explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1091: Curiosity

2012-08-06T10:38:56Z

Alistairjcbrown:

{{ComicHeader|1091|August 6, 2012}}

[[File:Curiosity.png|As of this writing the NASA/JPL websites are still overloaded. Trying CURIOSITY-REAR-CAM_[256px_x_256px].torrent.SwEsUb.DVDRip.XviD-aXXo.jpg instead.]]

==Image text==
As of this writing the NASA/JPL websites are still overloaded. Trying CURIOSITY-REAR-CAM_[256px_x_256px].torrent.SwEsUb.DVDRip.XviD-aXXo.jpg instead.

==Description==
This comic is a reference to the NASA Mars Rover "Curiosity" landing on Mars on 6 August 2012. NASA live-streamed the landing, but demand for the feed caused server issues. Thus, the time spent trying to download the landing images could be used as an excuse for being late for work.

The image text is a reference to {{w|Torrent file|torrents}}, which are a more resilient way to download files, due to the decentralized BitTorrent protocol, where the more people there are downloading a file, the most available it is. The name is a play on the file naming convention of release groups who name their files containing data on the file; language (SwEsUb = Swedish subtitles), source (DVDRip = Ripped from DVD), encoding (XviD = XviD codec) and group name ({{w|Axxo|aXXo}} = aXXo, a well known DVD movie releaser).

User:Alistairjcbrown

2012-08-01T14:56:35Z

Alistairjcbrown: Created page with "Huh?"

Huh?

1087: Cirith Ungol

2012-08-01T14:56:02Z

Alistairjcbrown: Explanation of sentence ambiguity

This is comic number 1087. Posted on July 27,2012.

[[File:cirith_ungol.png]]

Image text: My all-time favorite example of syntactic ambiguity comes from Wikipedia: 'Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte.'

The comic here is a mash up between the Lord of the Rings trilogy of books and movies and the novel and movie "Charlotte's Web".

The title Cirith Ungol is a reference to Lord of the Rings where, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee were led to Cirith Ungol by Gollum to the lair of the ancient spider Shelob.

And therefore in this comic, Frodo (by himself) is being led into the laid of the spider, Charlotte. We can tell by the "Some Pig" writing in the spider web on the lower right hand corner which is a direct reference to the story of "Charlotte's Web".

In the image text, syntactic ambiguity is a property of sentences which may be reasonably interpreted in more than one way, or reasonably interpreted to mean more than one thing.

The ambiguity of the sentence quoted is that the pig named Wilbur could have been saved by Charlotte from being slaughtered by someone, or could have been saved by someone from being slaughtered by Charlotte.

[[Category:Comics|1087]]