explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:386: Duty Calls

2023-11-14T02:25:02Z

Pipipipipiale:

Doesn't look like anyone's touched this during its spotlight as the Incomplete Article of the Day. But really, what else can we say? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.66|199.27.128.66]] 03:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe how deeply compelling the "need" to fix something wrong on the Internet is? It's not just a plain correction.... it gnaws at you...[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.8|108.162.219.8]] 03:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Tried to flesh out/improve the analysis. Still needs some editing for clarity [I'm not sure how formal the tone of this wiki is supposed to be?] but hopefully it's an improvement on the previous edit. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.56|108.162.216.56]] 17:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I think its good. Hits on all the points, unless anyone sees differently I think it adequately explains the comic. I think all the editing from here is flow and stylistic stuff. And that's minimal. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 20:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It's a Cunningham's law reference, guys, that's it. {{unsigned ip|141.101.106.155}}

The title "Duty Calls" has a double meaning. One that Cueball needs to go "fix" the internet and that he needs to "be" with his S/O. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.47|108.162.216.47]] 21:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC){{unsigned ip|127.0.0.1}}

I think this explanation misses the case when someone is ''factually'' wrong on the internet, and doesn't just have a different opinion. For example, when someone on Facebook "discovers" that the Mercator map projection is "wrong" and that the "true" one is Gall-Peters (true story), I believe even Randall would feel the need to say something. But of course, the border between factual errors and arguing is very thin... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.64|162.158.150.64]] 09:50, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

What about when you are legitimately trying to help someone? {{unsigned ip|172.69.42.130}}

Oh dear, Cueball represents me here. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 11:52, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

See [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law Cunningham's Law]

Talk:805: Paradise City

2023-11-14T02:22:21Z

Pipipipipiale: unsigned ip

"cortical lesions" may refer to the "Uglies", a 2005 science fiction Orwellian novel by Scott Westerfeld, as it turns out populations is controlled by the way of surgery lesions in the brain to make the people placid --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 22:20, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
Or it could refer to River Tam (e.g. https://xkcd.com/311/ or https://xkcd.com/406/) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.130|172.69.42.130]] ([[User talk:172.69.42.130|talk]]) ''(please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~</nowiki>~~)''

Anyone notice that the third panel preshadowed the Vancouver riots? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.223|108.162.250.223]] ([[User talk:108.162.250.223|talk]]) ''(please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~</nowiki>~~)''

edit: moved previously added information to proper paragraph in explanation [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.84|108.162.216.84]] 03:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I have the feeling that the grass in the last panel is different varieties of marijuana, which the girls have thoroughly labeled as such. Consumption of this grass would lead to the sensation described in the title text. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.105|173.245.53.105]] 16:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Take me down to the land of Mordor/Where Sauron makes rings and puts in backdoors [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]] 15:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Talk:396: The Ring

2023-11-13T23:11:59Z

Pipipipipiale:

Ironic, when Youtube is one of the prime targets for death-threat chain letters. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 03:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

How does the comic imply that he is not safe? The mom just seems mad because 360,000 people are going to die. [[User:Athang|Athang]] ([[User talk:Athang|talk]]) 03:10, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

In the books, copying didn't really make you safe. Granted, this comic is about the movie based off of the movie based off of the books, so the comparison is pretty limited. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 18:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The boy is not Cueball but a child. He did watch the tape on a TV, presumably at a much better resolution as his YouTube upload is.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:41, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
:The transcript calls him "young cueball" [[Special:Contributions/190.75.237.167|190.75.237.167]] 01:37, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
:The official transcript calls them just 'boy' and 'girl'. 'Young Cueball' isn't a thing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 21:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
::Where is the official transcript - is this something Randall post somewhere? The transcript on this page uses the names given to the characters on this page. Cueball only exist as a name outside the XKCD comic. It is not something Randall subscribes to. But here any non descript character is called Cueball. But is is true that this is a child version of Cueball and I have corrected the explain so it says this. The transcript is fine as it is. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:26, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
:::The official transcript is from the JSON, you can see it by adding info.0.json to the end: [https://xkcd.com/396/info.0.json] [[User:Pipipipipiale|Pipipipipiale]] ([[User talk:Pipipipipiale|talk]]) 23:11, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Randall loses points for calling her "Samara" and not Sadako.
the "remakes" do not exist. that is a fact.
[[Special:Contributions/193.37.237.100|193.37.237.100]] 09:50, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
:Maybe but as the comic is about the Ring Sadako is not in the movie Cueball watches :-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:26, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it likely that Ponytail and Young Cueball are Rachel and Aiden from the movie? The first panel (apart from the nonchalance of the child) seems somewhat similar to the scene in the movie where Rachel discovers that Aiden has watched the tape. --[[User:Hatkirby|Hatkirby]] ([[User talk:Hatkirby|talk]]) 04:09, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Sharing doesn't reduce the number of casualties. It only transfers the death sentence to another person. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.135.57|162.158.135.57]] 08:15, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, this happened, in the crossover film between the Japanese series of this movie (Ringu) and Ju-On (Japanese version of the Grudge), named 'Sadako v. Kayako'. Right before she dies, one of the main characters uploads a version of the tape to a file-sharing site, allowing it to distribute through the internet and pick up 6,000 views in a few hours. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.54|172.68.47.54]] 02:51, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
:At the end of the second US sequel 'Rings', Samara does it herself.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.110|162.158.155.110]] 23:14, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

You know, if you were in the "the ring" universe and you had a time machine, you could copy it and give it to your future self, and when your past self gives it to you, destroy it. {{unsigned ip|162.158.74.51}}
:Please sign your comments. and also... can you explain what you are talking about? it seems to be a little... out of context. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:35, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk:906: Advertising Discovery

2023-10-13T14:34:40Z

Pipipipipiale: -94.-98.63.60

It's only trained Wikipedia veterans who believe that. Most people have no idea what the square brackets mean. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

:[citation needed] [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 02:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::You could just do this: {{Citation needed}} [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 10:49, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
:[Dubious:Discuss] [[Special:Contributions/120.145.27.228|120.145.27.228]] 17:23, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

:This just in. Wikipedia veterans are gullible idiots.
:: I knew it all along. [[User:Cflare|Cflare]] ([[User talk:Cflare|talk]]) 21:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, What if? has conditioned the readers to assume that anything with a [Citation Needed] sign next to it is an obvious fact and doesn't need a citation. [[User:Caeleste Alarum|Caeleste Alarum]] ([[User talk:Caeleste Alarum|talk]])

:vice versa, the Wikipedia geeks all get a heart attack when reading What if? (or Explain Xkcd) for the first time. [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 04:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

THE FOOTNOTES AREN'T IN A VALID ORDER IF THE BIT SHOWN IN THE COMIC IS THE ONLY PART OF THE AD! sorry, just needed to vent that annoyance. {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.60}}

:To poster of above comment: If I wanted to know who made this edit, I wouldn't be able to. Please use <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> to sign your posts or, if you have done so, edit your signature to link to your userpage. Sorry if I'm coming across as harsh, but I want to look at a comment and see who made it. Sincerely, [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[Special:Contributions/Quillathe_Siannodel|{)|(}]] 19:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

As a Wikipedia editor, I found myself constantly trying to click on the pseudo-markup, or floating the mouse over it to see what it was referencing. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

2771: College Knowledge

2023-10-07T23:50:06Z

Pipipipipiale: huh?

{{comic
| number = 2771
| date = May 3, 2023
| title = College Knowledge
| image = college_knowledge_2x.png
| imagesize = 649x266px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Your chitin armor is no match for our iron-tipped stingers! Better go hide in your jars!' --common playground taunt
}}

==Explanation==
A common playground rhyme which children will often recite when divided by gender is that "girls go to college to get more knowledge; boys go to {{w|Jupiter}} to get more stupider," with the genders being interchangeable depending on the rhyme's singer.

Starting out with this cadence, three characters (or child versions) {{w|Skipping rope|jump rope}} and explore parts of the solar system and beyond by taking it in turns to provide the rhythm's tempo. First [[Jill]] (who is turning the left end of the rope), then a [[Cueball]] (at the right), followed by a [[Ponytail]] (doing the jumping), before returning to Jill. As they concentrate on various stellar bodies that are harder and harder to rhyme, their chants become increasingly hesitant and obscure, ruining the rhythm, and resulting in ever more contrived "rhymes", to the point where they eventually seem compelled to abandon the whole game.

The title text refers back to some of the rhymes the characters mention, making sure to stay consistent with whichever gender acquires which object. Speaking from the perspective of the college-bound gender, who had acquired {{w|ferrous}} iron from {{w|Eris}} (or perhaps {{wiktionary|ferrous|become more composed of it}}, by bodily transformation), the girls playfully threaten the boys with iron-tipped {{w|stinger}}s, for which the boys' acquired armor of {{w|chitin}} (a material commonly found on the exoskeletons of various insects, including in any stings these might normally have) from {{w|Triton}} is purportedly no match. The girls then also refer to the jars which the boys had acquired from {{w|Mars}}, telling the boys that they'd better hide in them if they wanted any sort of protection from the iron-tipped stingers. To top it all off, the title text finally claims that this is supposedly a "common playground taunt" among children, which implies the unlikely outcome that the bizarre and unwieldy rhymes which the characters in the comic created have somehow persisted and passed into common usage enough to be generally recognizable.

In [[1202: Girls and Boys]], boys and girls both go to college ''and'' to Jupiter, both to get more knowledge.

==Notes==
*Going to Mars to get more jars may be a reference to a 1955 {{w|Burma-Shave}} campaign promising a free trip to Mars for whoever sent in 900 empty jars. The joking offer was accepted by a Wisconsin shopkeeper named Arliss French. The company enjoyed the publicity and sent him and his wife to {{w|Moers}}.
*{{w|Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres}} is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
*{{w|Chitin}} is a polysaccharide found in the exoskeletons of insects and cell walls of fungi.
*{{w|Tim Berners-Lee}} is the inventor of the World Wide Web.
*{{w|Pamplemousse}} is the French word for grapefruit or pomelo, depending on dialect. Note that it does not actually rhyme with Betelgeuse for {{w|Betelgeuse#Spelling and pronunciation|most pronunciations}}, only when pronounced like ''Beetlejuice'' does this line's final syllable rhyme.
*It could be debated whether these are three children, and thus not Cueball and Ponytail, who are adult, but there is nothing to compare them to, and Jill has also been drawn as an adult. So, for ease of naming them, it is easier to keep the names even if these are children.

==Transcript==
:[Jill, Ponytail and Cueball are jumping rope while singing a common playground song. Jill and Cueball are swinging the ends of the rope, Ponytail is jumping in the middle facing Cueball on the right. The rope is going so fast around her that it is drawn with four thin gray lines, one over and one below her and two in between, so they form a kind of 3D ellipsoid shape around her. Small lines indicate the movement of the rope and the hands that hold it.]
:Jill: Girls go to college to get more knowledge
:Jill: Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider

:[Same scene but Ponytail is at a different moment in her jumping.]
:Cueball: Girls go to Ceres to get more theories
:Cueball: Boys go to Mars to get more jars

:[Same scene but Ponytail is at a different moment in her jumping.]
:Ponytail: Girls go to Eris to get more ferrous
:Ponytail: Boys go to Triton to get more chitin

:[The three have stopped playing so the rope is hanging from the hands of Jill and Cueball, running along the ground beneath Ponytail's feet. She is now just standing but has turned towards Jill.]
:Jill: Girls go to...Mercury...to...meet Tim Berners-Lee
:Jill: Boys go to... ...Betelgeuse...to get more... ...pamplemousse
:Cueball: I think we're done.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Games]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:1064: Front Door

2023-10-07T22:22:41Z

Pipipipipiale:

What kind of place does Randall live in, to be so afraid of being outside at night? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Legal professionals take note of potential suspect or scapegoat. [[User:DruidDriver|DruidDriver]] ([[User talk:DruidDriver|talk]]) 02:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

It is possible that Randall's fear at his door is from [[87|Velociraptors]] --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:42, 30 April 2013 (UTC) --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 21:42, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the lack of embarressment relates to being eaten by the wolf, but rather the fact that since a wolf being in your yard is a legitimate concern due to Randall releasing one in the next 30 years. Therefore any fear as you approach your front door would be reasonable as there may be a wolf, and you shouldn't feel embarressed about it. {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.47}}

I thought the graph showed that he tripped on the steps in the dark because he was going too fast, and felt embarrassed. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.58|108.162.216.58]] 14:19, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

For me its a swarm of killer bees--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.73|141.101.99.73]] 17:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)