explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Category talk:A Smarter Planet

2025-01-14T12:45:46Z

Novotvor: /* Additional comics */

I'm not sure whether we want to keep this page or not, it *is* an xkcd comic, but it's also not linked anywhere and I don't know where the hell to put a link to this on the wiki. As a side note, a comic that stands outside the chronology of the regular xkcd comics violates a couple of the assumptions made by we who wrote the comic template, and I'll fix it in two weeks when I'm done with finals. Upload relevant comic images to the red links to make them show up. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:47, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
:This isn't really new, and it's not a real xkcd comic, but since Randall did mention it here [https://xkcd.com/about/ xkcd.com/about] it should be mentioned also at this wiki. Maybe a new entry "A Smarter Planet" at the left navigation panel. Nevertheless, the standard navigation at the top of this page must be removed. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:46, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I added substantially to the explanation, but I'm not quite sure it's complete yet. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 23:04, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
:I'd say there's nothing more to add. The deforestation could use more of an explanation if a 5-year old was reading it. {{unsigned ip|173.245.55.60}}
I feel like this should be moved to two separate pages, one for each comic, as with [[Radiation]].--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 12:03, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

== Additional comics ==
There are actually two more "secret" comics: http://imgs.xkcd.com/ibm/ibm_hc_2.png and http://imgs.xkcd.com/ibm/ibm_hc_3.png

I don't know if these two were published anywhere, found them by experimenting with URLs (the "hc_1" is already described "Prescriptions" comic).[[User:Novotvor|Novotvor]] ([[User talk:Novotvor|talk]]) 13:18, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

:WAIT WHAT? Two new comics, this is huge! I searched on Google Lens and found no visual matches. We have to add them to [[Prescriptions]]! Do you have any other information, such as if the titles are different (should we create different pages for each comic)? Does the filename usually reflect the title? Have you ever found other new comics like this? Is there a way to find more comics? Can we check how old these are, when they were created/posted? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

:: I guess we can bruteforce everything under <code>http://imgs.xkcd.com/ibm/*.png</code> and <code>http://imgs.xkcd.com/*.png</code>, I don't think there's a better way.

:: About titles: I think the titles were supposed to be "IBM Healthcare 2" and "IBM Healthcare 3". Note the phrasing in the Smarter Planet blogpost: "we asked Randall Munroe... to create a few just for our blog" -- I would guess he created three strips about smarter healthcare, but for some reason IBM decided to publish only the first one (and named it "Prescriptions" instead of "IBM Healthcare 1"). [[User:Novotvor|Novotvor]] ([[User talk:Novotvor|talk]]) 12:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

::I don't even think there's a category for unreleased yet not deleted comics! This is so cool! Also, another question, are the filenames of [[Prescriptions]] and [[Conservation]] similar?--[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

::: Sort of? The [[Conservation]] links to http://imgs.xkcd.com/ibm/conservation.png, note the common <code>/ibm/</code> prefix in URL. The name itself is different though. [[User:Novotvor|Novotvor]] ([[User talk:Novotvor|talk]]) 12:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

:: One can view PNG metadata with https://exifmeta.com/. I get the same <code>ProfileDateTime</code> for all four of them: <code>"1999:06:03 00:00:00"</code>, which looks like a "factory setting" of the software used to draw the comic. [[User:Novotvor|Novotvor]] ([[User talk:Novotvor|talk]]) 12:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Category talk:A Smarter Planet

2025-01-14T12:34:35Z

Novotvor: /* Additional comics */

Category talk:A Smarter Planet

2025-01-12T13:18:47Z

Novotvor: /* Additional comics */

Category talk:A Smarter Planet

2025-01-12T13:18:20Z

Novotvor: /* Additional comics */ new section