explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

856: Trochee Fixation

2015-11-19T16:21:59Z

C: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 856
| date = February 4, 2011
| title = Trochee Fixation
| image = trochee fixation.png
| titletext = If you Huffman-coded all the 'random' things everyone on the internet has said over the years, you'd wind up with, like, 30 or 40 bytes *tops*.
}}

==Explanation==

A {{w|trochee}} is a type of {{w|metric foot}}. A foot is a measure in poetry, it consists of stressed beats and unstressed beats. A trochee is a foot which consists of one stressed beat followed by an unstressed beat. "Trochee" itself is an example of this as you stress the first syllable and don't stress the second syllable ("TROH-kee".)

Trochee fixation is supposedly caused by people experiencing rushes of {{w|dopamine}} when they hear or speak trochees during their youth. Due to the rush of dopamine they become more fixated on trochees. In the endless quest for dopamine, they continue to search for trochees (typically on the internet) while also producing more places to encounter trochees meaning more fixation for others with the disorder. [[Megan]] proposes a "radical trocheeotomy" which appears to be a type of {{w|psychosurgery}} due to the erasing of memory. [[Cueball]] misinterprets Megan's intent as a "{{w|tracheotomy}}", a removal of the girl's vocal cords, of which he is in favor.

Megan proceeds with the trocheeotomy, but it sadly does not have the intended effect. Though the previous trochees have been removed, the girl immediately generates new ones: "BAN-jo," "TUR-tle," "JET-pack," "FER-ret," and so on. The correct way of removing the fixation would be to alter {{w|mesolimbic pathway}}. Megan, not realizing this, succumbs to attempting to removing the girl's trochee fixation via cranially-applied {{w|brick}}. Depending on how hard the girl is hit with the brick she may have memory loss and potentially forget all the trochees she knows, but if this method is carried out she will have significant brain damage and will likely start fixating on trochees that she hears.

There are references to {{w|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles}} and {{w|Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers}}, both of which are examples of actual, trochaic TV show titles. Additionally, there is a reference to sci/fi author {{w|Neal Stephenson}} who has written {{w|Snow Crash}}, {{w|Anathem}} and many other books.

"Jetpack ferret" could be a reference to [[20: Ferret]], although the ferret in question only had wings.

{{w|Huffman coding}} is a lossless data compression algorithm that works by recording a specific string and then only recording that the string is repeated a certain number of characters later on until eventually it only contains a "dictionary" of unique substrings and then mentions of where those substrings repeat. In highly repetitive data this can cut down the file size immensely, which is what Randall is implying by saying you would only end up with 30–40 bytes. Most of the "random" stuff said on the Internet has been said before.

Trochee and other types of poetry "feet" is the subject of [[1383: Magic Words]], and the trochaic form is explored further in [[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]].

[http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/ On the blog], Randall published statistics about the occurrence number of certain combinations (now obviously inaccurate).

==Transcript==
:Girl: Robot ninja! Pirate doctor laser monkey! Narwhal zombie badger hobo bacon kitty captain penguin raptor Jesus!

:Megan: We'd been seeing this brain damage for years, but only recently did our linguists identify the pattern behind it.

:Megan: The patients fixate on animals and types of people whose names are trochees (two syllables, with the accent on the first).

:The malfunction causes a rush of dopamine whenever these trochees are heard or spoken.
:[Chart shows "internet" and "brain," with arrows marked "trochees" traveling both ways between them. An arrow marked "dopamine" loops from the brain back to the brain.]

:The warning signs appear in childhood:
:[Child sits in front of TV.]
:Child: Yeah! Mighty teenage morphin' ninja power mutant turtle rangers!
:Social reinforcement focuses the fixation on a few dozen words.
:Cueball (off-panel): Is there a cure?

:[Girl is reclining under a big machine pointed at her face.]
:Megan: We're about to try a radical trocheeotomy.
:Cueball: Rip out her vocal chords? I'm in favor.
:Megan: No, we're modifying her vocabulary* to erase the words she's fixated on.
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>Digitoneurolinguistic hacking! It's totally real! Ask Neal Stephenson.

:Megan: Either the gap will be filled by normal words, or she'll just generate a new set of trochees.
:Megan: Here goes.
:[She pulls the lever on a large panel.]
:''kachunk bzzzZZZZZZ''

:[Girl is waking up.]
:Girl: ...GzZhRmPh ...
:Girl ...banjo turtle!
:Girl: Jetpack ferret pizza lawyer! Dentist hamster wombat plumber turkey jester hindu cowboy hooker bobcat scrapple!
:Megan (off-panel): Sigh.
:Megan: Time for plan B.
:Cueball: Someone get a brick.

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

404: Not Found

2015-11-19T16:08:24Z

{{comic
| number = 404
| date = April 1, 2008
| title = Not Found
}}

==Explanation==
There is no xkcd comic numbered 404. Randall did not skip a day, however; he put [[405: Journal 3|405]] up on April 2 (2008), which leads some to see the 404 as an April Fool's joke.

"404" is the HTTP Response Code for "{{w|HTTP 404|Not Found}}". [[Randall]] deliberately skipped comic number 404 in xkcd. Therefore, when people go to {{xkcd|404}} they get a "404 Not Found" error page. (This does not work in all browsers. In newer versions of Internet Explorer a message about the link being broken occurs without the 404 code.)

[[Randall]] has stated that he considers 404 [http://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/j6w9DkYApya an official, actual comic, albeit a rather avant-garde one], and that for a time he made it possible to find it using the "random" button on xkcd.com.

It may seem like a random coincidence that {{xkcd|403}} came out the day before April 1st 2008. And for sure it must have been by chance that it would come out close to that date when Randall began posting on xkcd. But when Randall noticed this fact, at some point prior to that date, he would, however, have had a chance to influence the release date. In November 2007, less than half a year before this April 1st, he released the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:1337 1337 series] over five consecutive days. That would have moved the release date of 403 from Friday the 4th of April to the Monday it was actually released - making it possible to skip comic 404 as if it came out on April 1st without skipping a comic on a normal release day. There was at least one other series in 2007 to use all five day of a week ([http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Choices Choices]), so maybe he had this planned for a long time?

It is perhaps an interesting point that the very next comic, {{xkcd|405}} includes the line "So, you found me after all."

==Trivia==
*The web comic Comic JK made this spoof of this missing comic in total xkcd style:
**The [http://comicjk.com/comic.php/404 comic 404] that could have been.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:No title text]]

427: Bad Timing

2015-11-19T16:01:13Z

C: /* Explanation */ minor cleanup: fix of in-site link as external link

{{comic
| number = 427
| date = May 23, 2008
| title = Bad Timing
| image = bad_timing.png
| titletext = Protip: Even without the red spiders, never have that conversation halfway through a balloon ride.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] breaks up with [[Megan]] in the middle of a {{w|hot air balloon}} ride. Then {{w|Non sequitur (literary device)|the red spiders attack}}.

The red spiders are among the earliest xkcd [[characters]], first appearing in [[8: Red spiders]].

As the protip in the title text states, a break-up conversation while you are stranded in an inaccessible location is very poor manners. Also, the suggestion may be interpreted that breaking up in a hot air balloon is a very dangerous way to do it; the reaction may result in one or both parties falling out of the basket, or at least make the remainder of the flight very awkward.

This was the first comic to give a ''protip'' in the title text, but several have followed as can be seen in the [[:Category:Protip|protip category]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan, flying in a hot air balloon.]
:Cueball: I like you. I'm just not feeling the relationship.

:Cueball: I'm sorry.

:Cueball: It's just bad timing. Me with my classes, you with your work, the spiders...
:Megan: The what?

:[Red Spiders crowd onto balloon, causing it to fall.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Red Spiders]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Protip]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1133: Up Goer Five

2015-11-19T15:43:09Z

C: /* External links */

{{comic
| number = 1133
| date = November 12, 2012
| title = Up Goer Five
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = up goer five.png
| titletext = Another thing that is a bad problem is if you're flying up to space and the parts start to fall off your space car in the wrong order. If that happens, it means you won't go to space today, or maybe ever.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is an illustration (albeit to a comical degree) of the principle that given the appropriate vocabulary, any technical concept should be understandable to a lay audience. Since most of the jargon used in rocket science is not among the most commonly used words in everyday life, [[Randall]] has challenged himself to "translate" the blueprints for the Saturn Five rocket using only one thousand of the most commonly-used words in the English language.

This comic is a diagram of the {{w|Saturn V}} rocket, "Saturn" isn't a very common word apparently, and neither is rocket, so Randall decided to use "Up Goer" which is a fair approximation of a craft designed to lift a payload from the earth to space. The Saturn V vehicle, which was in use by {{w|NASA}} from 1967 to 1972, is the vehicle as a whole. The engines of the Saturn V (the part that makes it go up) were divided into three stages. The first stage ({{w|S-IC}}) had five {{w|F-1 (rocket engine)|F-1}} engines which burned {{w|RP-1|refined kerosene}} mixed with oxygen as its fuel. That stage burned for 2 minutes 48 seconds and pushed the whole thing up about 61 kilometers (~38 miles) into the sky. After it fell away the {{w|S-II}} stage was activated. It used 5 {{w|J-2 (rocket engine)|J-2}} engines in the same configuration as the F-1s, and burned {{w|liquid hydrogen}} mixed with {{w|liquid oxygen}} for 6 minutes 35 seconds pushing the astronauts up to 184 kilometers (114.5 miles). The third stage ({{w|S-IVB}}) was a single J-2 engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. This stage was used in two parts, the first was to put the spacecraft into a stable orbit around Earth to perform a systems check and make sure the craft will be safe for going to the moon. This would usually take three orbits around Earth. As they came around the Earth they would burn the second part of the fuel, which is called a {{w|trans-lunar injection}} which put them on course for the moon. The first burn took 2 minutes 45 seconds, which put them in orbit 185 kilometers (115 miles) high.

It was first used as the launch vehicle for the {{w|Apollo 4}} mission, and it was used as the launch vehicle for most of the subsequent {{w|Apollo mission}}s (the exceptions being Apollo 7, Skylab 2-4, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project missions, which were launched using the smaller {{w|Saturn IB}} launch vehicle). One of the last missions of this design was the unmanned launch of {{w|Skylab}}, the U.S.'s first space station; for this payloader configuration, the Saturn V launch vehicle was officially designated the {{w|Saturn INT-21}}.

The Service Module (SM) Oxygen tanks have a note that states "This part had a ''VERY'' big problem once". This is a reference to the {{w|Apollo 13}} mission. 55 hours after launch, mission control requested the oxygen tanks contents be stirred to get an accurate reading of its contents. There was {{w|Apollo 13#Oxygen tank explosion|a large bang}}, and power fluctuated throughout the craft. NASA had to scramble to ensure the safe return of the astronauts. Needless to say, the moon landing for that mission was canceled.

The {{w|Hindenburg disaster}} is referenced in the text "The kind of air that once burned a big sky bag and people died and someone said "oh, the [humans]!". The term "big sky bag" is used as the closest approximation of {{w|zeppelin}} which is a big bag filled with a lighter-than-air gas which makes the whole contraption float. The phrase "oh, the [humans]" is a workaround the simple-words rule, technically containing only the word humans, while being read "concentration of humans" or "humanity". The {{w|LZ 129 Hindenburg|Hindenburg}} on the day of the disaster was filled with {{w|hydrogen}}, despite being initially designed for use with {{w|helium}}. Helium is much less prone to catching fire, but was unavailable due to a US export ban on the element. The risks seemed acceptable at the time because the Germans had a history of flying hydrogen-based passenger airships. The original quote is "Oh, the humanity!" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F54rqDh2mWA] (skip to 0:47 for the quote).

The bottom tank, which Randall describes as "...full of that stuff they burned in lights before houses had power" is highly refined kerosene, called {{w|RP-1}}, it is similar to jet fuel, burns well and is not likely to explode; unlike {{w|liquid hydrogen}}, which is much more likely to explode.

Earlier flirts with simple words can be found in [[547: Simple]] and [[722: Computer Problems]]. The use of simple words was revisited again in [[1436: Orb Hammer]].

The phrase "You will not go to space today" has become something of a catchphrase for xkcd — variants of it recur in the title text of images in four What If? articles:
*Building a jetpack out of AK-47s and converting the potential energy. [http://what-if.xkcd.com/21/ Machine Gun Jetpack]
*The one about flying on other planets (the pilot does not want to go to space today.) [http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ Interplanetary Cessna]
*Launching into Earth orbit (if your rocket cannot hit the right "horizontal" speed, you will go to space today, and then you will quickly come back.) [http://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ Orbital Speed]
*The Pyramid of Giza (which is not nearly enough; the title text has another reference to the comic, noting that the tip of the pyramid should point towards space.) [http://what-if.xkcd.com/95/ Pyramid Energy]

Randall has in 2015 written an entire book with this type of simplified language blue prints. ''Thing Explainer'' will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on November 24th. The news was sent out on the [[Blag]] in may as [http://blog.xkcd.com/2015/05/13/new-book-thing-explainer/ New book: Thing Explainer]. After that, the book was advertised at the top of the xkcd page with link to the Blag article and links to Preorder at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, and Hudson. Also, there were two other news with links: "In other news, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygrdAvmr-MA Space Weird Thing is delightful], and I feel surprisingly invested in [https://twitter.com/xkcdbracket @xkcdbracket's] results." (The link was removed sometimes before Monday the 10th of August 2015. within two weeks of the brackets final result was revealed.)

The song ''Space Weird Thing'' is a tribute to {{w|David Bowie}}'s [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67kmFzSh_o Space Oddity] rewritten in the simple language used in this comic, which is also attributed in the text about the youtube video. The other news item is related to [[1529: Bracket]], see that comic for more details.

==Transcript==
:US Space Team's Up Goer Five
:The only flying space car that's taken anyone to another world (explained using only the ten hundred words people use the most often)
:[A list of Saturn-V parts, top to bottom, with their "Up Goer" description follows.]
:[Launch Escape System (LES)]: Thing to help people escape really fast if there's a problem and everything is on fire so they decide not to go to space
::[LES side nozzle]: Thing to control which direction the escaping people go
::[LES fuel]: Stuff to burn to make the box with the people in it escape ''really fast''
::[LES bottom nozzles]: Place where fire comes out to help them escape
:[Apollo spacecraft.]
::[Command Module (CM)]: Part that flies around the other world and comes back home with the people in it and fall in the water.
:::[CM capsule parts]: People box, door, chairs
::[Service Module (SM)]: Part that goes along to give people air, water, computers and stuff. It comes back home with them but burns up without landing.
:::[SM oxygen tanks]: Cold air for burning (and breathing). This part had a ''VERY'' big problem once.
::[Lunar Module (LM)]: Part that flies down to the other world with two people inside
:::[LM descent stage]: Part that stays on the other world (it's still there)
:::[LM feet]: Feet that go on the ground of the other world
:[Instrument Unit]: Ring holding most of the computers
:[S-IVB third stage]: Part that falls off third (this part flew away from our world into space and hit the world we were going toward)
::[Fuel tanks]: Wet and ''very'' cold
:::[Liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank]: The kind of air that once burned a big sky bag and people died and someone said "Oh, the [humans]!" (used for burning)
:::[Liquid oxygen (LOX) tank]: The part of air you need to breathe, but not the other stuff (used for burning)
:::[Helium pressurizing tanks]: Things holding that kind of air that makes your voice funny (it's for filling up the space left when they take the cold air out to burn it.)
::[J-2 engine nozzle]: Fire comes out here
:[S-II second stage]: Part that falls off second
::[LH2 tank]: More sky bag air (for burning) (cold + wet)
::[LOX tank]: More breathing-type air (for burning) (cold + wet)
::[Tank-to-engine fuel lines]: Thing that brings in cold wet air to burn
::[J-2 engine nozzles (qty. 5)]: Fire comes out here
:[S-IC first stage]: Part that falls off first
::[LOX tank]: More breathing-type air (for burning) (cold + wet)
::[Helium pressurizing tank]: More funny voice air (for filling up space)
::[LOX fill line]: Opening for putting in cold wet air
::[RP-1 fuel tank]: This is full of that stuff they burned in lights before houses had power.It goes together with the cold air when it's time to start going up.
::[F-1 engine nozzles (qty. 5)]: Lots of fire comes out here.
:[Bottom of spacecraft]: This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today.

==External links==
*[http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/documents/First_Stage.pdf First Stage Fact Sheet]
*[http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/documents/Second_Stage.pdf Second Stage Fact Sheet]
*[http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/documents/Third_Stage.pdf Third Stage Fact Sheet]
*[http://splasho.com/upgoer5/ The Up-Goer Five Text Editor]
*[http://xkcd.com/simplewriter/ A word checker tool written by Randall]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Simplified language]]

1416: Pixels

2015-11-19T15:36:12Z

C: /* du */

{{comic
| number = 1416
| date = September 3, 2014
| title = Pixels
| image = pixels.png
| titletext = It's turtles all the way down.
}}
<div style="float:right"> __TOC__ </div>
'''NOTE:'''
*The above is only a zoomed out version of the this interactive comic.
*To experience the interactivity, visit the {{xkcd|1416|original comic}}.
*For a collection of images that appear when zooming in on this comic, see [[1416: Pixels/Images]].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Peer review of individual panel explanations needed. Oh god no why please stop this is torture}}
This interactive comic begins with a panel where [[Cueball]] is stacking turtles. This is a reference to the idiom "{{w|turtles all the way down}}", which refers to the problem of infinite recursion: if everything in the universe is "on top of" something else, so to speak, there must be a "bottom." A joking solution to the paradoxical nature of such a bottom is the proposition that the world rests on a semi-infinite stack of turtles.

The origins of the turtle story are uncertain. It has been recorded since the mid 19th century, and may possibly date to the 18th. One recent version appears in {{W|Stephen Hawking}}'s 1988 book {{W|A Brief History of Time}}, which starts:

:A well-known scientist (some say it was {{W|Bertrand Russell}}) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"''

:—Hawking, 1988

Several {{w|World Turtle|ancient myths}}, dating back thousands of years, involve a turtle which supports the whole world, or a part of it, although it is usually just one turtle, not an infinite regression. This is also repeated in {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} novels, in which the world is supported by four elephants standing on the back of a single turtle called {{w|Great A'Tuin}}.

As can be read you should '''"scroll to zoom"'''. This can be done by placing the cursor inside the panel of the comic. When scrolling up (using the mouse wheel) the picture zooms in on the pixel beneath the cursor. Moving the cursor will also move the point to which the picture zooms. You can then zoom in until the pixels are visible. When you continue to zoom in on a pixel it then resolves into another comic picture, with black-on-white comic panels making up the white pixels and white-on-black panels making up the black pixels. Scrolling on until you can see the pixels of the comic picture you are now zooming into the process is repeated again and will be so for all subsequent sets of comic panels. Not all white and all black panels are the same; some sets involve more than two different panels, but all involve repetitive tiling.

Once you have zoomed in, you are able to click and drag the picture, thus enabling you to move from black to white picture pixel. This is reminiscent of the earlier [[:Category:Interactive comics|interactive]] comic [[1110: Click and Drag]].

==Themes==
*Below are all the themes relevant to cover all the images found when zooming in.
*They are sorted in the same order as in the gallery: [[1416: Pixels/Images]].
**Open the gallery in another window - zoom out and then you can see the pictures in this window as you read about them here below. You can see thumbnail versions of each picture at the top of the theme sub-section.

===Turtles===
[[Image:01-100-pixels-turtles.png|link=File:pixels-turtles.png]]
[[File:02-100-pixels-quiet-turtle.png|link=File:pixels-quiet-turtle.png]]
[[File:03-100-pixels-i-am-a-turtle.png|link=File:pixels-i-am-a-turtle.png]]

Apart from the first image there are two more with a single turtle in them. In one of these the turtle thinks "I am a turtle". This is a reference to [[889: Turtles]]. It may say so to the Cueball that is seen standing all alone in another picture.

===What if?===
[[File:04-100-pixels-blank-figure.png|link=File:pixels-blank-figure.png]]
[[File:05-100-pixels-whatif-trade.png|link=File:pixels-whatif-trade.png]]
[[File:06-100-pixels-whatif-king.png|link=File:pixels-whatif-king.png]]

There is a panel featuring just Cueball, followed by is a picture of the ''What If?'' book, large enough that all of the text is visible on the front cover. But there is also another version where the author's name is crossed out and replaced with {{w|Stephen King}}, the word "Spooky" has been added above the title, and the word "xkcd" below has been struck and replaced with "being afraid" to form the phrase "creator of being afraid". Stephen King is one of the most prolific and well-known horror authors of all time.

===Book Launch===
[[File:07-100-pixels-book-launch.png|link=File:pixels-book-launch.png]]

This comic was released on September 3, 2014, the day after [[Randall|Randall's]] book ''[http://whatif.xkcd.com/book/ What If]'' was launched. The book is shown and referred to in a number of frames; for example, it is [[:File:pixels-upgoer.png|'''literally''' launched]] as a part of an <strike>rocket</strike> [[1133: Up Goer Five|''up goer'']] built by Cueball. There is also a picture with Cueball holding his book, while being excited about the launch.

The model ''up goer'' is [[:File:pixels-assembly-1.png|made of Rocket Parts from KSP]]. KSP is the {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}, a spaceflight simulator which was also [[1350: Lorenz#Themes|part]] of the latest interactive comic [[1350: Lorenz]]. Perhaps xkcd's "parts" refers to KSP's large community of mod developers who contribute 'parts' to the game, although it was likely intended as nothing more than the humorous supposition that one could purchase physical rocket parts from a simulator. The frames showing the book launch use URLs that include the text "upgoer" in reference to the [[Up Goer Five]] comic.

In the end the up goer leaves the Earth after one orbit and then flies through space.

===Needs More Struts===
[[File:08-100-pixels-assembly-1.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-1.png]]
[[File:09-100-pixels-assembly-2.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-2.png]]
[[File:10-100-pixels-assembly-3.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-3.png]]
[[File:11-100-pixels-assembly-4.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-4.png]]
[[File:12-100-pixels-assembly-5.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-5.png]]
[[File:13-100-pixels-assembly-6.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-6.png]]
[[File:14-100-pixels-assembly-7.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-7.png]]
[[File:15-100-pixels-assembly-planet.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-planet.png]]
[[File:16-100-pixels-assembly-planet-1.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-planet-1.png]]
[[File:17-100-pixels-assembly-planet-3.png|link=File:pixels-assembly-planet-3.png]]

{{w|Strut|Struts}} are structural members in engineering, and are one of the components used in Kerbal Space Program to construct rockets. "Needs More Struts" is a meme amongst players of Kerbal Space Program along the lines of "when in doubt, overengineer"; it stems from a time when the ragdoll physics in the Unity engine underlying KSP was unstable enough to necessitate their overuse. Megan deems Cueball's rocket to be insufficiently structurally sound, and declares that it "[[:File:pixels-assembly-4.png|Needs More Struts]]".

The first three images depict Cueball building a Kerbal Space Program rocket out of parts from a box, labelled "KSP Rocket Parts". The top part of the rocket, usually where the crew module would be located, is made from the ''What If..?'' book. In the fourth panel Megan declares that it needs more struts, and in the next three panels, Cueball takes her advice and adds more struts.

Panel 8 shows the Earth from a distance, with somebody (presumably Megan) saying again "More Struts". Panel 9 shows the Earth alone, and panel 10 shows the Earth with the rocket nearby, having just launched.

===The Only Copy===
[[File:18-100-pixels-upgoer.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer.png]]
[[File:19-100-pixels-upgoer-2.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-2.png]]
[[File:20-100-pixels-upgoer-3.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-3.png]]
[[File:21-100-pixels-upgoer-4.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-4.png]]
[[File:22-100-pixels-upgoer-5.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-5.png]]
[[File:23-100-pixels-upgoer-6.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-6.png]]
[[File:24-100-pixels-upgoer-planet.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-planet.png]]
[[File:25-100-pixels-launch-planet.png|link=File:pixels-launch-planet.png]]
[[File:26-100-pixels-upgoer-planet-2.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-planet-2.png]]
[[File:27-100-pixels-upgoer-planet-3.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-planet-3.png]]
[[File:28-100-pixels-upgoer-planet-4.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-planet-4.png]]
[[File:29-100-pixels-upgoer-space.png|link=File:pixels-upgoer-space.png]]

This series of panels parallels the "Needs More Struts" series. The first four panels shows the rocket lifting off, and the subsequent gasses dissipating.

Cueball and Megan look up at the ascending rocket, and then turn to each other having just launched the What-If book rocket into space (construction and launch are seen in other panels). Perhaps Megan realizes they may have misunderstood the term "book launch", and that they may have just lost ''[[:File:pixels-upgoer-6.png|the only copy]]'' of the book.

Panel 7 shows the Earth from space; panel 8 also shows the Earth, with the words "Book Launch". The next three panels show the rocket circling around the Earth once before heading into deep space, and the last shows the rocket by itself on its journey.

===Space objects===
[[File:30-100-pixels-sun.png|link=File:pixels-sun.png]]
[[File:31-100-pixels-moon.png|link=File:pixels-moon.png]]
[[File:32-100-pixels-saturn.png|link=File:pixels-saturn.png]]
[[File:33-100-pixels-stars-1.png|link=File:pixels-stars-1.png]]
[[File:34-100-pixels-stars-2.png|link=File:pixels-stars-2.png]]

Here are five objects in space. It is possible that the What-If book rocket passes them by, or that these images are seen from the point of view of the rocket.

First is the Sun, shown with visible {{w|solar prominence}}s. Next is the Moon, shown in a crescent view with stars behind it. This is followed by Saturn, also in a crescent view with stars behind it.

There follow two images with just stars.

===Sky===
[[File:35-100-pixels-sky.png|link=File:pixels-sky.png]]
[[File:36-100-pixels-sky-2.png|link=File:pixels-sky-2.png]]
[[File:37-100-pixels-sky-3.png|link=File:pixels-sky-3.png]]
[[File:38-100-pixels-sky-4.png|link=File:pixels-sky-4.png]]

In four pictures Cueball and Megan are sitting below the stars. In the second the following conversation takes place:
:Cueball: Someone once told me the great kings of the past look down on us...
:Megan: From the stars?
:Cueball: Just in general.
The second panel is a reference to Disney's [http://lionking.wikia.com/wiki/The_Great_Kings_of_the_Past The Lion King]. Early in the film, Mufasa tells Simba that the great kings of the past look down on them from the stars. Later on, Simba recalls this to his companions, Timon and Pumba (who don't take him seriously). In the film, the kings of the past literally look down on — and watch over — the characters, which is how Megan interprets Cueball's initial statement. Cueball's reply that they just look down on us in general shows that he means the kings of the past figuratively look down on us (they view us as inferior or beneath them).

In the next image a shooting star is seen above them. The final picture is almost identical to the first (only four stars and a few pixels of ground are different).

===Mario===
[[File:39-100-pixels-mario-entry.png|link=File:pixels-mario-entry.png]]
[[File:40-100-pixels-mario-sitting-1.png|link=File:pixels-mario-sitting-1.png]]
[[File:41-100-pixels-mario-sitting-2.png|link=File:pixels-mario-sitting-2.png]]
[[File:42-100-pixels-mario-sitting-3.png|link=File:pixels-mario-sitting-3.png]]
[[File:43-100-pixels-mario-sitting-b.png|link=File:pixels-mario-sitting-b.png]]
[[File:44-100-pixels-mario-n1.png|link=File:pixels-mario-n1.png]]
[[File:45-100-pixels-mario-n2.png|link=File:pixels-mario-n2.png]]
[[File:46-100-pixels-mario-n3.png|link=File:pixels-mario-n3.png]]

A series of 8 images are called ''Mario''. The first is called ''entry'', and has a picture of a TV on a low stand. The next four has Megan in front of said TV, holding a video game controller. The cable is connected to something inside the stand. She first sits on her knees, then on her butt. In the third picture she is lying down. What follows is a picture which is an inverse of the sitting picture.

The last three images seem to depict a level from one of the {{w|Super Mario Bros.}} games. In the upper right one can see the iconic bricks which Mario can smash, two clouds appear stationary in the background, and a crude depiction of Mario is standing in the lower left. Over the course of the three images, a galaxy rises into the sky, possibly also forming from the stars in the sky. It does not look like the Milky Way would from anywhere on Earth, suggesting that Mario is somewhere outside our galaxy, or that it is not the Milky Way at all. The shape seems to be a spiral galaxy viewed from an angle. The rise of the galaxy could be meant to show how much time Megan spends playing the game, and this might also be why Cueball wishes to [[#Shut Down the Server|throw water on the server]]. It might also be a reference to {{w|Super Mario Galaxy}}.

===Shut Down the Server===
[[File:47-100-pixels-server-1.png|link=File:pixels-server-1.png]]

Cueball tells an offscreen character that he is going to [[:File:pixels-server-1.png|shut down the server]], while carrying a bucket of water.

Usually shutting down a {{w|Server (computing)|server}} is done via the operating system or software. Directly turning it off or pulling the power plug also would technically work though not recommended for obvious reasons. But in this case it appears that Cueball is going to attempt to shut off the server by dousing it with water. This will likely result in serious water damage to the hardware, thus forcing it off as it no longer is able to function.

===Clouds===
[[File:48-100-pixels-clouds-1.png|link=File:pixels-clouds-1.png]]
[[File:49-100-pixels-clouds-2.png|link=File:pixels-clouds-2.png]]
[[File:50-100-pixels-clouds-3.png|link=File:pixels-clouds-3.png]]
[[File:51-100-pixels-clouds-4.png|link=File:pixels-clouds-4.png]]
[[File:52-100-pixels-clouds-5.png|link=File:pixels-clouds-5.png]]

In five pictures Megan is floating in the clouds. The first shows Megan flying to the right, the second and third show just clouds, the fourth shows Megan flying to the left, and the fifth shows birds flying.

===Walking===
[[File:53-100-pixels-walking.png|link=File:pixels-walking.png]]
[[File:54-100-pixels-stockholm.png|link=File:pixels-stockholm.png]]
[[File:55-100-pixels-time-turner.png|link=File:pixels-time-turner.png]]
[[File:56-100-pixels-walking-b.png|link=File:pixels-walking-b.png]]
[[File:57-100-pixels-fire-hydrant.png|link=File:pixels-fire-hydrant.png]]

In two images Cueball and Megan are seen walking. The first is a normal black-on-white close up, and the second an inverted image seen from afar. They are talking while walking; after the first walking image they discuss [[#Stockholm Syndrome|Stockholm syndrome]] and then [[#Time Turners|Time Turners]], and after the second walking image they discuss a [[#Fire Hydrant|fire hydrant]].

====Stockholm Syndrome====
{{w|Stockholm syndrome}} is the name for a psychological phenomenon, in which hostages develop sympathy, empathy and/or positive feelings towards their captors. These feelings are usually seen as irrational, seeing as the hostage is held against their wishes, usually with the threat of physical harm or death.

[[:File:pixels-stockholm.png|This panel]] asks "How do we know anyone really ''wants'' to live in Stockholm?", questioning whether everyone who lives in the city of Stockholm is in fact held hostage there and only stays because they have developed to like life there (due to Stockholm Syndrome).

====Time Turners====
The time turner is a device from the {{w|Harry Potter}} series of novels by {{w|JK Rowling}}. It allows the user to re-live a period of time over again. In the third novel Hermione is given the time-turner to allow her to take extra classes, however it is eventually used to spare Buckbeak the hippogryph from execution. This prompted many questions regarding why time-turners weren't used on other occasions to save people's lives (among other things).

While J.K Rowling has "[http://pottermore.wikia.com/wiki/Time-Turner solved the problem to her own satisfaction]" she admits that she entered into the subject of time-travel too lightly.

[[:File:pixels-time-turner.png|This panel]] jokes that if the real life JK Rowling had a fictional time-turner which worked, she would have gone back and removed the time-turner plotline from the book, saving her all the hassle of dealing with the resulting time-travel questions. This act would result in a time-travel paradox.

====Fire Hydrant====
[[Black Hat]] is talking to a fireman, with a fire engine on fire in the background, he asks "To be fair, what else would you expect to come out of a "[[:File:pixels-fire-hydrant.png|fire hydrant]]"?"

Black Hat appears to have managed to replace the usual water supply to the {{w|fire hydrant}} with actual fire. Thus when the hydrant is used, the result is, quite literally, fire (or oil with possibly flint and steel contraptions to cause fire). In Black Hat's logic, a hydrant which delivers water should be called a water hydrant.

This completely ignores the meaning of the word "hydrant", a pipe which supplies water (derived from the English root ''hydro-'' meaning ''relating to water'', which is in turn from the Greek ''hudōr'' meaning ''water'').

An alternative explanation is that Black Hat has replaced the water that would normally come out of the fire hydrant with a strong alcoholic beverage, colloquially called {{w|firewater}}, with a high enough ethanol content to burn. If this were the case, the ability to douse a fire would be severely decreased, both due to the flammable component and because ethanol can absorb less heat per volume than water.

===Eeee===
[[File:58-100-pixels-e1.png|link=File:pixels-e1.png]]
[[File:59-100-pixels-e2.png|link=File:pixels-e2.png]]
[[File:60-100-pixels-e3.png|link=File:pixels-e3.png]]
[[File:61-100-pixels-e4.png|link=File:pixels-e4.png]]
[[File:62-100-pixels-e5.png|link=File:pixels-e5.png]]
[[File:63-100-pixels-e6.png|link=File:pixels-e6.png]]
[[File:64-100-pixels-eb.png|link=File:pixels-eb.png]]

Megan hears a very long stretched ''EEEEEEEEEEEEE'' sound which goes over 6 images. It turns out it is a large letter '''E''' that shouts ''EEEEEEE!!!''. In total there are 64 small E emanating from the big one. There is also a picture with two big white E on black background. Those E are larger than the E that shouts.

===Evolution===
[[File:65-100-pixels-evolution.png|link=File:pixels-evolution.png]]

The {{w|March of Progress}} image is a famous and instantly recognisable image showing the stages of human evolution by way of a series of primate figures as if marching in a line. The panel parodies the March of Progress image, with [[:File:pixels-evolution.png|5 ducklings following an adult duck]]. In this case, rather than portraying selected individuals millions of years apart, the March shows evolution in action on a human timescale, the mother taking care of her ducklings. The comic has some resemblance to [[537: Ducklings]].

===Rope===
[[File:66-100-pixels-rope.png|link=File:pixels-rope.png]]

Four ropes cross diagonally across this black picture.

===Chess and Cantor Set Fractals===
[[File:67-100-pixels-chess-b.png|link=File:pixels-chess-b.png]]
[[File:68-100-pixels-chess-w.png|link=File:pixels-chess-w.png]]
[[File:69-100-pixels-cantor.png|link=File:pixels-cantor.png]]

There are two chess boards on black and white background with smaller chessboards drawn upon them in a {{w|Fractal}} pattern.

[[:File:pixels-cantor.png|One panel]] contains a number of lines and dots, which are in fact a depiction of the first 5 steps of a {{w|Cantor set|Cantor Ternary Set}}, mirrored about the horizontal centreline (see {{w|File:Cantor set in seven iterations.svg|reference image}}). The Cantor ternary set is constructed by repeatedly deleting the open middle thirds of a set of line segments. In the comic, the two upper-left most segments and the two lower-right most segments are misaligned slightly.

The Cantor Set is one of the canonical examples of a fractal, a shape whose individual parts resemble the whole. The use of the Cantor Set in this comic is self-referential, in that the comic, itself, is composed of parts of the same shape as the whole.

===Atom etc===
[[File:70-100-pixels-particles.png|link=File:pixels-particles.png]]
[[File:71-100-pixels-atom.png|link=File:pixels-atom.png]]
[[File:72-100-pixels-string.png|link=File:pixels-string.png]]

There is a picture of tiny particles, quite spaced out. These probably represent atoms, and given how distant they are, they may well be a gas.

There follows a picture of a Bohr Model atom with point electrons surrounding a nucleus of protons and neutrons. The atom is a {{w|Carbon}} atom which is essential for all living matter and therefore for evolution. There is also a picture of what is probably a vibrating cosmic string fragment (a concept in {{w|string theory}}). Despite {{w|Werner Heisenberg|Heisenberg's}} {{w|Uncertainty Principle}}, zooming down to the string does not mean that the cartoon viewer has reached the "bottom" of the comic - zooming in on the loop will show a picture of string.

===Holism, Reductionism, Mu===
[[File:73-100-pixels-mu.png|link=File:pixels-mu.png]]
[[File:74-100-pixels-mu-b.png|link=File:pixels-mu-b.png]]
[[File:75-100-pixels-holism.png|link=File:pixels-holism.png]]
[[File:76-100-pixels-holism-b.png|link=File:pixels-holism-b.png]]
[[File:77-100-pixels-reductionism.png|link=File:pixels-reductionism.png]]
[[File:78-100-pixels-reductionism-b.png|link=File:pixels-reductionism-b.png]]

These three words refer to "A MU offering", an essay by {{w|Douglas Hofstatder}} in his book {{w|Godel, Escher, Bach}} (which was referenced by Randall in [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]]). It includes a similar multiple level drawing: {{w|Mu (negative)|the word MU}} is composed of copies of the words [[:File:pixels-holism.png|HOLISM]] and [[:File:pixels-reductionism.png|REDUCTIONISM]], each of which are in turn made of smaller copies of the other, which are in turn made of [http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/two-more-letters/ tiny copies] of the word [[:File:pixels-mu.png|MU]].

{{w|Mu (negative)|Mu}} is an important word in {{w|Buddhism}}. Literally, it means "no" or "not", but in Buddhism it also refers to a state of being or thinking - or rather, of not being and not thinking. It could be said that the pairs of panels in this series are each other's Mu, being negative (white-on-black and black-on-white).

{{w|Holism}} is a philosophical principle that systems should be considered as a complete whole, not as a set of individual parts. For example, a human viewed holistically is a whole interconnected being which can only be fully understood in its own context.

{{w|Reductionism}} is essentially Holism's opposite, a philosophical principle that any complex object can be reduced to a collection of simpler objects. A human can be considered as a set of organs (eg the heart), which in turn is composed of tissue (in this case muscle), composed of many cells. Cells can then be reduced to organelles, such as the nucleus; this contains chromosomes, made of DNA, a molecule made of atoms; atoms are made of components including protons; and protons are composed of quarks (which may be considered as one-dimensional strings). Reductionism holds that a full understanding of the simplest components of a system, and how they interact, can lead to a full understanding of the system as a whole.

Holism and reductionism are complementary, rather than competing, philosophies, as both have their strengths and weaknesses. Holism can be very effective in understanding the larger-scale effects of a system by observing macroscopic events and how they are linked, but it ignores the more in-depth understanding gained by considering the smaller-scale components. Reductionism can in theory give us a complete understanding of the entire system by building it up from the smallest and simplest parts, but for a complex system, this is effectively impossible (a typical human contains roughly 1029 quarks, whose interactions cannot possibly be computed and understood in human terms or timescales).

"Pixels" is an example of a system best understood with a combination of holism and reductionism. Each panel can be fully explained in its own terms, but is more completely understood as part of a small series of panels. The interconnectedness of all the panels shows a more holistic understanding, yet even this cannot explain comic fully, which must be experienced, with its interactivity and sense of exploration.

These panels can be found inside panels with Megan.

===du===
[[File:79-100-pixels-du.png|link=File:pixels-du.png]]

"[[:File:pixels-du.png|du]]" is a {{w|POSIX}} (think {{w|Linux}}/{{w|Mac OS X}}) command to indicate the "disk usage" of a file or directory.

~$ du -s video/
4170882256

This is a command that shows how large all the files are in this user's "video" directory - presumably where they store their personal videos. The units of the result is probably kilobytes (depending on settings, could also be the number of 512-byte blocks).

This number is clearly large and difficult to parse, and the units are not clear (to a bystander). More appropriate units would be gigabytes rather than bytes. The du command offers an option to display units in "human readable format", which will adapt to use kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc. as appropriate. The next command purports to request the same result in more human-readable form.

~$ du -hs video/
A lot.
~$

It seems that the computer, rather than giving a specific answer, simply says that the size of the video directory is "A lot."

The final line indicates the computer is now ready to accept a new command.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is stacking turtles, and is about to put the fourth turtle on his pile. At the bottom right there is a small panel. Inside this is written:]
:Scroll to zoom

:[When zooming in there will be several panels with text. The transcript of these may not be possible to complete - but add the transcript of these panels here: [[1416: Pixels/Transcript|interactive transcript]]]

:The following code can be found by inspecting the comic's source code:
:<nowiki>[[A large picture of a person kneeling on the ground, stacking turtles.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>((In this strip, when you zoom into the panel, each pixel becomes its own panel. Each of those panels can be scrolled into, for the same effect. The story progresses as you scroll deeper.))</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The Earth as seen from space with the words BOOK LAUNCH.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A stick-Randall holding a copy of 'What If?' saying, "So excited about my book launch!"]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A copy of the cover of 'What If?' labeled "book."]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[Stick-Randall is assembling parts from a box labeled 'rocket parts' and preparing to 'launch' his book.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[Various stages of assembly.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A second person comes in, looks at SR's rocket set-up and says, "Needs more struts."]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[SR adds more struts.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The rocket launches.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A big cloud of smoke, which then dissipates.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[SR and the other person look skywards at the launched book.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The book is shown leaving Earth's orbit.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The other person turns to SR and says, "I think that was the only one."]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The two walk away.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>((The panels after this are a random assortment of these mostly stand-alone panels.))</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A momma duck with several ducklings in a row behind her, labeled 'Evolution.']]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The other person floating around in the sky.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A stick figure with a sploshing bucket of water saying, "I'm gonna shut down the server!"]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[Two people walking along, one saying, "But if the Time-Turners worked after Book 3, Rowling would have used one to go back and remove the Time Turner from Book 3."]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The code:</nowiki>
:<nowiki>~$ du -s video</nowiki>

:<nowiki>4170882256</nowiki>
:<nowiki>~$ du -s video</nowiki>

:<nowiki>A lot.</nowiki>
:<nowiki>~$]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A cloud.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A flock of birds.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[MU]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A pixel.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[A person using a computer on the floor.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[HOLISM]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[Saturn]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[An atom.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[Two people star-gazing on a hill.]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[Person one says, "Someone once told me the great kings of the past look down on us..." Person two says, "From the stars?" The first person replies, "Just in general."]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>[[The start of Mario World 1-1.]]</nowiki>

:<nowiki>{{Title text: It's turtles all the way down.}}</nowiki>

==Trivia==
===Gallery===
[[1416: Pixels/Images|This gallery]] contains the [http://azttm.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/xkcd-com-1416-pixels/ 79 images used in this comic]. The images are related in a [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/3/37/1416_Pixels_layout.png directed graph].

===Images Database===
This google sheet describes all possible images, their associated codes, and what possible images can be used as sub-images for each zoom level: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nldKAkeVcK606CY12KI9bah9rDmK9E7CZOyinsEj2Lo/edit?usp=sharing

===Image scraping script===
This gist recursively downloads all possible images:
https://gist.github.com/Aaron1011/d3b56325881cd639506a

===Bugs===
*Doesn't seem to work properly in all browsers (e.g. Firefox and Safari on MacOSX), giving "TypeError: this.data is null" in line 173 of zoom.js: "var item = this.data.get(dims)"
*Firefox on Lubuntu 14.04 (presumably other Ubuntu/Linux distros as well) will allow zooming in, and then freeze when each pixel is about 1/3 of the pane.
*Doesn't seem to work in IE8, comic is blank, but title text works.
*Does not work on xkcd.org neither www.xkcd.org in Firefox and Chrome. Currently you should visit http://xkcd.com for this comic to work properly.
*Also, it doesn't work on HTTPS.
*Very slow and consumes a ridiculous amount of memory (>4GB) in Firefox.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]

Category:Posted on LiveJournal

2014-05-03T21:06:55Z

C: updated the date (still exists)

Before [[Randall]] acquired the [[xkcd]] website, he started by posting comics on {{w|LiveJournal}} (specifically http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/). The comics posted on LiveJournal were reposted on the xkcd site, although not always in the same order.

The first comic posted on LiveJournal was [[7: Girl sleeping (Sketch -- 11th grade Spanish class)]], posted on September 9th, 2005, and the 52nd and last comic posted on LiveJournal was [[55: Useless]], posted on January 30th, 2006. The last posting to the LiveJournal account was on April 23rd, 2006, saying the account would be deleted soon. As of now (May 3rd, 2014) the account still exists.

Most of the comics posted on LiveJournal had different texts under them (none had image text), and many had comments by LiveJournal users.

[[http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/ See the LiveJournal here on archive.org]]

[[Category:Meta|Comics posted on livejournal]]

1363: xkcd Phone

2014-05-03T21:05:55Z

C: minor changes

{{comic
| number = 1363
| date = May 2, 2014
| title = xkcd Phone
| image = xkcd_phone.png
| titletext = Presented in partnership with Qualcomm, Craigslist, Whirlpool, Hostess, LifeStyles, and the US Chamber of Commerce. Manufactured on equipment which also processes peanuts. Price includes 2-year Knicks contract. Phone may extinguish nearby birthday candles. If phone ships with Siri, return immediately; do not speak to her and ignore any instructions she gives. Do not remove lead casing. Phone may attract/trap insects; this is normal. Volume adjustable (requires root). If you experience sudden tingling, nausea, or vomiting, perform a factory reset immediately. Do not submerge in water; phone will drown. Exterior may be frictionless. Prolonged use can cause mood swings, short-term memory loss, and seizures. Avert eyes while replacing battery. Under certain circumstances, wireless transmitter may control God.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a parody of a multitude of mobile-technology related issues that, when brought together, create a general satire of smartphone advertising. The advertised features here either make previously useful capabilities useless or add features nobody wants. Except for "your mobile world (going) digital", which is old news.

From bottom left, going clockwise:

* '''FlightAware partnership:''' This is a reference to the [http://www.flightaware.com/ FlightAware] flight tracking service. This FlightAware partnership results in the phone playing airplane engine noise whenever a flight passes over the phone's current location, an annoying and arbitrary feature, and superfluous as such noise is likely to be heard from the plane itself.
* '''Realistic case:''' possibly a joke on various audiovisual devices like gaming consoles that advertise realistic sound, graphics, etc. Of course, applying "realistic" to an actual physical case is ridiculous. Either the case is actually real, or it doesn't actually function as a case. Possible reference to [[331: Photoshops|Photoshops]], where [[Cueball]] finds a physical object to not look realistic.
* '''Clear screen:''' This is a pointless descriptor from the perspective of the consumer. Of course the screen is clear. This joke works in tandem with the previous joke, as a play on "clear case, realistic screen," which are both hypothetically viable selling points.
* '''Side Facing Camera:''' There was a recent controversy surrounding an [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/spy-cam-peek-i Indiegogo for a surreptitious, side-mounted camera device] for smartphones due to the advertisement of the device as a good way to take creep shots, which are illegal in many places. Widespread dissemination of these devices as a built-in feature would likely result in a sharp increase in delinquency of this nature. May also be an ''ad absurdum'' extension of devices with both forward and backward facing cameras.
* '''Custom blend OS:''' iOS and Android are offered by different conglomerates and run on different kernels. A "custom blend" would probably be a nightmare to work with.
* '''Simulates alternative speed of light:''' This renders the clock useless. The speed of light is roughly 2.99x108 meters per second. Relativistic effects, such as time dilation, only occur at significant fractions of the speed of light. Since the phone is simulating a much slower speed of light, driving at highway speeds will cause time dilation. For example, driving at 90mph (90% of the default simulated speed of light) gives a time dilation of about 2.29. So while you are driving at 90mph your clock will run 2.29 times slower than a stationary one. Travelling faster than the simulated speed of light will make the clock run backwards.
* '''Wireless:''' as in cordless phone. This is the bare minimum a phone has to have in order to be a mobile phone, so advertising it as a feature feels dated by decades. Or, perhaps Munroe is implying the entire phone is without wires, in which case it wouldn't function.
* '''Accelerometer screams in free fall:''' Another useless function. Rather than having some sort of feature to prevent breakage or cracking when a drop is detected, the phone just makes you more aware of its potential imminent doom.
* '''When exposed to light, phone says "hi":''' Bait and switch, and also a build from the previous joke. The implied feature is that the screen or camera will automatically adjust, but instead the phone is weirdly anthropomorphized.

The ominous warnings and disclaimers in the title text are probably a reference to the ''Saturday Night Live'' parody ad for {{w|Happy Fun Ball}} ([http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/pictures/50-greatest-saturday-night-live-sketches-of-all-time-20140203/happy-fun-ball-0459912 original video hosted on rollingstone.com]).

* '''Presented in partnership with {{w|Qualcomm}}, {{w|Craigslist}}, Whirlpool, {{w|Hostess}}, LifeStyles, and the US Chamber of Commerce.''' Qualcomm is a semiconductor company that designs and produces chips for mobile phones. {{w|Whirlpool Corporation}} is a large American multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, while {{w|Whirlpool (website)|Whirlpool}} is a prominent Australian tech forum website, originally created for discussion of Australian broadband providers but now extending to cover general tech topics, including mobile phones. The other companies mentioned here have no association with mobile phones, though there is a long history of unrelated companies attempting to leverage their respective brands to help promote each other.
* '''Manufactured on equipment which also processes peanuts.''' A warning often seen on candy and other foods for people with a peanut allergy. It is highly unlikely that equipment used to produce mobile phones would also process food.
* '''Price includes 2-year Knicks contract.''' Mobile phones are often sold by phone companies in combination with a cell phone plan, but a contract with the {{w|New_York_Knicks|Knicks}} would only appeal to pro basketball players.
* '''Phone may extinguish nearby birthday candles.''' A rather oddly specific capability, which might also be annoying for anyone attempting to host a birthday party. As to how it would do this, a very powerful directional speaker would be able to blow out a nearby candle, but the speakers in mobile phones aren't going to be that big.
* '''If phone ships with {{w|Siri}}, return immediately; do not speak to her and ignore any instructions she gives.''' {{w|Siri}} is a virtual personal assistant application for Apple devices. Not speaking to it and not following its instructions would defeat its purpose. It may suggest that a malevolent "Siri AI" has sneaked itself onto some devices, at the manufacturing stage, for some diabolical purpose. May be a reference to the Companion Cube in the game Portal, in which the player is instructed to disregard it's advice if the cube appears to be animate.
* '''Do not remove lead casing.''' A mobile phone encased in lead would not function because it could not transmit or receive data. Devices that emit high levels of ionizing radiation are often encased in lead, but a phone that would emit that level of radiation would be unhealthy to carry around. If encased in sufficient lead to mitigate the danger, it would be uncomfortably heavy. This might be reference to [https://xkcd.com/925/ xkcd comic no 925: Cell phones] where Randall makes fun of the WHO claiming that cell phones might cause cancer despite huge studies showing the opposite. This could also mean the device is an actual bananaphone as regular phones emit no ionizing radiation ([http://xkcd.com/radiation xkcd Radiation Dose Chart]). Regrettably, the lead casing would render the phone inedible.
* '''Phone may attract/trap insects; this is normal.''' Some plants, like the {{w|Venus_flytrap|Venus flytrap}}, attract and trap insects, but mobile phones are not known to exhibit this behaviour. May be a reference to "crazy ants" which are attracted to electronics.
* '''Volume adjustable (requires root).''' {{w|Android_rooting|Rooting}} is the method to gain privileged access on Android phones. Adjusting the volume should be available to any user and would not be restricted to root access only.
* '''If you experience sudden tingling, nausea, or vomiting, perform a factory reset immediately.''' These symptoms are usually associated with chemical or radiation poisoning. Neither of these would be cured by a {{w|Factory_reset|factory reset}}.
* '''Do not submerge in water; phone will drown.''' Most phones are not waterproof and will probably short-circuit when submerged. Drowning however, would imply that the phone breathes air (which actually would be possible if it had a {{w|Lithium–air battery|Li-air battery}}).
* '''Exterior may be frictionless.''' The front of a smartphone is usually made of glass and should have a surface with very low friction. The back of a phone is usually made from a material that has higher friction to make it pleasant to hold and to make sure it doesn't slide off objects it is placed on. A [[669: Experiment|completely frictionless surface]] would make it almost impossible to hold and would make it very susceptible to drops.
* '''Prolonged use can cause mood swings, short-term memory loss, and seizures.''' These are all side effects that are associated with certain kinds of medication or radiation treatment of the brain and would not be acceptable for mobile phones.
* '''Avert eyes while replacing battery.''' Actions that would warrant averting your eyes are usually associated with high-intensity light capable of causing eye damage. Depending on the specific energy source, this may be accompanied by high levels of other types of radiation (e.g. making an {{w|X-ray}} photo). This may hint that the phone might be powered by a radionuclide battery which would explain the lead casing and the possible radiation side effects. A phone that emits X-ray radiation would not be healthy to be around. Alternately, this may be a reference to the {{w|Ark_of_the_Covenant|Ark Of The Covenant}}, implying that gazing upon the battery or the compartment wall behind it is forbidden on pain of severe punishment.
* '''Under certain circumstances, wireless transmitter may control God.''' According to most religions, God (or Gods) are usually in control of us. God(s) are usually viewed as not directly controllable.

==Transcript==
:Runs custom blend on Android and iOS
:Side-facing camera
:Simulates alternate speeds of light (default: 100 miles per hour) and adjusts clock as phone accelerates
:Clear screen
:Realistic case
:Wireless
:Accelerometer detects when phone is in free fall and makes it scream
:Flightaware partnership: Makes airplane noise when flights pass overhead
:When exposed to light, phone says "hi!"

:''Introducing''
:'''The xkcd phone'''
:Your mobile world just went digital®

{{comic discussion}}

Title text

2014-05-03T21:00:54Z

C: short addition on accessing

The '''title text''' is an {{w|HTML attribute}} [[Randall]] puts on each xkcd image which normally adds something tangentially relevant to the topic of the comic. It can be accessed via hovering over the comic.

[[Category:Meta]]

what if?

2014-05-03T20:56:16Z

C: added the what if book

:''Not to be confused with [[17: What If]].''

'''''[http://what-if.xkcd.com/ what if?]''''' is a blog hosted on the [[xkcd]].com domain and written by [[Randall Munroe]] with entries posted every Tuesday. As per the site's tagline, the purpose of the site is "answering your hypothetical questions with physics, every Tuesday". On the blog, Randall uses his degree in physics and strong scientific background to discuss hypothetical physics questions apparently submitted by readers.

Unlike other sites which answer readers' questions, ''what if?'' typically takes the question beyond the original scope likely intended by the reader and takes it to some extreme for humorous effect. For example, in [http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ the first article], he discusses what would happen if a baseball were pitched at 90% of the speed of light. After effectively describing what would occur as a nuclear explosion, leveling the stadium and the surrounding mile radius, he concludes with the note ''"A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered 'hit by pitch', and would be eligible to advance to first base."''

The questions Randall tackles range from realistic possibilities (e.g. the probability of achieving a [http://what-if.xkcd.com/2/ perfect SAT score by guessing]) to completely fictional questions (e.g. [http://what-if.xkcd.com/3/ How much Force power] can {{w|Yoda}} output?). In his explanations, Randall, often uses diagrams in an ''xkcd'' style. Regardless of the context, Randall tends to take the questions extremely literally and responds seriously to them, even if they are whimsical (such as the Yoda question). This is clear from his response to the question of what would happen if everybody on Earth stood together and [http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/ jumped at the same time]. After acknowledging that the question has been answered elsewhere, he recaps the result, but then focuses more intently on the unasked resulting issue of the aftermath of everyone on Earth being magically transported to one location as they all try to return home.

This site is not under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License] like [[xkcd]] is.

Randall has announced an upcoming ''what if?'' book on 12 March 2014 in [http://blog.xkcd.com/2014/03/12/what-if-i-wrote-a-book/ the blag]. It will be published 2 September 2014.
[[Category:Meta]]