger Officer and Range Mischief Officer both sound like suitable positions for [[Black Hat]], xkcd's resident [[classhole]].

This is the second holiday season comic in 3 years to depict rocket safety officers. A Range Safety Officer was also mentioned in the title text of [[2559: December 25th Launch]], where the RSO shoots down Santa so he cannot interfere with the rocket launch.

==Transcript==
:[A rocket is on a launchpad with a tower next to it as seen from far away. There are two birds flying to the right of them. To the left of the launchpad there is a very small building. Much farther to the right there are two smaller buildings, and a voice is emanating from the largest and right most building which also has two antennas on top. The scene is shown in black silhouette on a white background.]
:Voice: There are reports of thunderstorms in the downrange area.

:[Same scene, except the two birds are now flying on the left side of the rocket.]
:Voice: The Range Safety Officer has ordered a launch hold.

:[Almost same scene, but panned to the right so the smallest building to the left is not shown and a third building to the right of the other two buildings can be seen. The birds are now flying with one on either side of the rocket. Two voices are now emanating from the middle building.]
:Voice: But the Range '''''Danger''''' Officer wants to launch the rocket toward the biggest thunderstorm.
:Voice 2: Okay, why do we even '''''have''''' that position?

==Trivia==
* The [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/range_safety.png standard size] image was uploaded with a resolution/size larger than the supposed 2x version.
** This may have been an error.
* The tower next to the rocket was also missing from panel 2.
** See the original version [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/1/18/20240103171847%21range_safety_2x.png here]
* Both these errors were later corrected.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Weather]]

2878: Supernova

2024-01-08T13:57:33Z

172.69.79.165: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2878
| date = January 8, 2024
| title = Supernova
| image = supernova_2x.png
| imagesize = 348x227px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're a little cagey about exactly where the crossover point lies relative to the likelihood of devastating effects on the planet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE NEAREST STAR GOING SUPERNOVA (YES THE SUN) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Supernovae}} are catastrophic events in which a heavy star collapses and then explodes when its fuels runs out and it can no longer produce enough energy to fight it's own gravity.

These are some of the most interesting events for astronomers to observe, and they can use them to glean information about the universe.

This comic shows a graph that displays how happy astronomers would be when they discover a new supernova based on how far away it is from Earth.

The further away they are the less details can be learned from them and thus this will not make the astronomers as happy as if they where closer by. Many astronomers began their career choice because the enjoyed watching the stars in the night sky. And the ultimate astronomical even to observe with the naked eye, would be a super nova explosion in our own galaxy the {{w|Milky Way}}, preferably clearly visible from Earth.

One such supernova candidate that has been mentioned a lot lately is {{w|Betelgeuse}}, a red giant that draws the top part of the left shoulder in the constellation of Orion, and the star is located about 430 light years from the Sun. It has been pulsating, dimming and brightening over short time scales, compared to the tens of millions of years such a big star is expected to burn. There could easily go several thousand years before it goes supernova, but it could also already have happened, and we are just waiting for the light to reach Earth. And it will go supernova! Betelguese should be far enough away from Earth that it would be safe enough for life on Earth (See for instance [https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/earth-danger-betelgeuse-supernova Is Earth in danger if Betelgeuse goes supernova?] where Astronomer Patrick Moore answers: No to the question).

When Betelgeuse goes supernova it will outshine all other stars in the night sky, maybe even be competing with the Moon, and thus it is not unlikely that it will be visible during day time. This would be a dream come through for many astronomers and any lay people just remotely interested in the night sky. In the first [[1644: Stargazing]] comic the wish that it would go supernova (in [[Randall|Randall's]] lifetime) is clearly expressed.

Since this should be safe for us, and since it would be a spectacle not seen for hundred of years here on Earth, this would make the astronomers very happy, not just from all they could learn, but also from just gazing at the sky with the new star!

But if a supernova gets closer than say 100 lightyears the supernovae might be too close, so its radiation could destroy life on earth, or at least affect it very much. So obviously astronomers and everyone else would be really unhappy if that happened, as indicated by the sudden drop far below the X axis on the graph, when the supernova gets too close.

There is thus a spot where the astronomers would be the most happy, exactly there where the supernova is as close as it could be without any seriously negative effects on Earths atmosphere and the life living under it. But anything nearer than that is very bad. And only if the supernova is quite close (compared to cosmic distances) will it be visible to the naked eye, thus most of the graph shows an asymptotic approach to less and less positive influence on the mood of the astronomers.

The title text expands upon the latter point of nearness, in that the astronomers them selves, are not quite clear about how close they would like the supernova to be. Of course if it is close enough to destroy Earth or instantly kill of all life on Earth, they would not be happy. But they might actually be willing to accept some trouble for Earth life, if they get to see a supernova really close by. (If they die too soon after the radiation arrives they cannot get time to observe it, and would thus not be happy about it. Also remember they do not know about the supernova before the radiation arrives, and can not plan to look in time if death comes swift from it!) But the chance to witness even a {{what if|73|lethally-close}} supernova might still be an attractive proposition for some inquisitive minds. But at least they should have time to realize they are seeing a supernova before it kills them, to become happy about it!

This is the second comic in a row that mentions exploding stars after [[2877: Fever]], which like this comic is also a [[:Category:Charts|Charts comic]].

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown where the axis are labeled and arrow are pointing up above the Y axis label and to the right above the X axis label. There is a single line on the graph which peaks close to the Y axis, where it reaches close to the top of the drawn part of the Y axis. Then the lines approaches the X axis asymptotically towards the far right. But closer to the Y axis than the peak line goes almost vertically down, and continues far below the "bottom of the chart", that was only supposed to be above the X axis.]
:Y axis: How happy astronomers are
:X axis: How far away the new supernova is

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]