explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3269: Airport Meeting

2026-07-10T19:18:05Z

71.193.129.16: Michelin Guide info

{{comic
| number = 3269
| date = July 8, 2026
| title = Airport Meeting
| image = airport_meeting_2x.png
| imagesize = 694x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Although it was a setback for physics, I'm glad the particle naming rights issue led to the cancelation of Pizza Hut's Superconducting Super Collider in the early 90s, so the Double Stuffed Extra Cheese Topping Quark ended up just being named 'top quark.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a charmed quark. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{{w|Michelin}} is a company that manufacture tires for cars and heavy machinery. However, they have also created the {{w|Michelin Guide}}, originally a guide for motorists in France that eventually branched out into dining and travel and spread across the world.

{{w|Red Bull GmbH|Red Bull}} is a company that manufactures {{w|Red Bull|the eponymous energy drink}}. However, they have also invested heavily in motorsport events, competing as a team in NASCAR and Formula One. "Red Bull Supercar" might refer to upcoming {{w|Red Bull RB17|Red Bull RB17}}.

This comic implies that this is because two employees, each working for one of the companies, accidentally {{tvtropes|satchelswitcheroo|swapped briefcases}} at an airport, suggesting that originally one had information that Michelin was using in support of the motorsport business and other possessed information that Red Bull was using to identify restaurants, which better fits with the companies' existing specialties. By leaving with each other's paperwork, and making use of it, both companies found themselves with departments pursuing opportunities that pivoted into the technically quite different fields more closely related to the other. It seems strange that they would both remain unaware of the switch, and keep going with the plan anyway, unless they were sent travelling to remote offices without themselves or anyone at the other end yet being privy to what confidential project material they were supposed to be carrying, and too much effort had been spent by the time any pre-briefed person became involved again. Possibly they actually intended to mutually conspire to take the other person's briefcase all along, in a version of the common spy bag swap trope, but this seems unlikely from the comic.

In reality, the {{w|Michelin Guide}}, which covers restaurants and hotels, originated as a way to encourage early automobile owners to drive more and therefore need replacement tires more often. The early guide included maps, automobile maintenance instructions, and listings of hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and auto repair mechanics across France - information which was not easily found elsewhere at the time. The popularity of the restaurant listings led to greater investment into the section, and the classification of two-star restaurants being 'worth a detour' and three-star being 'worth a special journey' to tempt motorists into driving to them.

Red Bull's motorsports sponsorships are part of a larger strategy of owning or sponsoring numerous sports teams and individual athletes as a means to advertise their brand, placing their logos on uniforms, in stadiums, or on race cars. Besides its racing teams, the company owns or has stakes in over a dozen soccer clubs, along with ice hockey, rugby, and bicycle racing teams, and regularly sponsors various extreme sport competitions. These sponsorships are less related to the company's energy drink business, but still make sense as advertising.

The title text introduces the concept of even stranger specialization-swapping between a fast-food franchise and particle physics. {{w|Quark}}s are a type of sub-atomic particle (which come in six 'flavors': up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom) but it is also the name of {{w|Quark_(dairy_product)|a type of cheese}}. The claim that the top quark was originally named the Double Stuffed Extra Cheese Extra Topping quark, before being shortened to top quark, suggests it was used as a pizza topping. In reality, the top and bottom quarks were originally named truth and beauty quarks, and are still occasionally referred to as such. Nearly all pizza toppings are made out of quarks.{{citation needed}} However, the flavor of quarks is highly dependent on their general configuration into particles, atoms, molecules, proteins, and such.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing together and talking to each other. Cueball holds a black briefcase, while Ponytail has a grey briefcase in front of her.]
:Cueball: I do restaurant analysis for a beverage company.
:Ponytail: Neat! I work in the automotive industry, developing parts for specialized vehicles.

:[Same as first panel, but Cueball has put down his briefcase next to Ponytail's (partly obscuring it from view) and pulled out his boarding card]
:Cueball: Oh, my flight is boarding. It was nice to meet you!
:Ponytail: You too!

:[Ponytail and Cueball walk off in opposite directions, carrying each other's original briefcase.]

:[Header:] Years later:
:[A book with a star on it that reads:]
:Michelin Tire Company
:Star Restaurant Guide
:[A fancy sports car, facing to the right. On the body of the car, it says:]
:Red Bull Supercar
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

3268: Offside

2026-07-10T19:14:12Z

71.193.129.16: transcript

{{comic
| number = 3268
| date = July 6, 2026
| title = Offside
| image = offside_2x.png
| imagesize = 308x349px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The arbiter gave my knight a red card for capturing with cleats up :(
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was found after a bishop received a yellow card. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
The comic features a standard chessboard with a game in progress. On it is a horizontal dashed red line equipped with a red-and-yellow checkered flag on the right. This represents the implementation of the {{w|Offside (association football)|offside rule}} of {{w|association football}} (soccer) in a chess match.

In soccer, an attacking player cannot simply wait right next to the opponent's goal for a pass; they must not be beyond the opponent's defensive line when the ball is kicked to them. On replays, this is often illustrated by showing a line, level with the last defender, superimposed across the pitch. {{w|Assistant referee (association football)|Assistant referees}} (or 'linesmen') run along the sidelines to monitor this boundary. When an attacking player receives the ball having been in an offside position, the official on the sidelines raises a flag (which is often checkered red-and-yellow) to signal a violation to the head referee.

The complexity of the off-side rule is notorious (for ''not entirely'' deserved reasons), as it is not an actual offence for a player to ''be'' in an off-side position, and only becomes so when they are subsequently involved in active play (typically, this is upon being passed the ball, but may also be judged to include distracting/obscuring the goalkeeper or other activities more or less loosely at the discretion of the referee). Its original purpose was to deter certain undesirable playing styles, such as "goal hanging", that were considered unsporting, but it adds several complications to how the referee (aided or not by supporting linesmen, or even {{w|Video assistant referee|VAR}}) has to control the match, and players/supporters may have their own interpretations.

The basic premise is that when a ball is kicked forward to an attacker (excepting when that contact is certain other penalty kicks or throw-ins), they must have been 'on-side' ''at the time of that last touch'', regardless of whether they then run beyond the appropriate defender (or the defender runs the opposite way past the attacker) to actually take posession of the ball and then commence to score a goal. A player who ''was'' off-side may become on-side between the original start of the pass and also avoid the issue. Most of the tactics (and potential counter-tactics by the team not in possession) rely upon careful timing and balancing of such player positioning to create/remove such opportunities to be in a position to score a goal, or at least be closer to doing so.  The result of an off-side violation is the resetting of play to where the ball was at the time, disallowing any goal scored following that point and an (indirect) free kick given to the defenders. But it does not otherwise require the offending player(s) to be 'carded' (officially reprimanded, on or off the field).

In this chess adaptation, Randall draws this "offside line" horizontally across the board, tracking the position of Black's least advanced pawns (the 'last defender'). The flag on the dashed line indicates that a linesman has flagged the match. The White Rook moved deep into Black's territory (indicated by the yellow highlighting on the square) to position itself to put the Black King in what would normally be {{w|checkmate}}. However, because the rook crossed the dashed offside line ahead of the defensive line of black pieces, the move was disallowed. The offside line does not coincide with the border between the squares, but apparently depends on the exact position of the pawns. Thus in some situations an "offside checkmate" could be avoided by sloppily placed pieces.

The title text furthers the soccer reference. In association football, a “cleats up” tackle occurs when a player lunges into a challenge with the bottom of their boots (typically featuring hard studs, for better traction on the grassy/muddy pitch) dangerously exposed and liable to injure the opposing player, intentionally or not. This play should result in the referee issuing an immediate {{w|Penalty card#Association football 2|red card}}. In chess, an arbiter is the referee of a tournament. The title text implies that the player’s knight made an aggressive leap to capture a piece, forcing the arbiter to eject the piece. Of course, in chess, the whole point of such a move is to take out the opponent's piece, unlike in soccer, where the objective should be to win the ball.

The comic's publication coincides with the {{w|2026 FIFA World Cup}}. It is part of a series of sports-themed comics Randall released during the tournament season, including [[3260: Messi]] and [[3262: Sports Commentary]]. Randall previously included the offside rule in [[2705: Spacetime Soccer]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A single-panel comic showing a standard 8-by-8 chessboard, with the position 4Rk2/8/2p2p2/1p2PNbB/B2pn2n/1Q1P4/r4P2/3K4 b, with the most recent move of the white rook from e7 (green background) to e8 (yellow background). The black king on f8 is in check from the white rook on e8, and trapped by the white knight on f5, the white bishop on h5, and redundantly the white queen on b3. A horizontal, dashed red line cuts across the chessboard above the sixth rank, where the least advanced black pawns are. On the right-hand side of this line, past the edge of the board, is a checkered red-and-yellow soccer referee's flag.]
:[Caption below panel:]
:I thought I had checkmate, but I didn't realize my rook was offside.

==Trivia==
The highlighted move of the white rook shows that it was already offside before it moved, because it started out on e7, which is still past the red line.
:On the other hand, it's only offside if it gets involved in play, which it clearly does with the check(mate).

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Soccer]]