explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1670: Laws of Physics

2016-04-20T15:49:22Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1670
| date = April 20, 2016
| title = Laws of Physics
| image = laws_of_physics.png
| titletext = The laws of physics are fun to try to understand, but as an organism with incredibly delicate eyes who evolved in a world full of sharp objects, I have an awful lot of trust in biology's calibration of my flinch reflex.
}}

{{Incomplete|The title-text still needs an explanation}}

==Explanation==
Black Hat, being Black Hat, is deliberately perverting a classic physics demonstration. In the normal version of the demonstration, the heavy ball is pulled to one side until it is almost, but not quite, touching the volunteer's nose or chin -- in this comic, Black Hat is the only one in the right position for the experiment. When the ball is released, it swings down and away, then back to (almost) where it started -- but ''never'' (by the laws of physics) farther than where it started. So, as long as the volunteer doesn't flinch, the heavy ball will never hit them in the nose. (Sample videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXXF2C-vrQE], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2GdY1OlDpA].)

In this comic, since Cueball is not standing at the edge of the ball's movement, but rather at the base of its swing, he is about to get a rude surprise.

The title text refers to the fact when someone flinches during the pendulum experiment, they are commonly accused of not having faith in the laws of physics. Randall is rebutting this argument by stating that, rather than not having faith in science, he is actually in tune with it, specifically the biological processes that led to the flinch reflex. His eyes and his flinch reflex have been calibrated through millions of years of evolution. To instantly dismiss your body's natural reaction when a heavy object comes quickly towards your face does not give enough credit to these mechanisms that successfully kept you (and every one of your ancestors) alive.

==Transcript==

:[Black Hat is standing on a ladder, holding a heavy ball attached to a line from above. Cueball stands beneath, where if the ball swings it will smack him right in the face.]
:Black Hat: Okay, hold still.
:Black Hat: And remember, if you ''really'' believe in the laws of physics, you won't flinch.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]

1658: Estimating Time

2016-03-21T17:08:46Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1658
| date = March 21, 2016
| title = Estimating Time
| image = estimating_time.png
| titletext = Corollary to Hofstadter's Law: Every minute you spend thinking about Hofstadter's Law is a minute you're NOT WORKING AND WILL NEVER FINISH! PAAAAAANIIIIIIC!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft.}}

Estimation, particularly of the size of IT projects, is difficult; many people seems to greatly underestimate the amount of time or other resources required.

Ponytail is working at her computer and becomes frustrated as it seems her project will (again) take much longer than she has estimated. She is annoyed with herself for always failing to make a decent guess. [[Danish]] begins to give Ponytail advice on how to estimate the time, starting with the comforting words {{w| Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Don.27t_Panic |Don’t panic}} and a common guideline of taking the initial estimate and doubling it.

However, Danish's true personality appears (and the comic becomes self-referential) as this doubled time would now be her most realistic estimate and Danish thus tells Ponytail she should double this again, and by the way add five minutes. Unless the project to begin with was estimated to somewhat less than an hour, those five minutes will do nothing but confuse Ponytail. But Danish does not stop here, because per the first step, you could always say that your current guess is the most realistic and thus you have to double this and that and so on and so on. Ponytail still doesn’t get where this goes, saying plainly ''okay'' to that.

But then it turns out that Danish was not at all trying to help, but just mess with Ponytail, as she now tells her that the only thing she has accomplished by listening to her advice is wasting half a minute doubling imaginary numbers, i.e. even her first estimate is just something she has imagined especially since she states herself how bad she is at those kind of estimates.

Danish completes her frustration of Ponytail by saying ''Paaaniiic!'', negating the initial advice.

The title text refers to {{w|Hofstadter's law}} which is a non-scientific self-referential time-related adage coined by {{w|Douglas Hofstadter}} and named after him. It states: ''It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.'' The title text is an extra corollary to the law, that states that using the law to estimate anything about the time your project takes is not only wasted time you could have spent working there is a substantial risk that you will conclude that you will never finish, and thus panic instead of just get the job done now.

Self-reference is a [[:Category:Self-reference|recurring theme]] on xkcd and this comic is quite self-referential both in the comic but also refering to other comics especially to [[917: Hofstadter]]. He is perhaps most famous for his book {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}} from where the quote is taken (in a section on {{w|recursion}} and self-reference, rather than estimation). This book has been directly referenced in [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is sitting back from her a laptop lifting her hands of the keyboard, having presumably just paused work on a project.]
:Ponytail: Aaaa! I'm so bad at estimating how long projects take.

:[Danish walks into the panel towards Ponytail who seems to relax back against the chair.]
:Danish: Don't panic-there's a simple trick for that:
:Danish: Take your most realistic estimate and double it.
:Ponytail: Okay, but-

:[A frame less panel with only Danish holding a hand up.]
:Danish: Now double it again. Add five minutes.
:Danish: Double it a third time.
:Ponytail (from off panel): Okay...

:[Danish raises her arms above her head in mock hysteria. Ponytail runs away from her desk screaming.]
:Danish: 30 seconds have gone by and you've done nothing but double imaginary numbers! You're making no progress and will never finish!
:Ponytail: <big>''Aaaaaa!''</big>
:Danish: ''Paaaniic!''
:Ponytail: <big>''Aaaaaaa!''</big>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]

1648: Famous Duos

2016-02-26T19:41:23Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1648
| date = February 26, 2016
| title = Famous Duos
| image = famous_duos.png
| titletext = The Romeo and Butt-Head film actually got two thumbs up from Siskel and Oates.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs to be expanded; Needs a main explanation}}

In popular culture (the term is loosely used in this case) there are many famous duos, such as Calvin & Hobbes (six years old boy and his toy tiger, from the cartoon strip with the same name) or David & Goliath (future King of Israel and giant, from the Book of Samuel, Old Testament). In this table, Randall describes a fictional parallel universe where the same names are used in different combinations -- instead of Calvin, it is now Thelma (from the movie Thelma & Louise) who is paired up with Hobbes.

The humor of this comic comes from the ridiculousness of the pairings, and the readers imagination of the stories that are created with the pairs.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
|+ Famous duos in this universe
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | pairing
! scope="col" | Partner
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | From
! scope="col" | Name index
! scope="col" | Partner index
|-
| Thelma
| and
| Louise
| {{w|Thelma_%26_Louise|road trip film}}
| 1
| 3
|-
| When Harry
| Met
| Sally
| {{w|When_Harry_Met_Sally...|romantic comedy film}}
| 2
| 16
|-
| Batman
| and
| Robin
| {{w|Batman|comic book characters}}
| 3
| 4
|-
| Antony
| and
| Cleopatra
| historical figures
| 4
| 12
|-
| Romeo
| and
| Juliet
| {{w|Romeo_and_Juliet|Shakespeare characters}}
| 5
| 24
|-
| Bonnie
| and
| Clyde
| {{w|Bonnie_and_Clyde|historical figures}}
| 6
| 7
|-
| Pinky
| and
| the Brain
| {{w|Pinky_and_the_Brain|TV show}}
| 7
| 20
|-
| Simon
| and
| Garfunkel
| {{w|Simon_%26_Garfunkel|musical duo}}
| 8
| 22
|-
| Beauty
| and
| the Beast
| {{w|Beauty_and_the_Beast|fairy tale characters}}
| 9
| 10
|-
| Beavis
| and
| Butthead
| {{w|Beavis_and_Butt-Head|TV show}}
| 10
| 5
|-
| Rocky
| and
| Bullwinkle
| {{w|The_Rocky_and_Bullwinkle_Show|TV show}}
| 11
| 2
|-
| Abbott
| and
| Costello
| {{w|Abbott_and_Costello|comedy duo}}
| 12
| 17
|-
| Dr. Jekyll
| and
| Mr. Hyde
| {{w|Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde|book}}
| 13
| 15
|-
| Samson
| and
| Delilah
| {{w|Samson_and_Delilah|Biblical characters}}
| 14
| 11
|-
| Butch Cassidy
| and
| the Sundance Kid
| historical characters and famous movie
| 15
| 23
|-
| Bill
| and
| Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey
| movie series
| 16
| 6
|-
| David
| and
| Goliath
| Biblical characters
| 17
| 8
|-
| Sherlock Holmes
| and
| Dr. Watson
| {{w|Sherlock_Holmes|Arthur Conan Doyle characters}}
| 18
| 19
|-
| Jay
| and
| Silent Bob
| {{w|Jay_and_Silent_Bob|View Askewniverse characters (Clerks movies)}}
| 19
| 18
|-
| Anna
| and
| the King
| {{w|Anna_and_the_King|movie}}, based on Anna and the King of Siam
| 20
| 21
|-
| Calvin
| and
| Hobbes
| {{w|Calvin_and_Hobbes|comic series}}
| 21
| 1
|-
| Timon
| and
| Pumbaa
| {{w|Timon_and_Pumbaa|characters from the Lion King film series}}
| 22
| 14
|-
| Mary Kate
| and
| Ashley Olsen
| {{w|Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen|twin actresses}}
| 23
| 13
|-
| Mario
| and
| Luigi
| {{w|Mario_Bros.|video game characters}}
| 24
| 9
|-
| Siskel
| and
| Ebert
| {{w|At_the_Movies_(U.S._TV_series)|movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert}}
| 25 (title)
| N/A
|-
| Hall or Garfunkel
| and
| Oates
| {{w|Hall_%26_Oates|musical duo}} or {{w|Garfunkel_and_Oates|comedy duo}}
| N/A
| 26 (title)
|}

==Transcript==

Famous Duos in a nearby parallel universe

Thelma and Hobbes

when Harry met Bullwinkle

Batman and Louise

Antony and Robin

Romeo and Butthead

bonnie and Ted's ecellent adventure

Pinky and Clyde

Simon and Goliath

Beauty and Luigi

Beavis and The Beast

Rocky and Delilah

Abbot and Cleopatra

Dr. Jekyll and Ashley Olsen

Samson and Pumbaa

Butch Cassidy and Mr. Hyde

Bill and Sally's Bogus Journey

David and Costello

Sherlock Holmes and Silent Bob

Jay and Dr. Watson

Anna and The Brain

Calvin and The King

Timon and Garfunkel

Mary-Kate and The Sundance Kid

Mario and Juliet

== Cycles ==
There are four cycles. The longest starts with "Thelma" and ends with "Louise" as follows:

* First cycle: length 15
Thelma & Louise
Calvin & Hobbes
Anna & the King
Pinky & the Brain
Bonnie & Clyde
Bill & Ted
Harry & Sally
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Samson & Delilah
Timon & Pumbaa
Simon & Garfunkel
David & Goliath
Abbot & Costello
Antony & Cleopatra
Batman & Robin

This means, it starts with "Thelma", paired with "Hobbes" diagonally down, from "Hobbes" to "Calvin", who is paired with "the King" and so on, until "Batman" is paired with "Louise", completing the cycle.

* Second cycle: length 4
Romeo & Juliet
Beavis & Butthead
Beauty & the Beast
Mario & Luigi

* Third cycle: length 3
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

* Fourth cycle: length 2
Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson
Jay & Silent Bob

Assigning an index starting with 0 (= Thelma & Louise) to 23 (= Mario & Luigi), they can be written as:

(0, 20, 19, 6, 5, 15, 1, 10, 13, 21, 7, 16, 11, 3, 2)
(4, 9, 8, 23)
(12, 22, 14)
(17, 18)

{{comic discussion}}

1614: Kites

2015-12-09T14:32:26Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1614
| date = December 9, 2015
| title = Kites
| image = kites.png
| titletext = [Dog returns with the end of a string in its mouth] [Voice drifts down from the sky] Kites are fun!
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, we see [[Megan]] and [[Beret Guy]] both holding on to skyward lines. Megan's line is clearly connected to a {{w|kite}}, and she (like the reader) initially assumes that Beret Guy's line is as well -- only for it to be revealed that he is not holding a line for a kite, but instead the line goes up to a small dog. This move on [[Randall|Randall's]] part is known as a ''{{w|Bait and Switch}}'', a technique that relies on human intuition and pattern seeking in order to play a trick on the viewer. The 'switch' portion of the bait and switch comes with the added humor of an unconventional dog that flies/floats instead of walking on the ground, so the joke comes by surprise and with little warning to the reader. 

Beret Guy is fond of unconventional approaches to standard conventional issues. Amongst others he is known to possess several [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]], and making a dog fly, and then later flying on (or as?) a kite (in the title text) just adds one more to this already long list.

The title text plays a subversion once more on the unsuspecting reader, with the kite being flown as expected -- albeit with an added payload of one beret-wearing human and flown by a small dog. The dog obviously no longer flies, since it can return to Megan with the line in its mouth. Of course it is not even sure that there is a kite, it could be that Beret Guy is the kite!

The comics title is the plural form for kite, although it turns out that there is only one kite in the comic. That is until the dog comes back with Beret Guy as a kite... Previously another comic has already used the singular ''kite'' as it's title: [[235: Kite]].

Megan is also seen with a kite (and a coin) to the left in the game comic [[1608: Hoverboard]] from two weeks ago. Probably not a coincidence. In the same comic Beret Guy is flying down from the sky on a torpedo. Maybe he can just jump off in time and float back up, like his dog and when he is on a kite.

This comic could be a reference to the "Yo Mama" panel in [[1037: Umwelt]], where dogs can float and thus need a ballast to be on the ground.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom out of Megan holding on to a long line going up to a kite high op in he air. Beret Guy comes walking in from the right. He is also holding on to a line that goes up in the air with the same slope. But the top of it disappears outside the frame to the right.]

:[Zoom in on Megan standing with a roll with the rest of the line, and the line for her kite goes up in the air between her and Beret Guy who has now almost reached her. He is just holding on to the end of the line, with only a small part of the line hanging down below his hands.]
:Megan: I love kites.
:Beret Guy: Hey, Me too!

:[Beret Guy is looking up along his line and takes a better hold on the line.]
:Beret Guy: I'll go get mine, once I finish walking my dog!

:[Beret Guy begins pulling the line down, rolling it up in one hand, while pulling at it with the other. The line vibrates under this extra tension, shown with lines above and below the line.]
:Beret Guy: C'mon boy!

:[In a drawing without a frame around it, Beret Guy has pulled in his flying dog (a small white dog with black ears). It still hangs just above head height, wagging its tail happily. The line has now been rolled up and hangs from one of Beret Guys hands, while the other still pulls at the part of the line that is going towards the dog in the sky.]
:Dog: Arf arf arf

:[Beret Guys takes the dog under his arm, while holding the line in the other hand, and then he walks past Megan who turns to look after him while still holding on to her roll and line to her kite.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]

1614: Kites

2015-12-09T14:31:48Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1614
| date = December 9, 2015
| title = Kites
| image = kites.png
| titletext = [Dog returns with the end of a string in its mouth] [Voice drifts down from the sky] Kites are fun!
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, we see [[Megan]] and [[Beret Guy]] both holding on to skyward lines. Megan's line is clearly connected to a {{w|kite}}, and she (like the reader) initially assumes that Beret Guy's line is as well -- only for it to be revealed that he is not holding a line for a kite, but instead the line goes up to a small dog. This move on [[Randall|Randall's]] part is known as a ''{{w|Bait and Switch}}'', a technique that relies on human intuition and pattern seeking in order to play a trick on the viewer. The 'switch' portion of the bait and switch comes with the added humor of an unconventional dog that flies/floats instead of walking on the ground, so the joke comes by surprise and with little warning to the reader. 

Beret Guy is fond of unconventional approaches to standard conventional issues. Amongst others he is known to posses several [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]], and making a dog fly, and then later flying on (or as?) a kite (in the title text) just adds one more to this already long list.

The title text plays a subversion once more on the unsuspecting reader, with the kite being flown as expected -- albeit with an added payload of one beret-wearing human and flown by a small dog. The dog obviously no longer flies, since it can return to Megan with the line in its mouth. Of course it is not even sure that there is a kite, it could be that Beret Guy is the kite!

The comics title is the plural form for kite, although it turns out that there is only one kite in the comic. That is until the dog comes back with Beret Guy as a kite... Previously another comic has already used the singular ''kite'' as it's title: [[235: Kite]].

Megan is also seen with a kite (and a coin) to the left in the game comic [[1608: Hoverboard]] from two weeks ago. Probably not a coincidence. In the same comic Beret Guy is flying down from the sky on a torpedo. Maybe he can just jump off in time and float back up, like his dog and when he is on a kite.

This comic could be a reference to the "Yo Mama" panel in [[1037: Umwelt]], where dogs can float and thus need a ballast to be on the ground.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom out of Megan holding on to a long line going up to a kite high op in he air. Beret Guy comes walking in from the right. He is also holding on to a line that goes up in the air with the same slope. But the top of it disappears outside the frame to the right.]

:[Zoom in on Megan standing with a roll with the rest of the line, and the line for her kite goes up in the air between her and Beret Guy who has now almost reached her. He is just holding on to the end of the line, with only a small part of the line hanging down below his hands.]
:Megan: I love kites.
:Beret Guy: Hey, Me too!

:[Beret Guy is looking up along his line and takes a better hold on the line.]
:Beret Guy: I'll go get mine, once I finish walking my dog!

:[Beret Guy begins pulling the line down, rolling it up in one hand, while pulling at it with the other. The line vibrates under this extra tension, shown with lines above and below the line.]
:Beret Guy: C'mon boy!

:[In a drawing without a frame around it, Beret Guy has pulled in his flying dog (a small white dog with black ears). It still hangs just above head height, wagging its tail happily. The line has now been rolled up and hangs from one of Beret Guys hands, while the other still pulls at the part of the line that is going towards the dog in the sky.]
:Dog: Arf arf arf

:[Beret Guys takes the dog under his arm, while holding the line in the other hand, and then he walks past Megan who turns to look after him while still holding on to her roll and line to her kite.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]

Talk:1609: Food Combinations

2015-12-01T20:10:14Z

Auraxangelic:

I tried this on a friend and after three tries she said, you just mentioned all my favorite food items. So... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:27, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

You know what's really good? Ice cream on pizza. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 15:23, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
:That's a popular summer snack in Tasmania. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 08:02, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

So nobody puts sour cream on pancakes??? {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.14}}

Joey agrees with that - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFgDZJVYbo [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.139|162.158.34.139]] 15:40, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
:Thanks I was just thinking of that episode when seeing this comic. Think it deserves a place in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:06, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, I made a first-hack attempt, with terrible grammar and no appropriate citations. Please don't be too harsh! [[Special:Contributions/199.27.129.83|199.27.129.83]] 16:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Most of the combinations involving the dairy items are disgusting. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.9|108.162.216.9]] 19:29, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

If you think sour cream and pancakes is not a traditional combination, you've never been to Russia. We put sour cream in a lot of things, really, but pancakes especially. That applies almost as well to sour cream and ketchup (though that is just a pair of commonly combined condiments, not a food item in itself). I do, however, agree with the commentor above (even regarding sour cream). Incidentally, I had to google "relish" - apparently it's a general term for a big variety of chopped-vegetable items. The Russian name for one particularly common type literally translates as "eggplant caviar". Goes nicely with ham, is applied to pancakes occasionally. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.180.191|162.158.180.191]] 20:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
:FYI, pickle (that is to say, pickled cucumber) relish is generally what people from the US mean when referring to relish. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.59|108.162.216.59]] 05:05, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

It will be interesting to see if all items will be checked of eventually when people from many different countries comes by? I checked of pancakes and ice cream. I put ice in almost every time I make sweet pancakes. Yummy. But we also have "food" pancakes (not sweat) with meat in them. And I'm note talking about tortillas or burrito pancakes. Made exactly like normal sweet pancakes without sugar and with salt. In The Netherlands they have pancake houses where the toppings is more like that of a pizza, and then after wards they drop on some kind of syrup... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:06, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Avocado and ice cream is traditional? Really? I mean, the novelty ice cream places (bacon ice cream, beer ice cream, Tabasco ice cream, you know the drill), sure, but where is that a traditional pairing? ... However, I'm putting in another vote for sour cream with pancakes. Especially if you consider crêpes and associated acts as in the pancake category, so there's the whole world of savory pancakes out there. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.7|108.162.221.7]] 04:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)MR
:I have removed avocado and ice cream. That cannot be thought of as traditional even if someone actually likes it. I do not know if you could think of pancakes and sour cream as traditional. But again if you think of them both as sweat and food pancakes (as already is the case, then maybe...) I will not list it though as I do not feel it is traditional. But I would also not delete it if anyone else feels it is. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:41, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
:Sorry, that was me. Wasn't aware that this had to be exclusively limited to food items from the US, but anyway was thinking about the avocado icecream here (taluwang.com.my). It's quite popular where I come from and quite delicious, actually. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.153.137|162.158.153.137]] 14:13, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
:Avocado ice cream is also eaten occasionally in Brazil. Admittedly, Brazil isn't the United States. However, a simple Google Search of "Avocado Ice Cream" brings up dozens of very different recipes (including an avocado coconut ice cream that I really have to try). In addition, the table of traditional pairings says "it should mainly be combinations that are common in the US". If it said "combinations exclusively in the US" then I could see justifiably removing Avocado Ice Cream. However, since there are multiple countries that it is both popular and commonly eaten ''and'' literally millions of hits show up in English if you search it in Google, I would say that it counts. (That's not even including the smoothies and shakes that include avocado and ice cream). [[User:Jeudi Violist|Jeudi Violist]] ([[User talk:Jeudi Violist|talk]]) 07:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

At least five of those alleged "individually good" so-called "foods" - relish, ketchup, cheese, sour cream, and avocado - are absolutely disgusting and would destroy any food value of things they came in contact with. YMMV.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.33|108.162.221.33]] 09:46, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
:Well I also do not like avocado or sour cream and neither most forms of eggs plus only a few kind of cheese. But I know that many people really love these items, and that would not make it a bad combination to put sour cream and avocado together. I just would not wish to eat it for my personal taste. That I do not like it, does not make it disgusting. But I would be sorry if someone tried to make me eat it. But not get disgusted because other people eat it in front of me. Disgusting things are something like rat or excrements... ;-) And this has to be taken into account before anyone changes the table above. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

There's some "almost something I've seen" combinations, in the above. For example, while I've never had Ham And Avocado, Ham And Pineapple is not uncommon. (Of course, now we're also into neighbouring territory of "does pineapple belong on a pizza?" ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.227|162.158.152.227]] 16:39, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
:Yes pineapple definitely belongs to a pizza! Ham and pineapple are the basis for a classic hawaiian pizza recipe. Nothing odd about it, fairly common in stores or pizza places. One of my favourites. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 16:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Err, what? Ketchup flavored chips hard to come by in the US? I've yet to see a single supermarket that didn't have a large quantity of Herr's Ketchup Chips. And I live in the american Northeast.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.59|108.162.216.59]] 05:00, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

"Pairings" is itself a bit ambiguous, but I'd vote that none of cupcakes/sour cream, pancakes/cheese nor eggs/ relish are traditional pairings. Pancakes with sour cream may well edge in as blinis, but only by counting blinis (and crepes?) within pancakes. Some others are perhaps a little more likely, but still would not make my personal cut as a traditional pairing -- ice cream/ hot chocolate & ham/relish would fail, and if we count hot chocolate/pancakes as OK because they may both be part of a breakfast, then why not hot chocolate/eggs? [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 20:40, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
: I agree that Cupcakes/Sour Cream is certainly not a traditional pairing. I believe this should be removed. [[User:Teleksterling|Teleksterling]] ([[User talk:Teleksterling|talk]]) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

In my experience, all combinations of individually-good foods are only bad if you go into it expecting them to be. Speaking of which, I highly recommend putting creamy peanut butter and slices of banana on a burger.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.60|108.162.216.60]] 05:21, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

the one problem i see is the non-solid combinations... such as ketch and hot coco or eggs (depending on state) [[User:Needforsuv|Needforsuv]] ([[User talk:Needforsuv|talk]]) 11:20, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I think some of those "traditional" combinations colored-coded into the chart are very much "[citation needed]." Just because something /can/ go together (without being disgusting :p) doesn't mean they /traditionally/ occur together. Skittles and Ice Cream don't sound like a bad combination (depending on the ice cream flavor), but I've never seen nor heard of them together.

Pancakes and Ham seem to be paired because they're both "breakfast" foods, but I've never heard of anyone putting ham on their pancakes, so it's not a traditional pairing as is "ham and eggs" or "ham and (disgusting) cheese [sandwiches]."
: I can go to any diner around here and get pancakes and ham for breakfast. Nothing in the comic says I have to put the ham ''on'' the pancakes (the comic is about "X ''and'' Y", not "X ''on'' Y"), although now that sounds like a good idea to try next time (I have done so with bacon, hmmmm baaacoooon...) [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 16:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The same goes for cheese and relish. They both may be on the same food (burgers), but they're not paired on their own. There may be a correlation, but it's certainly not a /pairing/.

I'm not a contributor, just an anonymous snarker, so I won't be making edits to the chart - especially since someone would just as likely strike them on accusation of "vandalism." :( [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.33|108.162.221.33]] 03:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The comments seem to have converged on the idea that there must be ''traditional'' pairings. I think the purpose of the comic is more about being open minded and about "what does sound like a possible good idea" especially where it is not traditional. Comments seem to focus on literally "X ''on'' Y" instead of a more vague "X ''and'' Y." The color table is too much black-and-white (pun intended); instead what would be more interesting would be a number of likes/dislikes if people were asked "would you be ''open'' to ''try'' to eat X at the same than Y?" I have no idea how to do that with a wiki syntax. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 16:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

What are you kidding me? Ham and Skittles is the shit! [[User:Auraxangelic|Auraxangelic]] ([[User talk:Auraxangelic|talk]]) 20:10, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

1610: Fire Ants

2015-12-01T16:27:57Z

Auraxangelic: "Poop out" is not actually the correct term for laying eggs. Randall uses it colloquially and jokingly.

{{comic
| number = 1610
| date = November 30, 2015
| title = Fire Ants
| image = fire_ants.png
| titletext = Here in the entomology department, we have a simple two-step formula for answering any question: (1) ants are cool, and (2) we forgot the question because we were thinking about ants.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More details needed.}}

A university student ([[Cueball]]) goes to his advisor ([[Hair Bun Girl]]) because he is uncertain about his choices for {{w|Graduate school|grad school}}. However she doesn't advise him about academic matters, but instead talks about {{w|ants}}, specifically the ability of {{w|fire ants}} to join together to form [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ZysgGAABw floating rafts] in case of flooding. This is of course pretty cool, but not helpful. So Cueball asks what lesson he should learn from this. The advisor just states that ''Ants are so cool''. Correctly Cueball states that she is not big on metaphors, as there was none hidden in her first statement. She continues to tell him what she is big on: Ants.

This humor relies on a tendency to use a particular phasing to incite corresponding modes of thought. An example of the phrase 'consider the' can be found in Monty Python's ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9czBBKof7Yo Life of Brian]'', or in the [https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Matthew-6-28/ Biblical reference] on which that sketch was based. While some uses of the phrase 'consider the' indicate simple taking notice, such as 'consider the source', the phrasing 'consider the ''noun''' as a sentence typically indicates deeper contemplation of the metaphor being offered. When Hair Bun Girl says "Consider the fire ant." as a sentence, it appears to be phrasing to invite metaphorical interpretation but by the end of the comic Cueball has realized it was not.

In the title text we learn that the advisor belongs to the {{w|entomology}} department (making her an entomologist - i.e. someone who studies insects). In that department they have a two-step formula to answer any questions. It won't help you much because all you will learn is that ants are cool and then they have forgotten anything else you told them while thinking of ants.

Or perhaps entomology is a red herring: [https://twitter.com/texttheater/status/671321872596901888 Somebody noticed] that ''fire ants'' is an anagram of ''fine arts''.

===Fascinating facts about ants===
*It is, however, very likely that [[Randall]] is fascinated by ants (he is fascinated by a lot of cool stuff…)
*In his celebration game for his new book [[1608: Hoverboard]], there is a scene in the Star Destroyer were Cueball is talking to a giant ant queen:
::Cueball: What's up?
::Ant queen: The usual. Poopin' out ants.
::Cueball: Eww.

Facts:
*The queen can lay millions of eggs and she controls all the other ants.
*All the working ants are female.
*{{w|Weaver ants}} weave their colonies using larvae silk.
*{{w|Leafcutter ants}} cut of leafs to bring home to feed to their live stock... A {{w|Fungus-growing ants|fungus}} that they in turn eat. Thus making them the first farmers on Earth, millions of years before humans even existed.
*{{w|Army ants}} are known (and feared) for their aggressive raids.
*There are ants enough on earth to fill more than 100 football stadiums to the brim. (At least according to footnote 2 of the [[what if?]] no. 73: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ Lethal Neutrinos]).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to Hair Bun Girl, an advisor, who is sitting behind a desk.]
:Cueball: I'm having second thoughts about grad school and could use some advice.

:[Same setting as before. The animated advisor talks while gesticulating with her hands.]
:Advisor: Consider the fire ant.
:Advisor: When there's a flood, fire ants survive by joining together into giant floating rafts.

:[Cueball is just standing there in the next beat-panel]

:[Back to the first setting but in a larger frame.]
:Cueball: Wait, what lesson am I supposed to take from that?
:Advisor: Ants are '''''so cool!'''''
:Cueball: ...You're not big on metaphors, are you.
:Advisor: I am big on ants.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hair Bun Girl]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1606: Five-Day Forecast

2015-11-20T14:40:29Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1606
| date = November 20, 2015
| title = Five-Day Forecast
| image = five_day_forecast.png
| titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years.
}}
==Explanation==
{{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w| Meteorology#Meteorologists |meteorologists}} only provides us with a five day forecast.

In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a [[Five-Day Forecast]] and then progressing to five-month, year, million, billion and finally trillion-year forecast.

Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we must assume this indicates the weather today (and not tomorrow on in a trillion years). It is first in the second panel that we have made the first jump according to the label.

When moving past the five days, the weather is just a qualified guess based on the time of year. In a month it is Christmas as shown in the second panel of the second row. And then it is winter with January and February so snow is likely, but certainly not something that happens on all days of a winter month.

Looking at the five-year forecast, guesses are made as to what the weather will be like at the same time of year. For these first three rows the weather symbols are all of the same three types. Sun, clouds and some kind of {{w|precipitation}}, rain or snow. And the temperature range from 21 to 44°F (-6.1 to 6.6°C), winter temperature.

Then we go into the far future, jumping a million year from panel to panel. But still the weather symbols stay the same. However, in 3 million years time aliens (or advanced humans) attack with energy beams from something looking like {{w| flying saucers}}. They are gone a million years later. The temperature range is still the same (except that it rises to 52°F or 11.1°C, a possible reference to global warming) in one panel. But then while the attack is going on the temperature rises to 275°F (135°C).

Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather". Because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in it's {{w|Sun#Main_sequence| main sequence|}}), it will still grow in diameter as it begins to exhaust it's supply of fuel. The core will contract to increase the temperature, and the outer layer will then compensate be expanding slightly. This is what is indicated in panel two and three where the color of the Sun changes towards red as the surface becomes less hot as it expands away from the center of the Sun. The temperature will rise on Earth as indicated in the panels (105°F = 40.5°C and 371°F = 188 °C). So in two billion years the temperature is hot enough that all the earth's oceans will have boiled away… Actually this will happen already in about [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html a billion years].

Then once there is {{w| Sun#After_core_hydrogen_exhaustion|no longer enough hydrogen}} the Sun will truly expand into a {{w|red giant}}. This should not happen until five billions years from now, but in the forecast it is indicated to happen already in three. Maybe this is Randall taking liberties to show what happens during this phase, which would not fit into a five-billion-years forecast. Alternatively it is just indicating how uncertain these kind of forecasts are, or a statement that we may not know for certain that it will take five not three billion years.
Disregarding this, the fourth panel shows the temperature at Earths position inside the red giant Sun. The color of the panel indicates that we are inside the Sun. The temperature is 71 million degrees Fahrenheit, (almost 40 million degrees Celsius). The current temperature of the center of the Sun is "only" 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius). And although that may rise by a factor ten during {{w| Stellar nucleosynthesis |helium fusion}} then that will only be at the very core and not out in the solar atmosphere reaching out to Earth Here the temperature would only be of the order of thousands of Fahrenheit, since the Suns outer temperature decreases as it increases it's diameter. So this panels temperature also makes little sense.

The red giant phase only last half a million years, so a billion year after the Sun has been a red giant it's outer atmosphere will for sure have disappeared leaving only a {{w|white dwarf}} to cool down. Given Randall's version of this time schedule, then it will have had about a billion years to cool down, but would still likely be the brightest object in the sky as seen from where the Earth once was. It is not indicated in the last panel, where we just see other stars of the Galaxy. The temperature is down to that of the {{w|Cosmic microwave background |background radiation}}. Today this radiation has a temperature of 2.72548 Kelvin = -270.4245ºC = -454.7641ºF. So this is a few degree F colder than what is shown in the comic which states the temperature is -452ºF = 4.26 kelvin. This higher temperature may have been chosen to reflect that even the star light from other stars would increase the actual temperature.

In the last panel with trillion years, we jump right past the Suns Red Giant phase, to a panel looking much like the one after five billions years with only other stars. Over the next three trillion years the stars become fewer and fewer and dimmer and dimmer as they run out of fuels and fewer new stars form. After four trillion years the background temperature even decreases one degree to -453ºF as the universe keeps expanding and the wave length of the radiation does the same (thus decreasing it's temperature).

The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes."

A ten days forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]]. In [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]] Randall looked at the weather over long periods of time as well.

==Transcript==
:[A grid with six rows of five columns, where each row is labeled to the left. For each of the 30 squares a temperature is given in Fahrenheit at the top left. The rest of the square represents the weather as in a weather forecast (or some other relevant items for the comic), mainly in bright colors. Below are the six labels given above each of their five weather symbols with temperature given below these symbols description.]

:'''Your 5-day forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:41°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:44°F

:'''Your 5-month forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A green Christmas tree with red presents beneath it.]
:29°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:21°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:24°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:35°F

:'''Your 5-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:25°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:37°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:41°F

:'''Your 5-million-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:52°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:40°F
:[Two red flying saucers (with bright domes) are shooting energy beams downwards. One of the beams seems to impact with something at the bottom of the panel, which then explodes. Two plumes of smoke rises up from below, drifting to the right.]
:275°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F

:'''Your 5-billion-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A larger orange sun.]
:105°F
:[A very large red sun.]
:371°F
:[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.]
:71.488.106°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F

:'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with many stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with fewer not so bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with few dim stars.]
:-453°F

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

1606: Five-Day Forecast

2015-11-20T14:40:05Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */ cleaning up the five year forecast

{{comic
| number = 1606
| date = November 20, 2015
| title = Five-Day Forecast
| image = five_day_forecast.png
| titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years.
}}
==Explanation==
{{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w| Meteorology#Meteorologists |meteorologists}} only provides us with a five day forecast.

In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a [[Five-Day Forecast]] and then progressing to five-month, year, million, billion and finally trillion-year forecast.

Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we must assume this indicates the weather today (and not tomorrow on in a trillion years). It is first in the second panel that we have made the first jump according to the label.

When moving past the five days, the weather is just a qualified guess based on the time of year. In a month it is Christmas as shown in the second panel of the second row. And then it is winter with January and February so snow is likely, but certainly not something that happens on all days of a winter month.

Looking a the five-year forecast, guesses are made as what the weather will be like on the same time of year. For these first three rows the weather symbols are all of the same three types. Sun, clouds and some kind of {{w|precipitation}}, rain or snow. And the temperature range from 21 to 44°F (-6.1 to 6.6°C), winter temperature.

Then we go into the far future, jumping a million year from panel to panel. But still the weather symbols stay the same. However, in 3 million years time aliens (or advanced humans) attack with energy beams from something looking like {{w| flying saucers}}. They are gone a million years later. The temperature range is still the same (except that it rises to 52°F or 11.1°C, a possible reference to global warming) in one panel. But then while the attack is going on the temperature rises to 275°F (135°C).

Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather". Because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in it's {{w|Sun#Main_sequence| main sequence|}}), it will still grow in diameter as it begins to exhaust it's supply of fuel. The core will contract to increase the temperature, and the outer layer will then compensate be expanding slightly. This is what is indicated in panel two and three where the color of the Sun changes towards red as the surface becomes less hot as it expands away from the center of the Sun. The temperature will rise on Earth as indicated in the panels (105°F = 40.5°C and 371°F = 188 °C). So in two billion years the temperature is hot enough that all the earth's oceans will have boiled away… Actually this will happen already in about [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html a billion years].

Then once there is {{w| Sun#After_core_hydrogen_exhaustion|no longer enough hydrogen}} the Sun will truly expand into a {{w|red giant}}. This should not happen until five billions years from now, but in the forecast it is indicated to happen already in three. Maybe this is Randall taking liberties to show what happens during this phase, which would not fit into a five-billion-years forecast. Alternatively it is just indicating how uncertain these kind of forecasts are, or a statement that we may not know for certain that it will take five not three billion years.
Disregarding this, the fourth panel shows the temperature at Earths position inside the red giant Sun. The color of the panel indicates that we are inside the Sun. The temperature is 71 million degrees Fahrenheit, (almost 40 million degrees Celsius). The current temperature of the center of the Sun is "only" 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius). And although that may rise by a factor ten during {{w| Stellar nucleosynthesis |helium fusion}} then that will only be at the very core and not out in the solar atmosphere reaching out to Earth Here the temperature would only be of the order of thousands of Fahrenheit, since the Suns outer temperature decreases as it increases it's diameter. So this panels temperature also makes little sense.

The red giant phase only last half a million years, so a billion year after the Sun has been a red giant it's outer atmosphere will for sure have disappeared leaving only a {{w|white dwarf}} to cool down. Given Randall's version of this time schedule, then it will have had about a billion years to cool down, but would still likely be the brightest object in the sky as seen from where the Earth once was. It is not indicated in the last panel, where we just see other stars of the Galaxy. The temperature is down to that of the {{w|Cosmic microwave background |background radiation}}. Today this radiation has a temperature of 2.72548 Kelvin = -270.4245ºC = -454.7641ºF. So this is a few degree F colder than what is shown in the comic which states the temperature is -452ºF = 4.26 kelvin. This higher temperature may have been chosen to reflect that even the star light from other stars would increase the actual temperature.

In the last panel with trillion years, we jump right past the Suns Red Giant phase, to a panel looking much like the one after five billions years with only other stars. Over the next three trillion years the stars become fewer and fewer and dimmer and dimmer as they run out of fuels and fewer new stars form. After four trillion years the background temperature even decreases one degree to -453ºF as the universe keeps expanding and the wave length of the radiation does the same (thus decreasing it's temperature).

The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes."

A ten days forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]]. In [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]] Randall looked at the weather over long periods of time as well.

==Transcript==
:[A grid with six rows of five columns, where each row is labeled to the left. For each of the 30 squares a temperature is given in Fahrenheit at the top left. The rest of the square represents the weather as in a weather forecast (or some other relevant items for the comic), mainly in bright colors. Below are the six labels given above each of their five weather symbols with temperature given below these symbols description.]

:'''Your 5-day forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:41°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:44°F

:'''Your 5-month forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A green Christmas tree with red presents beneath it.]
:29°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:21°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:24°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:35°F

:'''Your 5-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:25°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:37°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:41°F

:'''Your 5-million-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:52°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:40°F
:[Two red flying saucers (with bright domes) are shooting energy beams downwards. One of the beams seems to impact with something at the bottom of the panel, which then explodes. Two plumes of smoke rises up from below, drifting to the right.]
:275°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F

:'''Your 5-billion-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A larger orange sun.]
:105°F
:[A very large red sun.]
:371°F
:[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.]
:71.488.106°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F

:'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with many stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with fewer not so bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with few dim stars.]
:-453°F

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

1603: Flashlights

2015-11-13T15:09:04Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1603
| date = November 13, 2015
| title = Flashlights
| image = flashlights.png
| titletext = Due to a typo, I initially found a forum for serious Fleshlight enthusiasts, and it turns out their highest-end models are ALSO capable of setting trees on fire. They're impossible to use without severe burns, but some of them swear it's worth it.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] has acquired or built a new high powered flashlight, which he wants to demonstrate to [[Megan]]. When Cueball refers to classic {{w|flashlights}} (battery torches) as dim and finnicky, this gives reason to assume that the flashlight he is holding is going to be ridiculously overengineered.

Indeed, when he switches it on outside the house, the intense light beam completely drowns out the scene. Only the reflected light from the forest lights up the part of Cueball and Megan's faces that are turned towards it.

Cueball comments that the flashlight lights up the entire forest, but Megan observes that it is the trees that are on fire, indicating that Cueball's flashlight is so overpowered that the energy of its beam is sufficient to cause the organic matter of trees to combust.

Of course, a flashlight that cannot safely be pointed at things is fairly useless for the traditional purpose of a flashlight, which would be to find things in the dark by directing light over them. This mundane and practical reasoning does not seem to matter to Cueball of course, who appears only interested in the intensity and brightness the device is capable of achieving.

The title text refers to {{w|Fleshlight}} a brand of male masturbation toys modeled after various female or male orifices. Cueball (or [[Randall]]) claims that he only arrived on a forum for Fleshlight enthusiasts due to a typo. An apart from the "e" vs. "a" in Fleshlight they are also fashioned to look like oversized flashlights. On that forum here he found out that the highest-end models of their product lines was also capable of setting trees on fire. This would probably happen due to violent vibrations inside the orifice. If you use one of these you should expect to obtain severe burns in a very unpleasant area. But some of the enthusiasts swears that it is still worth it, in the same manner as Cueball only cares about the intensity of the flashlight regardless of the consequences. Maybe they are just trying to trick you into doing something stupid!

Alternatively the wood they can set on fire is the male organ, and it is not real fire we are talking about. so it is actually a good commercial for the product. Of course if you use it too long you might gets burns...

One might wonder if Randall was first looking into Fleshlights and then found an interesting flashlight enthusiast page due to his typo the other way...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball carries a flashlight walking towards Megan who is sitting on a couch]
:Cueball: Remember how flashlights sucked when we were kids? Always dim and finnicky?
:Megan: I guess?

:[Cueball and Megan walking away to the left]
:Cueball: Well, I discovered there are now internet flashlight enthusiasts.
:Cueball: And the technology has... improved.
:Megan: OK, Let's see

:[It is dark outside where Cueball turns on the flashlight. The beam is very bright and very visible even seen from the side. Backscattered light reflects of Cueball and Megans face, turning them into bright white beings in the dark. Also the facade of the house and the stairs are visible like this, with deep dark shadows where anything is in the shadow. Megan averts her face from the light holds up a hand to cower her eyes. When the flashlight turns on it even makes a sound, written in white above the beam:]
:Flashlight: '''''FWOOSH'''''

:[Cueball and Megan look at what the beam falls on (outside the frame). Megan has taken her hand down. Both their faces are only lit up like a cresent moon. Cueball is holding the flashlight with both hands like it is pushing back on him. The text is written in white on the dark sky above them.]
:Cueball: See how it lights up the whole forest?
:Megan: ...the trees are on fire.
:Cueball: Real bright though.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Sex]]

User:Auraxangelic

2015-10-29T18:54:39Z

Auraxangelic: Created page with "swag"

swag

1567: Kitchen Tips

2015-08-21T13:30:35Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1567
| date = August 21, 2015
| title = Kitchen Tips
| image = kitchen_tips.png
| titletext = Household tip: Tired of buying so much toilet paper? Try unspooling the paper from the roll before using it. A single roll can last for multiple days that way, and it's much easier on your plumbing.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] appears to be hosting a show (or be in an ad) giving out kitchen advice. He starts with a reasonable tip to use a meat thermometer instead of guessing when meat is cooked. His later tips, though, are little more than telling how to complete normal kitchen activities performed using common sense. Moreover, he repeats "If you're anything like me," suggesting he's actually ''done'' these things in his kitchen.

The first tip he gives is reasonable only because not everybody has a meat thermometer. To determine if meat is done cooking, one can either guess, or use a meat thermometer to check that the internal temperature has reached the correct level to render meat safe for consumption. Many people don't own a meat thermometer because there is an alternative less precise solution, which is to prick the meat with a metal skewer. If the juices run clear it is cooked; if they are red it needs more time.

The second panel shows that Cueball throws away dishes and buys new ones every time they are used. This is perfectly normal if the plates were made of paper or Styrofoam, but we see his trashcan is filled with chipped ceramic plates and glasses. Naturally, this would be a very expensive and excessive practice. Cleaning them is the simple task of "washing the dishes," a chore he seemed to be unaware of.

Cooking on a stove is typically done using a pot or pan, where food is placed in it to heat. Cueball seems to originally have cracked, and attempted to scramble, eggs directly on a burner. This will, of course, not be easy to clean. Moreover, his stove has open-flame burners, making the task even more impractical than cooking directly on any range with a flat top.

Ice is usually manually made by filling an ice cube tray with water and leaving it in a freezer for several hours. One could even use any sort of container, not as practical as a tray, but better than the proposed approach. Cueball, however, sprays a hose directly into his freezer compartment and quickly slams the door shut to trap some water inside. While this unorthodox method ''will'' make ice, it will result in a large sheet of ice on the bottom of the freezer. More importantly, it will also make it impossible to actually use the freezer to hold anything else (unless you don't mind breaking through a block of ice to get it out).

The title text relates to toilet paper, which most people normally use by one or several sheets at a time. Apparently, Cueball only uses the entire roll without unspooling it and then flushes it whole, which means every time he wants to go to the toilet, he would need to buy another roll, which is both economically impractical and prone to clogging the toilet and the plumbing.

==Transcript==
[Cueball at a kitchen counter, holding a meat thermometer]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you may have trouble telling when meat is fully cooked.

Cueball: Instead of guessing, try a meat thermometer!

[Cueball at a sink, holding a dirty dish, with a trashcan next to him full of broken ceramics and glasses]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you probably throw away your plates and glasses when they get dirty. But if you clean them, they can often be used again!

[Cueball cracking an egg over a pan on a hot stove]

Cueball: Making scrambled eggs? Put a pan under them!

Cueball: It's easier, and it keeps your burners clean.

[Cueball holding a garden hose, spraying it into the freezer compartment of a refridgerator]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you make ice by spraying a hose into your freezer and then slamming it shut.

Cueball: But there's a better way...

{{comic discussion}}

281: Online Package Tracking

2015-07-22T20:00:47Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 281
| date = June 25, 2007
| title = Online Package Tracking
| image = online package tracking.png
| titletext = I don't even *want* this package! Why did I join the stinging insect of the month club, anyway?
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] notes that package tracking, as provided by many shipping companies like {{w|United Parcel Service|UPS}} and {{w|FedEx Express}}, is helpful as customers can see the status of their package delivery, and most people are very excited in the expectation of a package as shown in comic #[[576]]. However, [[Megan]] refreshes the package tracking page every few minutes in her impatience on the status of their package; it drives her crazy.

The headquarters of FedEx Express are located in Memphis and it also serves as its global "SuperHub" located at {{w|Memphis International Airport}}.

The title text refers to the various "''x'' of the month clubs" (fruit, cheese, wine, etc.) that one might have signed up for only to receive a gift. But you are often not really interested in these gifts, and probably even less interested in recieving a stinging insect each month. This, combined with the ease by which a person can track the package, creates a strange dichotomy whereby you don't really want the package, but you keep checking where it is just because you can.

==Transcript==
:Online Package Tracking:
:Pros: Convenient, Useful
:Cons: Makes you crazy

:[Megan is sitting at a computer.]
:<nowiki>*refresh*</nowiki>
:Megan: Aww, still in Memphis.
:<nowiki>*refresh*</nowiki>
:Megan: Aww, still in Memphis.
:<nowiki>*refresh*</nowiki>
:Megan: Aww, still in Memphis.

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

1545: Strengths and Weaknesses

2015-07-01T18:23:36Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1545
| date = July 1, 2015
| title = Strengths and Weaknesses
| image = strengths_and_weaknesses.png
| titletext = Do you need me to do a quicksort on the whiteboard or produce a generation of offspring or something? It might take me a bit, but I can do it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|May need some more detail on the likelihood of becoming the ancestor of all living humans. Explain the title text.}}
Here [[Cueball]] is in a job interview and is being asked prototypical job interview questions by [[Ponytail]], "What is your greatest weakness?", "What is your greatest strength?" and "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

In a roundabout way, Cueball answers that he is a living organism, and as such he has inherent flaws which could cause him to die. This is a reference to the fact that biological system are "messy" and are not always optimal in design or operation. For example cancer is a disease where the cellular machinery that governs cell replications breaks down and prolific cell division happens, endangering the organism (tumors). While this is true weakness it is also a weakness of all humans and is not likely to help the interview determine if he is right for the job.

For the second question Cueball answers that he will one day be the ancestor to all living humans or none of them. As you go farther and farther into the future the ratio of people alive will either go to 0% or 100% of the descendants of the character. The {{w|Most_recent_common_ancestor| most recent common ancestor (MRCA)}} for humans is estimated to have been alive between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. If the MRCA's ancestors are traced back, the {{w|Identical_ancestors_point|Identical Ancestors Point}} can be found, at which point the entire population are either ancestors all living humans, or no living humans. For humans, this point is estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago.

Assuming there are still humans living 15,000 years from now, and if the gene pool has been scattered into isolated sets via space travel then it is highly unlikely that someone living today will be their ICA. While this could be considered his greatest personal strength in the bigger picture of the life cycle of the universe, once again, this answer likely does not help the interviewer determine whether he is suitable for the role.

For Cueball to be the ancestor to all living humans within 5 years means that all the humans who are not his children (or grandchildren), must have died in a near total extinction of the human race. His apparent optimism about the possibility of this occurring is therefore unjustified or worrisome.

The overarching joke is that Cueball assumes that the interviewer is assessing his fitness as an organism from a genetic perspective rather than his fitness for performing a particular job. The biggest limitation on fitness is survival time and mortality.

The title text takes this further, equating producing offspring during an interview (which would be awkward for all involved) with something that may actually help assess a candidate's efficacy as an employee, namely writing out a sorting algorithm on the spot, another prototypical interview question (see [[1185: Ineffective Sorts]], especially the bottom left panel).

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is shown sitting on a swivel chair, to the left of a desk.]
:Ponytail: What would you say is your biggest weakness?

:[The view expands to show Cueball sitting on another swivel chair, on the opposite side of the desk.]
:Cueball: Probably that I'm a giant tangle of parts that don't always work right, so I can die easily.

:Ponytail: Biggest strength?
:Cueball: There will come a day when I'm either an ancestor to ''all'' living humans, or to ''none'' of them.

:Ponytail: Where do you see yourself in five years?
:Cueball: Probably not the ancestor of all living humans yet. But you never know!

{{comic discussion}}

1545: Strengths and Weaknesses

2015-07-01T18:22:09Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1545
| date = July 1, 2015
| title = Strengths and Weaknesses
| image = strengths_and_weaknesses.png
| titletext = Do you need me to do a quicksort on the whiteboard or produce a generation of offspring or something? It might take me a bit, but I can do it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|May need some more detail on the likelihood of becoming the ancestor of all living humans. Explain the title text.}}
Here [[Cueball]] is in a job interview and is being asked prototypical job interview questions by [[Ponytail]], "What is your greatest weakness?", "What is your greatest strength?" and "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

In a roundabout way, Cueball answers that he is a living organism, and as such he has inherent flaws which could cause him to die. This is a reference the fact that biological system are "messy" and are not always optimal in design or operation. For example cancer is a disease where the cellular machinery that governs cell replications breaks down and prolific cell division happens, endangering the organism (tumors). While this is true weakness it is also a weakness of all humans and is not likely to help the interview determine if the candidate is right for the job.

For the second question Cueball answers that he will one day be the ancestor to all living humans or none of them. As you go farther and farther into the future the ratio of people alive will either go to 0% or 100% of the descendants of the character. The {{w|Most_recent_common_ancestor| most recent common ancestor (MRCA)}} for humans is estimated to have been alive between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. If the MRCA's ancestors are traced back, the {{w|Identical_ancestors_point|Identical Ancestors Point}} can be found, at which point the entire population are either ancestors all living humans, or no living humans. For humans, this point is estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago.

Assuming there are still humans living 15,000 years from now, and if the gene pool has been scattered into isolated sets via space travel then it is highly unlikely that someone living today will be their ICA. While this could be considered his greatest personal strength in the bigger picture of the life cycle of the universe, once again, this answer likely does not help the interviewer determine whether he is suitable for the role.

For Cueball to be the ancestor to all living humans within 5 years means that all the humans who are not his children (or grandchildren), must have died in a near total extinction of the human race. His apparent optimism about the possibility of this occurring is therefore unjustified or worrisome.

The overarching joke is that Cueball assumes that the interviewer is assessing his fitness as an organism from a genetic perspective rather than his fitness for performing a particular job. The biggest limitation on fitness is survival time and mortality.

The title text takes this further, equating producing offspring during an interview (which would be awkward for all involved) with something that may actually help assess a candidate's efficacy as an employee, namely writing out a sorting algorithm on the spot, another prototypical interview question (see [[1185: Ineffective Sorts]], especially the bottom left panel).

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is shown sitting on a swivel chair, to the left of a desk.]
:Ponytail: What would you say is your biggest weakness?

:[The view expands to show Cueball sitting on another swivel chair, on the opposite side of the desk.]
:Cueball: Probably that I'm a giant tangle of parts that don't always work right, so I can die easily.

:Ponytail: Biggest strength?
:Cueball: There will come a day when I'm either an ancestor to ''all'' living humans, or to ''none'' of them.

:Ponytail: Where do you see yourself in five years?
:Cueball: Probably not the ancestor of all living humans yet. But you never know!

{{comic discussion}}

1545: Strengths and Weaknesses

2015-07-01T17:59:48Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1545
| date = July 1, 2015
| title = Strengths and Weaknesses
| image = strengths_and_weaknesses.png
| titletext = Do you need me to do a quicksort on the whiteboard or produce a generation of offspring or something? It might take me a bit, but I can do it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|May need some more detail on the likelihood of becoming the ancestor of all living humans. Explain the title text.}}
Here [[Cueball]] is in a job interview and is being asked prototypical job interview questions by [[Ponytail]], "What is your greatest weakness?", "What is your greatest strength?" and "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

In a roundabout way, Cueball answers that he is a living organism, and as such he has inherent flaws which could cause him to die. This is a reference the fact that biological system are "messy" and are not always optimal in design or operation. For example cancer is a disease where the cellular machinery that governs cell replications breaks down and prolific cell division happens, endangering the organism (tumors). While this is true weakness it is also a weakness of all humans and is not likely to help the interview determine if the candidate is right for the job.

For the second question Cueball answers that he will one day be the ancestor to all living humans or none of them. As you go farther and farther into the future the ratio of people alive will either go to 0% or 100% of the descendants of the character. The {{w|Most_recent_common_ancestor| most recent common ancestor (MRCA)}} for humans is estimated to have been alive between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. If the MRCA's ancestors are traced back, the {{w|Identical_ancestors_point|Identical Ancestors Point}} can be found, at which point the entire population are either ancestors all living humans, or no living humans. For humans, this point is estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago.

Assuming there are still humans living 15,000 years from now, and if the gene pool has been scattered into isolated sets via space travel then it is highly unlikely that someone living today will be their ICA. While this could be considered his greatest personal strength in the bigger picture of the life cycle of the universe, once again, this answer likely does not help the interviewer determine whether he is suitable for the role.

For Cueball to be the ancestor to all living humans within 5 years means that all the humans who are not his children (or grandchildren), must have died in a near total extinction of the human race. His apparent optimism about the possibility of this occurring is therefore somewhat confusing.

The overarching joke is that Cueball assumes that the interviewer is assessing his fitness as an organism from a genetic perspective rather than his fitness for performing a particular job. The biggest limitation on fitness is survival time and mortality.

The title text takes this further, equating producing offspring during an interview (which would be awkward for all involved) with something that may actually help assess a candidate's efficacy as an employee, namely writing out a sorting algorithm on the spot, another prototypical interview question (see [[1185: Ineffective Sorts]], especially the bottom left panel).

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is shown sitting on a swivel chair, to the left of a desk.]
:Ponytail: What would you say is your biggest weakness?

:[The view expands to show Cueball sitting on another swivel chair, on the opposite side of the desk.]
:Cueball: Probably that I'm a giant tangle of parts that don't always work right, so I can die easily.

:Ponytail: Biggest strength?
:Cueball: There will come a day when I'm either an ancestor to ''all'' living humans, or to ''none'' of them.

:Ponytail: Where do you see yourself in five years?
:Cueball: Probably not the ancestor of all living humans yet. But you never know!

{{comic discussion}}

1545: Strengths and Weaknesses

2015-07-01T17:57:10Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1545
| date = July 1, 2015
| title = Strengths and Weaknesses
| image = strengths_and_weaknesses.png
| titletext = Do you need me to do a quicksort on the whiteboard or produce a generation of offspring or something? It might take me a bit, but I can do it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|May need some more detail on the likelihood of becoming the ancestor of all living humans. Explain the title text.}}
Here [[Cueball]] is in a job interview and is being asked prototypical job interview questions by [[Ponytail]], "What is your greatest weakness?", "What is your greatest strength?" and "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

In a roundabout way, Cueball answers that he is a living organism, and as such he has inherent flaws which could cause him to die. This is a reference the fact that biological system are "messy" and are not always optimal in design or operation. For example cancer is a disease where the cellular machinery that governs cell replications breaks down and prolific cell division happens, endangering the organism (tumors). While this is true weakness it is also a weakness of all humans and is not likely to help the interview determine if the candidate is right for the job.

For the second question Cueball answers that he will one day be the ancestor to all living humans or none of them. As you go farther and farther into the future the ratio of people alive will either go to 0% or 100% of the descendants of the character. The {{w|Most_recent_common_ancestor| most recent common ancestor (MRCA)}} for humans is estimated to have been alive between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. If the MRCA's ancestors are traced back, the {{w|Identical_ancestors_point|Identical Ancestors Point}} can be found, at which point the entire population are either ancestors all living humans, or no living humans. For humans, this point is estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago.

Assuming there are still humans living 15,000 years from now, and if the gene pool has been scattered into isolated sets via space travel then it is highly unlikely that someone living today will be their ICA. While this could be considered his greatest personal strength in the bigger picture of the life cycle of the universe, this answer likely does not help the interviewer determine whether he is suitable for the role.

For Cueball to be the ancestor to all living humans within 5 years means that all the humans who are not his children (or grandchildren), must have died in a near total extinction of the human race. His apparent optimism about the possibility of this occurring is therefore somewhat confusing.

The overarching joke is that Cueball assumes that the interviewer is assessing his fitness as an organism from a genetic perspective rather than his fitness for performing a particular job. The biggest limitation on fitness is survival time and mortality.

The title text takes this further, equating producing offspring during an interview (which would be awkward for all involved) with something that may actually help assess a candidate's efficacy as an employee, namely writing out a sorting algorithm on the spot, another prototypical interview question (see [[1185: Ineffective Sorts]], especially the bottom left panel).

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is shown sitting on a swivel chair, to the left of a desk.]
:Ponytail: What would you say is your biggest weakness?

:[The view expands to show Cueball sitting on another swivel chair, on the opposite side of the desk.]
:Cueball: Probably that I'm a giant tangle of parts that don't always work right, so I can die easily.

:Ponytail: Biggest strength?
:Cueball: There will come a day when I'm either an ancestor to ''all'' living humans, or to ''none'' of them.

:Ponytail: Where do you see yourself in five years?
:Cueball: Probably not the ancestor of all living humans yet. But you never know!

{{comic discussion}}

1523: Microdrones

2015-05-11T17:42:56Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */ making title text explanation more precise

{{comic
| number = 1523
| date = May 11, 2015
| title = Microdrones
| image = microdrones.png
| titletext = Oh, weird, Amazon is out of butterfly nets.
}}

==Explanation==
[[File:PrimeAir200.png|frame|right|A drone from the Amazon Prime Air project|link=http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011]]

{{w|Amazon Prime Air}} is a conceptual drone-based delivery system currently in development by Amazon.com. While on one level he thinks the idea is cool, [[Cueball]] worries about living in an sci-fi dystopia, with those drones flying all around him, tracking his actions, etc. In the third panel, [[Megan]] suggests to send a message to Congress, suggesting a law for making the stealing of drones legal. This would alleviate the problem of drones flying around everywhere because people would catch them to use for themselves.

This tactic may not work as well as planned; drones will likely simply fly higher or employ other security measures since there are no regulations on drone behavior.

The title text suggests that Amazon is out of stock of butterfly nets due to everyone purchasing them to catch drones with, or it could be that Amazon doesn't want people stealing its own drones, so the nets are just suspiciously "unavailable".

The 'sci-fi dystopia' [[Cueball]] is talking about, might be a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan's_Hammer P.K Dick's 'Vulcan's Hammer'], in which the earth in the year 2029 is surrounded by black flying hammers all around humanity.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing behind Megan who sits at a desk typing on her laptop.]
:Cueball: So how do we regulate all these micro drones?
:Cueball: I mean, Amazon delivery bots sound cool...

:[Cueball stands alone surrounded by three micro drones.]
:Cueball: But I worry that overnight we'll realize we're surrounded by these things, no one will know who's controlling them, and then ''bam'', sci-fi dystopia.

:[Megan turns in her chair towards Cueball.]
:Megan: If you wanna slow it down, why not just remove all regulations, but then make drone theft legal?

:[Cueball takes his hand to his chin and Megan turns back to type on the laptop.]
:Cueball: ...I ''like'' that.
:Megan: You write to congress.
:Megan: I'll stock up on butterfly nets.

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1470: Kix

2015-01-07T16:23:17Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */ there should not be examples to explain the definition of a word in the example. added a link instead.

{{comic
| number = 1470
| date = January 7, 2015
| title = Kix
| image = kix.png
| titletext = My parents sent me to several years of intensive Kix test prep.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Whiteboard wording needs to be addressed, including the rhyming/plays on themes}}
{{w|Kix (cereal)|Kix}} is a children's breakfast cereal. Its slogan is "Kid tested, mother approved". This implies that the cereal has been tested by kids (i.e., kids like eating it), and it is good enough for a mother to approve for her children to eat.

The comic shows the possible brainstorming session of the company employees as they decide on the most effective way to complete the slogan. Several words (ranging from the not-so-appealing to the downright {{w|Not safe for work|NSFW}}) have already been deemed inappropriate for the slogan, which is evident from the fact that they are {{w|Strikethrough|stricken out}}.

The first two eliminated options seem to be attempts at creating a slogan in the same vein as the real world slogan, in that they say the mother has done something in relation to the testing of the cereal by the kid. In the real slogan, the mother approves of the cereal. In these two examples, the mother ''selected'' the cereal and perhaps ''perfected'' the cereal (possibly implying that one or more mothers were involved in the cereals formulation and/or development). There also seems to be an attempt at near rhyme with "tested" - something not evident in the real slogan.

The next several considerations appear to use an alternate reading of "Kid tested", implying that the ''kid'' was tested, not the cereal (to avoid such ambiguity, the authors of the actual slogan could have used a hyphen between the words, i.e. "kid-tested", but this was not done). The options imply that prior to, during, or after the "testing" of the kid, the mother was alternately ''not notified'' (of the testing), forced to ''watch helplessly'', somehow ''infected'' (perhaps by an experimental pathogen), and/or ''consumed'' (either as in ingested or as in distracted is unclear and may be intentionally ambiguous). There may yet again be an attempt at near rhyme in the proposal of "infected".

The final word that has been crossed out ("fucker"), is suffix and it generates the {{w|Vocative case|vocative}} "motherfucker": "[this has been] Kid Tested, motherfucker!".

The title text indicates that Randall's parents thoroughly prepared him before eating the cereal (testing it), while also playing on the "Kid tested" portion of the slogan by suggesting the test was quite serious.

Many parents send their children to {{w|test prep}} schools to improve their scores on college {{w|entrance examination}}s such as the {{w|SAT (test)|SAT}} and {{w|ACT (test)|ACT}}.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail, Megan, and Cueball are standing around a whiteboard. The whiteboard on easel reads:]
:'''Kix'''
:Slogan ideas
:Kid Tested, Mother...

:<strike>Selected</strike>
:<strike>Perfected</strike>
:<strike>Not Notified</strike>
:<strike>Watching Helplessly</strike>
:<strike>Infected</strike>
:<strike>Consumed</strike>
:<strike>Fucker</strike>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:Main Page

2014-10-24T15:21:34Z

Auraxangelic: /* This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: link */

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

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

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

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

== Community portal ==

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

== Direct link to latest comic ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== The comic explanation count is wrong ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Spambots ==

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

== Purge ==

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

== Updating the Rules ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Update after changes ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Comic 1156 ==

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

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

== Comic Links ==

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

== Unexplained comics ==

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

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

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

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

Change this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

==sidebar ads?==
''Moved to [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''

== Expression error on Main Page ==

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

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

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

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

:Hello, this is the talk page for the content of the front page of the wiki, not for discussion of the most recent comic, that happens [[Talk:1214: Geoguessr|here]]. I've moved your post over there for you. Cheers, and welcome to explain xkcd! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:09, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

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

== Header message ==

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

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

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

I'd vote for a change. People have started coming over to discuss the comic even when they've 'gotten' it. That, and the fact that this is one step ahead of Googling the references yourself. So.. maybe, "it's because you're dumb..and lazy."[[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 02:26, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

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

== A point of confusion ==

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

== Incomplete comics statement ==

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

== 1262 is out ==

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

== Adverts ==

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

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

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

== /wiki is returning a 403 ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Adding an arcs list page ==

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

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

This has been bothering me for a while now. Why does the link in the info box for the main page link to editing the main page? It needs to link to the editing of the page which the comic's explanation is on. When I would like to edit the latest XKCD explanation, I click that thinking I am going to edit the explanation, but instead I am led to editing the main page. [[User:Auraxangelic|Auraxangelic]] ([[User talk:Auraxangelic|talk]]) 15:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Main Page

2014-10-24T15:19:50Z

Auraxangelic:

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

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

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

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

== Community portal ==

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

== Direct link to latest comic ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== The comic explanation count is wrong ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Spambots ==

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

== Purge ==

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

== Updating the Rules ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Update after changes ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Comic 1156 ==

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

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

== Comic Links ==

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

== Unexplained comics ==

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

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

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

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

Change this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

==sidebar ads?==
''Moved to [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''

== Expression error on Main Page ==

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

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

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

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

:Hello, this is the talk page for the content of the front page of the wiki, not for discussion of the most recent comic, that happens [[Talk:1214: Geoguessr|here]]. I've moved your post over there for you. Cheers, and welcome to explain xkcd! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:09, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

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

== Header message ==

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

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

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

I'd vote for a change. People have started coming over to discuss the comic even when they've 'gotten' it. That, and the fact that this is one step ahead of Googling the references yourself. So.. maybe, "it's because you're dumb..and lazy."[[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 02:26, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

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

== A point of confusion ==

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

== Incomplete comics statement ==

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

== 1262 is out ==

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

== Adverts ==

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

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

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

== /wiki is returning a 403 ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Adding an arcs list page ==

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

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

This has been bothering me for a while now. Why does the link in the little info box for the main page link to editing the main page? It needs to link to the editing of the page which the comic's explanation is on. [[User:Auraxangelic|Auraxangelic]] ([[User talk:Auraxangelic|talk]]) 15:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Main Page

2014-10-24T15:18:57Z

Auraxangelic:

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

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

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

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

== Community portal ==

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

== Direct link to latest comic ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== The comic explanation count is wrong ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Spambots ==

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

== Purge ==

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

== Updating the Rules ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Update after changes ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Comic 1156 ==

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

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

== Comic Links ==

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

== Unexplained comics ==

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

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

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

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

Change this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

==sidebar ads?==
''Moved to [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''

== Expression error on Main Page ==

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

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

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

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

:Hello, this is the talk page for the content of the front page of the wiki, not for discussion of the most recent comic, that happens [[Talk:1214: Geoguessr|here]]. I've moved your post over there for you. Cheers, and welcome to explain xkcd! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:09, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

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

== Header message ==

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

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

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

I'd vote for a change. People have started coming over to discuss the comic even when they've 'gotten' it. That, and the fact that this is one step ahead of Googling the references yourself. So.. maybe, "it's because you're dumb..and lazy."[[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 02:26, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

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

== A point of confusion ==

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

== Incomplete comics statement ==

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

== 1262 is out ==

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

== Adverts ==

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

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

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

== /wiki is returning a 403 ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Adding an arcs list page ==

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

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

This has been bothering me for a while now. Why does the link in the little info box for the main page link to editing the main page? It needs to link to the editing of the page which the comic's explanation is on.

995: Coinstar

2014-10-10T17:11:50Z

Auraxangelic: /* Explanation */ cleaning up some things. also, candy does not have no value at all

{{comic
| number = 995
| date = December 26, 2011
| title = Coinstar
| image = coinstar.png
| titletext = Plus they take like 9%.
}}

==Explanation==
Chocolate coins are a popular holiday candy. These candies are usually plain chocolate formed in the shape of coins and covered in metallic foil wrappers. {{w|Coinstar}} machines accept all your loose coins, sort them, count them, and then give you the same amount of money in paper currency, around 9% less as it says in the title text. You may find similar machines in grocery stores and shopping malls around the US and Canada.

These machines work by vibrating a box with a series of slots along one side, which each corresponding to the sizes of standard accepted coins. The vibrations move the coins along the different slots. If they pass through the slots the coins are then fed into a mechanism with a counterweight that's balanced to test the weight to ensure that it has captured the appropriate coin. Coins of the right size but wrong weight (such as similarly sized coins of different currencies) are dropped back out into a reject chute to be retrieved by the customer. Coins that do not fit the standard sizes also get rejected in the same way. There are also various anti-theft mechanisms that prevent coins from being counted and then retrieved. Coins that meet the programmed criteria are funneled into internal repositories and are counted towards the total.

The chocolate coins in the comic appear to have damaged the machine. As the only property that the candies share with actual currency may be its appearance the machine would not be designed to handle the softer material causing the machine to malfunction and create the unusual noises presented. The chocolate may have fouled initial vibrating tabulator; it may be that the coins are getting caught in the reject chute or are fouling the scales. In any case, the anti-theft system is being triggered, causing the machine to shut down (preventing false totals from registering) and an alarm to sound.

The title text suggests that the machine would take its customary 9% from the total of the chocolate coins which is ironic since the reader knows that their candy have insignificant monetary value.

==Transcript==
:[A mischievous Cueball empties a small bag into a machine.]
:''whirrrrrrr''
:''bzzt''
:[Machine makes progressively less happy noises.]
:'''''kachunk'''''
:''tshhhhhhhhhh''
:''clickclickclickclick''
:'''''GRIND'''''
:[Machine malfunctions and shuts down.]
:''pop''
:''beeeeeeeeep!''

:Holiday tip: Coinstar does not handle chocolate coins well.

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

1430: Proteins

2014-10-06T16:31:07Z

Auraxangelic:

{{comic
| number = 1430
| date = October 6, 2014
| title = Proteins
| image = proteins.png
| titletext = Check it out--when I tug the C-terminal tail, the binding tunnel squeezes!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More info on protein folding, expansion on F@H, possible expansion on title text explain.}}

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is asking [[Megan]] what she does, to which she replies that she works on software to predict protein folding. This is a reference to one of a number of folding prediction software programs, some of the most well known are {{w|Folding@Home}}, {{w|Rosetta@Home}} and {{w|FoldIt}}.

{{w|Protein folding}} is a mechanism exhibited by protein structures to assume a functional shape. If the folding sequence does not complete, or completes incorrectly, the resulting protein can be inactive or even toxic to the body. These misfolded proteins are responsible for certain allergies, and are believed to be the cause of several {{w|neurodegenerative}} and other diseases.

Cueball asks Megan why is it such a hard computational problem, and Megan replies that it is like folding a live crane, not just a paper crane. That is because a protein cannot fold to an abstract representation of its native fold (analogous to how a paper crane abstractly resembles the live crane) - it must assume an exact, perfect fold in order to be functional.

{{w|Levinthal's paradox}} is a thought experiment, also constituting a self-reference in the theory of protein folding. In 1969, Cyrus Levinthal noted that, because of the very large number of degrees of freedom in an unfolded polypeptide chain, the molecule has an astronomical number of possible conformations. For example, a polypeptide of 100 residues will have 99 peptide bonds, and therefore 198 different phi and psi bond angles. If each of these bond angles can be in one of three stable conformations, the protein may misfold into a maximum of 3^198 different conformations (including any possible folding redundancy). Therefore if a protein were to attain its correctly folded configuration by sequentially sampling all the possible conformations, it would require a time longer than the age of the universe to arrive at its correct native conformation. This is true even if conformations are sampled at rapid (nanosecond or picosecond) rates. The "paradox" is that most small proteins fold spontaneously on a millisecond or even microsecond time scale. This paradox is central to computational approaches to protein structure prediction.

Cueball asks whether he can make cuts during the folding process, as if this would then make folding a living crane somehow possible. Megan replies "if you can fold a Protease enzyme", an analogy to saying "if you can fold yourself some scissors". Protease enzymes are proteins whose job it is to break down (i.e. cut) other proteins, often in very specific ways. They are thus analogous to extremely specialized scissors. The meaning of this is that if, when trying to predict the folding trajectory in nature of protein A, one allows to make cuts - one is making the assumption that the Protease that cut protein A is already folded and functional. In other words, making cuts while folding just changes the question to how the protease doing the cutting was folded.

In origami, purists [[http://www.barf.cc/jeremy/origami/BOOK/essays/origami_purism/origami_purism.htm]] considered it as cheating if you cut the paper or use more than one sheet of paper, which is why Cueball asks if cuts are allowed.

The title text refers to the result of folding a paper crane in origami. Pulling the tail, the head will move forward and down. However, since the joke is about folding proteins, this idea is extrapolated to include the folded proteins. The C-terminus (end of the protein chain), in this case analogous of the tail, if "pulled" would cause a created cavity or tunnel to squeeze, much like pulling a knot would do the same.

{{w|Folding@Home}} (F@H) is a distributed computing project which aims to simulate protein folding for research purposes. Rather than the traditional model of using a supercomputer for computation, the project uses idle processing power of a network of personal computers in order to achieve massive computing power. Individuals can join the project by installing the F@H software, and are then able to track their contribution to the project. Individual members may join together as a team, with leaderboards measuring team and individual contributions.

Please be aware that modern computers do not "waste" computing time in the same way as old ones - they dynamically reduce their clock speed and other power consumption at times of low usage. If you donate computer time, you are actually donating money to the cause in the form of your electricity bill (which sounds more convenient than via credit card anyway).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking with Megan]
:Cueball: What do you do?
:Megan: I make software that predicts how proteins will fold.
:Cueball: Is that a hard problem?
:Megan: Someone may someday find a harder one.
:Cueball: Why is it so hard?
:Megan: Have you ever made a folded paper crane?
:Cueball: Yeah.
:Megan: Imagine figuring out the folds to make an actual living crane.
:Cueball: ...just folds? Can I make cuts?
:Megan: If you can fold a protease enzyme.
{{comic discussion}}