explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2292: Thermometer

2020-04-11T18:23:15Z

173.245.52.85: Wordsmithing

{{comic
| number = 2292
| date = April 10, 2020
| title = Thermometer
| image = thermometer.png
| titletext = I hate how many times you have to press it to get to the system normal people use, degrees Rømer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROGUE RADIAN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic expresses comedic undiscussed frustration at the difference between expected units of {{w|temperature}} in different contexts. [[Randall]], as an engineer, would likely have strong opinions with units, as unit conversion is often a gripe for many engineers. As elevated body temperature is a symptom of {{w|COVID-19}}, the comic is additionally the 17th in a row concerning the virus.

[[Cueball]] may be sick or ill, and is trying to check his {{w|Human body temperature|body temperature}}, but he is unclear what the results mean. Cueball's {{w|thermometer}} has several units, of which the four shown grow progressively and humorously less useful:

*{{w|Celsius}} units are used in most of the world. They set 0 degrees to water's freezing point and 100 degrees to water's boiling point. Randall lives in Boston, USA, one of the only countries where Celsius is not used for health measurements. The health relevant temperatures are discussed only in Fahrenheit in the USA.
*{{w|Kelvin}} is a unit often used in scientific fields. It is based on Celsius, with 1 Celsius degree equivalent to 1 Kelvin unit, where 0 K is {{w|absolute zero}} or -273.15 °C.
*Degrees {{w|Rankine scale|Rankine}} are similar to Kelvin, but far less well known. It is the Fahrenheit equivalent to Kelvin, starting at absolute zero with 0°R equal to -459.67 °F, and a change of 1 degree Rankine being equal to a change of 1 degree Fahrenheit.
*In a scientific sense, temperature is the average {{w|kinetic energy}} of a group of particles. Using {{w|Boltzmann's Constant}}, one can convert between the kinetic energy and temperature.
The use of these last three units for home temperature gauging is ridiculous, as Kelvin and Rankine are far too large and uncommon to be practical for the average user, while kinetic energy is scaled so wildly that no user would likely know it; this is why Boltzmann's Constant is printed on the thermometer.

In the last frame Cueball calls the thermometer the worst. From a nerd's perspective this would be an extraordinary device, offering even exotic temperature scales. However, a "normal person" would find this thermometer terribly difficult to use for everyday purposes when set on any of the non-Celsius scales, like checking their body temperature or the temperature of food.

{{w|Fahrenheit}} is not shown, though Cueball presumably (until seeing the title text) wants to use it. It is primarily used in the United States. Some claim that it means 0 degrees being "really cold" and 100 degrees being "really hot", although these extremes are rarely useful in daily life. It defines 32°F for the freezing point of water and 212°F as the boiling point of water (earlier definitions used a rescaled Rømer scale, the temperature of brine, or the body temperature of a healthy human).

The title text references an archaic temperature unit, {{w|Rømer scale|Rømer}}, which is a scale whose fixed points are 7.5 as water's freezing point and 60 as water's boiling point. A unit on the Rømer scale is about 40/21 of a unit on the Celsius scale.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands in the center of the panel holding a thermometer.]
:Cueball: This thermometer is in Celsius. How do you change it?
:Off-panel voice: Long press the button.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Kelvin
:Cueball: No...

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Degrees Rankine
:Cueball: What.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Average Translational Kinetic Energy
:Cueball: This is the worst thermometer.
:Off-panel voice: Boltzmann's constant is on the side if you need it.

==Trivia==

In [[1643: Degrees]], Cueball struggles with which temperature unit to use, and ultimately tells his friend the temperature in {{w|radian}}s, which is not a valid temperature scale.

In [[1923: Felsius]], Randall proposes a combined Fahrenheit/Celsius temperature scale called Felsius.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2292: Thermometer

2020-04-11T18:22:33Z

173.245.52.85: Wordsmithing

{{comic
| number = 2292
| date = April 10, 2020
| title = Thermometer
| image = thermometer.png
| titletext = I hate how many times you have to press it to get to the system normal people use, degrees Rømer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROGUE RADIAN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic expresses comedic undiscussed frustration at the difference between expected units of {{w|temperature}} in different contexts. [[Randall]], as an engineer, would likely have strong opinions with units, as unit conversion is often a gripe for many engineers. As elevated body temperature is a symptom of {{w|COVID-19}}, the comic is additionally the 17th in a row concerning the virus.

[[Cueball]] may be sick or ill, and is trying to check his {{w|Human body temperature|body temperature}}, but he is unclear what the results mean. Cueball's {{w|thermometer}} has several units, of which the four shown grow progressively and humorously less useful:

*{{w|Celsius}} units are used in most of the world. They set 0 degrees to water's freezing point and 100 degrees to water's boiling point. Randall lives in Boston, USA, one of the only countries where Celsius is not used for health measurements. The health relevant temperatures are discussed only in Fahrenheit in the USA.
*{{w|Kelvin}} is a unit often used in scientific fields. It is based on Celsius, with 1 Celsius degree equivalent to 1 Kelvin unit, where 0 K is {{w|absolute zero}} or -273.15 °C.
*Degrees {{w|Rankine scale|Rankine}} are similar to Kelvin, but far less well known. It is the Fahrenheit equivalent to Kelvin, starting at absolute zero with 0°R equal to -459.67 °F, and a change of 1 Rankine degree being equal to a change of 1 Fahrenheit degree.
*In a scientific sense, temperature is the average {{w|kinetic energy}} of a group of particles. Using {{w|Boltzmann's Constant}}, one can convert between the kinetic energy and temperature.
The use of these last three units for home temperature gauging is ridiculous, as Kelvin and Rankine are far too large and uncommon to be practical for the average user, while kinetic energy is scaled so wildly that no user would likely know it; this is why Boltzmann's Constant is printed on the thermometer.

In the last frame Cueball calls the thermometer the worst. From a nerd's perspective this would be an extraordinary device, offering even exotic temperature scales. However, a "normal person" would find this thermometer terribly difficult to use for everyday purposes when set on any of the non-Celsius scales, like checking their body temperature or the temperature of food.

{{w|Fahrenheit}} is not shown, though Cueball presumably (until seeing the title text) wants to use it. It is primarily used in the United States. Some claim that it means 0 degrees being "really cold" and 100 degrees being "really hot", although these extremes are rarely useful in daily life. It defines 32°F for the freezing point of water and 212°F as the boiling point of water (earlier definitions used a rescaled Rømer scale, the temperature of brine, or the body temperature of a healthy human).

The title text references an archaic temperature unit, {{w|Rømer scale|Rømer}}, which is a scale whose fixed points are 7.5 as water's freezing point and 60 as water's boiling point. A unit on the Rømer scale is about 40/21 of a unit on the Celsius scale.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands in the center of the panel holding a thermometer.]
:Cueball: This thermometer is in Celsius. How do you change it?
:Off-panel voice: Long press the button.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Kelvin
:Cueball: No...

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Degrees Rankine
:Cueball: What.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Average Translational Kinetic Energy
:Cueball: This is the worst thermometer.
:Off-panel voice: Boltzmann's constant is on the side if you need it.

==Trivia==

In [[1643: Degrees]], Cueball struggles with which temperature unit to use, and ultimately tells his friend the temperature in {{w|radian}}s, which is not a valid temperature scale.

In [[1923: Felsius]], Randall proposes a combined Fahrenheit/Celsius temperature scale called Felsius.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T16:27:01Z

173.245.52.85: Added unlocked item description for "Community contribution" hint

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collectors Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. The space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. Items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom urls, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||[[1529: Bracket]] ||Cory Doctorow || ||
|-
|Get out the (US) vote|| [[2224: Software Updates]] || Statue of liberty || loot_246.png ||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| [[1133: Up Goer Five]] || Signpost || loot_126.png ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]] || || loot_228.png ||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] || Cat licking laser point || ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] || || ||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]] ||Exploding rock || ||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] ||Women Science Fiction Authors || loot_175.png || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]] ||Ufo || ||
|-
|Bleeped|| || || ||
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick||[[1022: So It Has Come To This]] || First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart || ||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]]||An electric scooter|| ||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] ||I am a turtle || loot_095.png ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] ||Man carrying parentheses from [[297: Lisp Cycles]] || loot_31.png ||
|-
|Catch up on the news|| [[1699: Local News]] || || ||
|-
|Participation trophy|| [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Server rack || ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[1504: Opportunity]] ||Opportunity Mars rover || ||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] ||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || ||
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] ||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]] ||White dove || ||
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020|| || || ||
|-
|asableiK|| [[645: RPS]] || A reverse Polish hotdog || || "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements|| [[235: Kite]] || || loot_203.png ||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others|| [[390: Nightmares]]? || Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist || ||
|-
|Call the plumber|| [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]] || || loot_058.png ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?|| [[1632: Palindrome]] || Cueball with a large sack, pulling a wagon || || or [[1503: Squirrel Plan]] for cueball holding a balloon caught in a ceiling fan.
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda || ||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year|| || || ||
|-
|Tea Time||[[581: The Race: Part 5]] ||Floor tea ||loot_232.png|| Also [[479: Tones]] ? Also [[578: The Race: Part 2]] ?
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]] || || ||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] ||maze || ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish|| || || ||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]]||Falling feather || ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!|| || || ||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though||[[2233: Aurora Meaning]] || || ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid|| [[1530: Keyboard Mash]] || Cobwebbed frame || ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] ||Rice bowl || ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351: Trolling]] || || ||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]]|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1533: Antique Factory]] or [[1021: Business Plan]]|| Beret guy with a goat on leash || ||
|-
|Read the fine manual|| [[1343: Manuals]] or [[293: RTFM]] || "Configure the network" window with a prompt for hostname || ||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] || Floating tentacled alien || ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]]||Expensive bottle || ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99|| [[121: Balloon]] ||Balloon copter || loot_002.png || Or [[51: Malaria]] ?
|-
|Going in circles|| || || ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[2123: Meta Collecting]]||Phishing License sign|| ||
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] ||DUCKLOOP'D? || ||
|-
|Fool me twice|| [[880: Headache]] || Raptor Attack || ||The second April fools' comic
|-
|oOOOoooo|| || || || https://xkcd.com/316/ ? definitely not https://xkcd.com/1393/- I got that hint while On that page. ?
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]] ||Genie and his bottle ||loot_004.png ||
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] || || ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur||[[20: Ferret]]||Two bags of money ||loot_162.png||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| [[1365: Inflation]] || || loot_245.png ||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[850: World According to Americans]] or [[977: Map Projections]]||Squirrel on a gun||loot_237.png||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8: Red spiders]] || || ||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]] ||Cephalopod || ||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]||Wizard in a chair || ||
|-
|Moooooon|| [[1300: Galilean Moons]] || MOOOOOON || ||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS|| [[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]] || || ||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chnace|| || || ||
|-
|Community contribution|| [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] || [Citation Needed] protester || ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe|| [[969: Delta-P]] ||Authentic Reindeer pulling sled || ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day|| [[1053: Ten Thousand]] || Ms. Frizzle || loot_105.png ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]|| [[1005: SOPA]] || || ||
|-
|Try a different approach|| [[55: Useless]] || || loot_times.png ||
|-
|The cake is a lie!|| [[606: Cutting Edge]] || Cake || ||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]] || Joanna with EMP cannon || loot_026.png ||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks|| [[965: Elements]] || Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M|| [[382: Trebuchet]] || Trebuchet || ||
|-
|Copyright Enforcement Brigade|| [[344: 1337: Part 4]] || || loot_046.png ||
|-
|Where Cape Town meets Chukotka||[[1500: Upside-Down Map]] || || ||
|-
|Take a ride in a barrel|| || || || ('''not''' any of the comics in the barrel series)
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic, and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. It remains to be seen if Friday's intended comic will be published later.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>
* Placement is limited to 10,000 units from origin. Users will receive no messages if they try placing something outside the boundary.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T16:05:37Z

173.245.52.85: Update reference for "Community contribution" hint

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collectors Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. The space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. Items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom urls, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||[[1529: Bracket]] ||Cory Doctorow || ||
|-
|Get out the (US) vote|| [[2224: Software Updates]] || Statue of liberty || loot_246.png ||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| [[1133: Up Goer Five]] || Signpost || loot_126.png ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]] || || loot_228.png ||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] || Cat licking laser point || ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] || || ||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]] ||Exploding rock || ||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] ||Women Science Fiction Authors || loot_175.png || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]] ||Ufo || ||
|-
|Bleeped|| || || ||
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick||[[1022: So It Has Come To This]] || First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart || ||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]]||An electric scooter|| ||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] ||I am a turtle || loot_095.png ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] ||Scientist carrying Cs || ||
|-
|Catch up on the news|| [[1699: Local News]] || || ||
|-
|Participation trophy|| [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Server rack || ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[1504: Opportunity]] ||Opportunity Mars rover || ||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] ||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || ||
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] ||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]] ||White dove || ||
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020|| || || ||
|-
|asableiK|| [[645: RPS]] || A reverse Polish hotdog || || "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements|| [[235: Kite]] || || loot_203.png ||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others|| [[390: Nightmares]]? || Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist || ||
|-
|Call the plumber|| [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]] || || loot_058.png ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?|| [[1632: Palindrome]] || Cueball with a large sack, pulling a wagon || || or [[1503: Squirrel Plan]] for cueball holding a balloon caught in a ceiling fan.
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda || ||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year|| || || ||
|-
|Tea Time||[[581: The Race: Part 5]] ||Floor tea ||loot_232.png|| Also [[479: Tones]] ? Also [[578: The Race: Part 2]] ?
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]] || || ||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] ||maze || ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish|| || || ||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]]||Falling feather || ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!|| || || ||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though||[[2233: Aurora Meaning]] || || ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid|| [[1530: Keyboard Mash]] || Cobwebbed frame || ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] ||Rice bowl || ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351: Trolling]] || || ||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]]|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1533: Antique Factory]] or [[1021: Business Plan]]|| Beret guy with a goat on leash || ||
|-
|Read the fine manual|| [[1343: Manuals]] or [[293: RTFM]] || "Configure the network" window with a prompt for hostname || ||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] || Floating tentacled alien || ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]]||Expensive bottle || ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99|| [[121: Balloon]] ||Balloon copter || loot_002.png || Or [[51: Malaria]] ?
|-
|Going in circles|| || || ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[2123: Meta Collecting]]||Phishing License sign|| ||
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] ||DUCKLOOP'D? || ||
|-
|Fool me twice||[[880: Headache]] ||Raptor Attack || ||
|-
|oOOOoooo|| || || || https://xkcd.com/316/ ?
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]] ||Genie and his bottle ||loot_004.png ||
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] || || ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur||[[20: Ferret]]|| ||loot_162.png||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| [[1365: Inflation]] || || loot_245.png ||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[850: World According to Americans]] or [[977: Map Projections]]||Squirrel on a gun||loot_237.png||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8: Red spiders]] || || ||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]] ||Cephalopod || ||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]||Wizard in a chair || ||
|-
|Moooooon|| [[1300: Galilean Moons]] || MOOOOOON || ||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS|| [[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]] || || ||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chnace|| || || ||
|-
|Community contribution|| [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] || || ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe|| [[969: Delta-P]] ||Authentic Reindeer pulling sled || ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day|| [[1053: Ten Thousand]] || Ms. Frizzle || loot_105.png ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]|| [[1005: SOPA]] || || ||
|-
|Try a different approach|| [[55: Useless]] || || loot_times.png ||
|-
|The cake is a lie!|| [[606: Cutting Edge]] || Cake || ||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]] || Joanna with EMP cannon || loot_026.png ||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks|| [[965: Elements]] || Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M|| [[382: Trebuchet]] || Trebuchet || ||
|-
|Copyright Enforcement Brigade|| [[344: 1337: Part 4]] || || loot_046.png ||
|-
|Where Cape Town meets Chukotka||[[1500: Upside-Down Map]] || || ||
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic, and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. It remains to be seen if Friday's intended comic will be published later.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>
* Placement is limited to 10,000 units from origin. Users will receive no messages if they try placing something outside the boundary.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T16:03:32Z

173.245.52.85: Add comic for "Community contribution" hint

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collectors Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. The space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. Items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom urls, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||[[1529: Bracket]] ||Cory Doctorow || ||
|-
|Get out the (US) vote|| [[2224: Software Updates]] || Statue of liberty || loot_246.png ||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| [[1133: Up Goer Five]] || Signpost || loot_126.png ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]] || || loot_228.png ||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] || Cat licking laser point || ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] || || ||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]] ||Exploding rock || ||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] ||Women Science Fiction Authors || loot_175.png || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]] ||Ufo || ||
|-
|Bleeped|| || || ||
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick||[[1022: So It Has Come To This]] || First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart || ||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]]||An electric scooter|| ||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] ||I am a turtle || loot_095.png ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] ||Scientist carrying Cs || ||
|-
|Catch up on the news|| [[1699: Local News]] || || ||
|-
|Participation trophy|| [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Server rack || ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[1504: Opportunity]] ||Opportunity Mars rover || ||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] ||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || ||
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] ||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]] ||White dove || ||
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020|| || || ||
|-
|asableiK|| [[645: RPS]] || A reverse Polish hotdog || || "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements|| [[235: Kite]] || || loot_203.png ||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others|| [[390: Nightmares]]? || Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist || ||
|-
|Call the plumber|| [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]] || || loot_058.png ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?|| [[1632: Palindrome]] || Cueball with a large sack, pulling a wagon || || or [[1503: Squirrel Plan]] for cueball holding a balloon caught in a ceiling fan.
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda || ||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year|| || || ||
|-
|Tea Time||[[581: The Race: Part 5]] ||Floor tea ||loot_232.png|| Also [[479: Tones]] ? Also [[578: The Race: Part 2]] ?
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]] || || ||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] ||maze || ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish|| || || ||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]]||Falling feather || ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!|| || || ||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though||[[2233: Aurora Meaning]] || || ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid|| [[1530: Keyboard Mash]] || Cobwebbed frame || ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] ||Rice bowl || ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351: Trolling]] || || ||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]]|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1533: Antique Factory]] or [[1021: Business Plan]]|| Beret guy with a goat on leash || ||
|-
|Read the fine manual|| [[1343: Manuals]] or [[293: RTFM]] || "Configure the network" window with a prompt for hostname || ||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] || Floating tentacled alien || ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]]||Expensive bottle || ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99|| [[121: Balloon]] ||Balloon copter || loot_002.png || Or [[51: Malaria]] ?
|-
|Going in circles|| || || ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[2123: Meta Collecting]]||Phishing License sign|| ||
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] ||DUCKLOOP'D? || ||
|-
|Fool me twice||[[880: Headache]] ||Raptor Attack || ||
|-
|oOOOoooo|| || || || https://xkcd.com/316/ ?
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]] ||Genie and his bottle ||loot_004.png ||
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] || || ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur||[[20: Ferret]]|| ||loot_162.png||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| [[1365: Inflation]] || || loot_245.png ||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[850: World According to Americans]] or [[977: Map Projections]]||Squirrel on a gun||loot_237.png||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8: Red spiders]] || || ||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]] ||Cephalopod || ||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]||Wizard in a chair || ||
|-
|Moooooon|| [[1300: Galilean Moons]] || MOOOOOON || ||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS|| [[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]] || || ||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chnace|| || || ||
|-
|Community contribution|| [[826: xkcd: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] || || ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe|| [[969: Delta-P]] ||Authentic Reindeer pulling sled || ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day|| [[1053: Ten Thousand]] || Ms. Frizzle || loot_105.png ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]|| [[1005: SOPA]] || || ||
|-
|Try a different approach|| [[55: Useless]] || || loot_times.png ||
|-
|The cake is a lie!|| [[606: Cutting Edge]] || Cake || ||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]] || Joanna with EMP cannon || loot_026.png ||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks|| [[965: Elements]] || Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M|| [[382: Trebuchet]] || Trebuchet || ||
|-
|Copyright Enforcement Brigade|| [[344: 1337: Part 4]] || || loot_046.png ||
|-
|Where Cape Town meets Chukotka||[[1500: Upside-Down Map]] || || ||
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic, and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. It remains to be seen if Friday's intended comic will be published later.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>
* Placement is limited to 10,000 units from origin. Users will receive no messages if they try placing something outside the boundary.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T04:24:51Z

173.245.52.85: /* Explanation */

Talk:2269: Phylogenetic Tree

2020-02-17T12:52:25Z

173.245.52.85: fix layout

Because of timezones this comic was released on Sunday in some areas [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.228|172.69.34.228]] 07:21, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
:Well, it's always either that or Tuesday in some areas, right? However, yes, this again was up quite early. But the exact upload times seem to fluctuate heavily all the time. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:40, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't know much about basketball (only heard about march Madness here/xkcd and on HIMYM before), but where is Gonzaga coming from? shouldn't it be either UVA, Kansas or FSU? or is it a different name for one of those 3 teams? Also: Do we need a march madness category? maybe as a subcategory of bracket tournaments? It seems to be quite reocurring. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Could someone explain what a "March Madness Bracket" is? It appears to be something to do with American college basketball, but why does it have the same structure as a phylogenetic tree? What does the word 'Bracket' mean here? {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.148|07:48, 17 February 2020}}
:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_(tournament) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 07:51, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
:Seconded. The explanation as it stands assumes that the reader is from the USA and understands American sports. Neither of these is true for me. Can we please have concise one-line explanations of:
* what sport?
* what teams?
* what a bracket is?
* what tournament this refers to?
I was a biologist; the science part is clear to me. It needs an explanation akin to that about phylogeny, for non-sports-followers and non-US-sports followers. [[User:Lproven|Lproven]] ([[User talk:Lproven|talk]]) 09:02, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
:: Getting better! Terms now undefined: "NCAA", "ABA", "NBA", "Division 1", "single elimination", "bracket pool", "college basketball". [[User:Lproven|Lproven]] ([[User talk:Lproven|talk]]) 11:05, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
::: NCAA = National Collegiate Athletic Association, but it doesn't cover all colleges -- just the bigger ones. NBA national Basketball Association, the (main?) pro basketball grouping of mens' teams (as opposed to the WNBA). ABA is _probably_ the American Basketball Association, of which I know nothing (but guessing by analogy with NBC/ABC television networks; National/American Broadcasting Company. And college basketball is, well, basketball played by college teams. For the rest of it, I'm out of my league.

The three prominent "Duke"s in the center of the chart, made me look for the logical continuation "of Earl." I didn't see it... :(

* Likewise. Also, duck fuke.

Talk:2269: Phylogenetic Tree

2020-02-17T12:52:07Z

173.245.52.85: earls.

Talk:Main Page

2019-12-25T16:37:12Z

173.245.52.85: /* "It's because you're dumb" */

{{notice|This page is for discussion of the [[Main Page]] itself. Other issues probably belong at the [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]].}}

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)

==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)

== 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 1156 ==

I don't have an account to edit the page directly, so here's an edit someone should make:
It looks like whoever wrote the existing page simply googled 'conditioning' and found the first link that came up.
Please modify the link to point to 'Classical conditioning', not 'Operant conditioning'.
Thanks. {{unsigned ip|124.191.56.91|05:26, 7 January 2013‎ (UTC)}}

:Hi. This is the talk page for the main page of the wiki. This page only has a "view" of the actual comic explanation. The actual explanation page is at [[1156: Conditioning]], and I assure you, edit permissions have not been restricted for that page. Someone has already changed the page to link to Classical conditioning, but the original editor came back stating that Operant was correct. If you would like to start a discussion about this [[Talk:1156: Conditioning|on the talk page for this explanation]] that would be much more conducive to getting this matter settled. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:52, 7 January 2013 (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)

==sidebar ads?==
''Moved to [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 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)

== Quit building? ==
''This post was moved to [[Talk:1214: Geoguessr]].''

:Hello, this is the talk page for the content of the front page of the wiki, not for discussion of the most recent comic, that happens [[Talk:1214: Geoguessr|here]]. I've moved your post over there for you. Cheers, and welcome to explain xkcd! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:09, 22 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)

== 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)

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)

== Adding an arcs list page ==

I think there should be a page listing all webcomics arcs so far (the red spiders, the race, etc.)[[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.134|188.114.102.134]] 12:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

:This already exists, see [[:Category:Comic series]]. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:39, 10 April 2015 (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)

== #1454 - bad description ==

"Curly-hair states longingly..." She comes across as disappointed (or even heartbroken), not "longing", which suggests sounding somewhat positive and energetic, rather than deflated. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.88|141.101.99.88]] 22:29, 2 December 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)

== Kerbal Space Program ==

I'm a schizophrenic who's been playing Kerbal Space Program for about five days with no sleep, and I'm pretty sure this is a reference to [https://www.google.com/search?q=xkcd+kerbal+space+program&oq=xkcd+kerbal+space+program&aqs=chrome..69i57.10851j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8 comic 1365] :D [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.185|173.245.56.185]] 05:39, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

== 1509 is missing ==

When will it be added? By bot, I presume.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 04:51, 8 April 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}}

== #1567 ==

I think the current explanation is missing the connection, and the parody of, many "As Seen On TV" commercials selling kitchen products. Many of these commercials show people trying to use common kitchen equipment (pots, pans, can openers, etc) in a way that no normally functioning human would do it (for example, one has a lady draining the liquid from a pot of food into a sink in an extremely awkward manner — one that no normal person who has ever seen a kitchen would do — but then the lid flies one way, food goes another, there's a huge mess, etc; another commercial has someone trying to open a can of food using a can opener '''backwards''', with the woman looking extremely confused looking on how the can opener is supposed to be used or attached to the can [if you told someone act like they are a clueless monkey trying to use a can opener for the first time, that's basically what the commercial had the woman doing — no joke]). These commercials often begin with phrases such as "If you are like me" or "If you are like most home makers" or some other closely related "If you are like..." phrase (thus this comic is directly tieing itself to these commercials using this catch phrase). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.220.11|108.162.220.11]] 07:50, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:: Other opening catch phrases for these commercials include the "Tired of [fill-in made-up frustration]" and the "Do you [fill-in made-up frustration]" kind. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.220.11|108.162.220.11]] 08:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

== "I used Google news BEFORE it was clickbait" ==

Go to a handful of older pages on this wiki, and it won't be long before you see this phrase in the comments - [[941: Depth Perception]], for instance has two of them. Does anyone know why this happens? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.116|108.162.221.116]] 10:59, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
:That's the signature of a person who used to post here. If you click through, it actually goes to a userpage. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

== 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)

== #1682: Not sure about the reference for Russian meaning for Bun ==
''Also interesting to note is that in several Slavic languages (including Russian, Czech and Polish), the word for Rabbit literally means Little King''

I'm a native Russian speaker, and i've never heard of Rabbit being used for ''Little King''...

* Rabbit: ''krolik'' (кролик)
* Little King: ''korolyok'' (королёк)

Not sure if this above statement is correct for Russian language. {{unsigned ip|162.158.255.28}}
:This is the main page. You probably want to put this in [[Talk:1682: Bun]]'''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:36, 20 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)

== XKCD Alignment Chart ==

A while back, I was searching for an XKCD alignment chart, with no success, so I made one. It is not perfect, so I'm wondering what other opinions on the alignment of the characters are.

Lawful Good- Beret

Neutral Good- Ponytail

Chaotic Good- Mrs. Roberts

Lawful Neutral-Cueball

Neutral Neutral- Megan

Chaotic Neutral- White hat

Lawful Evil- Hairy

Neutral Evil- Danish

Chaotic Evil- Black Hat

--[[User:Fallencrow305|Fallencrow305]] ([[User talk:Fallencrow305|talk]]) 22:10, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

:What about Help I'm trapped in a drivers license factory Elaine Roberts? --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 15:48, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
::Or Hairbun? Or Science Girl? Here are my predictions: Elaine - Chaotic Good, Hairbun - Lawful Good, Science Girl - Lawful Neutral --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 16:00, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

== 1713 cc also means carbon copy. So 50 carbon copies of either of those words could be called for. ==

1713 cc also means carbon copy. So 50 carbon copies of either of those words could be called for. {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.146}}
:Sorry, but [[User:108.162.215.146|108.162.215.146]], you need to remember to sign your work. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 11:50, 26 September 2016 (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 Couldflare...]) 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 because 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 because 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)

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)

== 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)

== 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)

2204: Ksp 2

2019-09-19T14:17:34Z

173.245.52.85:

{{comic
| number = 2204
| date = September 18, 2019
| title = Ksp 2
| image = ksp_2.png
| titletext = "The committee appreciates that your 2020 launch is on track, but the 'human capital/personnel retention' budget includes a lot more unmarked cash payments than usual. What are th--" "Public outreach."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a KERBAL. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Cueball]], a programmer, is sitting at his computer while four other persons from {{w|NASA}}, [[Hairy]], [[Ponytail]], [[Hairbun]] and another Cueball-like guy try to convince him to delay the release of Ksp2.

''{{w|Kerbal Space Program}}'' (KSP for short) is a space flight simulation video game with a realistic orbital physics engine, allowing for real-life orbital maneuvers. KSP is a [[:Category:Kerbal Space Program|recurring theme]] in xkcd. A sequel, abbreviated here as KSP 2, is planned to be released in 2020.

Also planned for 2020 is a [[:Category:Mars rovers|Mars rover]] mission, {{w|Mars 2020}}. The joke in the comic comes as engineers are likely to want to extensively play with KSP2 to the exclusion of other things, and NASA is worried about the Mars 2020 mission being delayed, or failing, because the engineers are too focused on playing KSP2, including taking extensive vacation and "sick" days off.

Cueball, sitting at a desk in front of a computer, is represented here as being in charge of KSP2, and the other characters standing around him are pleading with him to delay the release of KSP2 until the Mars rover program is complete, even being willing to "give [him] a moon".

Literally giving a moon to Cueball is impossible, but it is possible to {{w|Naming of moons|name a moon}} after Cueball, so that may be what is implied instead.

Perhaps this could also be a reference to KSP's mascots, the Kerbals, and their resemblance to the Minions from Despicable Me. The plot of the first film revolves around Gru and his Minions trying to literately steal the Moon.

The title text is a sentence said by someone from a committee in NASA that oversees the progress and budget of the Mars 2020 mission. They are satisfied that the launch in 2020 is still on track, but has a question regarding the 'human capital/personnel retention' budget, which has several unmarked cash payments, more than they would expect. As they begin to ask what they are, someone from the Mars 2020 project interrupts, having probably foreseen this question, stating that it is Public outreach...

Thus the title text seems to claim that NASA is paying KSP money to delay their release until after the Mars mission. NASA has dabbled in game physics engines for "public outreach," with the same mixed record of success as any promising R&D endeavor. Notable projects included a series of collaboration laboratories on various forms of social media including {{w|Second Life}} which hosted a "NASA CoLab" region active from 2007 to around 2013. While the unrealistic constraints imposed by real time physics engine simulation prevent much actual engineering, such shared 3D {{w|computer aided design}} (CAD) systems provided a measure of drafting training inside a play sandbox system outside of a formal work environment.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk in front of a computer. He is surrounded by four people, and is looking over his shoulder on the ones standing behind him, Hairy - holding his palms up - and Ponytail stretching her arms out towards him. On the other side of the desk is another Cueball-like guy holding his arms out palms up and Hairbun who stretches her arms out to the side.]
:Hairy: Please hold off until the end of summer. We can't afford the personnel hit right before the late July launch window.
:Ponytail: People have ''already'' started calling in sick!
:Hairbun: Do you want a moon? '''''We'll give you a moon!'''''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:NASA tries desperately to get the Kerbal Space Program team to delay '''''KSP 2''''' until after the '''''Mars 2020''''' mission launches.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Mars rovers]]
[[Category:Kerbal Space Program]]

2085: arXiv

2018-12-19T15:25:21Z

173.245.52.85: Updated definition of jinx to match usage

{{comic
| number = 2085
| date = December 14, 2018
| title = arXiv
| image = arxiv.png
| titletext = Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs an explanation of why journals actually allow this system to continue, and to answer whether paper preprints are different from the final paper.}}

{{w|ArXiv}} is a [https://arxiv.org free online repository of electronic preprints of scientific papers] in various fields, particularly in physics, math, and computer science. Scientists typically publish "preprint" versions of journal articles to arXiv, which are free to publish to and read. In this comic [[Megan]] remarks that academic journals must have a hard time getting by, since their primary revenue is from researchers who pay to publish articles and readers who pay for subscriptions. Her remark seems to assume that arXiv must be a recent development, perhaps similar to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub sci-hub project] which began in 2011. However, [[Ponytail]] informs her that the arXiv project has been around since the 1990s (1991 to be exact).

After a panel of [[Megan]] looking contemplative, she remarks that that does not make sense at all. After all, why would publishing companies be able to make money from something that is free online? [[Ponytail]] tries to stop her from freaking out, so that her outrage does not inform others about the current arrangement and thus ruin the system. She uses the term "''jinx''", which in common usage means to affect negatively by speaking about, to imply that this system is one that could break down if discussed.

[[Ponytail]] expressing confusion about the continued existence of scientific journals previously happened in [[2025: Peer Review]].

The title text refers to another project that is invaluable for internet research, the {{w|Internet Archive}} ([https://archive.org]). Internet Archive is a public archive of information, including public domain books and music. Internet Archive runs the {{w|Wayback Machine}}, an archive of backups of web pages all over the Web at various times that can be used to see past versions of a page, even if that site has since shut down. Internet Archive accepts submissions of any type of information, including new backups of web pages and newly-made public domain content. The title text argues that these two projects are so useful, yet make so little economic sense, that, if they did not exist, we would dismiss them as ideas that would never be viable. In addition, as "arXiv" is intended to be pronounced the same as "archive", both site have URLs with a common pronunciation.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Ponytail are standing together. Megan is talking to Ponytail.]
:Megan: Wait, all the papers in your field are posted as free PDFs on arXiv? That must be killing big science journals, since they charge such huge subscription/publication fees.

:[Ponytail responds with her arms wide, palms up.]
:Ponytail: Nah, we’ve been doing it since the 90s and nobody seems to care.

:[Megan contemplates, speechless.]

:[Megan slightly raises her arms and Ponytail puts up a hand to shush her.]
:Megan: That makes no sense at all!!
:Ponytail: ''Shhh, you’ll jinx it!''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Science]]

1975: Right Click

2018-04-04T06:15:37Z

173.245.52.85: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
'''NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.''' 
To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. Likely it is also a reference to the movie "Ready Player One", based on the book by Cline: in the movie, in fact, the purpose was to find an Easter Egg hidden in an Atari video game named "Adventure".

This is an interactive comic which manipulates the context menu of the browser. This menu is typically accessible by a right-click or a long press on mobile devices without a mouse.

It should be noted that if you DO manage to save the image somehow (Possibly by right-clicking before the javascript loads, or by pulling it from the source, or by right-click saving it normally from unixkcd), it just shows the initial image of the page with nothing changed. There is not additional joke by actually being able to save the image. Note that if you dig deep enough, there IS a way to save the image from the right click menu, and it DOES get you a different image. However, the other ways previously mentioned do not give you that image, even though you are saving the image.

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment. Browsers with JavaScript disabled, either totally or by using {{w|NoScript}}, won't access the functionality of the comic, but of course can easily save the image.

The manipulated context menu is described below:
;Main Context Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game or getting the Easter egg in Mornington Crescent.
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine.

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Likely a pun.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move.

D&D> A complex Dungeons and Dragons interface. Allows you to cast various spells from D&D 5e which link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all 285 links and 11 extra effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. 'ADVENT.EXE>Castle>Well>Wish for...' has links to comics [[572: Together]], [[1053: Ten Thousand]], [[152: Hamster Ball]], [[1196: Subways]], [[231: Cat Proximity]] and to what-if articles {{what if|111|All the Money}} and {{what if|9|Soul Mates}}. The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it. At one point in the maze, the options to travel are N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

;Filesystems Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to [//uni.xkcd.com]. There are several extra commands you can input, such as "hi", "date", "man", "who", "sleep" and "cheat". Using the command "logout" ends the session.

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory].
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]
|}

In an additional fool it introduces the [https://uni.xkcd.com/ Unix XKCD] as a reference to the {{W|Telenet}}. (More on UniXKCD commands can be found [[721:_Flatland#UniXKCD|here]].)

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball slightly right of centre.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

:[Alt text:]
:Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

1975: Right Click

2018-04-04T06:04:58Z

173.245.52.85: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
'''NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.''' 
To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. Likely it is also a reference to the movie "Ready Player One", based on the book by Cline: in the movie, in fact, the purpose was to find an Easter Egg hidden in an Atari video game named "Adventure".

This is an interactive comic which manipulates the context menu of the browser. This menu is typically accessible by a right-click or a long press on mobile devices without a mouse.

It should be noted that if you DO manage to save the image somehow (Possibly by right-clicking before the javascript loads, or by pulling it from the source, or by right-click saving it normally from unixkcd), it just shows the initial image of the page with nothing changed. There is not additional joke by actually being able to save the image. Note that if you dig deep enough, there IS a way to save the image from the right click menu, and it DOES get you a different image. However, the other ways previously mentioned do not give you that image, even though you are saving the image.

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment. Browsers with JavaScript disabled, either totally or by using {{w|NoScript}}, won't access the functionality of the comic, but of course can easily save the image.

The manipulated context menu is described below:
;Main Context Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game or getting the Easter egg in Mornington Crescent.
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine.

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Likely a pun.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move.

D&D> A complex Dungeons and Dragons interface. Allows you to cast various spells from D&D 5e which link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all 285 links and 11 extra effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. 'ADVENT.EXE>Castle>Well>Wish for...' has links to comics [[572: Together]], [[1053: Ten Thousand]], [[152: Hamster Ball]], [[1196: Subways]], [[231: Cat Proximity]] and to what-if articles {{what if|111|All the Money}} and {{what if|9|Soul Mates}}. The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it. At one point in the maze, the options to travel are N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

;Filesystems Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to [//uni.xkcd.com]. There are several extra commands you can input, such as "Hi", "Date", "Man", "Who" and "Cheat".

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory].
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]
|}

In an additional fool it introduces the [https://uni.xkcd.com/ Unix XKCD] as a reference to the {{W|Telenet}}. (More on UniXKCD commands can be found [[721:_Flatland#UniXKCD|here]].)

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball slightly right of centre.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

:[Alt text:]
:Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

1975: Right Click

2018-04-04T06:03:36Z

173.245.52.85: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
'''NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.''' 
To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. Likely it is also a reference to the movie "Ready Player One", based on the book by Cline: in the movie, in fact, the purpose was to find an Easter Egg hidden in an Atari video game named "Adventure".

This is an interactive comic which manipulates the context menu of the browser. This menu is typically accessible by a right-click or a long press on mobile devices without a mouse.

It should be noted that if you DO manage to save the image somehow (Possibly by right-clicking before the javascript loads, or by pulling it from the source, or by right-click saving it normally from unixkcd), it just shows the initial image of the page with nothing changed. There is not additional joke by actually being able to save the image. Note that if you dig deep enough, there IS a way to save the image from the right click menu, and it DOES get you a different image. However, the other ways previously mentioned do not give you that image, even though you are saving the image.

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment. Browsers with JavaScript disabled, either totally or by using {{w|NoScript}}, won't access the functionality of the comic, but of course can easily save the image.

The manipulated context menu is described below:
;Main Context Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game or getting the Easter egg in Mornington Crescent.
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine.

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Likely a pun.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move.

D&D> A complex Dungeons and Dragons interface. Allows you to cast various spells from D&D 5e which link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all 285 links and 11 extra effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. 'ADVENT.EXE>Castle>Well>Wish for...' has links to comics [[572: Together]], [[1053: Ten Thousand]], [[152: Hamster Ball]], [[1196: Subways]], [[231: Cat Proximity]] and to what-if articles {{what if|111|All the Money}} and {{what if|9|Soul Mates}}. The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it. At one point in the maze, the options to travel are N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

;Filesystems Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to [//uni.xkcd.com]. There are several extra commands you can input, such as "Hi", "Date", "Man" and "Cheat".

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory].
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]
|}

In an additional fool it introduces the [https://uni.xkcd.com/ Unix XKCD] as a reference to the {{W|Telenet}}. (More on UniXKCD commands can be found [[721:_Flatland#UniXKCD|here]].)

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball slightly right of centre.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

:[Alt text:]
:Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

1975: Right Click

2018-04-04T02:13:44Z

173.245.52.85: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
'''NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.''' 
To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. Likely it is also a reference to the movie "Ready Player One", based on the book by Cline: in the movie, in fact, the purpose was to find an Easter Egg hidden in an Atari video game named "Adventure".

This is an interactive comic which manipulates the context menu of the browser. This menu is typically accessible by a right-click or a long press on mobile devices without a mouse.

It should be noted that if you DO manage to save the image somehow (Possibly by right-clicking before the javascript loads, or by pulling it from the source, or by right-click saving it normally from unixkcd), it just shows the initial image of the page with nothing changed. There is not additional joke by actually being able to save the image. Note that if you dig deep enough, there IS a way to save the image from the right click menu, and it DOES get you a different image. However, the other ways previously mentioned do not give you that image, even though you are saving the image.

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment.

The manipulated context menu is described below:
;Main Context Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game or getting the Easter egg in Mornington Crescent.
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine.

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Likely a pun.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move.

D&D> A complex Dungeons and Dragons interface. Allows you to cast various spells from D&D 5e which link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all 285 links and 11 extra effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. 'ADVENT.EXE>Castle>Well>Wish for...' has links to comics [[572: Together]], [[1053: Ten Thousand]], [[152: Hamster Ball]], [[1196: Subways]], [[231: Cat Proximity]] and to what-if articles {{what if|111|All the Money}} and {{what if|9|Soul Mates}}. The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it. At one point in the maze, the options to travel are N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

;Filesystems Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to [//uni.xkcd.com]. There are several commands you can input, such as "Hi", "Date", and "Cheat".

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory].
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]
|}

In an additional fool it introduces the [https://uni.xkcd.com/ Unix XKCD] as a reference to the {{W|Telenet}}. (More on UniXKCD commands can be found [[721:_Flatland#UniXKCD|here]].)

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball slightly right of centre.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

:[Alt text:]
:Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

1975: Right Click

2018-04-04T02:11:10Z

173.245.52.85: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
'''NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.''' 
To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. Likely it is also a reference to the movie "Ready Player One", based on the book by Cline: in the movie, in fact, the purpose was to find an Easter Egg hidden in an Atari video game named "Adventure".

This is an interactive comic which manipulates the context menu of the browser. This menu is typically accessible by a right-click or a long press on mobile devices without a mouse.

It should be noted that if you DO manage to save the image somehow (Possibly by right-clicking before the javascript loads, or by pulling it from the source, or by right-click saving it normally from unixkcd), it just shows the initial image of the page with nothing changed. There is not additional joke by actually being able to save the image. Note that if you dig deep enough, there IS a way to save the image from the right click menu, and it DOES get you a different image. However, the other ways previously mentioned do not give you that image, even though you are saving the image.

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment.

The manipulated context menu is described below:
;Main Context Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game or getting the Easter egg in Mornington Crescent.
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine.

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Likely a pun.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move.

D&D> A complex Dungeons and Dragons interface. Allows you to cast various spells from D&D 5e which link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all 285 links and 11 extra effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. 'ADVENT.EXE>Castle>Well>Wish for...' has links to comics [[572: Together]], [[1053: Ten Thousand]], [[152: Hamster Ball]], [[1196: Subways]], [[231: Cat Proximity]] and to what-if articles {{what if|111|All the Money}} and {{what if|9|Soul Mates}}. The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it. At one point in the maze, the options to travel are N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

;Filesystems Menu

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to [//uni.xkcd.com]. There are several commands you can input, such as "Hi", "Date", and "Cheat".

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory].
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]
|}

In an additional fool it introduces the [https://uni.xkcd.com/ Unix XKCD] as a reference to the {{W|Telenet}}. (More on UniXKCD commands can be found [[721:_Flatland#UniXKCD|here]].)

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball slightly right of centre.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

1406: Universal Converter Box

2018-02-21T22:26:22Z

173.245.52.85: /* Left side */

{{comic
| number = 1406
| date = August 11, 2014
| title = Universal Converter Box
| image = universal_converter_box.png
| titletext = Comes with a 50-lb sack of gender changers, and also an add-on device with a voltage selector and a zillion circular center pin DC adapter tips so you can power any of those devices from the 90s.
}}

==Explanation==
Converter boxes are used to connect two or more devices together which otherwise couldn't be, due to differently shaped plugs, different voltages, or different protocols of communication.

Converter boxes or converter cables are commonly found for several of the plugs at the top of the list - such as from USB to micro-USB. As this is supposed to be a Universal Converter Box, there are many connections.

The humour from this comic comes from the sheer number of [[927: Standards|different standards]] that all claim to be the universal way to connect two devices, in their target market, as well as the progressively ridiculous conversions that this box is capable of doing, for example, converting audio from a 1/8 inch / 3.5 mm headphone jack, into a variety of fuel suitable for running your car.

A connector is capable of making a connection to another connector only if the connectors are of the same style and the opposite gender ("male" connector is plug, "female" connector is socket), except for rare "genderless" connectors, such as the token ring mentioned above. Gender changers are devices with two connectors of the same gender. The "circular center pin DC adapter tips" in the title text are barrel jack power plugs. There are a large number of these style connectors, and many of these devices look the same, leading to frustration.

===Different connectors===
The plugs are numbered from top to bottom and incremented for every wire that comes directly out of the converter box.

====Left side====
#{{w|VGA connector|VGA}} (Video Graphics Array): This a video connector (standard is blue) that connects computers and monitors or projectors. It has fifteen pins in a D-shell. It's still one of the common type of video connectors.
#{{w|Digital Visual Interface|DVI}} (Digital Visual Interface): This a video connector (standard is white) that uses a D-shell with flat pins. DVI is not compatible with VGA ports,
#{{w|HDMI}} (High Definition Multimedia Interface): This is an audio video connector that supports high definition video and audio.
#{{w|Thunderbolt (interface)|Thunderbolt}}: Thunderbolt can transfer both video signals to a monitor, audio signals to speakers, and send and receive data at the same time, over the same port.
#{{w|IEEE 1394|Firewire}} (IEEE 1394): A bidirectional data transfer connector, similar to USB, Firewire is used for networking computers, and connecting audio/video equipment to computers.
#{{w|Component video|Component}} and {{w|RCA connector|RCA}}: Both component video and RCA are ways of transmitting video and audio signals. RCA is the name of the connector type. RCA uses one plugs per audio channel (e.g. left and right channels). RCA (composite) uses one plug for video where component uses three: Y (luma), Pb (Blue - Y), Pr (Red - Y).
#{{w|Phone connector (audio)|1/8" audio/video}} (3.5 mm phone connector): Best known as a headphone plug, but also used for other audio equipment and for some video equipment.
#{{w|Parallel port}}: A port that used to be used to connect printers to PCs.
#{{w|S-Video (analog video standard)|S-video}}: A video with the video signal split in Y (luma) and C (chroma).
#{{w|In-flight entertainment#History|Airline pneumatic tube audio}}: The seat would contain the loudspeaker, and the headphone connected to this unit with a pneumatic tube to conduct the sound.
#{{w|PS/2 port|PS/2}}, PS/3 and PS/4: The PS/2 connector was used for mouse and keyboard connections in older computers; it has been superseded by USB. There are no PS/3 or PS/4 connectors. This is a play on the {{w|PlayStation}} line of video game consoles, which have recently seen their second, third, and fourth generations abbreviated to PS2, PS3, and PS4.
#{{w|NEMA connector|120V AC}}: This style of plug is used for domestic power outlets in the US, Canada, Mexico, and some other parts of the Americas. The pin marked "removable" is the ground pin. Not every device requires a ground pin, and some older power sockets do not have a hole for it.
#{{w|Floppy disk|Floppy}}, {{w|Parallel ATA|IDE}}, {{w|Hard disk drive|2.5"}}, {{w|SCSI connector|SCSI}}: These are {{w|Insulation-displacement connector|IDC connectors}} for connecting to media drives to processors using different numbers of pins, and hence different widths of {{w|Ribbon cable|cable}}. Despite this similarity, real plugs would not work with break-away parts as the pinout has no similarities and the connectors are keyed differently.

====Right side====
#{{w|USB#Connectors and plugs|USB}}: Also known as USB-A. USBs are used for connecting various devices to computers, each other, and to power supplies and chargers. The USB standard has multiple connectors. Some of the others are below.
#USB (weird other end): Also known as USB-B.
#mini-USB/micro USB: Alternate smaller connections for USB communication.
#macro USB: A joke about a larger version of USB.
#{{w|F connector}}: A type of coaxial plug used for various television signals and for cable modems.
#{{w|Optical fiber connector|Fiber}}: Optical fiber cables are used for various data transmission purposes and are often connected to devices with only a connector on the device, and none on the cable.
#{{w|Registered jack#RJ11, RJ14, RJ25 wiring|RJ11}}/{{w|Ethernet over twisted pair|Ethernet}}: Ethernet connections, which use a {{w|TIA/EIA-568|TIA/EIA-568 connector}} (often mistakenly called RJ45 because of its visual similarity), are the most common fixed wire connection for computer networking. The RJ11 connector is used for land-line telephones.
#{{w|Token ring}}: The token ring was a late-80s competitor to Ethernet for fixed-wire network connections. Its connectors were large and boxy, but were unique in that they were genderless.
#{{w|MagSafe}}: Magnetically-attached power connectors used on Apple devices. The original MagSafe (introduced in 2006) was later replaced by MagSafe 2 (introduced in 2012); both come in "L" and "T" shapes as shown here for MagSafe and MagSafe 2, respectively, but are incompatible. MagSafe 3 and 4 do not actually exist yet (and probably never will, now Apple is using {{w|USB-C}} to charge its laptops). The MagSafe 3 charger appears to resemble the Apple Watch charger, interestingly. Also, the MagSafe 4 "connector" appears to be broken this is a joke about the {{w|MagSafe#Defects|poor quality}} of the original MagSafe 1 cables.
#{{w|Bluetooth#Communication and connection|Bluetooth dongle}}: A USB device that allows the converter to connect via the {{w|Bluetooth}} wireless networking standard to accessories like phones and computers for audio, general purpose file transfer, mouse and keyboard interaction and a wide variety of other uses.
#{{w|SCART}}: An audio/video connector mostly used in Europe; it replaced other connectors like component video, but has itself been superseded by HDMI.
#{{w|Tin can telephone|String}}: For connecting to a "tin can telephone", an analogue device for transmitting sound through a physical connection rather than electronically or via radio waves. Probably also a reference to {{w|CAN bus}}.
#{{w|Fuel dispenser#Nozzles|Fuel nozzle}}, with a switch to choose between different {{w|octane rating}}s and {{w|diesel fuel}}: Dispensers for fossil fuels used to power internal combustion engines. Presumably, this would be the gasoline/petrol tip [see trivia].

===Trivia===
For some interfaces, such as USB, the female side is standard to the device while the male side is standard to the cable. For other interfaces, such as the RS-232 serial port, the conventions vary or there is no convention.

The "universal" connector here doesn't support the proper RS-232, with the closest surrogate available being RJ-11. The other nearest analog would be the parallel port, available in Centronix and D-25-pin connectors.

The SCSI connectors have been available as the "internal" connectors (see the "break-away" above) of 2 different widths, Centronix, 2 widths of the mini-D connectors with the easily bendable pins, 3 widths of the more reliable pin-less mini-connectors, and high-speed serial.

Not only is there gender and connector type, but there are also different standards on what data/power is connected on each pin of the connector. Building a working connection often involved getting 3 or 4 adapters connected in a sequence to produce the right connector, gender and pin-out.

Barrel jack power plugs were developed in the 1980s. The "barrel" has an inner diameter an outer diameter, and different style pins.

A D-shell is a trapezoidal metal skirt that protects the pins, prevents the connector from being plugged in the wrong way, and makes the physical connection more secure.

A VGA was developed in 1987, and with new versions being developed since then.

DVI can be configured to support multiple modes such as DVI-D (digital only), DVI-A (analog only), or DVI-I (digital and analog).

HDMI has slowly been replacing DVI and VGA ports on newer devices due to the simplicity and the smaller footprint and overall dimensions.

Thunderbolt is far faster than almost any connector on the market for transferring data. However, the limited adoption by manufacturers, the higher costs of the hardware, and the security concerns inherent to the interface have limited the adoption by consumers.

Because Firewire is designed to allow {{w|backplane}} access and {{w|direct memory access}} (DMA) to devices, there are additional conversion and security issues with it.

The phone connector diameter of 1/8" is only an approximation using {{w|Imperial units}}. The standard actually specifies a size in the {{w|Metric system}} of 3.5 mm. The video plug has 3 contacts (Tip, Ring and Sleeve) and the audio has 4 contacts (Tip, Ring, Ring and Sleeve).

While no longer common in homes or offices, parallel connections are still used in some {{w|embedded system}}s.

Airline pneumatic tube audio was used by in-flight entertainment systems manufactured from 1963 until 1979.

Note that while AC adapters are necessary—and widely available—to suit sockets in other countries, this "universal" converter does not feature any other AC power plugs, but this could be accommodated using adapters.

{{w|Cheater plug}}s exist to connect a NEMA grounding-type plug (three prongs) to a NEMA non-grounding receptacle (two slots), but the use of such an adapter can be hazardous if the grounding tab is not connected to electrical ground. A safer alternative is to replace the outlet with a {{w|Residual-current device|Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI)}} breaker outlet.

The computer media drive connectors are unlike the motherboard-powering connectors from the Power Supply Unit of a PC, which may involve multiple additional 4, 6 and 8-pin 'breakout' supply cables that have this feature and specially 'keyed' pin-sheaths as well to allow forward/backward compatibility between various versions of PSU and motherboard that could be used (and power-hungry GPUs of various kinds, as well).

Note that some embedded systems such as cash registers actually do use larger USB connectors to include 12V and/or 24V power connections. These are not, however, called "macro-USB", and are not as large.

Other countries often use RJ11-ended cables with locally-specific adapter-ends, e.g. the BS 6312 in Britain. Broadband microfilters may make use of this difference by splitting a relevant telephone plug standard into the local non-RJ11 style of telephone plug for an "audio-only" pass-through socket and an RJ11 for the router/modem to be cabled up to for the abstracted "data-only" signal — making an adapter for this will be nearly impossible.

There are two common systems for showing octane numbers on fuel pumps; the numbers shown (87, 91, 93) most closely map to {{w|Octane rating#Anti-Knock Index (AKI) or (R+M)/2|Anti-Knock Index}} values which is used for the North American market and a number of other countries, the other system used in the rest of the world is Research Octane Number. In the AKI system; 87 octane (91 RON) is regular US, 91 octane (95 RON) is regular European, 93 octane (98 RON) is premium European, and in US both 91 and 93 are considered premium/super depending on the regulations of a particular state. Some states, such as California, forbid the sale of the gasoline above 91 octane. Only very rarely could both 91 and 93 be found at the same gas station. The typical line-up is "regular" (87), "plus" (89), and "premium"/"super" (depending on the state and on the fuel brand, 91, 92 or 93 octane). A standard diesel nozzle (24mm) is slightly larger diameter than a standard petrol nozzle (21mm) so you cannot tank diesel into a petrol car but if this nozzle has the petrol nozzle diameter you are still able to tank with it into some diesel cars. Some manufacturers such as Volkswagen fit a misfueling guard and fuel filler neck cap or have redesigned the fuel filler to prevent a petrol nozzle being used in a diesel car.

Since the release of this comic, Apple has created a magnetic charging cable for its Apple Watch, which functions in the same manner as the current MagSafe 1 & 2 by using a magnet to connect to the device. This new charger looks identical to the fictional MagSafe 3 in the comic.

==Transcript==
:[Universal converter box with wires to connectors:]
:VGA
:DVI
:HDMI
:Thunderbolt
:Firewire
:Component
:[sharing connectors with Component:]
:RCA
:1/8" Audio
:1/8" Video
:Parallel Port
:S-Video
:Airline Pneumatic Tube Audio
:PS/2/3/4
:120V AC
::[pointing to ground pin:]
::Removable
:Floppy/IDE/2.5"/SCSI
::[pointing to sections in IDC connector:]
::Break here
:USB
:USB (weird other end)
:Mini-USB
:Micro USB
:Macro USB
:F Connector
:Fiber
:RJ11
:Ethernet
:Token Ring
:MagSafe
:MagSafe 2
:MagSafe 3
:MagSafe 4
:Bluetooth Dongle
:SCART
:String (fits most cans)
:[Fuel nozzle with selector for:]
:87/91/93/Diesel

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers]]