https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=7OO+Tnega+Tercesexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2026-04-10T21:55:42ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1886:_Typing_Notifications&diff=1450931886: Typing Notifications2017-09-07T22:50:18Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1886<br />
| date = September 6, 2017<br />
| title = Typing Notifications<br />
| image = typing_notifications.png<br />
| titletext = Over the years I've decided I'd rather have them on than not, but I'm glad there aren't "has opened a blank note to compose a reply to you" notifications.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Simple comic, anything missing? Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] has sent a message on an instant messenger to someone else. The message contains simple questions about a show Randall must have undertaken and he insists on an honest answer. The reader tries several times to give a proper answer, probably changing the text, until giving up and sending a simple kind reply.<br />
<br />
Typing notifications, often called "typing awareness indicator", is a feature of some {{w|instant messaging}} systems. It lets you know when the other person in a conversation is typing and preparing a reply. It may appear in different forms, like the literal text "[Contact] is typing." or often has a empty answer (possibly a different color) containing three animated dots. It gives the sender confidence that their message has been received and the other one is working on a reply.<br />
<br />
When the final response is received it is anodyne "It was great", suggesting that the first two deleted drafts could be far more critical. The fact that you know that a message has been deleted or edited twice provokes you to imagine what the deleted drafts may have contained. The issue with typing notifications that Randall is talking about might also just be the difficulty to interpret them. The distant contact might just have been doing something else at the same time, started typing in the wrong conversation, or corrected a typo, but the typing notifications make it seem like they weren't honest.<br />
<br />
If one partner of a conversation takes their sweet time to reply, possibly deleting their text and starting from scratch as shown in this comic, the typing notification feature can lead to anxiety, as the person waiting for a response starts to overthink the issue. Thoughts come to mind like the other person might not be honest, try to carefully word a sensitive subject or not care enough about you to quickly reply. If finally the answer arrives and consists of just a laconic "ok" or similar, these feelings become even stronger, leading to thoughts like the other person is trying to hide something. This phenomenon has become so widespread that many people have written about it in newspapers and blogs, calling it [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/fashion/texting-anxiety-caused-by-little-bubbles.html texting anxiety].<br />
<br />
One way around giving your text receiver texting anxiety would be to open a blank note and work out what you want to say there. Since you're not typing in the messaging app, there's not typing notification. In the title text, Randal jokes about this, suggesting that in the future texting apps will start alerting recipients whenever someone starts working on a reply, even when it's done outside the app, there by helping to increase and proliferate texting anxiety.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A sequence of eight panels representing the same conversation in an electronic chat. The header always reads:]<br />
:What did you think of my show? Did you like it? Be honest!<br />
<br />
:[The reply area on the first seven panels is empty, but on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th the input is activated and showing three dots.]<br />
<br />
:[On the last panel the reply area reads:]<br />
:It was great!<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panels:]<br />
:My least favorite aspect of typing notifications<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Computers]]<br />
[[Category:Social networking]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1513:_Code_Quality&diff=909681513: Code Quality2015-04-25T07:36:00Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */ Fixed parenthesized comment at end of fifth paragraph so that it was internally consistent.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1513<br />
| date = April 17, 2015<br />
| title = Code Quality<br />
| image = code quality.png<br />
| titletext = I honestly didn't think you could even USE emoji in variable names. Or that there were so many different crying ones.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[[Ponytail]] is about to look at some {{w|source code}} [[Cueball]] has written, and he is warning her that he is self-taught so his code probably won't be written the way she is used to.<br />
<br />
In spite of Ponytail's initial (polite) optimism, she comments in three increasingly harsh similes. First, she suggests that reading his code is like being in a house built by a child, using a small axe to put together what he thought was a house based on a picture. This relates to a technique especially common for new programmers. They follow and adapt tutorials, and find examples of similar problems being solved, copy the solution ("cutting" it out as with an axe), {{w|Jury rig|jury-rig}} it together, and tinker with it until it seems to work. This can lead to code that is hard to follow or otherwise "messy" and inconsistent. Once a piece of code is working, inexperienced or deadline-driven coders are reluctant to go back and rewrite it to be cleaner or clearer, for fear of breaking something that has been working. More experienced coders will go back after the first time the code worked and try to improve the code if they think it is possible. This improvement practice is known as {{w|refactoring}} and code projects that incorporate cycles of refactoring tend to be easier to read and maintain than those that don't. Including good test cases reduces the risks.<br />
<br />
Second, she suggests that it looks like a salad recipe, written by a corporate lawyer on a phone with autocorrect that only corrected things to formulas from Microsoft Excel. This presumably relates to the way many programmers use {{w|integrated development environment}}s (IDEs). They serve as syntax-checkers and often also help correct other programming errors, but their corrections and advice can be unnatural and difficult to understand (like corporate lawyers producing Excel formulas). The result of just fixing what the IDE complains about often results in less-than-elegant code.<br />
<br />
Third, she describes it as a transcript of the dialog of couple arguing at {{w|IKEA}}, which was then randomly edited until the computer compiled it with no errors. IKEA is an international chain of furniture stores which feature large, maze-like showrooms as well as a large warehouse area where you can pick up the furniture you want to buy in flat, some-assembly-required packaging. Especially on weekends when many people crowd in to a store, they can be stress-inducing places. So coming across arguing couples in IKEA is to be expected. Compiling refers to taking human readable source code and translating it into machine executable code; this is done by software that expects the input (the human readable part) to be in a certain format - if the input is somehow not quite correctly formatted, the program will fail to compile the code, and will indicate that the input could not be compiled. Often, this is some simple little failure, like you forgot to put a semicolon at the end of a line of otherwise perfectly correct code. Putting in the semicolon in the correct place will allow the code to compile. Sometimes, it is not immediately clear what little violation of the language's syntax has been violated, and you will try two or three things, hoping to get the code to compile: maybe I need to capitalize this function name, and maybe I need to put this part in parenthesis, and maybe I need a semicolon at the end of this line. You do those things, and suddenly the code compiles, but you don't know exactly why. This reinforces behavior where you tend to just randomly edit your code until it compiles. An extreme of this would be to randomly edit some random starting input that isn't even really code, and just add and subtract stuff until by pure chance it happens to fulfill all the requirement of syntax that will allow it to compile. This is very similar to an infinite amount of monkeys bashing away on typewriters for an infinite amount of time eventually producing the complete works of Shakespeare.<br />
<br />
Finally, Cueball makes the rather weak assurance that he will read “a style guide”.<br />
Although few programming languages require a perfectly rigid style, so long as the code is syntactically accurate, most programmers follow some sort of {{w|Programming style|style}} to make the code easier to read. This includes indenting lines to show levels and using descriptive variable identifiers with special capitalization, (e.g., {{w|CamelCase}} (aka camelCase, capitalizing each word except for the first in a sentence), or {{w|snake_case}} (separating lowercase words with underscores).<br />
<br />
It seems clear from Ponytail's commentary that his {{w|Software quality|code quality}} would benefit from far more training in computer programming.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to {{w|emoji}}, originally called "{{w|Smiley|smiley faces}}". Ponytail's comment implies that some of Cueball's variables contained emoji, perhaps in an effort to capture the emotional content of the arguments which show through the requirements document. Many crying-face emoji are possible if variables can include full Unicode (e.g., 😢,😭,😂,😪,😥,😰,😿,😹). In some programming languages it would be impossible to use them in variable names, as the symbols would break the language's syntax rules. Exceptions to this include {{w|Go (programming language)|Go}}, {{w|Swift (programming language)|Swift}}, {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} ([http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-3.html#jls-3.8], [http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Character.html#isUnicodeIdentifierPart%28int%29]), but most languages with compilers that support Unicode characters can include this kind of emoji, even for languages that predate Unicode like {{w|C++}} and {{w|Lisp_(programming_language)|Lisp}}.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball showing Ponytail his laptop.]<br />
:Cueball: Keep in mind that I'm self-taught, so my code may be a little messy.<br />
:Ponytail: Lemme see - I'm sure it's fine.<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail sits at desk, Cueball stand behind her.]<br />
:Ponytail: ...Wow. This is like being in a house built by a child using nothing but a hatchet and a picture of a house.<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail sits at desk, Cueball stand behind her.]<br />
:Ponytail: It's like a salad recipe written by a corporate lawyer using a phone autocorrect that only knew Excel formulas.<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail sits at desk, Cueball stand behind her.]<br />
:Ponytail: It's like someone took a transcript of a couple arguing at IKEA and made random edits until it compiled without errors.<br />
:Cueball: '''''Okay,''''' I'll read a style guide.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*Emoji can be simulated using {{w|ASCII}} characters, and have roots in ASCII {{w|emoticon}}s. Most languages will allow variable names to include underscores, so some sad face ASCII emoticon will be legal variable names, such as <code>T_T</code>, <code>p_q</code>, <code>ioi</code> etc., but such things rarely show up in software variables. Many more can be made possible using [http://hexascii.com/sad-emoticons/ UTF-8 characters].<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Programming]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1067:_Pressures&diff=358311067: Pressures2013-05-01T09:13:21Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1067<br />
| date = June 11, 2012<br />
| title = Pressures<br />
| image = pressures.png<br />
| imagesize = <br />
| titletext = Everyone's caught by surprise when a theory of quantum gravity is developed by a sound technician wearing patent leather shoes while editing Clerks II.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic is a reference to Albert Einstein who got his first big idea while he was working as a Swiss Patent Clerk. Wikipedia has the details: "Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time."<br />
<br />
Hence the pressure on future Swiss Patent Clerks to also come up with genius ideas while they are working there.<br />
<br />
The title text makes the joke that instead of a patent clerk making the next breakthrough theory, as everyone is supposedly expecting, it's instead made by someone wearing "patent" shoes and working on a movie called "Clerks" II. There by suggesting that anytime something called a "patent" crosses with anything called a "clerk", radical breakthroughs in physics result. Clerks II is a reference to the second movie in the Clerks series by Kevin Smith, widely regarded as not nearly as good as the first - which could be said about most sequels, but you get the point.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Ponytail walks up to Megan examining documents]<br />
:Ponytail: So.. what"ve you been up to?<br />
:Megan: Handling patent applications.<br />
:Ponytail: Yeah, but... besides that?<br />
:Megan: That's about it.<br />
:Ponytail: You're not, like, thinking about any cool stuff? Just curious.<br />
:For the last hundred years, Swiss patent clerks have been under some weird pressures.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33941618: Asteroid2013-04-17T08:28:46Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a [[what if?|what-if]] article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke can bee seen in that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. "Crossover" is a term used to refer to a technique of taking two independent (and usually already existing) stories and creating a scene or short story in which characters from both worlds collide and interact with each other. Or, in other words, characters from one story "crossover" into the the second. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids to destroy the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel appears like a news report.]<br />
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']<br />
::News-anchor: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
::News-anchor: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]<br />
<br />
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]<br />
::Woman with headset: ''The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!''<br />
::Man with headset: ''Hooray!''<br />
::Voice: ''We're heroes!''<br />
<br />
:[Digital countdown.]<br />
::0:05...<br />
::0:04...<br />
::0:03...<br />
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33940618: Asteroid2013-04-17T08:27:45Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Transcript */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a [[what if?|what-if]] article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke can bee seen in that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. A "crossover" is a term used to refer to a technique of taking two independent (and usually already existing) stories and creating a scene or short story in which characters from both worlds collide and interact with each other. Or, in other words, characters from one story "crossover" into the the second. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids to destroy the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel appears like a news report.]<br />
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']<br />
::News-anchor: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
::News-anchor: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]<br />
<br />
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]<br />
::Woman with headset: ''The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!''<br />
::Man with headset: ''Hooray!''<br />
::Voice: ''We're heroes!''<br />
<br />
:[Digital countdown.]<br />
::0:05...<br />
::0:04...<br />
::0:03...<br />
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33939618: Asteroid2013-04-17T08:26:48Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Transcript */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a [[what if?|what-if]] article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke can bee seen in that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. A "crossover" is a term used to refer to a technique of taking two independent (and usually already existing) stories and creating a scene or short story in which characters from both worlds collide and interact with each other. Or, in other words, characters from one story "crossover" into the the second. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids to destroy the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel appears like a news report.]<br />
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']<br />
::News-anchor: 'Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.'<br />
<br />
::News-anchor: 'NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.'<br />
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]<br />
<br />
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]<br />
::Woman with headset: 'The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!'<br />
::Man with headset: 'Hooray!'<br />
::Voice: 'We're heroes!'<br />
<br />
:[Digital countdown.]<br />
::0:05...<br />
::0:04...<br />
::0:03...<br />
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=431:_Delivery&diff=33937431: Delivery2013-04-17T08:24:03Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 431<br />
| date = June 2, 2008<br />
| title = Delivery<br />
| image = delivery.png<br />
| titletext = Ma'am, I admit that wasn't in the best taste, but you have to admire my delivery! Ha, ha get it? Oh god, don't throw those syringes! Your baby's fine!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
An old superstition is that you can tell at the end of winter if spring will be early or late by whether a {{w|groundhog}} (a type of rodent akin to a large squirrel), after sticking his head out, see's his shadow and retreats back in, or - thanks to cloudy weather - doesn't and boldly steps out. This, in turn, is the basis for a really funny {{w|Groundhog Day (film)|movie}} that has been referenced in [http://xkcd.com/1076 other comics].<br />
<br />
The joke here is that, instead of a groundhog predicting when spring will come, it's a baby predicting when he'll be born. Evidently he decided to wait six more weeks. I feel for the mother, especially with a doctor like that.<br />
<br />
On a side note, the title-text may or may not imply that the doctor was joking about the baby retreating back inside. He certainly appears to have taste bad enough to pull a prank like that.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
[In a delivery room]<br />
<br />
:Doctor: There's the head... he's looking at me... Wait, he's crawling back into the womb.<br />
<br />
:Mother: What?!<br />
<br />
:Doctor: Yeah, it's the darnedest thing.<br />
<br />
:Mother: Um, what does it mean?<br />
<br />
:Doctor: My guess? Six more weeks of winter.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<!-- Include any categories below this line--></div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=431:_Delivery&diff=33936431: Delivery2013-04-17T08:23:10Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 431<br />
| date = June 2, 2008<br />
| title = Delivery<br />
| image = delivery.png<br />
| titletext = Ma'am, I admit that wasn't in the best taste, but you have to admire my delivery! Ha, ha get it? Oh god, don't throw those syringes! Your baby's fine!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
An old superstition is that you can tell at the end of winter if spring will be early or late by whether a {{w|groundhog}} (a type of rodent akin to a large squirrel), after sticking his head out, see's his shadow and retreats back in, or - thanks to cloudy weather - doesn't and boldly steps out. This, in turn, is the basis for a really funny {{w|Groundhog Day (film)|movie}} that has been referenced in [http://xkcd.com/1076 other comics].<br />
<br />
The joke here is that, instead of a groundhog predicting when spring will come, it's a baby predicting when he'll be born. Evidently he decided to wait six more weeks. I feel for the mother, especially with a doctor like that.<br />
<br />
On a side note, the title-text may or may not imply that the doctor was joking about the baby retreating back inside. He certainly appears to have taste bad enough to pull a prank like that.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
[In a delivery room]<br />
Doctor: There's the head... he's looking at me... Wait, he's crawling back into the womb.<br />
Mother: What?!<br />
Doctor: Yeah, it's the darnedest thing.<br />
Mother: Um, what does it mean?<br />
Doctor: My guess? Six more weeks of winter.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<!-- Include any categories below this line--></div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:431:_Delivery&diff=33935Talk:431: Delivery2013-04-17T08:22:48Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: Created page with "Yeah, I got the image to show this time!!! Now to get rid of that "Jump to:"...--~~~~"</p>
<hr />
<div>Yeah, I got the image to show this time!!! Now to get rid of that "Jump to:"...--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 08:22, 17 April 2013 (UTC)</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=431:_Delivery&diff=33934431: Delivery2013-04-17T08:21:47Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: Created page with "{{comic | number = 431 | date = June 2, 2008 | title = Delivery Jump to: | image = delivery.png | titletext = Ma'am, I admit that wasn't in the best taste, bu..."</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 431<br />
| date = June 2, 2008<br />
| title = Delivery<br />
Jump to: <br />
| image = delivery.png<br />
| titletext = Ma'am, I admit that wasn't in the best taste, but you have to admire my delivery! Ha, ha get it? Oh god, don't throw those syringes! Your baby's fine!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
An old superstition is that you can tell at the end of winter if spring will be early or late by whether a {{w|groundhog}} (a type of rodent akin to a large squirrel), after sticking his head out, see's his shadow and retreats back in, or - thanks to cloudy weather - doesn't and boldly steps out. This, in turn, is the basis for a really funny {{w|Groundhog Day (film)|movie}} that has been referenced in [http://xkcd.com/1076 other comics].<br />
<br />
The joke here is that, instead of a groundhog predicting when spring will come, it's a baby predicting when he'll be born. Evidently he decided to wait six more weeks. I feel for the mother, especially with a doctor like that.<br />
<br />
On a side note, the title-text may or may not imply that the doctor was joking about the baby retreating back inside. He certainly appears to have taste bad enough to pull a prank like that.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
[In a delivery room]<br />
Doctor: There's the head... he's looking at me... Wait, he's crawling back into the womb.<br />
Mother: What?!<br />
Doctor: Yeah, it's the darnedest thing.<br />
Mother: Um, what does it mean?<br />
Doctor: My guess? Six more weeks of winter.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<!-- Include any categories below this line--></div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33916618: Asteroid2013-04-17T07:06:25Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a [[what if?|what-if]] article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke can bee seen in that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. A "crossover" is a term used to refer to a technique of taking two independent (and usually already existing) stories and creating a scene or short story in which characters from both worlds collide and interact with each other. Or, in other words, characters from one story "crossover" into the the second. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids to destroy the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel appears like a news report.]<br />
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']<br />
:News-anchor: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.<br />
<br />
:News-anchor: NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.<br />
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]<br />
<br />
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]<br />
:Woman with headset: The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!<br />
:Man with headset: Hooray!<br />
:Voice: We're heroes!<br />
<br />
:[Digital countdown.]<br />
:0:05...<br />
:0:04...<br />
:0:03...<br />
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33915618: Asteroid2013-04-17T07:05:36Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a [[what if?|what-if]] article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke can bee seen in that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. A "crossover" is a term used to refer to a technique of taking two independent (and usually already existing) stories and creating a scene or short story in which characters from both worlds collide and interact with each other. Or, in other words, characters from one story "crossover" into the the second. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel appears like a news report.]<br />
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']<br />
:News-anchor: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.<br />
<br />
:News-anchor: NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.<br />
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]<br />
<br />
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]<br />
:Woman with headset: The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!<br />
:Man with headset: Hooray!<br />
:Voice: We're heroes!<br />
<br />
:[Digital countdown.]<br />
:0:05...<br />
:0:04...<br />
:0:03...<br />
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:618:_Asteroid&diff=33910Talk:618: Asteroid2013-04-17T07:00:43Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>:Could someone please help me with the picture, I don't know how to get it to display right...--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 08:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Fix'd. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:44, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::THANKS!--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 07:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:618:_Asteroid&diff=33909Talk:618: Asteroid2013-04-17T07:00:29Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>:Could someone please help me with the picture, I don't know how to get it to display right...--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 08:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Fix'd. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:44, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::THANKS!--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 07:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33908618: Asteroid2013-04-17T06:59:47Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a [[what if?|what-if]] article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke can bee seen in that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel appears like a news report.]<br />
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']<br />
:News-anchor: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.<br />
<br />
:News-anchor: NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.<br />
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]<br />
<br />
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]<br />
:Woman with headset: The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!<br />
:Man with headset: Hooray!<br />
:Voice: We're heroes!<br />
<br />
:[Digital countdown.]<br />
:0:05...<br />
:0:04...<br />
:0:03...<br />
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1200:_Authorization&diff=339051200: Authorization2013-04-17T06:52:11Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1200<br />
| date = April 17, 2013<br />
| title = Authorization<br />
| image = authorization.png<br />
| titletext = Before you say anything, no, I know not to leave my computer sitting out logged in to all my accounts. I have it set up so after a few minutes of inactivity it automatically switches to my brother's.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Computer operating systems were initially written for the business environment. Thus they were made to be accessible to multiple employees, or users, but only fully accessible to administrators (or admins). Regular users can access and use programs on the computer, but only the admin is allowed to make changes to how the computer runs. This same split level of security continues to this day, even in privately owned, or "home", computers.<br />
<br />
The joke here is that the most important things on a computer are no longer the programs that it runs, but the private personal data it accesses (usually online). Anyone who wished to do real mischief on an active computer could do considerable damage without ever caring what the admin password was. The admin password, in effect, now guards a vault no one cares about.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Diagram showing several connected rooms. One in the center says "User account on my laptop," surrounded by "Dropbox," "Photos & files," "Facebook," "Gmail," "PayPal," and "Bank," which are connected to the middle room and to each other. Below the middle room is one labeled "Admin account," which is covered in spikes, and has a door to the room above it.]<br />
:If someone steals my laptop while I'm logged in, they can read my email, take my money, and impersonate me to my friends, but at least they can't install drivers without my permission.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Computers]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:618:_Asteroid&diff=33580Talk:618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:24:11Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: Created page with " == Picture == :Could someone please help me with the picture, I don't know how to get it to display right...--~~~~"</p>
<hr />
<div><br />
== Picture ==<br />
:Could someone please help me with the picture, I don't know how to get it to display right...--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 08:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33578618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:23:13Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''<br />
:Second Controller: ''Hooray!''<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33577618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:21:27Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''<br />
:Second Controller: ''Hooray!''<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33576618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:20:39Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''<br />
:Second Controller: ''Hooray!''<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33575618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:20:23Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough call any day.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''<br />
:Second Controller: ''Hooray!''<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33573618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:16:18Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the first asteroid movie linked to in "{{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''<br />
:Second Controller: ''Hooray!''<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33572618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:14:58Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the first asteroid movie linked to in "{{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''<br />
:Second Controller: ''Hooray!''<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33570618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:14:12Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the first asteroid movie linked to in "{{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman:Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman: NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician: The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!<br />
:Second Controller: Hooray!<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: We're Heroes!<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover: 0:05...0:04...0:03</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33569618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:11:18Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the first asteroid movie linked to in "{{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.<br />
:Anchorwoman:Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.<br />
<br />
:Anchorwoman:NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.<br />
<br />
:Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover<br />
:Controller-Technician:The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!<br />
:Second Controller: Hooray!<br />
:Off-Panel Controller: We're Heroes!<br />
<br />
:On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.<br />
:Rover:0:05...0:04...0:03</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33567618: Asteroid2013-04-14T08:00:06Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = asteroid.png<br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the first asteroid movie linked to in "{{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it).</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33566618: Asteroid2013-04-14T07:58:10Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = <br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to the first asteroid movie linked to in "{{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}}". Fanfic is short for {{w|fanfic|Fan Fiction}},e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it).</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33565618: Asteroid2013-04-14T07:57:34Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 618<br />
| date = August 3, 2009<br />
| title = Asteroid<br />
| image = <br />
| imagesize = 350px<br />
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.<br />
}}</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=618:_Asteroid&diff=33564618: Asteroid2013-04-14T07:47:33Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: Created page with "The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|r..."</p>
<hr />
<div>The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a {{w|Deep Impact (film)|really}} {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|big}} {{w|Asteroid (film)|rock}} {{w|Meteor (film)|hitting}} {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded|Earth}}. There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in a what-if article, [http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ speed counts too].<br />
<br />
The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|The Little Prince|the Little Prince}} from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter.</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1193:_Externalities&diff=324661193: Externalities2013-04-04T16:10:36Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Fifth Panel */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1193<br />
| date = April 1, 2013<br />
| title = Externalities<br />
| image = externalities.png<br />
| titletext = Mouse over words and things to see where they come from.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete}}<br />
This comic isn't a static image - even the title text changes depending on which part of the image you're hovering over. The blank regions in the above image are dynamically generated from various sources.<br />
<br />
*The university that is being recruited changes depending on which university is winning the hash finding competition in the fifth panel.<br />
*The company doing the recruiting is randomly selected from a pool of companies. It was formerly the first NASDAQ-100 company mentioned on a varying Wikipedia page.<br />
*The text in the second panel may vary: See [[1193: Externalities#Second Panel|this section]].<br />
*The text in the third panel may vary: See [[1193: Externalities#Third Panel|this section]].<br />
*The text in the fourth panel may vary: See [[1193: Externalities#Fourth Panel|this section]].<br />
*The text in the fifth panel [[1193: Externalities#Fifth Panel|changes]], depending on which university is currently in third place in a hash finding competition. Clicking on the panel takes you to [http://almamater.xkcd.com/ a webpage] where people can enter their school's domain name and hash data, and ranks schools on how close their students can come to matching a Skein 1024 1024 hash value.<br />
*The text in the top half of the sixth panel may vary. See [[1193: Externalities#Sixth Panel|this section]]. The second half of the panel is always the same.<br />
*The last panel varies with the amount donated to the Wikimedia Foundation via [https://donate.wikimedia.org/?utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=xkcd_april1 this link]. For past images, see [[1193: Externalities#Seventh Panel|this section]].<br />
<br />
===Hashing Competition===<br />
For the two days until comic 1194 appeared, a competition was underway to see who could come closest to breaking a [[wikipedia:Skein_%28hash_function%29|Skein hash]]. The first text line of the first panel contains a link to http://almamater.xkcd.com. This page contained the text:<br />
<br />
:Currently looking for Skein 1024 1024 input matching 5b4da95f5fa08280fc9879df44f418c8f9f12ba424b7757de02bbdfbae0d4c4fdf9317c80cc5fe04c6429073466cf29706b8c25999ddd2f6540d4475cc977b87f4757be023f19b8f4035d7722886b78869826de916a79cf9c94cc79cd4347d24b567aa3e2390a573a373a48a5e676640c79cc70197e1c5e7f902fb53ca1858b6<br />
<br />
On this page, users were invited to enter "Your school's domain name"&mdash;presumably intended to be their college alma mater. (At least in the beginning, only a few top-level domains were accepted.) If the user entered an acceptable domain (by xkcd's rules, which apparently changed during the 48 hours of the competition), he could then enter data values one at a time. For each data value entered, xkcd returned a hash value and the number of bits by which it differed from the target value. The object was to achieve the lowest possible number of differing bits, ideally zero.<br />
<br />
A ranking page showed the lowest value achieved for each domain name entered, but not the data that achieved it. The first name on the list was substituted in various panels, and the third-place school showed in panel five. No data values were reported by xkcd, but various results were posted by users of the xkcd forums and on other websites, leading to copycat submissions, so that occasionally large numbers of institutions would show the same moderately low value.<br />
<br />
After the end of the contest, the data submission page vanished, replaced by the final list of rankings, which shows that Carnegie Mellon University achieved the best score with 384 bits incorrect out of 1024. The rankings only show a few hundred out of the several thousand domains submitted&mdash;presumably Randall chose to chop the copycat submissions off the end of the list, retaining only honestly obtained results.<br />
<br />
===First Panel===<br />
In some cases, Megan's reply seems to correspond to the company.<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you applied to [company] yet?<br />
:Megan: The recruiter hasn't emailed me back in over three minutes.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you applied to [company] yet?<br />
:Megan: The recruiter hasn't emailed me back in over an hour!<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you thought of a career at [company]?<br />
:Megan: I'm not that good at math.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you thought of a career at [company]?<br />
:Megan: What do they even do?<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you thought of a career at [company]?<br />
:Megan: I don't like monopolies.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you thought of a career at [company]?<br />
:Megan: Only in my darkest moments.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Be part of the Apple experience!<br />
:Megan: I'm not really a fan of turtlenecks.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Come work at Microsoft!<br />
:Megan: I only came to this tech talk for the xbox giveaway.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Y U No Work Yahoo?<br />
:Megan: I like working from home!<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Become a partner at Starbucks!<br />
:Megan: But green's not my colour.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Come work in the Amazon!<br />
:Megan: I don't have to actually move to South America, do I?<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you thought of a career at [company]?<br />
:Megan: Not after that presentation.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Thought about working for Intel?<br />
:Megan: I'm not that great at division.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Dude, you should work at Dell!<br />
:Megan: That catchphrase is so old.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Ahoy, carnegie melonites!<br />
:Have you thought of a career at [company]?<br />
:Megan: Not after that presentation.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Have you looked for a job at Kraft Foods?<br />
:Megan: I'm allergic to sugar<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:How about working for Whole Foods?<br />
:Megan: Could I afford the food if I did?<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Come work at EBay!<br />
:Megan: Maybe if they made a good bid.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Come work for Activision... er... Blizzard... er...<br />
:Megan: Activision Blizzard?<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Hey, [university] students!<br />
:Come find your future at Baidu!<br />
:Megan: But nothing about Tiananmen Square.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Second Panel===<br />
The text in the second panel is based on the company in the first panel:<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:When the Singularity happens, it will happen here.<br />
:Ponytail: [Company] has outgrown us.<br />
:Men: It is time.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Think of ways to make things smaller and smaller!<br />
:Ponytail: I'm worried mine is too big.<br />
:Men: Yeahhh<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Think of ways to make things smaller and smaller!<br />
:Ponytail: But will it blend?<br />
:Men: Yeahhh<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:You'll be part of a dynamic research team envisioning the future.<br />
:Ponytail: It probably looks cool.<br />
:Men: Yeahhh<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:You'll be creating the future of commerce platforms!<br />
:Ponytail: More recommendations.<br />
:Men: Yep.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:You'll be an insignificant cog in our giant machine<br />
:Ponytail: We should improve Notepad<br />
:Men: Nah<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:We can't tell you what you'll be working on.<br />
:Ponytail: [Confidential]<br />
:Men: [Redacted]<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:You'll be an insignificant cog in our giant machine<br />
:Ponytail: Needs more Bob.<br />
:Men: Nah<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:You'll help set the future of the company<br />
:Ponytail: Wait. You hired a college grad as the CFO?<br />
:Men: Yeahhh<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:At Qualcomm, we know you're born mobile.<br />
:Ponytail: Born mobile!<br />
:Men: Texting!<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Short or tall, we've got a grande job for you!<br />
:Ponytail: How many job openings are there?<br />
:Men: Ele-venti or so.<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:You'll help direct the future of nutrition<br />
:Ponytail: Microwaveable toast<br />
:Men: Delicious<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Help us find and provide the best healthy, local, and sustainable products.<br />
:Ponytail: Hey guys, how about kale cookies?<br />
:Men: Sounds great!<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:We're the Classmates.com to Facebook's Craigslist.<br />
:Ponytail: Maybe we should use game theory.<br />
:Men: Why Bother?<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:Whatever. Come create the future of gaming!<br />
:Ponytail: Call of Duty 14.<br />
:Men: That's genius!<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
:It takes great minds to stifle other great minds.<br />
:Ponytail: Let's block Canada<br />
:Men: Sounds good.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Third Panel===<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|We're a convenient four hour drive from New York City (15,000 hours by roomba)<br />
|-<br />
|Only a short commuter flight away!<br />
|-<br />
|Travel to us by roomba, we're *that* close!<br />
|-<br />
|We're so close you can get to us by roomba.<br />
|-<br />
|Free roomba rides every morning while you have coffee.<br />
|-<br />
|Your roomba comes in black & slate, or white & silver<br />
|-<br />
|Just a short roomba ride up the coast, try not to fall off.<br />
|-<br />
|We know what everyday life is like for your generation:<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Fourth Panel===<br />
{| class="wikitable sortable plainlinks table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|Our recruiting team is on the lookup for promising young [university] graduates.<br />
|-<br />
|We hired a new recruiting startup to help us hire [university] students.<br />
|-<br />
|We borrowed the botanical gardens' net to catch promising recruits.<br />
|-<br />
|We prefer to recruit from [university] students, of course.<br />
|-<br />
|Our recruiters are on the hunt for unaware [university] graduates.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Fifth Panel===<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|Or students from [university], if they're clever with their applications<br />
|-<br />
|Possibly [university] grads, if their form-filling startup works out.<br />
|-<br />
|Or [university] graduates, provided any of them manage to fill out the application correctly.<br />
|-<br />
|Or [university] graduates, if they manage to fill out the application correctly.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
The text in the form varies independently of the text at the top, sometimes related to the organization in 3rd place:<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
!Organization<br />
!Name<br />
!Email<br />
!Education<br />
|-<br />
|MIT<br />
|Oliver Smoot<br />
|pgp encrypted<br />
|have you ever really looked at the fourier<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Wheeeee<br />
|ford.com<br />
|stealing lunches from startups<br />
|-<br />
|CMU<br />
|leeroy jenkins<br />
|me@car<br />
|I can cut up melons<br />
|-<br />
|CMU<br />
|pittsburgh<br />
|me@car<br />
|I can cut up melons<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|SEGMENTATION FAULT<br />
|save trees<br />
|Contra dancing.<br />
|-<br />
|Cambridge<br />
|I'm applying<br />
|cam.gov<br />
|on going problems with birds<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|certainly<br />
|elephant<br />
|An excellent year in the Sahara<br />
|-<br />
|Stanford<br />
|Stanford<br />
|ford.com<br />
|Stealing lunches from startups<br />
|-<br />
|Stanford<br />
|Yes Please<br />
|@twitter<br />
|Are you Stanford?<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Applying<br />
|For a job<br />
|I would like to work at you<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Me olaf<br />
|You Helga<br />
|Hunting wooly mammoths<br />
|-<br />
|Ohio State<br />
|Oh!<br />
|IO<br />
|O HAI O<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|FOLLOWBACK<br />
|TOTALLY.EDU.US<br />
|CONVENIENT US DOMAIN REDIRECTS<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mancher<br />
|Outlook<br />
|Made a collage out of macaroni<br />
|-<br />
|Stanford<br />
|Yes Please<br />
|ford.com<br />
|Are you Stanford?<br />
|-<br />
|Michigan<br />
|ANN<br />
|SOUTH DETROIT<br />
|HUNT LIKE A WOLVERINE<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|christopher<br />
|POBox 12532<br />
|p.s. ill find my frog<br />
|-<br />
|Oxford<br />
|Bond, James<br />
|Righto<br />
|We're better than Cambridge<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Which one<br />
|Forget it<br />
|Riding the L all night long<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Kat<br />
|Oh dear<br />
|Something something sleep<br />
|-<br />
|Google<br />
|My G+ handle?<br />
|Any<br />
|I'm feeling lucky<br />
|-<br />
|UIC<br />
|Which one<br />
|Forget it<br />
|Riding the L all night long<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|MY JOB NOW<br />
|@<br />
|SAVE DOCUMENT AND SEND<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Sixth Panel===<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|At [company], you'll work at a scale you won't find anywhere else<br />
|-<br />
|Explore the depths of expensive and undocumented tools!<br />
|-<br />
|At Apple, we believe in pushing the boundary of perfection.<br />
|-<br />
|At Microsoft, you just need to relax and embrace the machine <!-- no period --><br />
|-<br />
|Yahoo management aren't just suits. We code too!<br />
|-<br />
|At [company], you'll have the opportinity to work on cutting-edge projects.<br />
|-<br />
|At Amazon, you'll be shaving the most cutting-edge of yaks.<br />
|-<br />
|You get to bid first on any auction, and use other experimental tools!<br />
|-<br />
|At QUALCOMM, Device driver code quality is job #1<br />
|-<br />
|Make use of our powerful in-house game creation tools.<br />
|-<br />
|We're even working on some experimental biotechnology<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Seventh Panel===<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog1.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog2.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog3.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog4.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog5.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog6.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog7.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog8.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog9.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog10.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog11.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog12.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog13.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog14.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog15.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog16.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog17.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog18.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog19.png]]<br />
|-<br />
|[[File:externality-dog20.png]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Title Text==<br />
The title text documents the different sources of data in the comic. The different title texts are:<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
!Comic region<br />
!Title text<br />
|-<br />
|Most of the comic.||Mouse over words and things to see where they come from.<br />
|-<br />
|Most of the text in the first panel.||Happy April 1st, Everyone!<br />
|-<br />
|Fifth panel.||[University] has the third best hash. See the full standings at http://almamater.xkcd.com/best.csv<br />
|-<br />
|Last panel.||The dog gains a pound for every $10 donated to the wikimedia foundation via this link. Currently at [amount donated]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The comic is dynamically generated from multiple sources.]<br />
<br />
:[First panel [[1193: Externalities#First Panel|transcript varies.]]]<br />
<br />
:[Second panel [[1193: Externalities#Second Panel|transcript varies.]]]<br />
<br />
:[Third panel [[1193: Externalities#Third Panel|transcript varies.]]]<br />
:[Ponytail riding on a roomba.]<br />
<br />
:[Fourth panel [[1193: Externalities#Fourth Panel|transcript varies.]]]<br />
:[A group of people waiting outside a door. One of them is holding a large net.]<br />
<br />
:Or [university] graduates, provided any of them manage to fill out the application correctly.<br />
:Name: [random]<br />
:Email: [Third place university]<br />
<br />
:[Sixth panel [[1193: Externalities#Sixth Panel|transcript varies.]]]<br />
:Cueball: What does "make dog" do?<br />
:Off-panel: Experimental dog generator. Don't click on it; the default size isn't set, so-<br />
:'''*click*'''<br />
<br />
:''KZZZT''<br />
:BIP<br />
:Off-screen: Uh-oh.<br />
<br />
:[Last panel's [[1193: Externalities#Seventh Panel|transcript varies.]]]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1183:_Rose_Petals&diff=302141183: Rose Petals2013-03-11T04:59:29Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1183<br />
| date = March 8, 2013<br />
| title = Rose Petals<br />
| image = rose petals.png<br />
| titletext = Joke's on you--the Roomba and I had a LOVELY evening.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic strip is playing with romantic movies and gestures used in them. In such movies, one often used romantic gesture is spreading rose petals in the house or apartment, making a way towards the bedroom in which a romantic interest/lover is waiting surrounded by roses for the love-making session. The joke is that petals don't lead from the front door to the bedroom and [[Cueball]]'s lover, but in the opposite direction instead from the bedroom out onto the street. It appears that someone has set up a box of rose petals and an electric fan atop a {{w|Roomba}} (and autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner) as a method of automatically creating such a trail. The title text suggests that despite the other party's intentions of setting this up as a joke to trick Cueball, Cueball ended up having a lovely time with the Roomba.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball enters a living room, to see a line of rose petals on the floor.]<br />
:[Cueball follows the line of rose petals.]<br />
:[Cueball observes that the line of rose petals leads out the front door, onto the street, and along the sidewalk.]<br />
:''WHIRRRRRR''<br />
:[The panel shows a table fan behind what appears to be an inverted mailbox filled with rose petals with its back removed. Both are sitting on a Roomba which is motoring down the sidewalk. The fan is on, and is blowing the rose petals out the slit in the front of the mailbox.]<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1184:_Circumference_Formula&diff=302111184: Circumference Formula2013-03-11T04:53:17Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1184<br />
| date = March 10, 2013<br />
| title = Circumference Formula<br />
| image = circumference_formula.png<br />
| titletext = Assume r' refers to the radius of Earth Prime, and r'<nowiki/>' means radius in inches.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
The circumference of a circle is 2πr where r is the radius of the circle. Randall then makes a footnote about r but using <sup>2</sup>, which creates a typographical ambiguity, since the superscript 2 can also be an exponent. The formula now resembles πr<sup>2</sup>, which is the formula for the ''area'' of the circle.<br />
<br />
In the title text, r' normally means the derivative of r, and r'<nowiki/>' the double derivative of r, whereas ' can also mean feet, while '<nowiki/>' can refer to inches.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Circumference of a circle:<br />
:2πr<sup>2</sup><br />
:<sup>2</sup>The circle's radius<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1180:_Virus_Venn_Diagram&diff=29533Talk:1180: Virus Venn Diagram2013-03-03T07:43:16Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>If nothing else, defragging the Singularity would keep it busy for a few hours. ~ [[User:Quackslikeaduck|Quackslikeaduck]] ([[User talk:Quackslikeaduck|talk]]) 13:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I wonder if defragging the Singularity would actually erase/ruin it. Just imagine what would have happened to the first multi-cellular organism if someone had rearranged its molecules in what it considered to be a more "efficient" manner!--[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 15:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
And for a minute I was asking myself what black holes had to do with it... --[[Special:Contributions/65.222.165.65|65.222.165.65]] 16:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: Well, beyond borrowing the name from the black-hole concept, there's something else too. You could say defragging decreases entropy. Decreasing the entropy of a black-hole would lead to what? Not a black hole? Bear in mind that black holes are tricky from a physics POV, and to top that, entropy, in the context of gravitation is a tricky thing. Also, the entire concept of "efficiency" is governed by the second law. So... Damn. I've tied this into all sorts of knots. But I'm going to say, if you tried defragging the singularity, it would actually prevent it from acting (since any action increases entropy), and therefore, IS a viable method to slow down the AI takeover. [[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 22:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
I've managed to put someone in the "Maybe it has a Virus" category. I added an implementation of "{{w|Neko_(computer_program)|neko}}" to an application we where working on, and the little cat following the mouse just confused a user who had never seen it before. [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 19:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
It's actually an Euler diagram, not a Venn diagram. --[[Special:Contributions/23.17.150.29|23.17.150.29]] 21:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I looked it up and agree. I wonder if someone has told Randall. I know he would appreciate it ([[1053: Ten Thousand]]). I'm not sure whether or not to change the "a Euler diagram" to "an Euler diagram" though. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:It's no less a Venn Diagram than it is a Euler. --[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 05:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Since Euler is pronounced "Oiler" the "an" is appropriate no matter what your thoughts are regarding it's conventions.[[User:Schmammel|Schmammel]] ([[User talk:Schmammel|talk]]) 03:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Also, one of the most fascinating things from the Euler Wiki article was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Euler_diagram_of_triangle_types.svg this image] on a Euler diagram of traingles. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Actually, this IS a Venn Diagram, not an Euler diagram. In an Euler diagram, one thins is a subset of another, which in this case would suggest that either all suspected cases of computer viruses are a subset of actual computer viruses, or the reverse, which I really don't think Randall is trying to imply, or rather NOT imply by his joke. For one thing, the joke is that problems that are caused by computer viruses and problems that people suspect are caused by computer viruses should have some overlap, but don't. This does not fit with an Euler interpretation of the graph as that would say (if one of the circles was inside the other) that every time the problem is a computer virus, people always correctly identify them but also assume other non-computer virus problems are viruses - or the reverse - all problems are caused by a computer virus but only a few are identified as computer viruses. Secondly, and more importantly, in an Euler diagram one circle is always SMALLER than the other, where as in a Venn diagram they are always the SAME size. Oh, and last but not least, I'd be very surprised if Randall didn't know the difference between a Venn and an Euler diagram, since I'm sure he's had to use both many times.--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 07:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I was about to make a post about unnecessary amounts of pedantry, but after reading both wikipedia articles, I've decided that this is exactly the kind of "Learn something new every day" material that I really liked about the old explain xkcd blog, and I'm happy that its continuing. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Haha, how often do I have this conversation with my parents! They: "I think we are being hacked." Me: "?!" They: "Yeah, this morning when I started my computer, X wasn't working and now Y is acting all weird." ... Yes, of course. --[[Special:Contributions/83.84.33.170|83.84.33.170]] 08:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Oh my god, we all see the source, MATRIX MUST BE RIGHT! (011010100111010101110011011101000010000001101011011010010110010001100100011010010110111001100111001000000011101000101001) - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 03:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1180:_Virus_Venn_Diagram&diff=29532Talk:1180: Virus Venn Diagram2013-03-03T07:39:37Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>If nothing else, defragging the Singularity would keep it busy for a few hours. ~ [[User:Quackslikeaduck|Quackslikeaduck]] ([[User talk:Quackslikeaduck|talk]]) 13:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I wonder if defragging the Singularity would actually erase/ruin it. Just imagine what would have happened to the first multi-cellular organism if someone had rearranged its molecules in what it considered to be a more "efficient" manner!--[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 15:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
And for a minute I was asking myself what black holes had to do with it... --[[Special:Contributions/65.222.165.65|65.222.165.65]] 16:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: Well, beyond borrowing the name from the black-hole concept, there's something else too. You could say defragging decreases entropy. Decreasing the entropy of a black-hole would lead to what? Not a black hole? Bear in mind that black holes are tricky from a physics POV, and to top that, entropy, in the context of gravitation is a tricky thing. Also, the entire concept of "efficiency" is governed by the second law. So... Damn. I've tied this into all sorts of knots. But I'm going to say, if you tried defragging the singularity, it would actually prevent it from acting (since any action increases entropy), and therefore, IS a viable method to slow down the AI takeover. [[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 22:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
I've managed to put someone in the "Maybe it has a Virus" category. I added an implementation of "{{w|Neko_(computer_program)|neko}}" to an application we where working on, and the little cat following the mouse just confused a user who had never seen it before. [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 19:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
It's actually an Euler diagram, not a Venn diagram. --[[Special:Contributions/23.17.150.29|23.17.150.29]] 21:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I looked it up and agree. I wonder if someone has told Randall. I know he would appreciate it ([[1053: Ten Thousand]]). I'm not sure whether or not to change the "a Euler diagram" to "an Euler diagram" though. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:It's no less a Venn Diagram than it is a Euler. --[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 05:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Since Euler is pronounced "Oiler" the "an" is appropriate no matter what your thoughts are regarding it's conventions.[[User:Schmammel|Schmammel]] ([[User talk:Schmammel|talk]]) 03:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Also, one of the most fascinating things from the Euler Wiki article was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Euler_diagram_of_triangle_types.svg this image] on a Euler diagram of traingles. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Actually, this IS a Venn Diagram, not an Euler diagram. In an Euler diagram, one thins is a subset of another, which in this case would suggest that either all suspected cases of computer viruses (aka SCV) are a subset of actual computer viruses (aka ACV), or the reverse, which I really don't think Randall is trying to imply, or rather NOT imply by his joke. For one thing, the joke is that problems that are caused by computer viruses and problems that people suspect are caused by computer viruses should have some overlap, but don't. This does not fit with an Euler interpretation of the graph as that would say (if one of the circles was inside the other) that every time the problem is a computer virus, people always correctly identify them but also assume other non-computer virus problems are viruses - or the reverse - all problems are caused by a computer virus but only a few are identified as computer viruses. Secondly, and more importantly, in an Euler diagram one circle is always SMALLER than the other, where as in a Venn diagram they are always the SAME size. Oh, and last but not least, I'd be very surprised if Randall didn't know the difference between a Venn and an Euler diagram, since I'm sure he's had to use both many times.--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 07:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I was about to make a post about unnecessary amounts of pedantry, but after reading both wikipedia articles, I've decided that this is exactly the kind of "Learn something new every day" material that I really liked about the old explain xkcd blog, and I'm happy that its continuing. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Haha, how often do I have this conversation with my parents! They: "I think we are being hacked." Me: "?!" They: "Yeah, this morning when I started my computer, X wasn't working and now Y is acting all weird." ... Yes, of course. --[[Special:Contributions/83.84.33.170|83.84.33.170]] 08:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Oh my god, we all see the source, MATRIX MUST BE RIGHT! (011010100111010101110011011101000010000001101011011010010110010001100100011010010110111001100111001000000011101000101001) - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 03:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1180:_Virus_Venn_Diagram&diff=295311180: Virus Venn Diagram2013-03-03T07:16:32Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1180<br />
| date = March 1, 2013<br />
| title = Virus Venn Diagram<br />
| image = virus venn diagram.png<br />
| titletext = Within five minutes of the Singularity appearing, somebody will suggest defragging it.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Randall uses an {{w|Venn diagram}} (typically a pair of semi-overlapping circles showing what areas two groups have in common and which are completely independent) to make fun of clueless computer users. A common response to any computer problem is: "Maybe it has a {{w|Computer virus|virus}}?". The circles in the Venn diagram don't overlap (like they usually do), meaning: 1) Problems that people suspect are virus-caused are never virus-caused. 2) Problems that are actually virus-caused are never suspected by people to be caused by a virus.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to the {{w|technological singularity}}, a hypothetical point in the future when {{w|superintelligence}} emerges in computers, so that they can build new computers with ever increasing intelligence. It is seen as impossible to predict what would happen beyond this point; hence the term "singularity". ([[1084: Server Problem]] makes a joke on this.)<br />
<br />
"Defragging" is short for {{w|disk defragmentation}}, an easy, user-friendly action that PC users can undertake to supposedly make their computers run faster. It is therefore a common all-round recommendation to do this, regardless of the problem. [[Randall]] suggests the same clueless users would encounter the singularity and attempt defragging. It probably won't help much.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Venn diagram with two circles that don't intersect.]<br />
:Green circle: Computer problems that make people say, "Maybe it has a virus?"<br />
:Blue circle: Computer problems caused by viruses<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Computers]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1178:_Pickup_Artists&diff=290791178: Pickup Artists2013-02-27T06:24:56Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1178<br />
| date = February 25, 2013<br />
| title = Pickup Artists<br />
| image = pickup artists.png<br />
| titletext = It sounds like a great way to make friends! Is it near that Friend Zone you keep talking about? I wanna go!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
A {{w|pickup artist}} is a person who considers himself skilled at at picking up (finding, attracting and seducing) women, through various psychological tactics and tricks. [[Randall]] clearly does not see this as a healthy attitude towards women, something he elaborated on in [[1027: Pickup Artist]]; this comic also features the pickup guy.<br />
<br />
Pickup basketball is like regular basketball, the difference being that in pickup basketball, the players are not part of an organized league or team but rather are just people who are available to play at that time and location. It's the way a basketball game can start on a local playground or at school. "Pickup" games generally have less formal rule structure compared to more formal forms of the games. See for example {{w|streetball}} for basketball or {{w|shinny}} for hockey.<br />
<br />
Beret Guy thinks (or wants to think) that what pickup artists really do is gather spontaneously to practice {{w|art|artistry}}, like the {{w|visual arts}}. This makes the world seem a happier place (especially considering his own disposition for (eccentric) art).<br />
<br />
The title text also shows Beret Guy's (pretended?) belief that the "{{w|friend zone}}" is a physical place. The "friend zone" refers to the state of a relationship in which one part has (hidden) romantic interests, but the other person only wants to be friends. Once the friend zone is established, it is said to be difficult to try to move beyond that point into a romantic relationship. Randall previously expressed criticism towards trying to just slip into a romantic relationship from the friend zone in [[513: Friends]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Beret Guy: What've you been up to lately?<br />
:Other Guy: I've been hanging out with some pickup artists. I'm learning a lot!<br />
:Beret Guy: Oh, that sounds like fun!<br />
<br />
:The world seems like a happier place if you think "pickup artist" is like "pickup basketball player".<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1172:_Workflow&diff=277021172: Workflow2013-02-11T23:30:00Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1172<br />
| date = February 11, 2013<br />
| title = Workflow<br />
| image = workflow.png<br />
| titletext = There are probably children out there holding down spacebar to stay warm in the winter! YOUR UPDATE MURDERS CHILDREN<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Users will often try to work around bugs in software, and are sometimes able to get used to having the bugs around. Some bugs are even interpreted as features and users complain when the software authors fixed them. A similar effect may be caused by other improvements, particularly those which involve changes in the user interface.<br />
<br />
This comic shows a somewhat extreme example. An unnamed software had a bug causing the CPU to overheat whenever the spacebar was held down too long. In version 10.17, this bug was fixed. Soon, longtimeuser4 complained that they liked the bug of CPU overheating if the spacebar was held down. They hand made use this "feature" (which is, again, more weird than usual) to streamline their workflow, and they wanted an option to re-enable it.<br />
<br />
Emacs (''E''ditor ''MAC''ro''S'') is a text editor popular in Linux (with ports to virtually all operating systems including Android) that features a very powerful internal macro language. Macros are little programs or scripts for automating repetitive tasks.<br />
<br />
Examples of real life changes in software which, though often acclaimed by critics, caused great annoyance among existing user base include ribbons introduced in Microsoft Office 2007, Start screen of Windows 8 or Unity desktop manager bundled with Ubuntu since version 11.10. In the latter case, developers included an option to use the older interface; for the rest, applications emulating (to some extent) old behavior were developed by third parties.<br />
<br />
The title text makes a hyperbole to humorous effect, children will freeze to death during the winter because they won't be warmed by a rather unconventional heater. Proving (or creating an illusion of) a connection between one's opinion and care for children's welfare is a common method of gaining public support for this opinion, as such arguments are hard to deflect by the other side of the debate.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Latest: 10.17&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[Update]<br />
----<br />
:'''Changes in version 10.17:'''<br />
:The CPU no longer overheats<br />
:when you hold down spacebar.<br />
----<br />
:<div style="margin-left: 5em;">Comments:</div><br />
:'''LongtimeUser4''' writes:<br />
<br />
:This update broke my workflow!<br />
:my control key is hard to reach,<br />
:so I hold spacebar instead, and I<br />
:configured Emacs to intepret a<br />
:rapid temperature rise as "control".<br />
<br />
:'''Admin''' writes:<br />
<br />
:That's horrifying.<br />
<br />
:'''LongtimeUser4''' writes:<br />
<br />
:Look, my setup works for me.<br />
:Just add an option to reenable<br />
:spacebar heating.<br />
<br />
<br />
Every change breaks someone's workflow.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Computers]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1170:_Bridge&diff=275281170: Bridge2013-02-09T06:33:46Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1170<br />
| date = February 6, 2013<br />
| title = Bridge<br />
| image = bridge.png<br />
| titletext = And it says a lot about you that when your friends jump off a bridge en masse, your first thought is apparently 'my friends are all foolish and I won't be like them' and not 'are my friends ok?'.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
"If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?" This is a common question, used to challenge a decision based on the {{w|bandwagon effect}}. It challenges someone to consider whether something is really a good idea, even if everyone else does it (in this case, friends). The sentence is, upon closer analysis, a {{w|straw man}} attack that over-extrapolates the bandwagon effect.<br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] responds by assuming that if all of his friends jumped off a bridge, there must have been some extreme circumstance that made it logical to do so; for example, that the bridge is on fire. This points out a logical fallacy with the question: if they really are jumping off a bridge, they're probably motivated by something serious as opposed to an idiotic risk. The title texts adds upon this, given that the unseen speaker (most likely a parent) expects Cueball to see the foolish decision of his friends with cynicism instead of concern.<br />
<br />
So the humor of this comic is in all the different ways the question can be turned on its head, and made to mean something the unseen speaker probably never intended.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A youthful Cueball talking to an unseen parent.]<br />
:Parent: No, you can't go.<br />
:Cueball: But all my friends — <br />
:Parent: If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?<br />
:Cueball: Oh, jeez. Probably.<br />
<br />
:Parent: What!? Why!?<br />
:Cueball: Because all my friends did.<br />
:Cueball: Think about it — which scenario is more likely:<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time...<br />
:Cueball: ...or the bridge is on fire?<br />
<br />
:Parent: ...I, uh...hmm.<br />
:Cueball: Imagine reading this on CNN: "''Many fled their vehicles and jumped from the bridge. Those who stayed behind...''"<br />
:Cueball: Is something ''good'' about to happen to those people?<br />
:Parent: Maybe they'll find cookies?<br />
:Cueball: OK, ''you'' stay. I'm jumping.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1170:_Bridge&diff=274021170: Bridge2013-02-07T08:37:30Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1170<br />
| date = February 6, 2013<br />
| title = Bridge<br />
| image = bridge.png<br />
| titletext = And it says a lot about you that when your friends jump off a bridge en masse, your first thought is apparently 'my friends are all foolish and I won't be like them' and not 'are my friends ok?'.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
"If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?" is a common phrase, meant to challenge someone who indicates their desire to do something just because all their friends are doing that same same thing. It is meant to cause the person to consider whether just the fact alone their friends are doing something means that something is a good idea. The form of the statement with "your friends" may be replaced by another group or a specific individual.<br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] responds by assuming that if all of his friends jumped off a bridge, there must have been some extreme circumstance that made it logical to do so; for example, that the bridge is on fire. This points out a logical fallacy with the common phrase, in that if many of the person's friends are actually doing what the subject intends to do, like suddenly jump off a bridge, it is extremely unlikely that this is a stupid course of action, or they wouldn't be seriously considering it. The title texts adds upon this, given that the unseen speaker is essentially expecting Cueball to see the foolish decision of his friends with cynicism instead of concern.<br />
<br />
So the humor of this comic is in all the different ways the question can be turned on its head, and made to mean something the unseen speaker probably never intended.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A youthful Cueball talking to an unseen parent.]<br />
:Parent: No, you can't go.<br />
:Cueball: But all my friends — <br />
:Parent: If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?<br />
:Cueball: Oh, jeez. Probably.<br />
<br />
:Parent: What!? Why!?<br />
:Cueball: Because all my friends did.<br />
:Cueball: Think about it — which scenario is more likely:<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time...<br />
:Cueball: ...or the bridge is on fire?<br />
<br />
:Parent: ...I, uh...hmm.<br />
:Cueball: Imagine reading this on CNN: "''Many fled their vehicles and jumped from the bridge. Those who stayed behind...''"<br />
:Cueball: Is something ''good'' about to happen to those people?<br />
:Parent: Maybe they'll find cookies?<br />
:Cueball: OK, ''you'' stay. I'm jumping.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1063:_Kill_Hitler&diff=236851063: Kill Hitler2012-12-26T19:34:00Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1063<br />
| date = June 1, 2012<br />
| title = Kill Hitler<br />
| image = kill_hitler.png<br />
| imagesize = <br />
| titletext = Revised directive: It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history until you've at least taken a class on it.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
== Explanation ==<br />
In this comic, which I believe Randall created just to put in "BRB, Killing Hitler", [[Black Hat]] creates a one use time machine. [[Cueball]] selects the most common suggestion for Time Machine usage "Killing Hitler". Black Hat finally relents and goes to kill Hitler, however, he goes to the year 1945, when Hitler is already in his bunker. Hitler has already committed his atrocities and the war was already turning against him. Later in 1945, he reportedly died by suicide in that very same bunker. The joke in here being that Black Hat didn't save any lives or prevent the Holocaust or a global war by killing him in 1945 because he went back in time too late. He needed to go earlier, before his rise to power, like 1932. This is also the point of the image text, which states that you cannot travel back in time unless you know what will occur.<br />
<br />
== Transcript ==<br />
:[Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of a double door, which bears the label &#39;TIME door&#39;. Black Hat has his hands on his hips.]<br />
:Black Hat: I finished my time machine, but it&#39;s one-use only.<br />
:Cueball: You gotta kill Hitler.<br />
<br />
:[Close-up of Black Hat, one hand palm upward.]<br />
:Black Hat: You are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? We have all of time we could explore!<br />
<br />
:[Close-up of Cueball with both hands palm upward.]<br />
:Cueball: He&#39;s evil incarnate! He murdered millions and sparked global war! Everyone agrees -- if you get a time machine, you kill Hitler.<br />
<br />
:[Black Hat enters the now open Time door as the other man looks on..]<br />
:Black Hat: Fine, fine, I get it! Calm down. - BRB, killing Hitler.<br />
<br />
:[Black Hat returns and shuts the door, the other man has outstretched arms.]<br />
:Black Hat: There. Done. Are you happy? <br />
:Cueball: Thank you.<br />
:Black Hat: He was in some kind of bunker. 1945 was loud!<br />
<br />
:Cueball: NO!<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Hitler]]</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1149:_Broomstick&diff=23203Talk:1149: Broomstick2012-12-20T02:21:17Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
<hr />
<div>Anyone have any thoughts on the title text? Is that intended to suggest that Toto was an annoyance that Dorothy was happy to be rid of? I'm not really sure why (if) it's supposed to be funny... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I figured it was a kind of loophole closing. With a lot of movies, you have viewers that go "well if the protagonist had just done 'this', then they could have saved a lot of trouble." But in this "easier" scenario, what reason would the witch have to trust Dorothy? Collateral is often used to ensure that one party will keep up their end of a deal, so it helped to seal this one. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 16:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I agree that the intention was to close a loophole, but I also was unable to fathom that Dorothy would leave Toto behind. It would be ''way'' out of character for her. If Dorothy had been a more self-centered character, then the title text would be a lot funnier. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 11:38, 19 December 2012 (EST)<br />
<br />
:Definitely to close a loophole. Dorothy has something the Witch wants that Dorothy doesn't need except the crazy witch wants to hurt her for them. The Wizard seems to have what she needs but won't give it except for what the witch wants. A trade seems much easier. But of course, who would trust the witch (and why would the untrusting witch start trusting)? All things considered, if you're in a strange land with freaky creatures and frighteningly perverse singalongs, you might consider a Scottish terrier a small price to pay to return to a Kansas farm which, while dull, is far superior to that crazy place. :) [[User:Chriss|Chriss]] ([[User talk:Chriss|talk]]) 16:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)Chriss<br />
<br />
:Cairn Terrier, original to the books and continued in the movie. Smaller and less feisty than a Scottie.A loyal breed, he probably escaped from the WWW after the trade, and is flying home with Dorothy and the Professor, unseen down in the bottom of the balloon basket.[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 21:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Megan never struck me as much of a dog person. [[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 17:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Just wondering if Wizzard wants to see the broom, why not to show that to him, even let him touch that, than return it to the Witch, collect the pupy from her and merry on my way ? Kind of complicating the quest again, but retaining the all-for-friend appearance. [[User:prom|prom]] 1:13, 20.12.2012 (CET)<br />
<br />
== The movie, not the book ==<br />
<br />
Since the book had {{w|Silver Shoes}} and the movie had {{w|Ruby Slippers}}, I think it's probably best to avoid discussion of the book... I've removed the reference to the Nome King - who doesn't appear in the movie or even that first Oz book. &ndash;&nbsp;''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]''&nbsp;<sup>[[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]]</sup> 18:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Black Hat Guy ==<br />
<br />
Anyone else notice Black Hat Guy in the balloon? How do you add the tag for "Comics with Black Hat Guy"?</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1149:_Broomstick&diff=23194Talk:1149: Broomstick2012-12-20T00:26:40Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* The movie, not the book */</p>
<hr />
<div>Anyone have any thoughts on the title text? Is that intended to suggest that Toto was an annoyance that Dorothy was happy to be rid of? I'm not really sure why (if) it's supposed to be funny... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I figured it was a kind of loophole closing. With a lot of movies, you have viewers that go "well if the protagonist had just done 'this', then they could have saved a lot of trouble." But in this "easier" scenario, what reason would the witch have to trust Dorothy? Collateral is often used to ensure that one party will keep up their end of a deal, so it helped to seal this one. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 16:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
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:I agree that the intention was to close a loophole, but I also was unable to fathom that Dorothy would leave Toto behind. It would be ''way'' out of character for her. If Dorothy had been a more self-centered character, then the title text would be a lot funnier. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 11:38, 19 December 2012 (EST)<br />
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:Definitely to close a loophole. Dorothy has something the Witch wants that Dorothy doesn't need except the crazy witch wants to hurt her for them. The Wizard seems to have what she needs but won't give it except for what the witch wants. A trade seems much easier. But of course, who would trust the witch (and why would the untrusting witch start trusting)? All things considered, if you're in a strange land with freaky creatures and frighteningly perverse singalongs, you might consider a Scottish terrier a small price to pay to return to a Kansas farm which, while dull, is far superior to that crazy place. :) [[User:Chriss|Chriss]] ([[User talk:Chriss|talk]]) 16:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)Chriss<br />
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:Cairn Terrier, original to the books and continued in the movie. Smaller and less feisty than a Scottie.A loyal breed, he probably escaped from the WWW after the trade, and is flying home with Dorothy and the Professor, unseen down in the bottom of the balloon basket.[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 21:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
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:Megan never struck me as much of a dog person. [[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 17:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
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:Just wondering if Wizzard wants to see the broom, why not to show that to him, even let him touch that, than return it to the Witch, collect the pupy from her and merry on my way ? Kind of complicating the quest again, but retaining the all-for-friend appearance. [[User:prom|prom]] 1:13, 20.12.2012 (CET)<br />
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== The movie, not the book ==<br />
<br />
Since the book had {{w|Silver Shoes}} and the movie had {{w|Ruby Slippers}}, I think it's probably best to avoid discussion of the book... I've removed the reference to the Nome King - who doesn't appear in the movie or even that first Oz book. &ndash;&nbsp;''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]''&nbsp;<sup>[[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]]</sup> 18:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
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Anyone else notice Black Hat Guy in the balloon? How do you add the tag for "Comics with Black Hat Guy"? [[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 00:26, 20 December 2012 (UTC)7OO Tnega Terces</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1149:_Broomstick&diff=23193Talk:1149: Broomstick2012-12-20T00:24:01Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: </p>
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<div>Anyone have any thoughts on the title text? Is that intended to suggest that Toto was an annoyance that Dorothy was happy to be rid of? I'm not really sure why (if) it's supposed to be funny... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I figured it was a kind of loophole closing. With a lot of movies, you have viewers that go "well if the protagonist had just done 'this', then they could have saved a lot of trouble." But in this "easier" scenario, what reason would the witch have to trust Dorothy? Collateral is often used to ensure that one party will keep up their end of a deal, so it helped to seal this one. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 16:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I agree that the intention was to close a loophole, but I also was unable to fathom that Dorothy would leave Toto behind. It would be ''way'' out of character for her. If Dorothy had been a more self-centered character, then the title text would be a lot funnier. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 11:38, 19 December 2012 (EST)<br />
<br />
:Definitely to close a loophole. Dorothy has something the Witch wants that Dorothy doesn't need except the crazy witch wants to hurt her for them. The Wizard seems to have what she needs but won't give it except for what the witch wants. A trade seems much easier. But of course, who would trust the witch (and why would the untrusting witch start trusting)? All things considered, if you're in a strange land with freaky creatures and frighteningly perverse singalongs, you might consider a Scottish terrier a small price to pay to return to a Kansas farm which, while dull, is far superior to that crazy place. :) [[User:Chriss|Chriss]] ([[User talk:Chriss|talk]]) 16:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)Chriss<br />
<br />
:Cairn Terrier, original to the books and continued in the movie. Smaller and less feisty than a Scottie.A loyal breed, he probably escaped from the WWW after the trade, and is flying home with Dorothy and the Professor, unseen down in the bottom of the balloon basket.[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 21:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Megan never struck me as much of a dog person. [[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 17:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Just wondering if Wizzard wants to see the broom, why not to show that to him, even let him touch that, than return it to the Witch, collect the pupy from her and merry on my way ? Kind of complicating the quest again, but retaining the all-for-friend appearance. [[User:prom|prom]] 1:13, 20.12.2012 (CET)<br />
<br />
== The movie, not the book ==<br />
<br />
Since the book had {{w|Silver Shoes}} and the movie had {{w|Ruby Slippers}}, I think it's probably best to avoid discussion of the book... I've removed the reference to the Nome King - who doesn't appear in the movie or even that first Oz book. &ndash;&nbsp;''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]''&nbsp;<sup>[[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]]</sup> 18:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anyone else notice Black Hat Guy in the balloon? How do you add the tag for "Comics with Black Hat Guy"?</div>7OO Tnega Terceshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1149:_Broomstick&diff=231921149: Broomstick2012-12-20T00:22:23Z<p>7OO Tnega Terces: /* Explanation */</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1149<br />
| date = December 19, 2012<br />
| title = Broomstick<br />
| image = broomstick.png<br />
| titletext = 'Broom first, then slippers.' 'How do I know you'll return the broom once you've secured your ticket?' 'I'll leave my little dog as collateral.' 'Great. Pleasure doing business!'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
In this comic, [[Megan]] plays the part of {{w|Dorothy Gale|Dorothy}}, the {{w|protagonist}} of ''{{w|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|The Wizard of Oz}}''. Dorothy has been trapped in the {{w|Land of Oz}} due to {{w|Tornado|extreme weather}} and must obtain transportation home. An off-screen character, presumably the {{w|Wizard of Oz (character)|Wizard of Oz}} himself, offers her a ride if she obtains the {{w|The Wicked Witch of the West}}'s magic broom. Megan wears {{w|Ruby Slippers}} and uses them as a bargaining chip to obtain the Witch's broom.<br />
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The "little dog" offered in the title text is Dorothy's faithful companion {{w|Toto (Oz)|Toto}}.<br />
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{{w|The Wicked Witch of the West}} is a fictional character and the most significant antagonist in ''The Wizard of Oz'', which is based on L. Frank Baum's children's book ''{{w|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz}}''. In the 1939 version of ''The Wizard of Oz'', the Wicked Witch flies on her broom over the Emerald City demanding Dorothy's surrender, and the Wizard demands the destruction of the Witch with her broom as proof, in exchange for granting the wishes of Dorothy and her companions.<br />
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The point of the comic is to show how easily Dorothy could resolve the situation if she was willing to forsake both her traveling companions and her pet. She leaves Toto with the Witch, who will presumably do something unpleasant to him when she realizes that Dorthy has stolen her broom and she will also leave Oz completely at the mercy of said witch by giving her the Ruby Slippers and leaving with the Wizard.<br />
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Trivia: The Wizard is evidently played by Black Hat Guy, who can be seen riding off with Megan in the balloon.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[Megan wearing red shoes talking to somebody off-screen]<br />
:[Off-screen]: ''Bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West and I’ll take you home.''<br />
:Megan: Got it.<br />
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:[Megan wearing red shoes standing before steps]<br />
:Megan: You can have the slippers if you let me borrow your broom.<br />
:[Off-screen]: Deal.<br />
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:[Megan carrying a broom and singing]<br />
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:[Megan flying in a balloon over three ''Wizard of Oz'' characters]<br />
:Megan: That was easy.<br />
{{comic discussion}} <br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]</div>7OO Tnega Terces